Why Amis have replaced Germans as the new Nazis

(Article by guest author Benjamin Duffy)

If there’s one thing that David’s Medienkritik does well, it’s pointing out some of the inconsistencies of German criticisms of the United States. Ray did an excellent job of exposing the Orwellian credit card snooping of the German government and then compared it to the American S.W.I.F.T. banking “scandal”. When the US government was “caught” watching a few thousand international banking transactions in an attempt to foil terrorist attacks, the German media was up in arms. When anti-child pornography units in Germany looked through a full 22 million credit cards in order to identify 322 suspects, it was hailed as a victory against child pornographers.

I suppose it’s the natural tendency of human beings to want to scream “Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black!” whenever confronted with criticism from abroad. In a cross-cultural dialog, this tendency works both ways. How dare you criticize us, when you have done the same or even worse? How dare you criticize our society when yours is even more rotten?

I’m not sure that this tactic is wrong to use in every circumstance. When I hear from Germans that the United States is a racist nation in which minorities are not allowed to rise to the highest positions, I ask them why nearly every German CEO, Abgeordneter, cabinet member, and university scholar seems to have white skin and a nice German name like Merkel, Mueller, or Schroeder.

In the United States, on the other hand, we have minority Senators (Barack Obama, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Daniel Inouye, and Daniel Akaka), numerous minority Representatives, as well as Presidential cabinet members Condoleezza Rice (Secretary of State, former National Security Advisor) and Elaine Chao (Secretary of Labor). General Eric Shinseki, an Asian American, became the Army Chief of Staff, while a Jamaican-American named Colin Powell, born poor in New York City, rose to the level of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Clarence Thomas sits on the Supreme Court. And the United States is a racist nation? Heck, a recent article in Die Welt even used the word “Apartheid” to describe race relations in America. Look in the mirror, Germany!

What irritates me the most about the constant harping of the German media is that they seem less concerned with what is wrong in their own backyard than with what is wrong with the United States. School shooting in Colorado? Big news. School shooting in Erfurt, Germany? Not really that important. Race riots in Los Angeles? Extremely newsworthy. Race riots in France? Not so much. It seems to spring from malice towards the United States, as if every news item is supposed to be a stick in our eye. It’s almost if they know who their enemy is (the US), and then intend to follow their enemy around and make sure that every slip-up (real or imagined) is shown to the world in the worst light possible. Then they wonder why we think that they’re anti-American.

Still, sometimes you wonder if “two wrongs don’t make a right”. I remember the time that Ray came to speak at the University of Massachusetts on the topic of German media bias against the United States. I remember personally inviting a German lady I knew. Let’s just say that her political beliefs were fairly orthodox for a German. When I handed her the flyer for the event she seemed shocked—shocked!—that anyone would think that her nation’s media system was biased against the United States. With a frown on her face, she uttered the words that I would hear quite a bit in the following weeks—“I don’t think that the German media is biased. I think Fox News is biased.”

Honestly, I had no idea how to respond to that comment. Is Fox News biased? Well, they do have quite the stable of conservative opinion commentators. But opinion commentators are hired to do exactly what their name would suggest—to give their opinions. Real media bias occurs when the media feeds you slanted information and tells you that it’s one hundred percent objective and dispassionate. In any case, whatever media bias Fox News has, it can absolutely never compare to the outrageous media bias of the German media, which makes almost no attempt to hide the fact that it sees nothing meritorious about the United States. Despite its lack of journalistic even-handedness, Germans seem to lap it up as if it were the unvarnished truth.

Finally the day of Ray’s presentation came. When the question and answer session came, the forum suddenly moved away from the subject of German media bias toward (you guessed it!) the media bias of Fox News. Ray had clearly wounded the pride of the largely German audience, and their response was to prove that the American media were no better.

As I’ve mentioned before, whatever pro-American bias the Fox News Channel may have, it does not even begin to compare to the anti-American bias of nearly the entire German news media. But does it even matter? Does the existence of a media bias at Fox News negate a media bias at Der Spiegel, Stern, Die Welt, FAZ, and SDZ? If Fox News is biased, does that mean that the others are not? Suddenly I realized that the real reason this tactic was being deployed was because they honestly couldn’t defend their own media system. The anti-American bias on the German side is so blatant that it’s rather difficult to deny. Lacking a defense, they decided to go on the attack against Fox News. They shifted the topic of debate and suddenly put Ray on the defensive. While the title of the lecture may have been “anti-American bias in the German media”, we somehow managed to spend almost as much time talking about Fox News, with a heated sidebar about how evil the Vietnam War was.

