Anti-Americanism Acquires Virtue
Posted on Saturday, January 07 at 10:16 by robertjb
As any linguist worth his salt will tell you language is in constant evolution- or maybe we should say constant intelligent redesign. Words are added, dropped, go out of fashion and have their meanings corrupted- or quite simply their meaning is no longer applicable. As we develop new concepts, products and processes new terminology is needed to identify them. Among those that come immediately to mind are "soft torture' and "extraordinary rendition”. In these post-modern times we have propinquity for squalid euphemisms.
Anti-Americanism is no longer applicable to Canadians as we are increasingly de facto Americans with the consequent entitlement to speak to American issues. We are merely voicing the same concerns expressed by a lot of other Americans; the difference being they are constitutionally enfranchised as part of the empire, we just haven't gotten around to applying for citizenship yet- though our peerless political elites keep knocking at the door.
One reason anti- Americanism has transformed is that a lot of the writers I read - true blue American ones- are saying that the Bush administration is anti-American-another revolution is going on, betraying all the things America once stood for. The US constitution is being demeaned, the law according to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is a joke, John Bolton, US Ambassador to the UN is a one man wrecking crew, and the US is returning to rule by the divine right of self-proclaimed kings. Some might like to dismiss these writers as left wing flakes, but too much of what they say quite simply makes sense and remind us of what was and what should be.
So it might be said that anti-Americanism is no longer an international import, but a flourishing home grown industry, a crisis within the country- and at the very heart of the country.
As one US politician recently commented "It is hard to be a moderate Republican these days."
The US is no longer a unitary state as it is now composed of the red states that voted for Bush and the blue states that voted Democrat. Canadians have more in common with Americans from the blue states. So it would be more accurate to accuse us of being anti-red state than being anti-American.
Interestingly, the current US ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins is from a red state. In a recent speech to the Canadian Club he made the rather inane claim that 9/11 has changed America forever(as if it was the first country to ever suffer a terrorist attack). The obvious retort to this claim is that America will be changed only if it lets itself be changed and there is the very legitimate, though not so popular contention, that too many of the changes are simply fabrications of a nefarious political agenda.
Nor is it completely accurate to say we are anti-Bush, as GW is simply the bag man for much more sinister ideologues known as neo-conservatives, and here lies the crux of the problem as it is their agenda that is the driving force behind the dark anti-American revolution. The revolution is unfortunately a highly exportable item. Though it is not covered by NAFTA it could end up in this flagging country.
The not so mysterious reason Stephen Harper, and his eminent CPC party is not doing better at the polls is that there is every suspicion that they are neo-cons in waiting, ready to import the dark revolution-the Washington Tribute Tax(WTT) will go through the roof.
As we North Americans tend to be a bit parochial, British playwright Harold Pinter in his Noble Lecture gives further testimony on why anti-Americanism acquires virtue:
The United States no longer bothers about low intensity conflict. It no longer sees any point in being reticent or even devious. It puts its cards on the table without fear or favour. It quite simply doesn't give a damn about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent, which it regards as impotent and irrelevant. It also has its own bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain.
Pinter is kind enough to point us in the right direction when he mentions, “critical dissent,” and its being “impotent” and “irrelevant”. It must become potent and relevant especially within US borders where it must coalesce into political action, and we should be supportive by not being silently complicit.
In the movie, Bonfire of The Vanities, based on the Tom Wolfe novel, the judge, played by Morgan Freeman defines the law, all law, as coming down to one word "decency!” Where decency is lacking anti-Americanism acquires virtue.
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To me that is the problem that we are facing today. For years because I disagreed with the direction of the Bush administration I have been characterized as anti-American by new Conservatives in Canada. Any American who objected to the policies of that government were branded as anti-American.
Suddenly because it might win a few votes, the Conservatives are adopting the same kind of negative politics practiced by right wing neo-conservative Republicans and to hide that are trying to distance them from the Bush Administration.
Hypocrisy is the name of the political game today.
now if i say ALL canadians are ignorant hicks and rednecks and canada and candian culture are a joke deserving of disrespect, would this anger you? if you're a normal, healthy canadian with a sense of self-respect and dignity yes it would. here's the $64,000 question: WTF makes you believe the reverse isn't true regarding americans?
look, many americans aren't dumb and know perfectly well hatred of them and the country they live in comes down to two things:
1) jealousy and rage at #1. the united states is a fabulously successful nation that was created out of backward wilderness to become a world economic, social and military super-power and many smaller,less successful,less dynamic nations and societes are simply jealous at what the united states of america has achieved.
everyone reading this knows this is true.
2) hatred of capitalism. the united states is percieved by many leftists the world over as being the one major obstacle to left wing socialists world domination and acceptance (a fantasy btw since most asians are far more sympathetic towards american style capitalism then towards european style socialism and european influence is on a long term decline while asia will soon dominate world affairs.) canadian leftist intelligensia seem to be a particually hard core breed with their head firmly up their ass.
