Friday, February 15, 2008
Americanism: An
Indictment From a Euopean/Italian
Perspective:
The ANNOTICO Report
It is Not the Patriot
that blindly beats their chests and claims
Instead it is the Patriot
that is is constantly vigilant, and is
willing to criticize actions when our country "gets off
track" in diverging from our "elevated vision", that
we were once the one to be emulated.
It took only Eight years of
the "Black Sheep" of the Bush family to drive the Reputation of
the
I can not begin to
summarize this lengthy article, which if read carefully you will see
why Europeans don
One of the finer articles I
have read for the True Patriot.
Americanism: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
On Line Journal
By Gaither Stewart
Contributing Writer
February 14, 2008
We hate Americans!"
One wonders if there is some great misunderstanding at
play. Is this a cultural matter? A lack of true information about Americanism
and what it stands for? Are Americans simply misunderstood in the world?
However that may be, the nature of
Americanism as it is understood by the majority of Americans and that perceived
and experienced by non-Americans are so diametrically opposed that sometimes
the two concepts seem to concern different historical times and different
geographical places; Americans and the others
seem to inhabit different worlds.
So what is it, this Americanism? From my vantage point I experience forms of Americanism
chiefly in the context of the hegemonic tendencies, bullying globalization,
arrogance, militarism and imperialism of the
But speaking of Americanism I dont have in mind only American militarism and its preemptive
wars! Not by a long shot. I have in mind the homeland. For there is
something in the exaggerated patriotism in the homeland itself that the others out there experience firsthand. Those others
who know America well detest the super patriotic, Amerika
|ber alles America --
the foreign specialists and US-based foreign journalists and academics and
scientists, even those foreigners in the arts attracted by one of the admirable
aspects of "America" -- these days increasingly hard to find -- i.e.
the velocity and high ceiling afforded new ideas.
Even bedazzled non-American tourists of the kind who visit Disneyland and Las Vegas, who
know little about American life, instinctively see the super patriotic
flag-waving, Star Spangled Banner singing America as vulgar expressions of
Americanism.
Finally, such worldviews coincide with the
Americanism pinpointed, analyzed and criticized by a small but growing group
of awakened Americans.
The implications of the term Americanism had long lingered in my mind before recently I heard the
word used in an Italian talk show in reference to
Je vous demande
pardon! if
I immediately begin to skirt too much around the edges. My excuse is that the
subject is too menacingly broad to undertake in a single article. Still,
digressions sometimes inevitably lead back toward the bulls eye. Or, to
use the old Italian seamans term, avanzare di ritorno
-- advance by return. And for that matter the first paragraph above already
pinpoints the target.
Where troubles
melt like lemon drops...
The overly sweet, overly optimistic image returns like
a leitmotiv. It both repels and attracts, the land
that I heard of, the land that exists only in the imagery of dreamers.
What I have in mind is a pet theme, the famous go-to-war-for "American way
of life," which for me again underlines
What is it, this American morality? This
righteousness? Is it our religious roots in the fable of the Puritan
settlers, those super religious people who in their hardships were bigots,
perhaps also practitioners of incest and racists soon morphing into dogmatic
chauvinists who early-on labeled their dissidents and different-thinkers
witches and demons.
Pre-Americanism! The same Americanism initiated
then which today fosters the rights of the rich to become richer, the
strong to trample the weak and the contempt for and the crushing of
anything smacking of the social in our land, real trade unions
and, heaven forbid, universal health care.
Meanwhile, out in the empire, as long as it is
distant, the Puritan legacy instills blindness to the use of cluster bombs
from the stratosphere and hidden torture in places with foreign names like
When I asked a friend and writer colleague in
heartland
He then listed two dozen aspects of Americanism,
which I repeat here: narcissism, greed, hyper-individualism,
consumerism, capitalism, corporatism, faux democracy, media whoredom, asphyxiation
of the Left, Christian fundamentalism, Mammon worship, moral retardation,
militarism, imperialism, celebrity worship, wars on drugs and terrorism, prison
industrial complex, mean-spiritedness, self-absorption, American exceptionalism, bullying, anti-intellectualism and the
abandonment of many uninsured and homeless in the wealthiest nation on earth.
Whew! That is article, essay, denouncement and
indictment.
The indictment raises many questions: Is that t
he American way of life? Do you recognize the indictment -- for an indictment
it is -- as representative of "our way of life"? As
Americanism? But most important do you accept and hold to that "way
of life?
Meanwhile more and more people of the world are
answering, non merci, nein danke, no, grazie, no, muchas gracias, we can live without the American way of
life.
Isms and more
isms
The Greek "ism suffix is a devilish affair
indeed. Those three letters continue to create problems when applied to
religious, philosophic, political or artistic movements or to tendencies or
qualities of certain persons or groups: misunderstandings and disputes, hate
and love, blind faith and war on whomever doesnt
fall in line. "Ism" wanders from Classicism to Futurism in the arts,
from Romanticism to Realism in literature and from Nazism to Communism in
European 20th century politics.
Today the West -- the Occident! -- uses the word
Islamism in a negative sense -- much as the word Communism or terrorism still
emerges from a magicians sleeve by a slick sleight-of-hand for our enemies
in general -- to slander Islam and the Islamic religion, its peoples and
nations as something negative or to condemn political adversaries.
