Not loony. Look at that Pew poll. I can go out on the sidewalk here and almost instantly find a bunch of people who will tell me the US had it coming on 9/11/02. They had it coming,they say. Well, they didn't did they?
Thanks for the post, Frank. I think, as I typed to Paul, there are two things getting mushed together here. One is the worldwide negative sentiment about the US. I think it's been there for sometime but the policies of the Bush folk have made it worse. My guess is that if the proper distinctions are made in the surveys it's the classic distaste for the government and a like for the American people. I recall, even at the height of the Cold War, the Russians made that distinction.
There is a second process, however, and it's the one that disturbs me, in which certain commentators think it's a good idea to accuse the American critics of Bush's policies of anti-Americanism because they are critical. Being critical of one's government doesn't strike me as anti-Americanism; rather quintessential Americanism, thinking for yourself and criticizing your government. Rather the strategy is an attempt to paint your political foes, in this case Republicans using it against Dems (I don't recall a single case of the opposite, though they might be around) to accuse them of some lack of loyalty to country because they were critical of Bush policies.
If we understand that is only a miserable political tactic, so be it. Then it's not worth long treatises on how the American left hates the fundamentals of the US "root and branch." It's rather several essays on the resurrection of McCarthyism. And why it's being attempted.
Am I missing your point? Still? |
