Anti-Americanism

From The Land without a Heart by A. E. Johann

It was not the goal of this book to discuss whether America can win the war, or whether it must lose it. But perhaps it has become clear —and that was my goal — that America does not deserve to win the war and spread its system over the entire world. There is nothing in the American system worth imitating, either for Germany or Europe. If Americanism conquered the world, it would mean the end of all human values and of genuine freedom — the freedom to do something, not from something! — of all the values for which Europe has fought and suffered for millennia, for which it has given all its strength of body and soul.

No European could exchange places with an American. America is a pitiable country and the Americans are a betrayed people, betrayed by their leaders…

From Europe and America:
Failures in Building an American People

The ideal of eternal success is a grave danger to a people’s morality. The result is that in the USA, people are valued only according to their success, ignoring all other measures. Such a view of life inevitably must attract materialistically-oriented people. The USA was their place.

Even before the World War, efforts were made to teach the “aliens” the language and ways of thinking of the country. Courses in Americanism included not only the language and government, but also attempted to build American national pride. This resulted in the desire for records and gigantomania that always amuses us. Lacking a significant political and intellectual history, the American is forced to build his national pride on technology.

Customs were another leading factor. The immigrants sought to adapt to them as rapidly as possible to avoid standing out. The growing standardization of life reached such an extent in the USA that independence became impossible. Everyone wears the same clothes, and thinking like everyone else is a duty. In contrast to Europe’s variety, this seems odd to us, but we should not forget that uniformity is about the only way Americans can experience community. This process of Americanization was successful, but also superficial. A type developed, but not a people.

Randall Bytwerk, Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan (USA), maintains an archive of Nazi and Communist propaganda from Germany. Both pieces were published in 1942, but they could have been written yesterday, and not necessarily in German.

According to this news report the US Ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins, has given a speech where he warns Canadian politicians against bashing the United States in an effort to gain votes in the coming election.

The issues that concern me the most are self defense and national defense (with the environment coming in a distant 3rd), and I’ve been frustrated with the way the Canadian government has acted on those issues for the past few years. But what’s been even more maddening is the way that the Canadian government and media has insisted that they’re better than the Americans in some way, even though they appear to be failing miserably while we’re actually making progress.

Ambassador Wilkins’s remarks indicate that there may just be some payback for using the US as their favorite whipping boy….

“It may be smart election politics to thump your chest and constantly criticize your friend and your No. 1 trading partner. But it’s a slippery slope and all of us should hope it doesn’t have a long-term impact on our relationship.”

American disgust with what we saw as French duplicity had a profound effect on their economy, even without any action by the US government. It sounds like the current administration in Washington has decided that enough is finally enough. If this is pushed as an issue in the States, and Canadian rhetoric is brought to the attention of US voters/consumers, then Canada could be in for a rather rude awakening.

Another thing that many “world leaders” seem to have forgotten is that George Bush is going to be President for the next three years. It’s in their best interests to try and improve relations with America, instead of destroying any good will in an effort to garner short-term advantage at the polls.

In a generally fact-free diatribe, which by now has been widely denounced, Juergen Tritten, German Environment Minister, appears to blame the Bush administration for hurricanes. Focusing on the few places where he makes a factual assertion, the facts fail to support his arguments. Tritten: “No single storm can be traced back to climate change, but three things can be scientifically proven beyond doubt. First, natural catastrophes are drastically increasing in frequency and magnitude.”

Compare the data from the 1850’s to the 1990’s, or see if you can find a trend line in these historical records of hurricanes in the US. Or is Tritten proposing that earthquakes in the Pacific and hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico arise from a common cause?

Read more

Most Americans are already aware that Newsweek is a resolutely anti-Republican sensationalist outfit. In keeping with most such publications, the editors consistenly slap together “high brow” (read elitist) fare, at once feeding the readership scraps of tabloid journalism while its opinion pages consistently mocks the same demographic. None of this is news, as anyone who reads the rag on a consistent basis can attest.

What is less clear, perhaps, is just how vicious its overseas editions get. Its Japanese edition, for example, excoriates America (and not just the red states), featuring a picture of American flags in trash cans. And yet, the contemporaneous edition in the US features a picture of President Bush, with only the blurb “America Leads … But Is Anyone Following?” as the only indication of its slant. Again, the cynical give Red Staters their pretty pictures, and Blue Staters their liberal [read Leftist] text, because we all know Red Staters are illiterate anyway ploy to try to shore up its dwindling reader base.

Gaijinbiker at Riding Sun provides more examples.

Even before this, I’d been considering cutting Newsweek out of my reading list. After the Koran-flushing debacle, I decided that I’ll get my readings of George Will from the Washington Post instead.

(Via: Instapundit)

[Cross-posted at Between Worlds]