I think this certainly depends on what part of the country you are in, pulling the people off the street. I can’t imagine the odds would necessarily go that way in a place like Seattle.

Interestingly, despite the growing share of Spanish speakers in the US, the “country” doesn’t seem to get closer to the Vatican, i.e. show more catholic behaviour and values. The immigrants partly kept their power structures and traditions and food and language in their communities, but as soon as they leave their community, how do they behave? And how and to what extent do they influence how America is behaving in the world and thus is perceived by others? And how are they represented in your parliaments?

Interestingly none of you reacted to the cluster bomb argument. You find them less dangerous than these spikes? You don’t know the official American position to their ban? Or to reducing CO2 emissions? Or to whatever is beneficial to a few in the US and harmful to many in the world?

You think one can discriminate the cultures of different US states when (short spontaneous selection, I could go on writing hours)

- when being forced to open your markets to US companies, even though it destroys your own economic structures,
- when your leaders are killed if they dare to contradict the representatives of these companies,
- when being swamped with a fast food culture,
- when being ripped off by the entertainment empires and then
- criminalised and prosecuted when making illegal copies
- being forced to chose inferior technology (just one example: CDMA vs. GMS in India) instead of something better from somewhere else,
- being invaded by American soldiers who destroy lives and social structures and infrastructure and installations to “bring democracy” and then to find out that democracy is not good if the population votes for the wrong guys supporting the enemy of the US
- when finding out that US intelligence is routinely spying for plenty of years in Western Europe and helps American companies to compete,
- when being exposed to American intelligence on the internet, even if you haven’t got the intention to deal in any way with this country ever in your life,
- when you find out that your personal and flight data is sent to the US even though you go from Switzerland to Austria and that airlines are being forced to do so by the US government,
- same for financial transactions,
- same for biometric data,
- when seeing that the US puts themselves above any international law or organisation?

It all goes back to the same culture and values of “we can do everything, because we have the power and the money and we are the masters, we destroy everyone who does not let us do as we please, we force you if you don’t follow or we trick you into doing as we like, there is no control for us, we do not care for the rights of the others, no sympathy for nature, which is just a big self-service shop even if it is global and belongs to all of us, we do not stop wasting resources because we can.”

This can be applied to international as well as to interpersonal relations and is what I mean with the “American” culture, even though I hope that many of you feel and behave differently.

I am so fed up with this and I have not even political or religious reasons to be against you. Christian, European Union, liberal to censervative political opinions. Just a normal middle class guy on a business trip bored in his hotel. No intentions to throw any bombs or kill anyone, juts so fed up with all this and observing the world going down the drain.

You create your own monsters, worldwide, and inflict so much pain on others and then you get shocked when this happens in your backyard. This is absurd.

Native Americans: I would like to exempt you from all this, but I don’t know how much you are already assimilated and absorbed by this. I just don’t know enough about you guys.

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America has been a proper super power for less than a century. Based on the past performance of world and regional super powers, the current state of the American economoy, the general attitudes of American citizens, and the truly massive potential of other countires to be dominant powers, we can assume that the mantle of imperialism will be handed off by America at some point in the relatively near future.

Who or what picks that mantle up is the most interesting question.

You won’t make American less powerful by complaining about it – fortunately for you, America is doing that all by itself.

If you want the world to be a better place I suggest that you focus less on American now and more on who and what come next.

A lot of countries get by fine without invading others – some haven’t invaded anyone for centuries.

http://www.nieuwsfront.com/images/blok_met_pinnen_in_valkuil_gevonden.jpg

Remember Frederik Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth’s The Space Merchants? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Merchants A great statement by the antagonist was made roughly thusly: when psychos are 1 in a million, and you only have a billion people, the odds of finding one are rare. Now increase the population by an order of magnitude, and they are as common as cookies. And they concentrate in cities.

As population increases, the density goes up and the conditions that create psychosis arguably increase and intensify as well. With that cheery thought, I bid you good evening.

Camouflaged, low-key, time-delayed, like the set-and-forget missiles the IRA set along airline routes.

I’m more worried that giving things like this loads of attention sparks the interest of other people in doing crazy stuff like this. Or doesn’t that make sense?

I say we close all the parks and put up condos.

What if a (sick) bird lover felt angry at people wading through ponds and lakes disturbing his beloved ducklings and just wants them to stop doing this? It looks to me just like applying good old American problem solving techniques to a new field of dispute. You know the American position towards cluster bombs and what they do to the hands and feet of kids playing with them? Wake up guys, nothing new in this article.

I got up and looked, and someone had taped a sewing needle vertically on the seat. Thank god it didn’t stick me in the buttcheak!

Could we go for an intermediate stage and just fence the parks off?

Maybe have a few CCTV cameras and monitors at the fences so people can see how parks look but keep them safe (if you shove in a few solar collectors it can even be carbon neutral…. just a thought, it could save lives….. save children from harm etc etc

A real jackass Ninja.

Whether from competitive pianists, bored teenagers, or weirdos…Man…it’s just messed up!