Posted on 11/14/2016 4:39:59 AM PST by Kaslin
In Greece, there is none of the cognitive dissonance about President Obama that one sees in the U.S.: although an overwhelming majority of Americans believe the country is going in the wrong direction, Obama remains personally quite popular. It's as if we can't look beyond Obama's winning, grinning persona and cannot see that Obama is the one responsible for the country's wrong direction.
In Greece, unfortunately, there has been a strong anti-American view of the U.S. ever since Andreas Papandreou demagogued the American bases out of Greece during the 1980s. The mainland bases were duly shut down, Souda Bay on the island of Crete was the only one that remained open.
To say that Orthodox Christian Greeks did not take kindly to Bill Clinton's bombing of Orthodox Christian Serbs in the spring of 1999 would be a pretty considerable understatement, so when Clinton visited the city of Athens that autumn the walls of its buildings were suddenly plastered with posters of Clinton as Hitler. There were a lot of demonstrations and property damage leading up to, and carried on during, Clinton's visit.
Then George W. Bush invaded Iraq just a few years later. Greeks were apoplectic, and not just because they opposed the invasion. Having lived through the Nazi occupation of WWII, and a subsequent civil war between communists and republicans (Greece was the only nation contested and saved from communist rule in the aftermath of WWII), Greeks were afraid the war would spread (it didn't) and concerned that a refugee crisis would result (it did).
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Which polls tell us that “Obama is widely popular?” The same ones that predicted a Hillary landslide?
Sorry. But over the next twenty five years Alex Tocqueville’s observations will be prescient. The United States will have far more in common with Russia and its people than most of its NATO “allies”. Fundamental shifts in the “world order” are inevitable.
He just loves to egg on revolution
“Obama’s winning, grinning persona?” All I see is his snarling, scowling lecturing persona.
I was posted to Athens 1992-95. Every year huge anti-American demonstrations were staged commemorating November 17. The often violent demonstrators marched right past our Embassy.
The stupidity of an Obama visit at that time boggles the imagination.
Yes, the same ill-informed polls.
Remember that arrogant pos occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania always made it clear that he was president to only the democrats not of all Americans regardless of color. If you were white or black and a Republican or conservative he did not consider you as his constituent.
President elect Donald Trump on the other hand wants to be president of all Americans, regardless of color, religion or party affiliation, and if those snowflakes can't get over it, they can just jump off a bridge for all I care.
I completely agree. I only meant to point out that there's no reason we should believe any political-interest poll that comes out in the next few weeks or months (and they most certainly will.)
We'll see polls on Trump's "popularity," the people's "belief that he can get things done," whether or not "hate has grown" since the election, and so on. These will be push polls, designed to put words in people's mouths, and ultimately to diminish Trump's standing.
We've heard for 8 years that Obama's a well-liked President, with a well above 50% popularity. Despite overwhelming polls that showed that people thought the country was headed in the wrong direction, that the economy was weak, and that people feared terrorist attacks in this country. How can a President be so popular and well-liked when those other topics showed that people were unhappy with many of those issues?
We saw the polls leading up to the recent election: many of them were over-sampled and showed Hillary with up to double-digit leads. In the end, you could've flipped a coin and came up with more credible numbers. If any poll comes out that shows Trump has some sort of disadvantage, it should be immediately questioned and dismissed.
I think the anti-Americanism dates back well before the 1980s. The US government was friendly to the colonels during the dictatorship of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the US did nothing to stop the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. My guess is that anti-Americanism dates back even before that as part of general European anti-Americanism (Vietnam War and other issues).
What happened on November 17, other than my birthday?
Thank you.
It’s as if we can’t look beyond Obama’s winning, grinning persona and cannot see that Obama is the one responsible for the country’s wrong direction.
Speak for yourself Dan, the rest of us knew it all along.
It’s possible that the anti-western attitude of many Greeks dates to December 1944. Here’s a story which may be interesting in this regard:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/30/athens-1944-britains-dirty-secret
Also, note that Manolis Glezos, mentioned in the story, was imprisoned and sentenced to death by the US-backed government in 1948, though the execution was never carried out. Glezos is an icon of anti-Nazi Greek resistance in WWII, still alive, a member of a parliament until mid 2015, apparently still writing. It’s as if Nathan Hale had escaped death and was still and alive and influential in 1844. Think that a living Nathan Hale might have had an influence on American attitudes towards England in 1844? That’s an analogy for Greece today.
More on Manolis Glezos:
https://infogalactic.com/info/Manolis_Glezos
I personally yield to no one in my love for the USA, and I have no doubt whatsoever that the US foreign policy establishment was trying the best they could to help Greece, and the rest of the region, for the long term. Still, it’s undeniable that some aspects of US, and US-supported, policy have been suboptimal regarding Greece.
How can the Greeks ever forgive us?
Obama and Hillary have got to be Manchurian candidates.
To some degree, he was popular in the '90s, because the economy seemed good at the time (although it turned out we were living in a bubble, which crashed just in time for the GW Bush election).
And despite ominous forewarnings of 9/11, Clinton managed to maintain the illusion that we were unthreatened. (He may have done this by covering up evidence from TWA 800 and Oklahoma City.)
But the media seem to have forgotten that BJ Clinton lost a lot of popularity after his Marc Rich pardon, and following reports that the Clintons had stolen artwork and furniture from the White House.
What is BJ Clinton's popularity rating today - anyone know?
In a just world, it should be about the same as Bill Cosby's.
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