[batista]

Which means nothing.

What he meant with "You should live outside USA for a while" is not actually literally living outside the USA, but seeing from the viewpoint of other countries. As in, the viewpoint of the MAJORITY of population of said countries.

In all those countries where the US staged coups or intervened there is a fat-cat pro US establishment. Actually, that goes without saying for coups --you need local allies.

There are also apolitical people all around. HN is not really the best sampling space to get the national sentiments of Latin America.

[kprobst]

> Which means nothing.

It means that the OPs implied assertion that I fit his (probable) stereotype of the ignorant gringo is obviously incorrect.

> the viewpoint of the MAJORITY of population of said countries

Not sure how you get that, or even what it means, really.

[batista]

>It means that the OPs implied assertion that I fit his (probable) stereotype of the ignorant gringo is obviously incorrect.

No. You could still be fitting his stereotype to a T. It's just that his way of determining it was inaccurate (but it wasn't meant to be taken literally in the first place).

"Try living there" should be read as "try walking in their shoes / understanding them", not as "live in that physical space".

One could be living in a country and have no fucking clue how the population thinks and feels. Westerners, with their expat clubs and little isolated houses, are very good at this. But even a local can achieve this ignorance. How many rich americans really know how "the other half lives", be it blacks, hispanics, white trash, etc?

>Not sure how you get that, or even what it means, really.

It means the "general sentiment" about something in a place.

If you doubt that such a thing exists about the issue of american intervention in latin countries, then you don't have a very good grasp of politics and/or reality (at least in this matter).