Bush has destroyed AMERICAN "prestige" the world over. How can we repair the damage?

Question

-Invading other countries.
-A concentration camp in Cuba
-Attacks on the Constitution
-Debating/parsing torture
-Getting 99% of the world to think "American" is a dirty word.

I remember when the U.S. had good standing and was admired the world over. Then came Bush and his cowboy/redneck foreign policies.

How can we pick our selves up after Bush and become world leaders again?

Most of you need to get a passport, travel, talk to people, and see the real damage that Bush has done to our country.

This is serious. Most smart American travelers pretend to be Canadian out of shame. And not wanting to be associated with Bush and America. Sad but REAL.

To all the kool-aid drinking Bushbots.

Your loyalty and ego/patriotism is understandable. But you are all still delusional. And enemies to what America truly stands for.

Whens the last time Bush visited a foreign country and was greeted by an admiring crowd?

Clinton, Reagan, Carter, even Nixon can say that they were well thought of and greeted well overseas.

Bush? ZERO!

The emperor has no clothes.

Answer 1

We can begin at home with the fact that our society is being raped by the super-rich.

Is there any limit to the insatiable greed of the super-rich?
Not only have these less than patriotic scum bags shipped massive numbers of our jobs to other countries, but even when corporations are massively profitable, they feel pressured to fire workers in order to increase profits -- which, of course, becomes the incomes of the super-rich.

Citigroup announced today that it will cut 17,000 jobs under pressure from shareholders to increase profits. Last year's profits were $21 BILLION. The CEO, Charles Prince, was paid $26 million last year.

Not only do the super-rich keep awarding themselves huge tax cuts on top of their lucrative pay, but they also award each other company "perks" which include everything from paid limos to the company paying their income taxes. Meanwhile, they fire workers, complain that $40,000 per year is way too much for workers to be paid, cut worker's health insurance, ship jobs offshore, etc.

Is the only proper description for this just blatant class warfare?

Answer 2

First off, I love a lot about the US. But I do not love the US government.
Nor the corporate powers which often hold even more power.

First off I recommend visiting nationmaster.com and taking a look at statistics about the USA.

Then I recommend looking at the second page I supplied for some information on the more shadowy activities of the USA up through the times.

You will find a lot here which speaks for itself about what changes must be made.

You will find that the USA seldom - very seldom ends out as number one. This is verified by other sources such as reporters without borders (third link) whose research place the USA on a shared 53rd place as far as press freedom goes.

From this we can easilly conclude that the American superiority idea is wrong and arrogant. So, your politicians should stop claiming the USA is the greatest nation in the world, because there are very few areas in which such a statement would be accurate.

Now, for another issue. International activity.

Operation paperclip where Nazi war criminals were smuggled out of Germany into USA was wrong. The numerous assasinations and government topplings all over the world have been wicked too. Stop doing that, and apologize for what has already been done.
Examples;
1953 in Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh overthrown and replaced with the Shah. A ruthless dictator.
1956 - the CIA incited a doomed revolt in Hungary leaving 37 000 dead because US help failed to materialize as promised.
1964 - Brazil. Overthrowing of Joao Goulart. Democratically elected president. He was replaced by a military junta who had the CIA's favor, and they then created death squads. South America's first in modern history.
1965 - Indonesian government overthrown. US puppet General Suharto massacres somewhere between 500 000 and 1 million under suspicion of being "communist".
1975, Australia. CIA helps topple the left leaning Prime Minister Edward Whitlam.

Etcetera. The list is extremely long. Stop it from growing longer.

Answer 3

When the electoral college selects a new president, the world's view of America will improve. Don't think that America had some ridiculous amount of prestige and that it is something we can recover. America has been moderately unpopular worldwide since at least the 70s.

My parents immigrated to America in the 1960s; back then, America led by example and the media was not as omnipresent as it is today so while there were stories of American foreign policy oversteps, they generally were only in newspapers and as such not constantly in front of foreign readers. The realities of today's media means that the US will normally always be somewhat disliked by the world.

But things like September 11 do cloud that issue creating this illusion that we were well-liked when we were, in fact, sympathized with which is not the same thing.

Answer 4

Well, to answer this question, looking to history really helps us. For example, after the world saw Hitler in Germany, the German image was scared forever. Granted, Bush isn't QUITE as bad as Hitler was, but his image has no doubt left a mark on America's. Fixing this problem won't necessarily be a one-step solution. The first step would be to take more or less opposite plans of action once a new president is elected. This will show that we, as Americans, have moved on from what George Bush wanted for the country. Next, we have to publically declare throughout the Global community that we are changing our ideas from the previous administration. Now, all of these steps don't come without a certain amount of consequence. Showing a massive change in politics and foreign policy in such a brief amount of time can be harmful to our image. Giving us a flip-flop charactoristic. So, the choice is; was George Bush so harmful that we are willing to change our ENTIRE country just to make it seem like he wasnt one of us?

