How dare they question us

[xoxoxoBruce]

I don't know, these furriners are getting awfully uppity. How dare they question baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet. I may park the Chevy and go home in a snit.

Ann Jones writes at TomDispatch, being one of six million American living around the world, she gets questions from people everywhere. The most common, even from the most polite, is, "Have Americans gone over the edge? Are you crazy?".

Then recently, I traveled back to the “homeland.” It struck me there that most Americans have no idea just how strange we now seem to much of the world. In my experience, foreign observers are far better informed about us than the average American is about them. This is partly because the “news” in the American media is so parochial and so limited in its views both of how we act and how other countries think -- even countries with which we were recently, are currently, or threaten soon to be at war. America’s belligerence alone, not to mention its financial acrobatics, compels the rest of the world to keep close track of us. Who knows, after all, what conflict the Americans may drag you into next, as target or reluctant ally?

Hmm, looks like it's time to send some of these people some freedom.

Take the questions stumping Europeans in the Obama years (which 1.6 million Americans residing in Europe regularly find thrown our way). At the absolute top of the list: “Why would anyone oppose national health care?” European and other industrialized countries have had some form of national health care since the 1930s or 1940s, Germany since 1880. Some versions, as in France and Great Britain, have devolved into two-tier public and private systems. Yet even the privileged who pay for a faster track would not begrudge their fellow citizens government-funded comprehensive health care. That so many Americans do strikes Europeans as baffling, if not frankly brutal.

Socialist... then she yammers awhile about the good life in Scandinavia, with all the benefits they get...health care, education, unemployment, pensions... Socialist for sure.

Other things I've had to answer for include:

* Why can’t you Americans stop interfering with women’s health care?

* Why can’t you understand science?

* How can you still be so blind to the reality of climate change?

* How can you speak of the rule of law when your presidents break international laws to make war whenever they want?

* How can you hand over the power to blow up the planet to one lone, ordinary man?

* How can you throw away the Geneva Conventions and your principles to advocate torture?

* Why do you Americans like guns so much? Why do you kill each other at such a rate?

To many, the most baffling and important question of all is: Why do you send your military all over the world to stir up more and more trouble for all of us?

See, I told you they're getting uppity, why not ask us if we're wearing clean underwear, or stopped beating our wife.
Some nerve... hmmm... you know a lot of them resemble the pesky Indians we generously gave those reservations to.

[Spexxvet]

Short answer: Because we're exceptional

[sandypossum]

The lack of universal health care is always the biggest mystery to me, and most people I know outside the USA. That a country so rich should not have it is so strange. It changes a lot of things, not just giving needed medical treatment to poor people. For example, one of the arguments used to support conspiracy theories about the govt and "Big Pharma" would not apply here in Australia (or not as easily) as it is in the govt's economic interests for us not to be sick. The govt is the one who will have to carry the costs if they actually are trying to "keep us sick" as conspiracy theorists would have you believe, and that would be silly. Same with vaccinations. If they really did make us so much more sick, then they would be stupid forcing us to have them.

Whew. That was my first non-me-me-me post, and it has left me a bit exhausted. Hope I made sense.

[xoxoxoBruce]

It's very simple, on one hand we have a small minority who have the money and power and do their best to keep both.

On the other hand we have over 300 million without money and power, but half of them don't want to change that.

Why? Damifino.

[DanaC]

Because they are blindsided by the infinitesimal chance that they might one day be among the rich, and therefore wouldn't want their wealth under attack.

[Clodfobble]

And on a less individual level, they are convinced that the entire reason our country is "so rich" is precisely because of the way we do things. Which you have to admit, makes a certain logical sense: we're the richest by far, and also the only country that does certain things very differently. Why would a generally successful person take advice from a generally less-successful person?

I still happen to think they're incorrect, or at least could stand to moderate their position a bit, but it doesn't help to put their motives in the "stupid" half of "stupid or evil." It's not the vain hope that they may one day be one of the super rich that drives them, but rather the fear that there would be no more rich (or even upper-middle class) to even aspire to.

[Undertoad]

I don't know about the people you guys are talking about, or whom they actually are, but the care that the bottom 10% get from the ER and related are better services than they get from almost any branch of government.

It is one of the only times they are personally cared about in a system.

