[...] And for anyone looking for more evidence of Anti-Americanism in Germany, David’s Medienkritik has an interesting photo montage of covers of the two biggest news magazines. It’s definitely worth a look. Leave a Reply [...]

FWIW, I read the Spiegel online via the same RSS reader that I read this, and the english version is not too complementary to the German government, either.

For anyone looking for evidence of fashionable anti-Americanism in Germany, look no further…

I suppose the post was conceived as an indirect continuation of the comments section in this post a few days ago? I don’t really wonder why you chose not to respond to my objections concerning the above mentioned post about Germany. Certainly, you will find lots of examples of negative portrayals of the United States, but your deductions are based – I repeat myself here, something I rather avoid – on examples which lack representativeness and consequently significance. For any example you find – and I assure you you will find more than you’d like – anybody can find Anti-american (anti-U.S.-government) “propaganda”, as you put it, made by USA as well as examples of friendship and mutual cooperation and respect between Germans and Americans in other countries, let’s say Germany, and “compare”. In an earlier CA posting you quoted Mrs. Merkel who said that Chancellor Schröder doesn’t speak for all Germans – as President Bush doesn’t speak for all Americans? Nevertheless, both are elected leaders…

That begs the question – what’s the point in this posting? There is none.

You just choose examples that fit your subjective perception, affirm your previous subjective experience and stereotypes. Where are representativeness, expressiveness, reliability of findings and objectivity? Also, instead of just downplaying criticism and marking it a priori as invalid and absurd, it would be much more interesting to read in what way the portayal in your posting reflects international/American politics and why it is incorrect. More facts, less rants. :-)

There is a point in this posting, and Sir Ignatius points it out very well. To quote a trackback written by a philosophy major:

“Here’s an example of the superficial thinking that plagues political thinking. The caption in the picture reads “we get to the point”. But what, exactly, is the point? We know that:
1. the Middle East has oil. And,
2. the U.S. uses oil. And,
3. the U.S. has troops in the Middle East.

For many people, these three propositions somehow cohere into a necessary causal relationship, i.e. sentiments such as “No blood for oil.” Now, I see how these 3 propositions are tangentially related: the word “oil” is in 1 + 2, the word “U.S.” is in 2 + 3, and the word “Middle East” is in 1 + 3. And apparently, that’s the extent of the analysis needed.

But every economist says that the best guarantee of cheap oil is to coddle Middle East dictators and always maintain the status quo. In other words, the best way to get cheap oil is to never interfere in the Middle East. Basically the opposite of the theory that is exemplified by this advertisement. Nevermind, that kind of thinking doesn’t fit on a poster.”

First of all with work and school, I cant always respond to every post.

full ack :-)
Btw, I’m familiar with David’s Medienkritik, but find it hard to take serious at times since its basic stance in regard to “Spiegel” is, I cite, “known for [...] substandard journalistic quality” and even lumps it together with a popular press magazine, “Stern”. Far too unbalanced and at times grossly misinformed/biased imho – they often make the same mistakes they accuse “Spiegel” of. I’m glad we agree on “Die Zeit” as being balanced and trifing for objectivity though.

It’s the casual way in which people make very uninformed and amateur negative remarks about the US and its ACCEPTABILITY among many people which is disturbing and which I’m discussing.

In that case, you should explain it as such and I’m glad you did. Reading your initial post, one gets quite a different impression.

I’m posting on the acceptability of this trend in Germany which only a few years ago did not exist.

Of course it didn’t exist, there was no reason to. “911 – Afghanistan – Iraq” are three major events in the last few years: There’s a huge number of reasons why the US as a whole had all Germany’s sympathy and support during the first event, political and military support by a vast number of nations worldwide in the second, and why the U.S. government gambled lots of that support away during the last.

Curzon, I believe it is interviews like this one that raise suspicions (it also mentions why the government doesn’t agree with “every economist” btw). I agree that the equation you mentioned reveals a far too simple minded perception, as it focuses onesidedly on one aspect. Nevertheless it is one aspect – of many – that deserves to be thought about, but certainly not exclusively. The problem lies as usual in the easiness of the repudiation of such criticism that it allows as amateur and negative reponses- (if any at all, since it it easier to ignore unbalanced criticism whithout having the burden to further think about what caused it in the first place).