Refuting Ombugge's left wing rhetoric

I don’t imagine that anyone faults him for providing information. I certainly find much of it very interesting, and he’s a man of wide experience. What I think people object to is that often that information comes with a sting in the tail, often starting out in the form “most Americans {do/don’t do/like/don’t like/believe/don’t believe} such and such” that he clearly disapproves of. It’s a mite irritating to hear him generalizing about Americans en masse in ways that to me seem quite inaccurate, and something that I who have lived in the US for 67 years would be loath to do.

It doesn’t feel as though he’s taking the piss, which I could understand and play along with – it feels like a genuine attempt to be denigrating and irritating. His information can stand perfectly well by itself. “So and so are doing this {good thing}.” Excellent, interesting, and maybe something for Americans to learn from. But too often it’s followed by “But Americans {whatever}” which adds nothing and seldom seems to me to be accurate – hence irritating.

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Is American a synonym for thin-skinned?

Possibly, I don’t know. It doesn’t bother me a lot but I can easily have empathy for folks who clearly find it a lot more irritating than I do. But it seems unnecessary and it’s hard for me to believe that Ombugge gets any pleasure out of it. So it seems to me like a loss all around and I’d be happy if he’d stop.

I guess that’s as much as I care to say on the subject just now.

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Not at all. There is just a persistent undercurrent of generalizations, backhanded compliments, and overall attempts to piss people off attached to his posts.

I agree that a lot of the information and links he contributes are very interesting. I also get the feeling that he’s pissing on our legs and telling us it’s raining with a ‘who me?’ reaction when called out. And to me, that gets old really fast. IMHO He is the guy on your boat that steers all conversations toward politics simply because he wants to argue when all you want to do is talk about anything else. We all know ‘that guy’.

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People are to sensitive, this is a maritime forum. If people can’t handle a old fart from sunnmøre they are in the wrong industry.

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Right… This is similar for what I’m advocating for. My version would be (caps used to highlight the differences):

Nations SHOULD protect their CITIZEN’S interests with needs/wants/desires/best interests of other nations and their citizens of secondary (at most) concern.

The goal of this is not for ‘one nation to rule the world’, it for us to rule ourselves without being dependent on any outside nation.

And what’s this all about? So now all nations have to be followed by their continent? As in, Norwegian Europeans and Chinese Asians? Is @powerabout now an Australian Australian?

What a bunch of PC BS brought to you by a stage 4 US American.

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Ombugge is one of my favorite contributors of interesting nautical information, but his libtard anti-American rants do get tiresome.

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I don’t see them as ‘anti American’, just real world.

The US maritime industry has many issues which have been discussed ad infinitum and will be for many years yet, unless Trump (love him or hate him) shakes things up.

Between the Unions and the Jones Act perhaps, just perhaps, there is a sense of circling the wagons amongst US seafarers and a sense of Xenophobia??

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The circling of the wagons isn’t fueled by xenophobia. It’s fueled by the thought of the unemployment office.

It is about a race…a race to the bottom.

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I think most Muricans can appreciate the value of tough love but no one likes to be on the receiving end of pointless nitpicking.

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There is certainly some truth to that

However, I’m strongly anti-union, especially Anti Maritime Union in America. Much more anti-union than European seafarers.

I can go either way on American union crew. Sometimes I have good experience with union mariners, and other times not so good.

I have worked with a lot of foreign mariners in the US on work visas, as refugees, as recent immigrants or as new American citizens. I’ve also had quite a few crew that appeared to be illegal aliens. No doubt about some of them.

I’ve had a lot of great American crew and many who are nothing but problems. Being an old man, I am ocassionally amazed at how great some of the kids are, but more often shocked that so many of them are ignorant walking piles of shit.

I like having one or two foreign mariners aboard, as long as they speak reasonably good English. I don’t like crewmen that I cannot speak with without a translator.

The Jones Act is absolutely essential to having any American built, American flag vessels, and any American Mariners. Without the
Jones Act, there would be nothing left in a few years.

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Nice to be loved, but time to throw in some barbs again;
Americans (US variety of) is not known for their geographical knowledge:
https://nordic.businessinsider.com/the-new-york-stock-exchange-just-messed-up-its-spotify-ipo-hype--it-accidentally-raised-the-swiss-flag-instead-of-swedens--/

Sweden and Switzerland is in Europe somewhere right?

I don’t agree with a lot of the criticism of your postings, but sometimes I have to agree. This obviously has more to do with the proximity in alphabetical order than knowledge of geography.

I think it was a simple mistake by a clerk, or whoever is tasked with hanging up flags, who doesn’t know or care anything about Spotify and where they originate from.
Frankly, I don’t either.

How stupid do you have to be to do that mistake? How about googling that shit on your smartphone?

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I found this article in Guardian. Written by an American lady living in Istanbul:

But, do you love to be on the receiving end of propaganda?:

I believe it has now changed name to Fake News. (Or Fox News, make your pick)

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In what part of my post is propaganda mentioned? Once again your deflection proves the point others have made but I’ll play along. You don’t have to listen to Radio America to hear good propaganda:

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More on this subject from WP yesterday: