What does NGO stand for?

non-governmental organization

moved from Natter:

Unsettling conversation with my brother today. He says that the animosity towards Americans in Russia is unbelievable, and from his perspective, it's not going to go away any time soon. Meaning in the next twenty years. He's been advised by a number of people to conceal the fact that he's American and just tell them he's Canadian (which he is, dual citizen). He's going with that, both for personal safety reasons and because he's so appalled to be associated with what's going on.

He's been advised by a number of people to conceal the fact that he's American and just tell them he's Canadian (which he is, dual citizen).

I really think this is wrong - not so much in your brother's case as in general. Nice Americans should travel, tell everyone who asks that they're American and thereby prove that Americans are nice people.

Yeah, that's a nice sentiment. But it doesn't go over real well when he's just been shouted at for ten minutes by his taxi driver. (Who was one of the people who advised him, after the tirade, not to tell anyone else.)

Who was one of the people who advised him, after the tirade, not to tell anyone else.

Oh. How incredibly helpful of them. I hope your brother finds people who realize how silly it is to conflate a people with their government. Do they want to be judged by Putin?

(edit) Man, I've had to edit everything today, usually for mistakes that my ESL students would ridicule.

I hope your brother finds people who realize how silly it is to conflate a people with their government.

Of course there are. But from his perspective, the level of anger at the U.S. has grown so much that many people don't or no longer can make this distinction. His take is that the Bush administration has flipped off the world one (or seven) too many times, culminating in an invasion that much of the world vigorously opposed, and he's starting to experience the price for that.

As to conflating a people and their government, well, this is nominally a democracy. Doesn't mean people should be accosted in the streets, but I get where some of the world is coming from.

Americans, alone in the world, had the power to prevent this from coming to pass. Not necessarily the war - that could well have happened anyway. But the spectre of the U.S. running rampant over the world, unstoppable, deaf to other ears, is in large part a function of the current administration. And that's what has people so scared and angry. The animosity is no more in defense of Iraq than the war is to liberate it. Which is to say, related, but not the key issue.

Actually, do you know that Bush as President has no power about Kyoto? In this country, Congress ratifies treaties, not the Pres. Now, you could argue that if he really really wanted to, he could have lobbied for it, but frankly from what I understand it's a mess to begin with (exempting China?!) but not even Clinton bothered to try to push for it.

No, no, no, no. The *Senate* has the Constitutional power to advise and consent on treaties. Signing a treaty and delaying ratification-- sometimes for decades-- is SOP over here (the genocide convention waited forty years; it wasn't due to our intentions to commit genocide). The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties obligates signatories not to violate the spirit of a treaty (to act to defeat the treaty) even if local legislatures haven't ratified. If the signer intends to violate the spirit of the treaty, it must announce its intention to do so. This is what the White House-- President Bush-- the Executive, and not the Legislative-- did. This is a big deal. It didn't have a goddamn thing to do with ratification but everything to do with a Republican White House playing politics.

Incidentally, because of this constitutional restriction there are far more "executive agreements" than treaties, which do not require Senate approval.

Quoting Hil from yesterday:

And against Sikhs, because it seems like a lot of people can't tell the difference.

So I'm sitting in LAX this morning, and there's a Sikh sitting a couple of rows away. I wonder, idly, how long the whole turban thing's likely to last in Sikh communities in the US, since I understand it's an important religious issue but on the other hand it's a clear marker of Otherness.

Sikh boards his plane.

Guy in the row across from me leans over in a sort of just-us-white-folks way, inclines his head to where the Sikh was, and says out of the blue, "you always wonder nowadays, don't you?"

Much as I would like to be able to say that I said, brightly, "No, not really," I didn't. I did say, somewhat puzzled - red-eye, you know - "about Sikhs?"

Him: Well, you can't really tell. I think some of them are Indian.

Me: Um, yeah, that guy was Indian. A Sikh.

Him: How can you tell?

Me: The turban. It's a particular style.

Him: Huh.

Me: (wishes she were better at quick comebacks)

So, anyway, ew.