[tw]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Because they are blindsided by the infinitesimal chance that they might one day be among the rich, and therefore wouldn't want their wealth under attack.

Actually most of us are so easily manipulated by lies and hearsay. How many bought Danon Yogurt because it contains probiotics ... that do nothing to increase health. Or plug their computer into a surge protector that can even make surge damage to a computer easier. Or believed Saddam had WMDs only because we were told to believe something that did not and could not exist.

How many spend money on cold remedies to cure the common cold (ie Airborne) when nothing on those shelves actually cures or prevents sickness.

How many believed Jenny McCarthy because the stripper has big tits and blond hair? Many are that easily manipulated.

A majority only believe the first thing told. And then take an extremist denial when facts expose those myths. For the same reason that well over 60% of Americans knew smoking cigarettes increased health. Most people are that easily brainwashed.

[Griff]

http://journals.cambridge.org/action...07114502001794

Probiotics are viable non-pathogenic micro-organisms which, when ingested, exert a positive influence on host health or physiology. We have critically analysed the evidence for the efficacy of specific probiotic strains in human gastrointestinal diseases. The best evidence can be obtained with randomised controlled trials which avoid bias. Good evidence has been obtained with several strains in the prevention or treatment of antibiotic-associated disorders, in the treatment (and to a lesser extent prevention) of gastroenteritis and acute diarrhoea and in the alleviation of lactose intolerance. We also analysed the recent randomised controlled trials performed in patients with Clostridium difficile or Helicobacter pylori, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, non-ulcer dyspepsia and colon cancer.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Griff

[i]Probiotics are viable non-pathogenic micro-organisms which, when ingested, exert a positive influence on host health or physiology.

Danon Yogurt settled a $multi-million lawsuite with the European Union for false advertising about Probiotics. Danon could not prove any benefits from Probiotics.

Meanwhile that speculative paper confuses many manipulated by spin. The point remains - most only believe the first thing they are told. Never demand that always required reasons why - with numbers. Most are that easily manipulated expecially by the rich who can now spend as much as they want to tell the naive how to think. The Supreme Court says it is good that the rich have much more free speech than anyone else. More people can now believe Jenny McCarthy.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Wrong, Dannon lost a class action suit for $56 million to the FDA and 39 states for making overblown claims, Dannon products with probotics would keep kids from getting colds/flu and they would miss less school.
They paid $35 million in 2008 for the same thing.

[classicman]

BAM!

[classicman]

Between OOP costs, increased in premiums and reductions in coverage, I'll be out about $5000 more with my great new insurance plan.
I can't afford all this Free stuff & help.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by tw

Danon Yogurt settled a $multi-million lawsuite with the European Union
for false advertising about Probiotics. Danon could not prove any benefits from Probiotics.
<snip>

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Wrong, Dannon lost a class action suit for $56 million
to the FDA and 39 states for making overblown claims,
Dannon products with probotics would keep kids from
getting colds/flu and they would miss less school.
They paid $35 million in 2008 for the same thing.

Originally Posted by classicman

BAM!

In his zeal to scabble with tw, has Classic has misunderstood xoB?

This is from 2010 in the US:
ABC News
Dannon to Pay $45M to Settle Yogurt Lawsuit
Feb. 26, 2010
By TROY MCMULLEN

For two years Dannon has been touting Activia and DanActive yogurt products
as "clinically" and "scientifically" proven to regulate digestion and boost immune systems.
The company even launched a glossy TV ad campaign featuring actress Jamie Lee Curtis, who calls the yogurt "tasty."

Yet, despite the claims, a judge in Cleveland this week says Dannon must pay consumers
up to $45 million in damages under the terms of a class action settlement, reached in federal court.
The agreement also calls for Dannon to change its health claims for Activia and DanActive .
<snip>
"This was a disingenuous advertising campaign that promised something
that hasn't been proven," Dr. Roshini Rajapaksa,, a gastroenterologist, told ABC News.
<snip>
Dannon also must note that Activia and DanActive yogurts are food,
not treatments or cures for any medical disorder or disease.

Also, Dannon must remove the word "immunity" from DanActive labels and ads,
as well as include a qualifier to the claim the yogurt "helps strengthen your body's defenses"
or "helps support the immune system. That is only true, the qualifier claims, "when eaten regularly as part
of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle," according to the order.

[classicman]

I haven't misunderstood anyone.