I am curious as to how much of the U.S. news presented there is sensored or mostly sensational news items. It is to be expected that you would see the stories about the love triangle involving a U.S. astronaut, but what about the NC house submitting a bill to allow NC citizens to swear on other religious books other than the bible in court? Was that in your paper or on the news? I ask, because as you know, I have been there myself a couple of times and the news I saw and read was mostly stories that were sensational or the media thought would be 'of interest' to citizens of Netherlands. Only seeing and reading those types of stories warps your perspective.



>>Walter, I don't pretend to understand Dutch politics - don't insult my intelligence by pronouncing judgement on ours on the basis of your views.
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>Oh I do understand the US society and politics way better than you think I do. I can see the reasons for its development. I can see the current thinking of the americans. I do understand the politics. Sure there are still questions I search an answer to (Hence my participation here). There is an incredible amount of US news in our papers. Heck even the full story about the two female austronauts fighting for a male austronaut were in our news papers. There are two VERY good dutch reporters living in the US giving an overview of how it is like living in the US from a normal life perspective (Charles groenhuisen and Max westerman) both from a republican and democrat viewpoint, pro US, con US. Don't forget we also see the US as the remaining superpower, not only military. The US culture is blending into ours as well. Do you think we don't know the WALL MART principles? The greed culture?
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>Are you dismissing the observations I make when I visit NA again to notice the big and subtile differences in our society. As a european visiting you'll be put with your nose onto the facts. Power difference (110V vs 220), TV difference (NTSC 640 x 480 vs PAL 725 x 515), Mobile phone (three different bands), toilet (work differently), social, house building, school differences, car (though americans are buying more and more european cars), gun control, violence, alcohol, elections, news media, consumer goods, supermarkets. Your society is different from ours. now tell me how much do you do know about my country? Have you been there? If so, how many times? What did you notice. How much news do you view a week out of my country or even europe on a direct european network? Would you not agree I would be in a way better position to compare the two?
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>But this does not take away that from my perspective some things are backward. incredible arrogance, ignorance and narrow mindedness as shown up here by quite a few members (Though I'm pleased to see there are quite a few other voices as well) showing a total lack of knowledge of life outside of the US bubble, but still drumming the "US is the greatest country the world has ever seen". It is totally off scale and insulting to countries that evolved beyond the US in many areas.
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>John, like it or not, and I will put this very blunty (let me get my firesuit on):
>Most american are totally unable to compare europe with the US in many, many ways, simply because they are not exposed enough to the european news and way of life. The other way arround though, the american way of life is blending into our society (e.g. Commercialisation of xmas and valentine day), the massive amount of american culture on TV series and news media, etc.