Kim:
Now, to your other points. You're right - there are many aspects of US foreign policy that I fundamentally disagree with.
Perhaps that's where the focus of this "boycott" should be...with the US Embassy in Norway, and not a private US-based company that is being forced to comply with its home laws even abroad.
For me, a company like Hilton is huge and probably has a LOT more say in who gets to make the laws in the US than the average Joe in the streets. Consequently I suppose I DO hold them more responsible, and therefore somewhere wish that something like this actually DOES sting them enough to adjust their actions...and where they put their support in the American system.
I'm sure the hotel industry has its own lobbyists in Washington. In fact, the word "lobby" in that sense also has its roots in the hotel industry according to urban legend: back in the 1800's, representatives of powerful interests would wait for their turn to visit the US President in the lobby of what is now the Willard Intercontinental Hotel near the White House, supposedly giving rise to the term "lobbyist."
MANY companies would love to see the embargo lifted, as it's just another untapped market. But if you read that Wikipedia article, you'll see there is strong political opposition to such a thing from both parties, fueled surprisingly by Cubans living here in the US. Again it's not as simple as you would like to believe.
but maybe you should try being a non US citizen of planet Earth in the year 2007 sometime, and you MIGHT get an idea of what I'm on about.
I may not be as well-travelled as you, but I do have my share of vacation photos from around the world.
I have police-officer friends in the UK (and have even done ridealongs with them) and have been there several times, eventually visiting all of Great Britain from Inverness south to Lands End.
I, along with my American-born Swiss friend, visited his relatives in Switzerland a couple of years back, taking in southern Germany and a bit of Austria and Leichtenstein (sp?) as well. On that same trip I also visited France on my own, specifically to see where D-Day happened shortly after the 60th Anniversary of that event.
I have also visited Australia twice where I have relatives on my mother's side. My most recent foreign visit was to New Zealand.
While in those lands I get to talk to the people, and if I can understand the language I try to read the local newspapers, listen to the radio, and watch local television. With the internet, I find it very easy to see "another perspective." I frequently look up articles on BBC Online as well as the A(ustralian)BC website.
You know what I came away with after all this? I'm even more grateful that my parents decided to immigrate to the US instead of somewhere else or staying in the home country. Though I could definitely live in Australia if I had to move out of the US for some reason
It might not be fair that all things American...individuals...companies etc are judged against what their government does, and has done - and the laws and policies that are in place, but that's life, and on the outside it's really hard to do anything differently. America isn't a dictatorship. Presumably their people put the successive governments who passed the laws in place. Presumably the people end up responsible for what exists to that end, and if they wanted to change it they could....just as Hilton didn't have to buy the hotel to start with.
We vote for whoever we think best fits our ideologies, and more importantly who will best ensure that we will continue to live at least as good a life, if not better. That's no different than any other democratic society.
Rather than try to make me live as a "non-US" citizen, try to perhaps look at things from an American's point of view sometime. Then maybe you'll see why, despite our shortcomings real or imagined, we still are the #1 destination for immigrants, and why people will even risk their lives (and that of their families) just for a chance to make it here.
Having no sympathy with them and having an axe to grind are very different things.
Your tone goes beyond no sympathy. It sounds like you really want them to fall flat on their faces with this one. I suspect there is also some deep-rooted resentment in a large American company buying up a local business. As if multinational companies aren't doing it in the US. Chrysler is now a German-owned company and I'm using a cell phone network owned by a German telecom.
I still don't get why you seem to think that I would think that the people in New Orleans deserved it somehow? I would quicker think that they actually deserved a system that kept their levy system up to date and effective - much like they do in Holland for instance where I lived a couple of meters below sea level for about 28 years.
I used that as an example of your own thinking: "If they had done the research and listened to other people..."
