> -----Original Message----- > From: Gruss Gott [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: 03 December 2005 04:21 > To: CF-Community > Subject: Re: fun weekend reading > > One other thing here, any idea how many Europeans support > staying in Iraq vs. pulling out? Breaking out Britain would > be interesting too.
My impression of the entire European situation is that no nation is happy with the situation. T tend to think that there are two camps within the overall "we're not happy" camp. The two "camps" are the pragmatists and the ostriches. The pragmatist nations are those that are actually involved in Iraq resigned to the fact that we are there and approach the situation with the attitude of making the best of it and being involved helps us to make the best of it. The ostriches are those that didn't want to acknowledge the possibilities before the Iraq invasion, didn't want to invade at all and don't want *anyone* to be there now. Unfortunately, ostriches get their arses kicked because they don't see whats coming! > It's just that every time I'm in Europe and meet strangers I > get that, sort of, polite distancing. There's always the > small talk that eventually winds up with an unstated question > of, "Do you support Pres Bush?" I think this will be typical of most Europeans, it's not that we don't like Americans, it's just that the rest of the world is painted a picture of George Bush that is to be frank not at all flattering. He does appear to be a fool and the British press in particular can be quite intellectually snobbish in the broadsheets and sarcastic and downright vicious in the Tabloids. Both of these approaches are aimed at particular sections of our society and both are very effective at making the nation think about a situation or person in a particilar way. There are a couple of news programmes/artcles that I regard quite highly as attempting to be unbiased in their reporting and even those have trouble not portraying George Bush as the missing link. All in all I think people think that he is a bit an uneducated bafoon who has no idea what the administration is actually doing because he is a puppet of the right wing think tanks of America that have been around in one form or another for years. Also, in Bill Clinton, we as Europeans got used to a President that was able to see the big picture from a "more worldy view" rather than just "an American view" and we still like him. We know he had his flaws, show us a polititian that doesn't, but he made a good impression on us and now we feel that most, if not all of the political progess made and the respect that America gained whilst Bill Clinton was president has been squandered and frittered away by the current president in the pursuit of oil dollars. This goes for the ecological, financial and military policies of America today. > As soon as I make it clear that I think Mr. Bush is a fool, I > get a gush of questions about who it is that are voting for > Mr. Bush. And the thing is, I'm in that "I don't know > because everyone I know didn't" so I can't really answer that. Hopefully the response above should explain why you get that and I think for Europeans the question of how did so many people vote for Bush when Kerry was quite visibly so very much better is a big one. We just can't figure it out. From what we saw of Kerry, we liked him. > So let's talk UK - both place I've heard from lately (London and > Darby) nobody I know supports Mr. Bush. About 10% support > Mr. Blair in his war stance, and maybe 80% more or less > support Mr. Blair in general. I guess this is about right, I don't support the way in which we were committed to Iraq. I did support the requirement to go to Iraq. There are ways and means to do things and procedures that should be follows I know, but a little more honesty when committing our soldiers to war would be appreciated. In general however the premiership of Tony Blair has been beneficial for the UK. There have been some controversies surrounding some policies but on the whole, the nation is better off than it was and the main opposition party, the Conservatives have been in disarray since they decided to get rid of Margaret Thatcher as leader of the party. Only now, does it look like there are two possible pretenders to the throne as leader of the Conservative party and both of them appear credible with a certain amount of integrity. One in particular seems to be very popular and if he is elected leader of the Conservative party, they may just win the next election. I sense that after what will be 10-11 years with one of the major parties in power, there may be a thought in the "national mind" that it is time for a change. That thought will only be taken seriously however if there is a serious opponent leading the opposition party. > So what's your take? See above :) Paul ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Purchase Contribute 3 from House of Fusion, a Macromedia Authorized Affiliate and support the CF community. http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=53 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:185638 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