No jealousy, no rage, and most capitalist nations have a poor view of the US because it consistently fails to honour agreements. But, these times are changing and the US is continuing to lose global influence, partially because of political blunders of the rubes elected for two terms, but also because major Asian regions are becoming solidly developing economies and political entities - the US wants to be dominant, however its continuing actions will only precipitate its fall to an innefective world power.
Again, as many have stated on this website, being pro-canadian doesn't constitute anti americanism. None of us wish for planes in buildings or bombs. To be honest I hope that the good, solid and intelligent people of the US can get things together to change the direction of their nation before its too late. We see what is happening and certainly don't wish to have similar circumstances. Again, not anti-american but when there is a comparison we do make it, just as americans talk about having "canadian-style" healthcare. You know, if many of our comments are construed as anti-american, I watch US television regularly - and there's no shortage of insults and belittling of other nations by US pundits and polititcians - so I put it to you the US is anti world.
Nevertheless... we'll dance around this for many years and already have done so. Research the Johnny Canuck comic book from the 19th century - Canadians have been much like this since confederation, so you'll just have to deal with it.
you speak for the entire world? are they aware of this? i didn't think so.
the world is full of conflict, always has been, always well be.
read a 19th century canadian comic strip? you're joking of course? i'd suggest you read up on darwin and watch what goes on in the wild on animal planet; we humans aren't that different you know. get use to it.
Our creature comforts have made silent cowards of us all.
By John Kaminski
absolute power corrupts absolutely. - Lord Acton
All a man can betray is his conscience. - Joseph Conrad
"We do it because we can," the military man said smugly. And by such philosophy, the corporate American war machine tries to take the world to its grave.
The former general and recent Secretary of State Colin Powell's words still ring in my ears: "We don't count the Iraqi dead," he said. Perhaps it was because he knew he couldn't count that high.
For a month I've looked around for something positive to say, something encouraging, uplifting, productive ... and failing that, perhaps something consoling, some obvious explanation of the twisted perversion that has wrapped its petrochemical tentacles around the throat of humanity and keeps squeezing.
Across the gray landscape of languid lies and malevolent misconceptions, I see nothing to cling to. No ray of hope. Only lies, self-serving twists of what used to be called logic. Freedom is no longer safe, they tell us. You must have a number. And while you're at it, take this toxic vaccine, and no, you won't be able to sue the manufacturer if you get sick. Just do it, as the slogan commands us.
The right to a fair trial is no longer guaranteed. You can be put in jail or executed for reasons that can be kept secret. And still, on the crumbling streets of America, most people go about their business as if nothing has happened.
Sensible people, who in the deepening darkness of their own secret hearts must realize something has definitely happened, that something definitely will happen. Sensible people, suddenly afraid to speak what they really believe for fear their neighbors will overhear and tell someone with a gun and a uniform, or worse, an employer with an important contract who wants no employees who don't agree with the way things are. And then, they think, paralyzed by fear, who will feed the kids? Scared silence follows.
Who would have thought that democracy would come to mean tyranny? OK, Orwell. And many other now unpopular voices, never heard in our manacled media.
Who would have thought, when all was said and done, that America would turn out to be the chief threat to the survival of all life on this planet? But as the announcer always reminds us, this is why we play the game. You never know how it will turn out.
How it has turned out is like this.
No one dares to speak the truth in America, because if they do, they will be removed from the corrupt system of profit-making that enables them to remain smug and secure (they think) in their never-paid-off homes. Just think of all those well-paid journalists and broadcasters who pretend to be such authorities on what's going on in the world.
Not one of them dares to mention, as they wax opportunistically compassionate over the quarter million dead from the suspicious tsunami in the Indian Ocean, that a nearly equal number of equally innocent corpses has been generated by their own hypocrisy in the gutters of various Fallujahs in countries they can barely remember the names of. Nobody's even talking about the continuing genocide in central Africa.
Not one of them dares to mention that two brothers counted more than 80 percent of the votes in the recent American election (and both of them were publicly enthusiastic about re-electing the tyrant in office), that there were discrepancies in the counting of those votes ONLY in places where there was unverifiable computerized voting, and that poor people everywhere were physically and mentally discouraged from going to the polls. Or that even the candidate who lost didn't really object to losing.
Not one of them dares to mention that America, their country, is deliberately killing its own soldiers by (1) putting them into a poorly organized military deployment where they will likely be killed by the very people they are trying to rape, kill, and intimidate into accepting the corporate totalitarianism that the killers don't even realize they are supporting, and (2) by polluting their bodies with dangerous ammunition that will kill them with cancer a few short years down the road. Almost no one realizes 10,000 Americans have died as a result of the first Gulf War. A few of the pundits (are you listening, Mike Ruppert?) mention that population reduction is a good idea, however, giving us all just a glimpse of the blood in the teeth of their smiles.
