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I have a burning need to know stuff and I love asking awkward questions.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Britons Tire of Cruel, Vulgar US: Poll

by Agence France Presse

July 3, 2006

People in Britain view the United States as a vulgar, crime-ridden society obsessed with money and led by an incompetent president whose Iraq policy is failing, according to a newspaper poll. The United States is no longer a symbol of hope to Britain and the British no longer have confidence in their transatlantic cousins to lead global affairs, according to the poll published in The Daily Telegraph.

The YouGov poll found that 77 percent of respondents disagreed with the statement that the US is "a beacon of hope for the world". As Americans prepared to celebrate the 230th anniversary of their independence on Tuesday, the poll found that only 12 percent of Britons trust them to act wisely on the global stage. This is half the number who had faith in the Vietnam-scarred White House of 1975. A massive 83 percent of those questioned said that the United States doesn't care what the rest of the world thinks. With much of the worst criticism aimed at the US adminstration, the poll showed that 70 percent of Britons like Americans a lot or a little.

US President George W. Bush fared significantly worse, with just one percent rating him a "great leader" against 77 percent who deemed him a "pretty poor" or "terrible" leader. More than two-thirds who offered an opinion said America is essentially an imperial power seeking world domination. And 81 per cent of those who took a view said President George W Bush hypocritically championed democracy as a cover for the pursuit of American self-interests. US policy in Iraq was similarly derided, with only 24 percent saying they felt that the US military action there was helping to bring democracy to the country. A spokesman for the American embassy said that the poll's findings were contradicted by its own surveys.

"We question the judgment of anyone who asserts the world would be a better place with Saddam still terrorizing his own nation and threatening people well beyond Iraq's borders," the paper quoted the unnamed spokesman as saying. "With respect to the poll's assertions about American society, we bear some of the blame for not successfully communicating America's extraordinary dynamism. But frankly, so do you (the British press)."

In answer to other questions, a majority of the Britons questions described Americans as uncaring, divided by class, awash in violent crime, vulgar, preoccupied with money, ignorant of the outside world, racially divided, uncultured and in the most overwhelming result (90 percent of respondents) dominated by big business.

[I actually blame quite a few of these beliefs on the American shows we see on our TV screens. If they're not crimes shows they're horrid 'reality TV shows that are designed to show people in the bad light.]

2 comments:

dbackdad said...

After having seen a few of those American shows, I don't have a lot of hope for us either. :-)

Not that Red Dwarf is high art (I love Red Dwarf BTW).

I wonder what the results of this type of poll was prior to Bush being in office. I'd have to believe that it was not as negative.

JR said...

Unfortunately, there are a lot of Americans who would agree with these poll results. I don't think the majority of Americans resemble what happens in our television shows. Lurid dramas draw in viewers because it's more interesting than most of our daily lives. Most of these shows bear no resemblance to anything most Americans have ever experienced. I still think most people are inherently good, but then, so did Anne Frank while she was in hiding, and we know what happened to her. But I honestly believe too many Americans are ignorant, poorly educated and easily manipulated by conservative talk radio and slick political campaigns paid for by religious nuts and corporate interests. They don't possess the intellect or experience to dissect the message or critique the powers behind them. Non-corporate influenced sources of information are critical to educating others. This is why I think independent blogs are so important. They educate and inform.