Over time, I began to realize that this is the very same tactic that Germans use to help themselves deal with their historical legacy. It could be considered a form of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past). Or perhaps it isn’t that at all, but rather a way of avoiding coming to terms with the past. Let me explain.

I believe that the vast majority of Germans honestly believe that what their country did during the National Socialist period was wrong. I also don’t intend to beat them over the head with it, or ask them to be “grateful” to the United States because we saved them from themselves. I don’t think that Germany should have supported the war in Iraq because we won World War II or because we defended Germany during the Cold War. I think that Germany should have supported the Iraq War because they are our allies (or claim to be) and because it was the right thing to do. They obviously didn’t agree.

Still, a certain type of guilt hangs over Germany. They know about the death camps, the blitzkrieg, the occupation, the rape, the theft, and the medical experiments. It’s something they cannot defend because it’s indefensible. So rather than defending it, they try to prove that others have done the same or even worse. It’s the same defense—“We’re not biased, Fox News is biased.”

To be truthful, Germany’s crimes against humanity were not entirely unique. Anti-Semitism, racism, mass murder, genocide, and wars of conquest existed before Hitler was born and have existed since he took his own life in 1945. Belgium’s King Leopold II’s forays into the African Congo killed millions of Africans (perhaps as many as 15 million, though estimates vary greatly). Certainly the treatment of American Indians at the hands of white settlers was shameful, and whites made a concerted effort to erase their cultures. Turks murdered millions of Armenians in 1915, in what has been called the Armenian Genocide. History is full of evil leaders carrying out their nightmarish plans at the expense of others—Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung, Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin, Vlad the Impaler. Reasonable people can disagree as to whether these incidents compare to the crimes of the Nazis in terms of scale, intent and brutality, but the Germans are certainly not the only people with black marks on their history.

Nonetheless, there exists a compulsion on the part of Germans to find parallels to the Holocaust in American history. If they could only prove that die Amis were just as bad, it would have a therapeutic effect on the German national soul. In a way, finding an American sin as great as their own might even negate the Holocaust.

Bruce Bawer writes on this subject in his book, While Europe Slept. He describes sitting at a café in Tübingen, Germany in 1982, having a chat with German friends Günter, Magda, and Eva.

“Günter acknowledged that, yes, there’d been a time when Germany terrorized the world. The Nazi era was horrible: no doubt about it! But that had been long ago. The past was the past. Now Germany was a country to be proud of. Today, it was America that was the planet’s number one force for evil. Eva Readily agreed. While Magda listened quietly, her friends piled on the evidence. I no longer recall the details. I know they brought up Vietnam. And one of them mentioned President Reagan, who, they explained was to our age what Hitler was to theirs.” (pp 86-87)

I remember being a little surprised that Bawer’s experiences in Germany had mirrored my own so exactly. I had heard that particular argument over and over again, more times than I could count, while drinking beer at German Kneipen. It was almost as if every German had been issued the same script, and they all recited it aloud whenever they met an American. I was not surprised to know that Bawer had heard the same script, but rather to know just how old that script was. Since 1982, the only alterations to the script have been that they have substituted the word “Iraq” for “Vietnam”, and President Bush now represents the new Hitler, rather than President Reagan. The comparisons were ludicrous in 1982, and they’re ludicrous now.

The script actually existed even before 1982. When columnist Ralph Peters came to Germany for the first time with the military—much as the same way that I did—he heard much the same script. Peters writes:

“But what about the charge that Americans are the new Nazis? I think I understand the sickness that afflicts you. I received my first insight as a young Army sergeant in a not-yet-reunified Germany a quarter-century ago. Although the event was ten years past, young Germans unfailingly brought up the My Lai massacre in Vietnam during our conversations. My Lai was one of two documented American atrocities in that war. Almost two hundred villagers were murdered. It was inexcusable, and we did not try to excuse it. But those young Germans grasped at the My Lai massacre with an alacrity that astonished me. To them, the two hundred dead at My Lai canceled Auschwitz and Treblinka, six million murdered Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and dissenters. The message was, ‘See! You Americans are just as bad as we Germans were--maybe worse.’”