And not one of them dares to mention the contrived horror of 9/11, and the self-serving lies that followed, the total coverup that was called an investigation, and the vigilante hysteria that followed, unleashing a mindless bloodlust to kill who they told us to kill, who just happened to be people they wanted to steal from.
We see from American behavior in Iraq - the endless and deliberate killings of innocent bystanders, the indiscriminate bombing of a population we insist we are rescuing, and the corrupt prevention of independent reporting on the terrible crimes we are committing - that the United States is a nation of conscienceless killers, who have absolutely no regard for the welfare and safety of wholly innocent people who happen to reside outside their borders. Americans hide their atrocious deeds in self-serving rationalizations that nobody really believes, not even, I suspect, the people who are uttering them.
And we see from American behavior inside America - the acceptance of their government's lies about 9/11, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and continuing promises of further invasions of other innocent countries - that the United States is a nation of foul, cowardly, heartless, psychotic and unprincipled murderers, who have blackmailed the rest of the world into accepting their racist imperalism and aggression at the point of their very big guns.
There is no terror threat. It was invented by the Israelis in the White House who wanted to take the focus off the genocide going on in Israel. The 9/11 deception will not be solved until the Israeli component of it is unearthed, and right now, that won't happen because the entire 9/11 skeptics movement is riddled with Israeli moles and Zionist apologists.
How long will the world wait to do something about this menace, now that it has been proven that no matter how many actual Americans disapprove of this consumately sociopathic behavior, they are powerless to stop the corporate war machine, which they support by their silence, from plundering the planet into an irreversibly toxic condition.
By their actions over the past century, Americans have revealed themselves to be psycho killers in pursuit of profit at the expense of everyone else on the planet.
The real terrorists are the Americans (and their sidekicks the British, the Israelis and the Australians), and the rest of the world needs to wake up to that before it's too late for everyone.
If the United States were ever to consent to the auspices of a genuinely honest World Court (which is why we won't), its leaders would easily be convicted of widespread genocide and crimes against humanity, and be sentenced to the maximum penalty.
By their silent complicity, the American people are accessories to all these horrendous crimes before, during, and after the fact, and deserve the same punishment as its leaders.
It's a little something to remember when on that fateful day the world finally comes calling to repay America for the gifts it has bestowed upon the world.
Just don't say you didn't know. Because people with guns don't listen.
Even worse, when it's all a country can find to rally around.
La mort vers le Canada, un pays de petits esprits a rempli de dépit.
This is exactly the case. Sure there is a world of difference between reasoned objections to the policies of a particular president or even the country as a whole but that distinction is invariably lost on the smug little losers who desperately want to demonstrate their “moral superiority”.
Look at this:
>>>our old friend Frederich Nietzsche<<<<
Why is it that the pseudo-intellectuals always glom on to Nietzsche? Could it be because on the surface it appeals to the inner 12 year old that we all harbor? The pre-adolescent who yearns to screech “you’re not the boss of me”! at the dinner table while eating his parents pot roast? If we were to follow our old friend Frederich’s teachings aren’t you advocating that we would be following “the morality of the slave”, indeed the suicidal by capitulating or appeasing to the forces that we find ourselves in conflict with? That is just plain phelo-101, Billyard … Thank God that your sanctimony is afforded its rightful place in the hierarchy of relevance. You are not the moral arbiter of what we do; I doubt you even have your own steady, non-hypocritical “moral compass”.
>>>now we must entertain a similar iconoclasm that anti-Americanism has acquired virtue in all its aspects.<<<
So those idiot, beer guzzling assholes who were railing against 14 and 15 year old kids the other day at the Junior hockey playoffs in Vancouver were just entertaining “virtuous” iconoclasm in all its aspects? What mental masturbation… The self-indulgency is incredible...
>>>which it regards as impotent and irrelevant.<<<
Ill bet an egomaniac like you takes that personally… good.
>>>Where decency is lacking anti-Americanism acquires virtue.<<<
Sorry Billyard, slitting our own throats to win your little merit badge is not going to happen. We have not become the monsters that we fight. This isn’t about “decency” at all, if it were you might lift a finger to condemn the beheadings and the suicide bombings and the flying of airplanes full of scared human beings into buildings full of human beings instead of noting our reaction to such as “rather inane”. This little diatribe from a so-called “artist” who couldn’t create a fart with a can of beans (not surprising, noting the lack of empathy and understanding) is yet another pathetic attempt to legitimize what is nothing more then bigotry and prejudice.
Yes, Pathetic is the word.
Nietzsche is dead... I guess God had the last laugh...
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