E Wayne Ross

And “survey says”… that Americans pretty much agree with the Canadians.

Seventy percent of Americans consider themselves as “greedy” and 40 percent say they are “immoral”. Hmm … primarily Republicans I bet!

Sixty-nine percent of Americans agree that they are “disliked” by others, so I guess that means the survey’s findings are self-confirming.

BTW, my closest Canadian “friend,” after of years of personal experience with one American in particular, confirms that Americans irk Canadians.

Seems we Yanks, while generally admired by our “Neighbors to the North” for our hardwork and inventiveness, are considered loud, rude, and obnoxious by quite, polite, and chaming Canucks.

My friend does disagree about a couple of survey findings (e.g., the “hardworking” and “inventive” parts) … but like most American I think I pretty much agree with her Canadian perspective.

Americans irk Canadians: study
Anti-U.S. sentiment has grown fastest here since 2002, survey of 16 countries suggests
By ALAN FREEMAN
Friday, June 24, 2005 Page A18

WASHINGTON — Canadians have an increasingly dim view of Americans, considering their neighbours as rude, greedy and violent, yet at the same time an overwhelming majority of Canadians smugly believe their country is beloved by people around the world.

The growing discontent of Canadians with the United States and its foreign policy was highlighted yesterday by a 16-nation attitude survey published by the Pew Research Center.

The institute said the survey shows anti-Americanism in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, which surged after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, has shown some sign of moderating, but the United States “remains broadly disliked in most countries surveyed.”

U.S. policy and President George W. Bush, in particular, remain distinctly unpopular in France, Germany and Spain, but the Pew Center says among traditional U.S. allies, it is in Canada that opinions of the United States have declined most markedly since 2002, when the survey was first taken.While a majority of Canadians still have a favourable view of the United States, that proportion has fallen from 72 per cent in 2002 to 59 per cent.

Only 45 per cent of Canadians now back the U.S.-led war on terrorism, while 78 per cent backed the war three years ago; 80 per cent of Canadians now say they are glad Canada stayed out of Iraq. And 75 per cent of Canadians say they have a less favourable view of the United States since Mr. Bush’s re-election.

“There’s no question there are negative feelings,” in Canada, said former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who co-chaired the survey. “Some of it has to do with the fact that we are the Big Foot to the south.”

She added that she believes it was primarily a “family squabble” and that views and values in both countries remain similar.

Canadians’ views of American personal attributes are more negative than residents of any other traditional U.S. ally.

While 77 per cent of Canadians surveyed believe Americans are hard-working and 76 per cent believe they’re inventive, 62 per cent say Americans are greedy and 64 per cent believe they are violent.

What the Pew institute found particularly remarkable is that 53 per cent of Canadians found Americans to be rude, compared with only 36 per cent of French respondents and 29 per cent of Britons.

Americans did not lack in self-criticism. While a large majority of Americans consider themselves to be hard-working and inventive, 70 per cent see themselves as greedy and 39 per cent see themselves as immoral.

Americans recognize they are unloved, with 69 per cent agreeing that “we’re disliked” by others, while only 26 per cent feel as if the United States is loved.

Canadians, on the other hand, are utterly convinced of their popularity, with a breathtaking 94 per cent believing Canada is popular with others and only 4 per cent believing it is not liked.

Among developed countries, only the Dutch at 83 per cent, come anywhere close to Canadians in their conviction that they are beloved in the world.

But Canada doesn’t win the sweepstakes as the world’s leading land of opportunity. Asked where a young person should emigrate to in order to “lead a good life,” Australia was picked by respondents in four countries, including Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and Canada. Canada was chosen as the leading land of opportunity in three countries — France, the United States and China. Two countries picked Britain and Germany.

Many of those surveyed believe it would be a good idea for the U.S. to face some rivalry for pre-eminence on the world stage, with 85 per cent of French respondents believing it would be good if the European Union or another entity emerges as a military rival to the U.S.