My Lai is in no way comparable to what the Nazis did. Let’s start with the fact that the killing was put to a halt when the American helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson stopped a reconnaissance mission to restore order at gunpoint. He even ordered his troops to shoot upon their fellow Americans if they did not cease and desist. That didn’t happen in World War II. Massacres were the policy of the Nazi regime.

Furthermore, the guilty platoon’s commanding officer, Lieutenant William Calley, was tried and convicted on 22 counts of premeditated murder and appeared on the cover of “Time” magazine with the headline—“Lieutenant Calley: Who Shares the Guilt?” My Lai was inexcusable, but it was not the Holocaust by any stretch of the imagination.

Ralph Peters also recognizes that the parallels drawn between My Lai and the Holocaust were self-serving and disingenuous, just as parallels between Iraq and the Blitzkrieg. They weren’t about any type of sympathy for the victims. They were about impugning the United States, and once and for all proving that Amis have replaced Germans as the new Nazis. He writes of the demonstrations that preceded the Iraq War:

“Then there were all the demonstrators waving signs equating the United States to the Nazi regime, as tasteless a display as Germany has managed since the last crematorium went cold. Once our tempers cooled, we realized that all these Nazi comparisons weren't really about us. It was all about you, your guilt and your evasions.”

I used to believe that these types of coping mechanisms probably surfaced about the time that Germany finally capitulated and the allies opened up the death camps for all to see. Prior to that moment, Germans had a degree of plausible deniability; they “didn’t know” what their government had been doing, so they weren’t responsible. I was wrong.

There is evidence that the same old spiel—the same coping mechanism—existed during the war, and even before the war. For at least seventy years, the message has always been the same—Don’t point the finger at us, you Americans are worse!

Just type “anti-Americanism” into any search engine, and you will turn up this image:

At first I didn’t notice the “SS” inscription in the lower right. It looks a lot like leftist propaganda from the 21^st century, but it’s actually Nazi propoganda from the 20^th centuy. It was actually intended to persuade occupied Holland that Americans were not liberators, and should be resisted. All of the familiar anti-American symbolism is there. The head is of a Klansman, and he dangles a noose over one of his many arms. America is a racist nation. One arm carries is gun, and one leg is a blood-soaked bomb. America is a violent, gun-obsessed nation that bombs its critics to smitherines. Another arm holds a bag of money. America is a nation of greed and materialism. On top of one shoulder is an American Indian. America is a nation built by raping and pillaging the native peoples. From the belt-line dangles a Star of David. America is a nation dominated by Jewish (Zionist?) interests. In the background stands Lady Liberty—a sick joke. The American behemoth is stomping all over a picturesque Dutch village. The message is clear—do you want this “liberator” from the crass New World to come to trample your Dutch heritage?

The script even existed before the Second World War. Gordon A. Craig, author of The Germans, has written of his first visit to Germany in 1935. The nation was firmly under the grip of Hitler, but hadn’t yet embarked on the war that would destroy the great nation. Most people in the country were still enthusiastically pro-Hitler, and those who weren’t didn’t say much. Craig writes:

“Now and then, in a restaurant or Kneipe, one might fall into conversation with a sympathetic person who suggested indirectly that he disapproved of the anti-Jewish policy. But even those persons who were apt to slide away into exculpation of one kind or another, commenting irrelevantly that, after all, Hitler had solved the problem of unemployment, or that his foreign policy had restored Germany’s self-esteem, or that he didn’t know about the anti-Jewish excesses, which were the work of his subordinates. It was unwise to argue back, for that was likely to lead to references to lynching in the United States, or to the lack of real civilization on the other side of the Atlantic.” (p. 9)

In the midst of the Second World War, Nazi propagandists were trying to accentuate the sins of America in order to erase the sins of Germany. Whatever Germany might do, America has done worse. Gordan A. Craig encountered the message in Germany as far back as 1935. Ralph Peters encountered this message in Germany in the 1970’s. Bruce Bawer encountered it in the 1980’s, and I encountered it in the post-September 11^th era.

In all cases, the person making the argument expects to be taken seriously, as if the argument is fresh, as if he is the first to have ever said such a thing. In reality, it is stale and as stupid today as it was 1935. Lynching in the American South does not erase, alleviate, excuse, justify, or mitigate the Holocaust. Neither does My Lai.

