Student Protests Prayer at Graduation, Gets Divine Retribution Instead A high school atheist in Bastrop, Louisiana tried to stop prayer at his graduation by writing to his superintendent and threatening to bring in the ACLU. The superintendent complied, but the student's name was leaked, and soon he was harassed by fellow students and a former Teacher of the Year, and was kicked out of his house. [more inside]
posted by zooropa on May 26, 2011 - 357 comments

Conservative Web site claims hardcore pornography from U.S. is being used as anti-American propaganda in Arab countries From WorldNetDaily: "Graphic photos appearing on Arabic websites of U.S. servicemen raping and sexually abusing Iraqi women were actually taken from American and Hungarian pornography sites." ...Just another day in the 21st century, it seems. (via Fleshbot) (NSFW, as if you need to be told)
posted by Down10 on May 4, 2004 - 11 comments

Let's Make Enemies ...The CPA has also confirmed that after June 30, the $18.4 billion the US government is spending on reconstruction will be administered by the US Embassy in Iraq. The money will be spent over five years and will fundamentally redesign Iraq's most basic infrastructure, including its electricity, water, oil and communications sectors, as well as its courts and police. Iraq's future governments will have no say in the construction of these core sectors of Iraqi society. Retired Rear Adm. David Nash, who heads the Project Management Office, which administers the funds, describes the $18.4 billion as "a gift from the American people to the people of Iraq." He appears to have forgotten the part about gifts being something you actually give up. And in the same eventful week, US engineers began construction on fourteen "enduring bases" in Iraq, capable of housing the 110,000 soldiers who will be posted here for at least two more years. Even though the bases are being built with no mandate from an Iraqi government, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy chief of operations in Iraq, called them "a blueprint for how we could operate in the Middle East." ...
posted by Postroad on Apr 2, 2004 - 69 comments

Joshka Fischer Said What? That The U.S. Needs Another Boston Tea Party? Hidden in the depths of this very interesting article by Timothy Garton-Ash, on Europe's misplaced anti-Americanism, is a very interesting revelation from Germany's Green Party-carrying Foreign Minister. To what extent are relations between the pro-American and the anti-American Europe and the United States - the so-called "Old and New Europe" - based on misperceptions? Is Europe, like the Middle East and, well, the whole wide world, too complex for the current U.S. administration to understand? Is it really possible for American foreign to swerve round France and Germany? [Fwiw, my two centimes is that it is.]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Jun 14, 2003 - 8 comments

Get your I AM NOT AMERICAN™ shirt here. From shirt creator Trevor Wilson: "This is not an anti-American web site, nor am I anti-American... These shirts are merely designed for folks from around the world - especially Canadians - to point out that they are not, from the United States. Though there's nothing wrong with coming from the good ol' U.S. of A, in the current political climate this shirt may come in extra handy."
posted by tranquileye on Mar 9, 2003 - 72 comments

Utopian Socialism as the Basis of Contemporary anti-Americanism Lee Harris argues in this article that contemporary Marxist movements have abandoned the politically realist methodology that Marx claimed as the basis of "scientific" socialist thought, and have substituted an ad hoc utopianism. Based on this latter belief, they have unwisely shifted the target of their criticism from specific American policies to America the nation itself.
posted by Pseudoephedrine on Dec 4, 2002 - 25 comments

Some lawmakers are shocked, shocked that there is anti-American sentiments in some countries! "Why is it that from the streets of Jakarta in Indonesia to Pakistan to scores of other countries, the white venom of hate is oozing in a singularly ugly and sickening fashion?" Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., said Wednesday at a hearing on public diplomacy. Those are "two nations that we have helped enormously since they gained independence." The answer, he said, is bad P.R. What's your answer?
posted by Rastafari on Oct 10, 2001 - 24 comments