I don't think this is a problem for the movement -- it's a problem for self-pitying Americans, who have to stop whining and get a grip on it. Americans in general are rightly loathed around the world because this nation is acting in a loathsome manner and has done so for a long time. Like it or not, if you're living in a democracy -- even a nominal democracy -- you have to take the blame for insane, criminal policies executed in your name.
I particularly dislike fellow Americans like Walter Kirn, who -- writing in today's NY Times -- wails about the insults he had to endure as an American at Oxford and suggests that he may be forced to turn swaggering flag-waver himself if the insults continue. Poor baby! In part he says:
"My own experience has taught me that I can't, and don't want to, sidestep my own Americanness in order to placate the country's blunter critics, who frequently make fewer distinctions among us than we like to make among ourselves. What feels from within like a national crazy quilt of opinions and sensibilities can look like a monotone blanket from abroad, but there comes a point when resisting being lumped this way amounts to self-betrayal. I'd prefer to define myself on my own terms, and America has always let me do that, but certain anti-Americans aren't so kind: they insist that I be their worst nightmare or be nothing. This is a dangerous choice to force on someone, especially when he's already feeling threatened by mortal, not just cultural, enemies. Corner the boy, unleash the bully -- that's another way to say it. There's more Merle Haggard in me than I knew, I discovered at Oxford, and the harder I'm pressed to deny him, the louder he sings."
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/magazine/23WWLN.html?position=top&pagewanted=print&position=top>
Carl
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