America is not the new Nazi Germany. President Reagan was not the new Hitler, and neither is President Bush. I know that they disagree with the policies of both presidents, but I never understood why they couldn’t just disagree, rather than accuse both of being the new Hitler of their ages. Or perhaps, I understood all too well—they made the accusation because the parallel made them feel better about themselves.

I don’t ask forgiveness from such Germans, because I never asked for their judgement in the first place. Nonetheless, they seem intent to give it to me…ad naseum. Honestly, I respect the Germans for their culture, and for the way that they rose like a phoenix from the ashes of defeat. I’ve dedicated an enormous part of my brain to Germany, in an attempt to understand who they are and why they came to be the way that they are. Unfortunately, they rarely do the same for me.

Comments

[kennon]

As an American who's been living in Leipzig for 2 years now, all I can say is "das stimmt"!

While many Germans I've talked with may not "personally" agree with everything the German media spews out against America, the damage is already done, since it has somehow built a common emotional response to the US Government that seems to be shared almost universally here. When pressed, most of the people I speak with do not really know much at all about it, and I have actually yet to meet someone who I would describe as "anti-American" - but almost everyone just takes as fact that President Bush is evil and the war in Iraq is just about oil, with virtually no deeper understanding of the situations.

I think this whole issue is a symptom of being the "biggest kid on the block", in terms of global mindspace. I'm always slightly embarrassed at the intense coverage on the German news of every little thing that happens in the USA.

It also feels like an attempt by a "younger sibling" to exert independence from an older brother (i.e., the Germany that the USA had "under its wing" during the Cold War)

Sometimes, though, I just wish I weren't from Texas. As soon as someone ask me where I'm from, it invariably immediately launches into a misinformed interrogation about my political views vis a vis President Bush. *sigh*

[kennon]

I also doubt that the media bias is somehow intentional - vague anti-Americanism plays on that shared emotional response, and covers of Stern or Der Spiegel like any of the fine examples from the sidebar on the right sell copies.

I think the same thing happens in the USA; the main difference is that there you have both sides of any issue selling their own biased version.

For instance, I'm not a big fan of most of the Michael Moore documentaries, but I am very glad he's there, making his extremely biased (and sometimes childish) films in a context where you can watch them back to back with an extremely biased film from the other side, and maybe somehow come up with some sort of balanced opinion in the middle.

Unfortunately, there is no other side in Europe (at least in popular culture), and so many Europeans (at least the vast majority of those that I've spoken with) are left with an extremely slanted view of American life.

[John F. Opie]

Hi -

Great post, Mr. Duffy!

I've been living in Germany for 22 of the last 26 years (six years, then four back in the US, and have been here since). I did my advanced degree in Germany, in German, in political science as well.

German anti-Americanism is a curious thing. It has roots in German romanticism, German literature and in the virulent hatred of the German nobility to the French revolution, which they saw as being instigated by the American revolution. Deep, deep historical roots.

What you also must understand is the financing of anti-Americanism in West Germany during the cold war by the KGB and by its partners in the Warsaw Pact, especially the East Germans. It wasn't merely anything like paying for pamphlets or the like - they did that plenty - but more fundamentally it was the acquisition and financing of agents of influence, as well as the financing of virtually all left-wing student groups. The virulence of anti-Americanism is something that the newspaper editors of today learned at the breast of their marxist-leninist masters of yesteryear, and don't think for a moment that today's journalists weren't radical leftists during their formative years (besides, it was *the* best way to meet babes/studs when you first came to the University. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise).

The problem, of course, is that they stayed that way. I've run into it outside of universities as well: the falsehoods and outright lies are there as well, promulgated by the German left in the SPD, Greens and whatever fringes there are out there. I've heard absurdities after absurdities (don't go to the US on vacation, the cops will shoot you if you have a broken tail light; don't go to study in the US, you could break a law without knowing it and you'll end up 20 years in jail; don't go to Harlem, the blacks will kill after raping, they do that because the whites won't let them earn money) from people who, when confronted, insist against all reason that their perception of the world is the only possible one.

Changing that isn't trivial: you've got literally decades of work ahead of you. My daughter once came home in tears because her teacher made fun of Americans (Amis: how I've grown to loathe that word, and I often ask Germans if I can then call them "Krauts"), ignoring the fact that she had one in her class. I made an appointment and confronted her with what she had done, and she was surprised: she hadn't thought about it at all, and didn't realize that she was not merely being insulting to my daughter, but was influencing an entire class of kids as well.

