[lbo-talk] Re: anti-Americanism and anti-imperialism (was Re: Yoshie: "dialogue" takes listening on your part, too)

Angelus Novus fuerdenkommunismus at yahoo.com
Thu Jul 13 08:31:40 PDT 2006


--- Jerry Monaco <monacojerry at gmail.com> wrote:
> anit-Roman enemies. If
> there was such a thing as "anti-Romanism" it was
> simply created by Roman
> factions to explain their own policies of murder and
> slaughter. Ditto
> "anti-Americanism".

I assume you don't speak any languages other than English, and that you don't travel abroad often (or perhaps you have not ever done so).

Which is fine, your intentions are admirable, in that you wish to make a priority of fighting American imperialism. But the idea that "Anti-Americanism" is only a creation of American reactionaries, and is otherwise a phantom, I just don't think anybody could take it seriously who has really experienced the world outside of the United States.

Anti-Americanism is not even necessarily a "leftist" anti-imperialist phenomenon. In Germany, you have a long tradition of elitist, right-wing Anti-Americanism, reaching back to the 19th century, basically taking the form of asserting how the Americans are a "people without culture" lacking such European refinements like Goethe or Leonardo da Vinci.

This usually also entails criticizing the "mass culture" of American society and lack of "history" compared to Europe, and may overlap with structurally anti-semitic topoi such as the "money hunger" of Americans and such.

That you are ignorant of such facts is not your fault, but I am surprised at how people on this list categorically deny any suggestion that there could even possibly be something like Anti-Americanism. Or anti-semitism among leftists, for that matter.

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