I'm not suggesting that these actions be taken, or that Bush has ACTUALLY hurt out image, just that if he has, these are some possible steps in recovery.

Answer 5

The first thing we can do is round up all of the disparaging idiots who keep wanting to blame the USA and President Bush for everything that's wrong with the world and see to it that they at least get a grade school education.

What is wrong with you? The USA is not the cause of all the problems in this world, and all of your idiotically slanted remarks are not going to alter the facts.

A country that was lead by a madman who murdered hundres of thousands of his own citizens was overthrown and the murderer who was also supporting people who wanted to kill Americans was invaded on the authority of Congress, and we can't help it that you libs have the attention span of a moth and feel that helping the citizens of Iraq start a democratic government is taking too long for you. It took us 11 years to form one here.

The holding facility in "Gitmo" has been proven time and again to be humanely run. Your characterization of it as a concentration camp is utterly without merit and denegrates the suffering of those who have had to suffer in places like that. I'll tell you why it was located there also, to keep nitwits like you from marching around it with your little dixie cup candles and your stupid little songs.

What attacks on the Constitution? Name one genius.

Torture? Where?

It's disengenuous people like you who are turning public opinion against the USA with your constant whining. You are the ones who are making America a dirty word.

Your memory is defective. The world has always been jealous of the USA and have gone out of their way, time after time, to prove it.

The President's policies were instituted and carried out with the advice and consent of Congress. Now a numver of people in Congress have flip flopped and have conveniently changed their minds and are condemniing everything that they voted to authorize in the first place for absolutely no other reason than political expediancy.

You want to repair the dameage, get an education and open your eyes instead of swallowing this crap from the left hook, line and sinker.

Answer 6

The world has always hated us and nothing we do, or can do can make it different. They sit back with their third world economy, two bit tin horn dictators wishing they had what we have and cant figure out how to get it.

You can finger point to Bush all you want, it has been going on since Ike was in office. We helped rebuild the world after the war, rebuild Korea, after the war, sank money, men and material into Viet Nam, and the world still hates us.

We saved the French from speaking German for the rest of their lives, they hate us. The Koreans and most of southeast Asia was saved from the Japs, to include China, they all hate us.

The biggest group is the Muslims, mainly the radicals. They hate us because our females have rights, we stand for freedom and above all, we are not Islamic, so, they find it OK to kill us.

You need to sit down and do a serious history search and stay away from the radical left and right wing media. They put so much spin on it, they would have you believe America was the reason for the dinosaurs going extinct, probably Global Warming.

Answer 7

The anti American are winning in countries like Lebanon because we are showing the islamist extremists that we will back down if democrats take over the White House. The terrorists want this to happen because they saw that they just have to wait us out and we will go off cowering in the sand while they destroy western civilization.

Answer 8

Being from the south does not make a person redneck or a cowboy, any more than being a liberal means you're fanny bumping gay.

You must be pretty darn old to remember back before Americans bashed America with every other breath, before Clinton made the term American president synomous with sexual predator, before Carter, before Johnson.

But, throughout all that, we are still world leaders. It's not just our president who makes our reputation. We have troops all over the world who do that for us as well. I suppose you have something traitorous to say above the brave men and women who protect your sorry a.s.s and others like you?

Answer 9

Start thinking & voicing solutions rather than finger pointing & bickering. Both sides share the blame & proclaim their innocents.

Yes we need accountability of our leaders. As long a our laws are written like this last troop funding bill that is going up to Bush for a veto, we will have ZERO accountability of our leaders. All our laws need to be (1) one Good Idea per law with no extraneous riders. Make our leaders run on CLEAR records.

Answer 10

America has never really been liked by the rest of the world. Don't act like it's a new thing when people burn the flag and chant "death to America." I can't stand it when people put all the blame on Bush; its been going on long before he was President.

Answer 11

The goal of the government is not to increase prestige of our country in the world.

The world is made up mostly of socialist and despots anyway so who are you saying we should appease?

Our goal is the defence of our country and citizens. Sometimes that is not a direct one to one conflict. In fact, Clinton established a policy, by his inaction, of appeasement in that if you leave us alone we will leave you alone.

The islamic fascist proved over and over again, leading up to 9/11 that they were not satisfied with leavig us alone.

Therefore it became very clear that America had to take action where and as needed to defend America and its citizens.

The cost may be high, but I do not count the cost in terms of lost prestige.