Didn't help much. I think my mistake was to have done it in private, rather than in a general teacher-parent conference in public. That'd been a more effective way, but then again, I'm too civilized to behave like a boor.

The only way to deal with this sort of decades-long indoctrination is to confront it and show publically the absurdity of what is being said; humiliating editors publically is harsh, but would go a long way.

John

[joe]

kennon,

Would you 3 or 4 examples of films you consider to from the other side that are as bias ad Moore's/

Thank you

[CynthiaBoston]

In a comparison of the historical sins of Germans and Americans, the common comparison is that of Nazism versus everything Americans have ever done, even as colonists just stepping off the Mayflower (and some things we haven't). Unfair comparison. The Germans started two world wars, gave birth to Nazism and the Holocaust (with a little help from their friends), indirectly gave rise to nuclear power and thus proliferation through the persistent fear, probably well-founded, that the Germans were preparing a "secret weapon" during WWII (although the entire question of Heisenberg is complex and ambiguous), and contributed greatly to the Cold War through East Germany. And that isn't even an exhaustive catalog of what they've done, since I, as opposed to the Germans, do not wake up every morning seeking their faults in history books or in the media.
Germans (and Europeans as a whole) should get a grip here. They accuse us of being ignorant of history. Leave Nazism and WWII alone, for the sake of argument. Hell, don't even take the Great War as a whole as a comparison. Just take Verdun and the Somme. Just take the Somme. About a million casualties in three days. I believe the first day of the battle of the Somme is a record for single-day casualties. Yes, European friends, get a grip on reality.

[CynthiaBoston]

Correction to my above post. Don't know the exact time frame of the casualties figure for the Somme, which lasted about five months. The point remains.

[Pogue Mahone]

well in fact there are several anti-Moore documentaries out there - exposes of his propaganda

And of course if you are an informed person you will have seen them

Now back to reality - Moores vision of AmeriKKKa was lauded at Cannes as the BEST PICTURE ( not documentary mind you ) - and seen by many millions

It was big hit in Europe

And who see's the other anti-Moore film...hardly anyone

You see - its not enough that there are two versions of the facts out there...the blunt reality is that most Germans only see one side of the story

And this is why Euro's are always harping on Fox news as an example of Bias

Even if Fox was just a right wing propaganda organ, which it is not, it would still prove that there is a variety of viewpoints in the US media - and not the lockstep one story you get in Europe

[joe]

PM.

Name 3.

Thanks

[grlzjustwant2havefun]

There you go, Joe, if there are, they aren't getting the play/celebration.

There is, tho, a movie about FoxNews that was used as a fundraiser. I don't seem to recall any sort of movies about ABC/NBC/SEEBS/CNN/MSNBC.

---

Ami means friend in french, no?

How sweet to call us that! You could really have some fun w/that - so refreshing to call me friend, you're so unlike the usual Krauts I meet!

And anyone how harps on FoxNews doesn't understand demos. Only over 1 million people a day watch it, there's 300 million of us, do the math.

[grlzjustwant2havefun]

Let's get to brass tacks - when was Germany ever our "friend" much less "good friend and historic ally?"

We defeated them 2x in the last century.

[grlzjustwant2havefun]

Whooooohooooooo - this should start some fun, via No Pasaran:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200702010002

O'REILLY: People are going to be rounded up, and they shouldn't be. This is what happens in a war.

But Angela Merkel's supposed to be a friend -- the chancellor of Germany -- is supposed to be a friend of the USA. Do you think this was some overzealous left-wing prosecutor doing this?

SCHEUER: Well, that's what it turned out to be in Italy. I'm not sure what the game plan is in Germany, sir. I don't -- I really don't know that much about German politics.

But I think, at the end of the day, the duplicity of the Germans will come through. Most of the Europeans are rather duplicitous. They're more than willing to take the information the CIA has gathered from these people to protect their countries, but they're not willing to avoid playing politics with the career of CIA officers who risk their lives.

--

Typical Euro-freeriders.

[Paul]

Thanks for your post, Mr. Duffy.

The sarcastic caption of the propaganda poster reads: "De U.S.A. zullen de Europeesche Kultuur von den andergang redden" ("The USA is supposed to save European culture from destruction").

How ironic, because the USA in fact did.

You'd think that even back then, in the midst of war, Europeans would have seen the poster for what is, a sick document of bigoted hatred. But many did not and many still would not.

