It's been a while since we directed your attention to a bunch of people you should avoid:However, the current brouhaha on their front page forum is just too tasty for me to avoid comment. You can hold your nose and go read it or you can check out the yanqui mike summary so you don't have wallow in the bashing.
The so-called group is about as funny as the Bush Administration... and about as dangerous.
I mention dangerous because the old "Buenos Aires American Expat Meetup Group" recently merged with them due to a disagreement with Meetup.com
I'm sure they didn't know what they were getting into.
8 comments:
I took a look at that forum. I don't get why these guys "tiran tanta mierda" about living here. I know we are full of problems but still hurts to see this kind of talking. I don't agree whith the statement "If you don't like it here just go back where you came from". A lot of things can be difficult for an expat here, but one thing is to complain about the everyday annoyances of Argentina and a very different thing is the hate speech we get there. I'm glad to find a more moderate look from your blog.
When the site-admin/moderator encourages it... there's not much chance for change.
The really bad thing is: their website is really big! They reach a lot more people than I do.
Some of the worst hate speech isn't even from Buenos Aires... or from an expat...
They show all of the lovely habits of 6 years of Bush... and 25 years of right-wing conservative dominance of the way we yanquis talk and think.
Their site, because of its size, is going to cause problems for foreigners here in general.
Thanks Juan,
Mike
Mike,
Your right, BAEG does real damage. I have a friend who has been thinking about moving temporarily to BA for a year or so, and after finding the BAEG website, she almost changed her mind! I tried my best to give her the facts about BA, but it's hard to counteract all of that hatefulness.
Julia
Hi Mike, un profesor siempre nos decía "el normotipo es el estúpido". No nos debería extrañar que usualmente lo más popular sea aquello con menor valor. Tu nota aunque es sincera y correcta lamentablemente les lleva más lectores so....
Un abrazo
There´s a lot more bs on the madmaxx blog. I guess you haven´t discovered it yet.
If there's anything more sickening than reading people bashing their host country, it's reading people living abroad bash their own country.
Thank you, Jim, for your comment.
I think you might have inadvertently left out the phrase, "In my opinion,"
That's ok. We've all been conditioned by the last 25 years of radical dominance of our media, politics, and just plain normal discourse to spout whatever we want as if it were unassailable fact.
Even I do it... although I try not to.
In MY particular opinion, however, there are many many things more "sickening" although I assume that intelligent people could disagree.
You might (just "might"), however, find it necessary to give up challenging people's patriotism when you don't agree with them.
I have a feeling (just a "feeling", mind you) that tactic will not be as effective as it has been for the past 6 years.
Best wishes for the coming years,
Mike
YanquiMike,
(Seriously, what do you make of a "site admin"/"moderator" that posts that Aerolineas Argentinas flies surplus "Air Rhodesia" planes?)
Is it true Mike? Even if it is true, so? I know there is more than one US airliner flying around today that came from China second hand, painted in very wild Chinese Airline paint schemes when they were delivered.
(-A bunch of people that support (whether they know it or not the owners of a website, whose biggest feature is this forum, in which
basically anonymous people from all over the world, who have never been expats, who have never participated in the group, are encouraged to submit "controversial"* comments directly under the sign that says
Buenos Aires Expatriates Group. With "member" next to their names. I call that a lie.)
So the biggest problem you have with the BAEXPAT site is they allow people who are not expats to post there? If so, how could they control that even if they wanted to enforce such a policy? Sure you can check visitors servers and IP's to find out but it would be impossibly time consuming to do and keep an active forum. They can make people fill in the blanks as you suggested, people can fill in whatever they want also so I don't see how that would work either.
Also, Argentines post there also. Many Argentines are living abroad these days. How would you identify a PC in England being typed upon by an Argentine from one being typed upon by a British person who doesn't like Argentina? It's impossible even if you don't factor in intenet cafes and multiple users.
So my point is how could they do what your wanting even if they wanted?
Now allow me to comment on what Jim said.
I hear you Jim but can't agree with you. When Americans live in other countries they don't lose their right to vote so why should they lose their right to express their political opinions?
Now I myself would not be seen walking down the street hand in hand with Chavez or in any anti-American rally in Argentina even if I agreed with what Chavez said or what the rally was about. I might write about it, express my agreement or dislike of it but I would not take an active part in it either way. You could argue by writing about it, is taking an active part in it but I have yet to hear of any bloggers swaying national elections or foreign policy one way or the other yet.
Mad_Maxx
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