Alexandre Fenelon wrote:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/sep2001/rads-s22.shtml
Hmm. There's a lot in there I like.
Doug
Hmm, indeed. Good spelling, correct grammar ... anything else?
Well, this sort of thing:
>To present "the US" as some predatory imperialist monolith, as Raven
>and others do, can only confuse and disorient. It not only serves as
>a barrier to genuine internationalism, it overlooks the
>contradictory character of American history and society. What does
>it mean to "dislike the US"? What sort of social element speaks like
>this? The United States is a complex entity, with a complex history,
>elements of which are distinctly ignoble, elements of which are
>deeply noble. The US has passed through two revolutions-the American
>Revolution and the Civil War-the mass battles of the Depression and
>the struggle for Civil Rights. The contradiction between the
>democratic ideals and revolutionary principles on which the nation
>was founded and its social and political realities has always been
>the starting point of the struggle for socialism in the United
>States.
>Even after 200 years, the United States is still fighting through
>the political and historical implications of its own founding
>principles. The American population, polyglot and highly diverse, is
>obsessed with ideological problems, although its approach is often
>maddeningly pragmatic.
>For Bush and his ilk "defending freedom and democracy" is merely a
>code phrase for the right of the American elite to have its way
>around the world. To the ordinary American citizen, these words mean
>something quite different.
>In many ways all the vast problems in the struggle for socialism
>find their most complex expression in America. How could that not be
>the case? If one cannot find points of departure for a higher form
>of social organization in the US, in what corner of the globe are
>they to be found? What's more, the individual who sees no basis for
>socialism in America clearly has given up on the prospects of world
>socialism altogether. The Marxist has always been distinguished from
>the common or garden variety radical by his or her deep confidence
>in the revolutionary potential of the American working class. In
>this regard, the US ruling elite has a much greater insight into the
>true nature of American society than the blinkered radical. The
>American bourgeoisie inveighs night and day against socialism and
>communism, in a manner far out of proportion to the threat currently
>posed by the socialist movement in the US, because it understands or
>at least senses instinctively that in the most advanced capitalist
>society, all things being equal, socialism offers such a rational
>and attractive alternative.
>
>America is, at once, the most advanced and the most backward of
>societies. Its culture attracts and repels, but always fascinates.
>The US has produced Franklin, Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, as
>well as extraordinary working class and socialist leaders. Its
>immense contradictions are perhaps exemplified by the figure of
>Jefferson, the slave-owner who wrote one of the greatest and most
>sincere hymns to human freedom.
>But pardon us for pointing out that, in fact, when "America," in the
>form of its greatest political and cultural representatives, has
>spoken "from its heart," millions around the world have listened and
>understood, beginning in the aftermath of July 4, 1776. The most
>advanced British workers certainly paid attention to the issuing of
>the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. One could mention
>the appeals to the international working class on behalf of Sacco
>and Vanzetti and numerous other examples.
>One might add that the finest products of American culture have also
>attracted and moved masses of people around the world, from Poe and
>Whitman, Melville and Hawthorne, in the 19th century, to Dreiser,
>Fitzgerald, Richard Wright and others in the 20th. Nor should one
>entirely forget the influence of American music, popular and
>otherwise. A few people, one imagines, have heard it speaking from
>the heart. This to say nothing of contributions with international
>implications in film, painting, sculpture, dance and architecture.
>It has always been an essential task of socialists in the US to
>awaken the positive and generous instincts that are so deeply
>embedded in the American population. There are, after all, two
>Americas, the America of Bush, Clinton and the other scoundrels, and
>another America, of its working people.
>The struggle against the policies and designs of the American
>government requires, in the first instance, the exposure of the
>latter's claim that it is the true voice and representative of the
>people. Socialists are obliged to explain that the US ruling elite
>is carrying out anti-democratic and rapacious policies, with
>inevitably tragic consequences, in the pursuit of which it falsely
>invokes the name of the American people.
>
>All this of course is a closed book to the smug middle class
>philistine and snob, satisfied to make use of words and phrases that
>come most easily to hand.
I pretty much agree with all that.
Workers Vanguard, my favorite newspaper, argues that European anti-Americanism is an ideology of the Euro-bourgeoisie, eager to strike out on its own. The implication is that it's not the European masses that are anti-American; they're all going to Hollywood movies and listening to hip-hop.
Doug