At the same time others too are adopting the term
Americanism. The way it is viewed is crucial. The Americanism seen by the others is
In this sense the difference between Americanism
and anti-Americanism is like the two sides of the same coin. The two
concepts are the black and the white. Americanism becomes the backside of
the moon. In Italian it is common to use the word Americanata to define an ostentatious, negative and
unreliable action; an Americanata reveals the negative nuance of Americanism.
A bad American film is always an Americanata.
The bitter truth is that the Americanism of many Americans,
who, sheathed in their false consciousness, believe they are exceptional and
the envy of the world, is an illusion. An illusion! A
mirage in the desert. For the others out there, there is something
childlike about their blind faith in their supposed superior lifestyle and
phony democracy that sometimes even sparks a feeling of commiseration and pity
in other peoples who tend to consider them at the very best spoiled but
dangerous brats.
And they continue to sing where troubles melt like
lemon drops. . . .
There was a time after World War II when other peoples
imitated the way Americans speak, dress, walk and think. No longer! Once Americans were welcomed
everywhere. No more! The aura of the "American dream" once
made of Americanism a cult. Now the others do
not understand why they feel unwelcome in
Although Americans have been spoiled, foreigners are becoming aware that the former personal freedoms that
were once the key to Americanism have diminished. (Pardon these
generalizations but sometimes in such matters surveys and polls and data are
useless.) Though without comparing charts and scales on salaries and rents and
economic aspects of life, Europeans realize their living standards are
higher. Admittedly on the other hand, they do not yet appreciate the
difficulties or the extent of the unfairness many, many Americans face --
unemployment and precarious employment, lack of basic health care,
homelessness.
For arriving foreigners 10 fingerprints and body
searches at US entrance points serve to accentuate the sensation of
"America-fortress-against-the-world and aggravate Americas
globalization-imperialism urge. Europeans
former positive, envious feelings toward
Since the majority of people of the world seem to be
infected with the disease, anti-Americanism is a good starting point to
understand Americanism. But first, one wonders why has anti-Americanism
contaminated the world? Once, the
That the real European Left from Sartre on has always
been wary of
Instead the real reasons as seen from Europe and Latin
America stem first of all from stupid, arrogant and self-defeating
People are more and more aware that the USAPATRIOT Act
and legislation subsequent to 9/11 have eroded
Europeans are right to wonder why Americans, even well
intentioned people of the Left, cannot see the obvious. The answer is that their continuing faith in a
mythical Americanism blinds them. And their false consciousness created
and maintained by disgraceful corporate media that distorts the concept of
freedom of the press.
American conservatives twist things around and point out that foreigners dont know the
Each new school shooting somewhere in the USA, each new massacre in Iraq and
Afghanistan, the death tolls of US and European casualties, and analyses
and media coverage of US events, the decline of the US economy, the falling
stock market in New York and the threat of recession are all
part of Europes daily fare.
I was perplexed this morning when my wife, an Italian,
asked me in all sincerity as to why what happens in the
European American specialists often return to those
Puritan individualists I mentioned earlier "who so passionately believed
that they could individually establish a direct relationship with God,"
who emigrated to
The decline of that idea we are all witnessing shows
that in an individualistic world that is wholly private we lose our bearings;
deprived of any public anchor, all we have are our individual subjective values
to guide us. According to even a minimum social philosophy (which for
Washington and US capitalism is straight out of Marxs Communist Manifesto
and Maos Little Red Book), one simple but pressing need would be publicly
owned TV with the (impossible) mandate to provide a universal public service to
guarantee ordinary citizens core news and comment free of hype and spin.
While the
American private broadcasters instead plead the First
Amendments commitment to absolute free speech, making public interest
regulation almost impossible.
The impusle for
...Carlos Fuentes masterpiece, The
Death of Artemio Cruz, the gist of which
is that one cannot commit what North Americans have committed and expect to be
loved. The historical imperialistic, hypocritical, vicious, greedy and vulgar
attitudes of the
The results: Shouts of "Death to the
Yankees" today echo similar protests ringing out from
It is fact that more and more peoples of the world consider
Still, it continues to be bizarre that we live our
little lives inside our shell and have no idea of what is taking place on the
outside. Only a thin wall separates our shell of comfort and ease from the
exterior world where torture continues. In my mind, the kind of Americanism
spoken of here, a lifestyle based on comfort and ease, reflect anti-reality,
anti-man, anti-life.
If anything, we have to learn to live without
illusions.
No matter how clever, how perceptive and well grounded
its positions, official
A glaring assumption of Americanism is that the
Cold War revisionism
(Deleted)
Conclusion
For anyone with eyes to see it is clear that the
reasons for the clash of the United States with the world today -- while its
presidential candidates traipse around the electoral circuit speaking of the
new wars to come -- are to be found in that complex of historical, social
and political factors and the false values, which constitute todays
Americanism. That is, "our way of life" in the name of
which our increasingly illegitimate political leaders pontificate and send
our troops, "our boys," around the world, which, far from
defending social justice or the downtrodden, serves to separate the people of
America from the rest of the world.
A growing number of Americans realize that the time
has arrived for a radical shift in American thinking. All those little placards of the electoral campaign
bearing the word change reflect the necessity. Yet,
with the Americanism mindset described above, revolution is still hardly
conceivable in the minds of the masses.
A close analysis and dissection of the American values
that constitute Americanism will be necessary in order to create a new set of
values -- a new mindset that will
include a basic conception of social justice to counteract and replace
the pervasive and visible sense of gloom and hopelessness in the obesity of
consumerist
And that, I hope, I believe, is where people like us
count.
Gaither Stewart is a
senior contributing editor at Cyrano
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2953.shtml
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