| |
|
Right.
The country currently helmed by George Bush Jr. is The United States of America. America is a continent. Inhabitants of the United States of America are Americans, but the metonymic association of the US with America is a dangerous one.
The country currently helmed by Mr. Tony Blair is the United Kingdom. It contains four administrative areas, two of them possessing devolved assemblies of varying legislative power. "England" is a unit within the United Kingdom, but MPs from Wales, Scotland and Northern Island will also be voting on war, and soldiers from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will also be coming under fire from US air forces on the ground.
This reminds me somewhat of the "they hate us because we're free" stuff being peddled by the US administration. The idea that everyone hates the US, or that "hate" is even a sensible term in matters of policy, is as self-serving and dumb as the idea that France loves Iraq because it is currently blocking attempts to invade it. it is possible to disagree with something without hating it, and the sooner people get their heads round that fairly basic proposition the better off everyone will be.
That's point one. Now....
But I grew up inside that non-mind, my parents are Literalist Christians, white and they vote Republican when it doesn't hurt their conscience to much. They could be a symbol of this hated oblivion we call the American Dream.
I know no better people.
Well, that's lovely. But what do we mean here by "literalist Christians"? Do we mean, for exmaple, that they believe that homosexuality is a sin, and that homosexuals will, and should, burn in a lake of fire for all eternity, or any of the other bits of wacky shit that don't actually turn up in the Bible but seem to be popular among those who sincerely believe themselves to be following it? How about the belief in the rapture, or the more general belief that when the world ends they will be preserved forever? Only I am really scared by the idea that the people and indeed the cabinet of the most powerful nation in the world holds such beliefs. When our media were talking about these fanatical, savage Arabs who believed that death would secure them a place in paradise...well. Being good people is all well and groovy, but it doesn't actually help if you have some belief system that allows you not to care about what other people believe, because your actions arte justified by a higher power.
Their only fault is ignorance, they have a genuine love for their fellow humanity that I don't think I could ever feel. America has become the Roman empire and it sees itself surrounded by savages it doesn't understand.
Actually, that isn't how the Roman Empire fell.
The picture of ferocious pagan hordes overcoming, not intoxicated catamites, but ascetic and otherworldly Christians is a little different from the standard one, but perhaps it would do....if not for another little problem: The Goths, who defeated and killed the emperor Valens at Adrianople in 378, and who later established kingdoms in Spain (the Visigoths, 416-711) and Italy (the Ostrogoths, 493-553), were themselves literate Christians, converted by St. Wulfila (or Ulfilas, c.311-c.383), who also designed the alphabet to write Gothic (which thus became the first written Germanic language). The Visigoths entered the Empire by permission as refugees from the Huns and only went to war because of their mistreatment: They had been reduced by the Romans to selling themselves into slavery for the sake of meals of rat meat -- at a rate of one rat for one slave. This now makes one wonder whom to call the barbarians.
And every empire falls, but it is never a good thing.
Well, the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was probably not a bad thing. the Prussian Empire was an absolute pain in the arse. the Athenian empire, much as I love those guys, was pretty nasty at times. And, hang on...now that I think about it, although the way it was done was pretty shoddy, the end of the French, Belgian and British empires was probably a good thing. You know, with the freedom?
The point being, without my education in this symbol of all you call wrong with the world I would never have the freedom to be Anti-American.
You ain't. No offence, but what you are expressing is not Anti-Americanism. It's confusion at other people's perceived Anti-Americanism. For God's sake, man. You didn't even bother to learn that there is no such sovereign nation as England before demanding to know why we hated America. How do you think that lack of curiosity, coupled with massive destructive power, makes people feel?
It may be time to broaden your perspective. I don't think many people here hate America, or more preciseley the United States of America. However, many people here are deeply suspicious of the Bush administration, and aware that it is fostering and supporting a way of life that is toxic to the continuing survival of the world. That the United States administration is currently heaping vitriol on nations unwilling to support its foreign policy, after having demanded special rights in every attempt so far to combat climate change, reduce consumption of resources and, for that matter, prosecute war criminals in an international court.
Right now, a lot of that suspicion is based around the USA's apparent abuse of Article 51 of the United Nations charter, claiming that this entitles it to act militarily and, if necessary, independently against other members of the United Nations, in self-defence when no border is threatened. Personally, I am concerned that military action in the Middle East, a region apparently barely understood even geographically by the population of the United States, is likely to destabilise moderate regimes and greatly increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks on the capital cities of Western nations. Pure self-interest demands that I question the motives and the wisdom of US policy.
Also, the US produced The Wonder Years. You unbelievable fuckers. |
|
|