The social pathology that gave birth to the Nazi movement did not end with World War II. Anti-Americanism has become not just respectable in wide circles of German society, but a key part of some Germans' identity. Whether neo-Nazi, left-wing SPD, fundi Green, or Bavarian Blut-und-Boden conservative, the politics may change but the underlying malice and ressentiment are the same.

That said, I wouldn't judge the Germans (or the Canadians or other nations) too harshly for not sending troops to Iraq.

I detest Schroeder for his populist exploitation of anti-American sentiment, French and German fancy footwork at the U.N., one-sided criticism of American foreign policy while passing over Saddam's crimes in silence--many of the things discussed here. And why shouldn't German intelligence have passed on information to the U.S. that could have saved thousands of Iraqi and American lives?

But the Iraq war, in its conception and implementation, has been fought more on the basis of illusion than reality. At this writing, and may I be proven wrong, it looks like its conclusion, like Vietnam, will be ambiguous at best.

[grlzjustwant2havefun]

Paul - the Germans are constrained by their surrender agreement.

[Mir]

A very good article. Thanks for that. Unfortunately, I'm having difficulties myself to understand my compatriots. It's not only Anti-Americanism, but a whole ideology that's ruining not only our relations with our friends, but also (old) Europe as a whole.

[Sagredo]

"anti-Americanism is a curious thing. It has roots in German romanticism, German literature and in the virulent hatred of the German nobility to the French revolution, which they saw as being instigated by the American revolution. Deep, deep historical roots."

I really learned something new from this comment by 'John'.

Another, and similar, important historical fact is that so many democratically minded Germans emigrated to America after the European counter-revolutions of the early 19th century. Parents tend to educate children in heir own intellectual image; thus this emigration depleted what should have been Germany's normal democratic heritage.

John's other comments were also very useful. I would disagree on only one point. He says: "The only way to deal with this sort of decades-long indoctrination is to confront it and show publically the absurdity of what is being said; humiliating editors publically is harsh, but would go a long way." My experience suggests that editors (and scribblers in general} are un-humiliate-able.

[FranzisM]

Well there´s still the option to check the political declarations of the Nazis on international relations, and look who might agree with them.

"... Bono (V2)..." ROBL

[Jabba the Tutt]

When I lived in Germany, I tried using humor to pop the bubbles of the pompous, self-righteous, know-it-alls. I used to tell them I've heard all of that anti-American crap already, in the States. Then asked why they even have to import their Anti-Americanism?

Taking a page from Christ's book, let's try returning hate with love. Here's a link to a pic of Frankenmuth, Michigan, which attracts a million plus visitors a year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bavarian_Inn.jpg
This is how the Amis learn about Germany, that and Oktoberfest. The less Americans know the truth, the better for Germany.

[Pamela]

Sagredo, you can read more here.
A Genealogy of Anti-Americanism
The poet Nikolaus Lenau, sometimes referred to as the "German Byron," provided the classic summary of the anti-American thought of the romantics: "With the expression Bodenlosigkeit [rootlessness] I think I am able to indicate the general character of all American institutions; what we call Fatherland is here only a property insurance scheme." In other words, there was no real community in America, no real volk. America's culture "had in no sense come up organically from within." There was only a dull materialism: "The American knows nothing; he seeks nothing but money; he has no ideas." Then came Lenau's haunting image, reminiscent of Pauw's picture of America: "the true land of the end, the outer edge of man."

This piece is a precis of his book, Reconstructing America: The Symbol of America in Modern Thought .

It is the best thing you will ever read on the genesis and evolution of anti-Americanism.

And may I say to whoever thought up the idea for bookmarks when designing a browser, Yahweh will bless you.

[RayD]

Actually, I just read Scheuer's book on Al-Qaeda and he makes it quite clear that he has no illusions about Europe's base anti-Americanism.

[Sagredo]

Pamela-

Thanks for the reference to A Genealogy of Anti-Americanism. A terrific article. I have put the book on my Amazon shopping list.
The ideas discussed in the article lie at the very basis of the problems to which medienkritik is devoted.

The author assumes, however, that this visceral and deeply rooted disease (transmitted by Europe most notably to the Japanese racial militarists and to the precursors of our modern Islamofascists prior to WW2) can be cured if we all--presumably the well-educated people--just reason together, think clearly, etc., etc. I feel certain that this is impossible. Just read the history of anti-Americanism as outlined in this article--it is all the product of the most highly educated classes.

