how did Obama change world view of USA

[URA BOAT]

i found that on this site their was a forum about "How does the world feel about the USA?" http://www.ibsurvival.com/topic/2007-how-does-the-world-feel-about-the-usa/... but it was closed because it was to broad....but i wanted to reopen this subject...but only with more focus...did Obama change how people feel or thing about the USA.

i know that opinions in some country changed for that Americans are racist cowboys to wow there president is black...how can this be?

[C.James]

Anything but the third option is a very large generalization.

[Sandwich]

As the person above me pointed out, your poll is stupid. You can't be 'against' Americans, I mean what does that even mean - that you want to declare war on them or have them banned or something?? Americans are the diverse range of people living in the USA. You can be against policies and governments as they can be repealed etc., but you can't repeal a person!

Anyway, to be honest I hadn't realised that there was such a big problem with racism still in the US (there is a very high level of tolerance in the UK which is NOT historically a nation of immigrants, so I'd assumed that the US would have a similar picture if not better) until recently. If Obama had failed to be elected on the colour of his skin THEN I would have started making new assumptions, largely regarding the US genuinely having an intellectual existence miraculously pulled out of the Dark Ages into the modern day. The fact that he was elected is a triumph for equality, which should be status quo to be honest. We shouldn't have to celebrate people not being racist, they just shouldn't be racist in the first place... so overall I don't think that the simple fact of a mixed race guy being elected changes views of the US, unless people had an extremely low opinion of it as a hub of racism beforehand. Considering the proportion of US citizens who are of non-white origins, I'm actually quite shocked by the fact that it's apparently more racist than it is here! It makes no sense.

About the only positive thing that I would say has come from Obama being in power in terms of my opinion about the USA is that its foreign policy has become significantly less about random violence and war-making and somewhat more diplomatic and peaceful, even if a lot of stuff is still warped (US support of Isreal, forrrr example...). Troop withdrawals etc. That's a big bonus for the US which I would say has an international image throwing its weight around and tending to select "Option 1: War" as often as possible.

Other than that, every single positive change that Obama has attempted to make to increase social equality, help the poorest and most marginalised and make society more civilised (which is actually why I'd say most Europeans supported him and thought well of the US people for electing him) has been soundly rejected. Not just by extremists like the Republican party (relative to politics elsewhere, the US 'left wing' = a normal 'right wing' and the US 'right wing' = extreme and bizarre views) which is only to be expected because they have a frankly weird world view, but then also in fact by the population as a whole. You can't even blame having a crazy leader (Bush) this time, because it was all democratic. The overturning of reform wasn't done by the President, it was done by the masses.

It's not exactly Obama's fault, but the fact that social reform has been soundly rejected by the whole country, including the very population who it would actually help and bring society up to the standards enjoyed by most of the rest of the developed world... well, I think that says a lot. And none of what it says is endearing.

So I would say that during Obama's presidency my opinion of US thinking and the society as a whole has diminished. To be honest, I'm starting to think that he was elected on the basis of "proving we're not racist" rather than (as I assumed at the time of the election) because he has, by american standards, extremely enlightened social views. Clearly his thoughts and opinions were not the reason for his election at any rate, because why the hell you'd vote for somebody and then vote against all the major reforms and initiatives they suggest is completely beyond me.

I always find it the ultimate irony that the most fanatically Christian country in the world (or so it seems to me) is also one of the least likely to "love thy neighbour" and do a single thing for the communal good. Unless my 11 years at a religious school sitting through endless prayers and bible readings totally misled me, doing good for others is supposedly meant to be your no. 1 concern. If any country was going to embrace social equality issues, technically it ought to be a country with high levels of a conservative religion that promotes supporting those less well off. Instead, comparatively atheistic/mixed countries in Europe seem to be doing a better job of promoting the same values. Just goes to show how little impact religion makes in areas where it really counts - versus high impact levels in things like medical research (anti-stem cell research, GM research), gender equality (anti-abortion) etc. where issues are more minority issues and outcomes are broadly negative in terms of human advancement and improvement of living standards, regardless of what you think about them. Forget race issues. Personally I doubt there'll be any President elected for many, many generations to come who isn't openly Christian.

[Sabs44]

i found that on this site their was a forum about "How does the world feel about the USA?" http://www.ibsurviva...-about-the-usa/... but it was closed because it was to broad....but i wanted to reopen this subject...but only with more focus...did Obama change how people feel or thing about the USA.

i know that opinions in some country changed for that Americans are racist cowboys to wow there president is black...how can this be?

Is your question "how can this be" or "how do you feel towards Americans?" Either way, I agree with Sandwich that it's not a well thought out question, at all.