Canadians share this desire for increased autonomy, with 57 per cent looking for a more independent policy from the United States, compared with 43 per cent in 2003.

The Pew survey was conducted among almost 17,000 people in 16 countries from April 20 to May 3

NYT film review of “Waging a Living,”
directed by Roger Weisberg

Tales of the Poor, Working to Survive in America
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

New York Times June 22, 2005

For most of the readers of this newspaper a 25-cent increase in hourly wage would hardly be cause for celebration. But for at least one of the subjects of “Waging a Living” – an eye-opening, often heartbreaking documentary about America’s working poor – that pittance could mean the difference between disaster and survival.

Filmed over a three-year period in the Northeast and California, “Waging a Living” tracks four ethnically diverse, low-wage workers as they struggle to bridge the gap between paycheck and expenses. “There’s no American dream anymore,” sighs Jean Reynolds, 51, a certified nursing assistant supporting three children and four grandchildren on $1,200 a month. In common with 78 percent of low-wage workers, Jean has no health insurance and faces eviction when she must choose between paying her rent and purchasing medication for her terminally ill daughter.Middle-aged divorc

In an article for Left Hook (a radical youth journal based in the US), Rodney Foxworth, an intern at Baltimore’s City Paper takes aim at color-blind Marxism.

…An anti-racist dialogue enables whites to consider their role in the maintenance of a system of rampant inequality founded on racism, specifically white supremacy. This echoes the sentiments of Du Bois and his suggestion that poor whites maintained the institution of slavery; an anti-racist interpretation of Marxism might provide the tools to prevent this reoccurrence. The goal isn’t to offend whites, but to divest them from their “possessive investment in whiteness,” thus allowing for the cross-racial solidarity deemed necessary by activists and theorists.

IMHO the best book of the summer is Harry G. Frankfurt’s On Bullshit.

This book is essential reading if you watch television “news,” work in a university, or just happen to be alive in the 21st Century.

Frankfurt attempts to build a theory of bullshit that distinguishes it from “humbug” and “lying”. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.

Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant.

In the end, Frankfurt muddies the water as to whether George W. Bush is merely a liar or bullshitter–but for Frankfurt a bullshitter is a more insidious threat to the truth than a liar is.

Either way it’s obvious that the majority of Americans are in need of reading this book.

Are bullshiitters more reprehensible than liars? A short video interview with Harry G. Frankfurt.

In response to the increased use of “antisocial behaviorial orders” against children, The Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner, Alvaro Gil-Robles, said this month that Britain’s policy on antisocial behaviour was criminalising children. He said no juvenile under 16 should be at risk of imprisonment for breaching an antisocial behaviour order. Asbos should be “restricted to serious cases”.

Civil liberties groups have raised concerns that local authorities are using the powers of the orders as a short cut to imposing criminal punishments. An Asbo [antisocial behavior order] is granted as a civil power, but a breach of the order is treated as an offence punishable by up to five years in prison, or a young offenders’ institution.

The wide terms of the legislation mean that a magistrate can grant an Asbo by being satisfied only on a balance of probabilities that the accused’s behaviour is “likely to cause alarm, harassment or distress”.

Groups such as the British Institute for Brain Injured Children, a charity working with young people with behavioural difficulties, say that the Government’s targeting of “families from hell” could lead to the demonising of children with Asperger’s syndrome or other problems.

In the first year of the Asbo, 1999, only a few dozen applications were made to the courts. Since then, Labour has introduced laws to strengthen their use while giving councils and police more money to fund applications. In many cases, an Asbo against a child is now accompanied by a naming and shaming order.

The Children’s Society has said that it is “very concerned about the Government policy to “name and shame” children who receive Asbos. Liz Lovell, a policy adviser at the society, said: “The policy is not only counter-productive, it puts children and young people at risk. We are also opposed to the proposed extension of this policy in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill. ‘

Full story available here