Red, White, and Australian

I think John Boehner is checking out her "bum."

One of the biggest new stories circulating around the country of Australia in the past few days was Julia Gillard's speech to Congress. Apparently only 4 Australia n Prime Ministers before her have ever addressed a joint session of the American legislative body. The one thing that really sticks out to me when you read the speech is basically that she flatters the hell out of us. She is like our own little redheaded cheerleader.

The one thing that really becomes apparent when watching this speech is that Australians have a much more positive outlook on America than most Americans usually do. What I have learned in my time Australia is that when Aussie's think of the USA they tend to fall into two categories: those that like us, and those that are afraid to displease us. The funny part is that (even though I'm being funny) I'm serious.

The Aussies I have come across that really like America tend to fantasize our country as an amazing land with people who live in Hollywood, drive Ford Mustangs, and protect the world from evil. My roommate Tony tends to fall in this category. He loves American cars, movies like Rambo, shows like Seinfeld, and listens to classic American rock. (Sometimes I get the feeling like I have not so much been allowed to live in the apartment as I sometimes feel I have been added to an Americana collection) From an American perspective, these types of Aussies are very flattering. I would love to think of America as the great country that stormed Normandy to free the world and landed on the moon to inspire a generation (as PM Gillard so eloquently puts it), but I suppose we can never see ourselves in such a flattering and glistening light.

The second type of Aussies also like America but tend to be a bit more cautious about our place in the world. You have to understand that to Australians America is still very much the superpower that it was during the Cold War, and still very much a center of culture and technology. In that respect, many Aussies are kind of paranoid of making us mad at them. A lot of politicians at the time of the Iraq war gave many rationales for Australia's involvement in the war, but one of the most prominent arguments was that: "If we do not help America, America will not help us if we need it," and many Australian's (to some degree or another) think like this. As for my own opinion, this seems pretty laughable as I can never imagine a scenario where we do not help Australia. China attacks Australia for their precious resource of desert sand, and America just watches and goes 'Well that sucks.' No it would never happen. Australia is an ally and a friend and I can never imagine a world where we do not have the 7th Fleet stationed off the coast of Sydney within days of the first attack, but some Aussies do not so readily believe this.

However, I do not want to paint the Australians as a people who fall all over themselves to please the Might Americans, there are plenty of dissenters (many of which protested against Iraq). However, I have found that even those protesters and dissenters tend to really like America. I met a very nice (crazy) Aussie who was actually so opposed to the America government that he owned a store that sold American counter-culture items, among them was many Confederate Flags and t-shirts proclaiming most well known slogans as "Make Love Not War," etc, and was continually playing Bob Dylan over the store's speakers. So really even by rejecting American culture and the American government he just embraced a different aspect of American culture. Moreover, when he found out I was American, he talked my ear off for 15 minutes about the first time he held a gun at a range in Louisiana.

The Australian and American relationship is a very funny one. Australians tend to really like Americans (even when they don't). Our country has so dominated culture and news for the past sixty years that we are almost inescapable. Obama is on the news as much as their own Prime Minster Julia Gillard, but they both get beat out by Charlie Sheen (who for some reason this country has a love affair with). Either way I enjoyed watching the Aussie PM's speech to congress, because at first I just thought she was just being overly gracious to those in Washington, but then I thought that she may actually believe most of the things she is saying. After all, her speech had a 53% approval rating in Australia and one of the most popular comics in Australia is Captain America. (Sometimes I wish we had much confidence in hope and possibility for ourselves as Australians seem to have in us)