BY all means unfurl the banners, dust off the placards and prop up the distorted effigies of George W. Bush. Start practising those chants of "Down with America" and "America, the Great Satan" and stop bathing and brushing your hair (a less commented on pre-requisite for some protesters) for another anti-American protest. With US Vice-President Dick Cheney in Australia next week, it's not an opportunity to be missed for those who hate the US.
But before the crowd tail-gates Cheney as he meets Australian political leaders, maybe it's time to check what it is that drives animosity towards the US. It is not anti-American to disagree about US policies in Iraq or on Kyoto or in Guantanamo Bay; reasonable people can differ over how the Bush administration handles critical issues. And if protesting in the streets is your thing, go ahead. Ain't democracy grand?
But the problem with what Martin Amis calls the rodeo of anti-Americanism drawing crowds across the globe is that the antagonism is fuelled not just by what America does but also, in no small part, by what America is. It's here that rationality vanishes among even the most intelligent Westerners. British author Margaret Drabble summed it up thus: "My anti-Americanism has become almost uncontrollable. It has possessed me like a disease. It rises in my throat like acid reflux."
Actually, it's more akin to reflex than reflux.
Indeed, the article goes on to say, "But the distinguishing features of anti-Americanism are its intellectual dishonesty and irrationality. US malevolence is assumed, not proven."
If the author expects the US to get a fair shake from either the left of the MSM, her hope is quite forlorn. Both have abandoned the fundamentally benevolent and generous America, despising it exactly and precisely because it is benevolent and generous. For more than 60 years, America has been at the forefront of promoting and protecting classical liberal values of freedom, democracy and individualism. Never in that history has our country been more consistent in that effort than it is right now. President Bush in 2005 said the following:
We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.
America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time.
Of course, if you think Bush is evil, a Hitler, and the greatest terrorist in the world, these words will have little meaning for you. If you happen to believe like Glenn Greenwald that, "Neoconservatives hate liberty as much as they love war", then, not only are you a complete moron who truly either hasn't a clue about what neoconservatism is all about--let alone America; or, you are just another vicious anti-American leftist who simply cannot deal with the ethical and moral bankruptcy of your own pathetic little ideology and its failure to dominate the world in the last century.
America has never claimed to be perfect or infallible. It has stumbled along, through both Republican and Democratic administrations, doing the best it can at the moment to protect the precious legacy given to us at great cost by our forefathers; and defended down through the years with the blood of courageous patriots. America is definitely imperfect, but it stands for something real; something wonderful and rare in this insane world where there are delusional nations and psychotic murderers who desire only tyranny and death as the legacy of mankind.
I am more proud than I can say to be an American at this point in history, as the US stands so resolutely and fiercely against the vicious tyranny of this century's incarnation of yet another genocidal 'Thousand Year Reich.'
Siggy correctly asks:
What exactly will leftists like Glenn Greenwald, Kos, Atrios, Yglesias, et al, fight for? What exactly do leftists believe is worth defending?Not much, apparantly. How can you fight for anything when you have your head stuck in the sand?
After savaging Glenn Reynolds for formulating what is a logical and appropriate response to the beasts in Tehran, these questions become relevant.
We know the left does not believe the Darfurese are worthy enough. We know it wasn’t the millions that were slaughtered in Rwanda, Congo, Sierra Leonne or East Timor, either, just to name a few places.
The left do not seem to believe Bahai, Copts, Kurds or minorities in China, Russia or Arab nations are worth defending, either. They has stood by for decades as millions upon millions were butchered by one dysfunctional tyrant after another.
The governing regimes in Tehran and Ramallah are no different than the Nazi regime upon which their ideologies and stated intentions are based. They make no secret of their admiration of Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich, nor do they make secret of their desire to ‘finish what Hitler started.’
The world watched as Mein Kampf became a reality. Had a concerted European effort been made to kill Hitler and the leading members of the Nazi party, 50 million lives would have been spared.
The question remains: With the benefit of hindsight, would the left fight Nazi ideolgies? Or do the policies of the German National Socialist Party trump their evil?
What will the left fight for?
(from Pearls Before Swine)
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