I remember when Germans would buy me a drink while arguing Reagan’s policies regarding the Pershing II deployments in Europe. There have always been people in other countries that didn’t always agree with us, but they used to at least respect and like us for what we represented.
18DoughtyStreet.com, Britain’s first political web TV station, has launched a two minute viral campaign to combat growing anti-Americanism across Britain and Europe.
The two minute campaign that has been posted on YouTube and is being distributed across Britain via email paints a world that would be less free, less healthy and less prosperous if America had never existed.
Through five fictional news reports from the 1950s onwards it portrays a world dominated by Soviet Russia and warns that much of the world’s prosperity and medical advances would have been lost.
The damage Bush has done to our reputation in the world cannot be solved by an advertising campaign.
Not to Exxonerate the right of their arrogant warmongering and corrupt greed, but the most of the long-term damage to America’s rep and cred, in my carefully considered view, has been done by our very own home-grown lefty extremists… to hear the PC Marxist slime that rule the academic left tell it, everything that goes wrong on the global geopolitical stage can be traced back to evil America.
I hope this works.
But I expect this to fail as miserably as Karen Hughes’ similar attempt to do PR in the Middle East.
Ultimately, all the spin in the world isn’t going to overcome bad policy.
Lauren – I assure you, as a citizen of another country in the world – the damage has been done by your President and Administration – and decades of meddling and Realpolitik. I have never met a “PC Marxist slime” from the “Academic left”. I’m fairly certain that 75% (at least) of my countryment would agree.
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#3. concurr. The influence of the ‘academic left’ outside their ivory towers is greatly exaggerated. they certainly did not send millions of people into the streets, all around the world, to protest against the invasion of Iraq.
Can’t we all just get along?!?
Seems like baking soda in the vinegar, for the most part..
Fear mongering won’t do us any good.
Doesn’t this count as Science Fiction? Well, at any rate it is fiction and anything can happen, governed only by the writer’s imagination.
#1, Lauren, who are all these home-grown lefty extremists ? I thought the worst lefty extremists came from south eastern Europe, such as Serbia and Georgia.
This is propaganda. We do not know a world without America. The only world that exists is a world with America. Yes, A world without America *could be* much worse than it is today, but a world without America could also be *completely* different, and easily better. The chances of this TV spot swaying your position seem laughable. This spot makes it seem like without the US everyone else would be lost. This conveys the typical American arrogance everyone already hates.
Boring topic. Let’s talk about something interesting:
Did Bill Machrone leave PCMag willingly, or was he forced out? Further, when the latest copy of the magazine came out, did JCD laugh or cry when he realized he has the last column in the magazine worth reading (much less over 50% accurate)?
Since there’s a chance that this advertising campaign won’t be the raging success we’re all hoping for, let me suggest a fallback ad, a blast from the past…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2QZW1mexhQ
I’d like to buy the world a Coke,
and keep it company. Really!
When Clinton was president the world loved us. Look at how they receive him in other countries – the man is a star. Look at how Regan was percieved – as the A-hole he was. Now look at Bush and how the world hates us because he thinks America is the policeman of the world. This country has no right to march in with troops wherever it sees fit. No wonder the world hates us. I don’t blame them. Look what we’ve become….again. This right-wing, religious fundamentalist crap is getting really old. Either we try to get along with the world or the we all go down in a smoking hole in the ground. Someone says “I don’t care what Europe thinks.” Well, you better start caring you uneducated fool. It’s a small planet.
#11, Yes, I remember the same thing. I also remember how close to nuclear war Reagan brought us. Thankfully Gorbachev didn’t succumb to the bait and allow a crisis to develop. I remember sitting down one evening to watch The Day After and how the right wing nuts screamed the film was provocative and inaccurate.
I also remember how Lech Walensa and Pope John Paul II opened that Iron Curtain to let in the light. I remember Reagan pardoning Ollie North so he wouldn’t have to testify about doing Reagan’s dirty shit. I remember Terry Fox running halfway across Canada on one leg to raise awareness for cancer. I remember Reagan refusing to condemn South African apartheid.
Do you remember the prosperity America had under Clinton?
If the Islamists have control of Europe, then the Zionists have had control of Amerika for a LOT longer…
heloooooooo
Let the bombs drop
Polly Tic= a Bird with a problem, or a good lunch.
Bush is wrong or not???
It is a pretty annoying campaign that will do more to damage US reputation. I am telling you this as a someone living in Europe. The American aproach doesn’t do well on European mentality. People are different here and they can not be won over by some commercial clearly made by an idiot.
Besides commercial is presenting US as a solution to problems US has created :). Anyone with fundamental knowledge of history can see this and children in Europe learn a lot of history.
