[Bedreviter]

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Ive noticed this too. I have never even met a Norwegian, but the ones that post on this board seem to be all mainly self-serving, self-righteous, pieces of [censored], who's values and viewpoints are that of 6 year old children being spoonfed by a bunch of commies. Why is that?

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Id say our press deserves a lot of the blame for this, as 90% of the coverage of the US is negative and heavily one sided. Tabloid newspapers are by far the most popular in Norway, and the majority of Norwegian journalists are pretty far to the left on the political scale. Americans tend to ridicule the USA Today, but USA Today is far more objective and serious in its reporting than any major Norwegian newspapers. Political pundits on Norwegian news also tend to be on the left side of the spectrum, and the capitalist bastards in the USA are often blamed for most of the wrongdoing in the world, one way or another.

The Norwegian school-system is also an extension of the social-democratic system that we have, and teachers tend to belong to the left side of Norwegian politics. The negative sides of American history and current society are often exaggerated, mainly because the teachers dont know better. The superiority of the Norwegian society and system is implied throughout society, from the media to the school-system. Its not so much a question of "if we are better", its more as "how much better are we". This obviously have an impact on many Norwegians.

When negative sides of American society is discussed in Norway its almost never put into context, the US is not compared to other European countries, its just mentioned and up for discussion why it is that way. If you compare the level of poverty or racial tension sin the US you would see that th eUS doesnt do any worse than most European countries, but this is not done by Norwegian press.

Many Norwegians can tell you how bad Halliburton, Dick Cheney and the conservative American christians are, while they would probably have difficulties telling you the name of the political leaders of our neighbouring countries. We like to compare ourselves to the US and Americans, and highlight where we are doing better and forget or marginalize the areas where we are worse. Little is done to explain the various factors that are contributing to American problems, we basically explain it being so due to the "fact" that Americans are uneducated, war mongering, gun waving racists.

While American culture (Rock music, Hip Hop, Rap, Hollywood, TV) is by far most popular in Norway it is frowned upon by the cultural elite who will rather tell you that the artistic French movies that nobody goes to see are superior to anything the US has to offer.