What can and will put an end to this disease is modern technology, i.e. the internet, blogs like this one, and so on. When all peoples can communicate directly, and obtain direct unbiased news about each other--then the ideals of American Democracy (social, cultural as well as political) will be irresistable and become truly irreversible, and universal.

[Pamela]

@Sagredo
I feel certain that this is impossible

I heartily agree. A man cannot be reasoned out of what he was never reasoned into.

But all pathologies have a function and my hypothesis is that the function of anti-Americanism is to support a particular self-identity. I haven't worked it out more thoroughly than that but I do continue to work on it.

When all peoples can communicate directly, and obtain direct unbiased news about each other--then the ideals of American Democracy (social, cultural as well as political) will be irresistable and become truly irreversible, and universal.

Oh dear.

In the book you will read about some Americans in France, one of whom was Thomas Jefferson, noted for his physical stature. They were all invited to dinner at some muckity-mucks place. Sometime during the meal, one of the French started in on the degeneracy bit - everything from the New World is smaller, not as developed, blah blah blah. The Americans invited everyone at the table to stand which they did. All the Americans were taller.

Now don't you think that would have been notice BEFORE they sat down? They had in their possession 'direct and unbiased' information but it made no impact on their thinking - until they were directly challenged

[joe]

I always have to smile when Germans bring up FOX NEWS. I have found most have never watched FOX NEWS. Those who actually have watched have never done a comparison of coverage of the same story between say CNN and FOX or ABC and FOX. The contrast between CNNI and FOX is even greater. It is difficult at times to realize they are reporting the same story.

When these comments are made about the bias of FOX NEWS, I ask myself bias against whom? The Germans? The Europeans? I don’ think so. In fact, I dare say in a normal news cycle there are few if any reports about Germany.

If there is a bias at FOX NEWS, that bias is America and Americans are not the evil Germans have come to believe. These same Germans would like me to believe their own media does not have a positive bias toward Germany.

One would think there are sufficient problems in Germany to warrant the attention of Germans but this seems is not true. America becomes a great distraction for their own feeling of self-hater and self-fears. It is an emotional reaction to the shortcomings of the German soul.

Today a German can best be defined when it comes to America as the perfect combination of arrogance and ignorance.

Therefore I have to agree with the conclusions of Benjamin Duffy the criticism of FOX NEWS is nothing more than an attempt to justify their own bias. This effort is consistent with their efforts to justify their own history and their own actions.

[Sagredo]

I said "American Democracy (social, cultural as well as political) will be irresistable and become truly irreversible, and universal." to which Pamela responded:"Oh dear."

Well, I can understands that reaction. As phrased, without explanation, my words sound rather aggressively triumphalistic. But I certainly do not mean that everything that typifies America (truly typifies, not the malicious caricature of anti-Americanism) will be 'a good thing' to spread uniformly around the world. American culture is, with some notable exceptions, vulgar--in all senses of the word, good and bad. It is the culture of the masses--the fabled 'common man'. And this in large part what cultured people fear about it.

European societies are controlled by their elites, who 'know best' and know they 'are the best'. In the US this is not the case. Consider for example that the country has been politically center-right for many decades even as the overwhelming number of academics, artists,...intelligentzia, opinion leaders of all stripes, (all the 'good' people who know they are on 'the side of the angels') have been lefties. European leftists love to interpret this as due to the evil secret machinations of the capitalists.

In any case, American style Democracy (social, cultural as well as political) is still as revolutionary as it was 250 years ago; still as threatening to the world's elites. They hate and fear it--the true triumph of the common man. We can only pray that eventually, common taste will not triumph uniformly, the vulgar will not be uniformly vulgar in the negative sense of the word. I would hate to think of a world in which German Lieder and French Art Song have been completely eradicated by rock and rap music.

[Pamela]

Sagredo, my 'oh dear' was actually about this portion of your comment:
When all peoples can communicate directly, and obtain direct unbiased news about each other--

Several times I have posited on this blog that the European history of class from feudal hierarchies onward are very determanative in the scorn Europeans feel compelled to direct toward Americans.

But I have no time to elaborate on that now. My sister is about to arrive.

*sigh*

I swear my parents adopted that woman.

[Pamela]

Sagredo, et. al., I suggest we continue this conversation on the Anti-Americanism: Essential for European Identity thread.