Only way to improve the reputation of USA is to stop making wars designed for profit of a few already rich people in the US. Educate yourself and then you won’t be commanded by all sorts of “commercials” (hint: Saddams weapons of mass destruction and Al Qaeda links)
The hate against USA I see here everyday has nothing to do with Bush; some of his actions (and also the attacks he receives from his politic adversaries in USA) exacerbate it and fuel certain protests, but the hate is there with any government in the white house; it is more prevalent in the left but exist also in the right, although with some distinct and subtle details (the right is more nationalist, so the hate gets centered around attacks to national sovereignty; the left chooses environmental and pacifist arguments to express just the same underlying hate).
There is some fair amount of irony, because that same hate we as a country have to the USA, the muslim (just an example) countries of the world have against us, simply their hate to USA as the most powerfull hides it, but when/if they stop their attacks towards USA, they will happily choose us as their next victim.
Also, everything we choose to despise in the USA is much more prevalent in most other countries, simply they have not the size or power to become an obvious target for our hate. As superpowers go in history (when a country has so high economical and military power that no other country thinks it can win in an all-out war), USA is clearly the most benevolent that ever existed, and by far the most ethical one.
As damaging as the actions of the right in USA is to the country’s image (bullish and selfish), the actions of the left (mostly the media) are even worse and more subtle, depicting americans as dumb people that only thinks of personal benefit above anything else.
When I talk to my friends about these, when they personally know someone from the USA, they usually think that the persons they know are the exception, and that most people in the USA is “bad”; when I point to them that that is childish and stupid, they try to rationalize it, and although in the end they give my point I think that in their mind they still have the conviction that all americans are despicable with the sole exception of that people they personally know.
How to improve the tarnished image:
1. Abandon the bulldozer foreign policy.
2. Work with the rest of the world to improve things (e.g. the environment).
What a load of hogwash!
A world withut America would have meant a tryannical Britian. WHO are they kidding? When Britian at one point had the lion’s share of everything, with keeping the North American colonies would have meant al the things that this lackluster swill is trying to say is American would have simply been British!
So there would have been no Stalin, no Hitler, no Hussein as the British
would have crushed all the other European nations and milked dry North America for mineral and oil wealth. A well as dominated South America for its mineral and oil wealth.
It all probablity Victoria would have been queen of The WORLD if there
had been no USA. I mean truly who COULD have stopped them?
Nappy? No way! He couldn’t hold his own against a combine Britian
and Russia in the first place! Hitler would never come to pass as Britian would have stomped him flat, same with the USSR.
Britian would have had the bomb, the tank, the plane and the car LONG before anyone else. All of these things that the USA is credited
for would just be transferred to Britian.
It would not be the United kingdom, but the United World.
Would that be a good thing? Probably not. But all the propaganda
spewed on that video would have all be done by Britian. Hell they
MANDATED Israel. And Israel only EXISTS due to Stalin and Hitler,
whom would NOT have made it to power in the first place.
Remember the Czars before the end were all from Victoria house of Hanover and Saxe-Coburg! Russia would have been part of the
British Empie in the USA-less senario.
Cursor_
“The damage Bush has done to our reputation in the world cannot be solved by an advertising campaign.”
Tell me why was he was re-elected again ???
A world without America wouldn’t have overthrown the democratically elected President of Iran and replace him with the Shah.
A world without America wouldn’t have overthrown the democratically elected President of Guatemala, and Central America would have been more prosperous and today’s border problem would not exist.
A world without America means that no one would have sold a Nuclear facility to Iran in the 70’s.
A world without America means Saddam Hussein would have lost the war to Iran, there would never have been a Persian Gulf War, the US would have never stationed a base in Saudi Arabia, and therefore 9/11 never would have happened.
A world without America means that Osama Bin Laden never would have gotten involved in the Mujaheddin, and probably would have been some rich nobody.
The problem is the US likes to meddle in the affairs of other countries, and it is not just Republicans, Democratic presidents commissioned some of the above mistakes too. Most of our problems today are the result of our own meddling. America needs to stop being the world police before it is too late.
How can we forget the respect that was shown our previous president with this parade float:
#1, you’ve written some very interesting things in the past, but I suspect here you’re just trolling with that load of baloney. I’d love to hear some examples, FWIW.
Clinton is not equivalent to bush
Whats up there????
We do not know a world without America. IT is a false statement
No wonder I am ashamed of my country’s leadership.
Or should I say, lack of leadership.
They are loading up on this propaganda overseas, because the majority of Americans know what’s up. Our country has been overthrown, by a corporatocracy. Once they gave corporations the same rights as individuals, our country was doomed.
Anyone know how I can get citizenship in Belgium? They have like 7 million people, and 800 breweries. Now THAT’S a country for me!
Is it necessary?