Monday, October 27, 2008
Ex-Pat Bloggers and the Election.
As an “expat blogger” what do you blog about when it comes to the election?
I have been pretty apolitical all my life... feel that individuals who have the urge to become politicians need to be regarded with deep deep suspicion. But the Bush Administration has so thoroughly succeeded in making life for me and my children much more dangerous in so many ways, that for the first time I have been moved to write about my concerns. I have expressed my sense that Obama has judgement and ideals that I would like to see at least expressed in the self-serving seething morass that is Washington. Likewise, I have written of my unease at the prospect of Sarah Palin's fingers anywhere near the nuclear buttons.
Germans-- at least the overwhelming majority of those I know-- are appalled at the turn American politics has taken in the last 8 years, and yearn for a return to what they see as American ideals.
What is the general sense of how Americans are perceived?
Americans here are not discriminated against; but most Germans resent what they interpret as arrogance on the part of the Bush government in dealing with other countries, and feel that there is an almost willful ignorance of foreign cultures and beliefs.
Do you wish you were in the US during this election season?
I have to answer NO to this... I am glad to be able to vote from a safe distance, I want to make up my own mind on the issues and not have to listen to advertising from either party.
As an American residing in Germany, I've experienced discrimination. I've heard accounts from other Americans of discrimination. It's not as injurious or systemic as, say, discrimination in our own country against African Americans, but it does exist.
Unfortunately, the issue of anti-Americanism has been misused by American right-wingers to justify their misbegotten and catastrophic policies.
Moreover, because anti-Americanism is ugly, as prejudice always is, discussions about it tend to be ugly, and it's probably wise to avoid them.
The issues Germans have with America seem to be more aimed at the recent Administration than at individuals.
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