Comments on: Anti-Americanism is Becoming Rife

By: Abelardo

Abelardo — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 09:49:14 +0000

Wasn’t that his point? Protests, boycotting etc are inane.

Nothing that you do will have any effect whatsoever. The last real event to shake up America was 9-11 and that was just awful.
Is that what it takes? I hope not.

By: anaj

anaj — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 09:23:54 +0000

Who is going to boycott the USAof A? Practically all countries (with the exceptions being Cuba, North Korea and Russia) are too afraid of their economical power, and Central Europe still feels indebted to them for bombing away Hitler.

And marches? Do you think anybody in the white house took note of the white linen that was put up as a sign of protest in seemingly every house in Europe during the first Gulf war?

As a matter of fact, Bush reportedly felt flattered by this caricature in the cover of German news magazine SPIEGEL:
http://www.tekla-szymanski.com/graphics/spiegel5.jpg

By: void

void — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 06:58:27 +0000

This makes sense to me:

http://www.dynamicbalancingtaichi.co.uk/Politics.htm

(There is an echo of Anaj’s sandbox on the second page).

The danger with politics and with business is that they take the partial view of things, which is understandable since no human can take every factor into account.

http://www.dynamicbalancingtaichi.co.uk/Truth.htm

Thinking big is the problem. Change must be small and it needs to happen on a one-to-one basis.

If you want to persuade America to pull out of the global sandbox, you need to change the American people. If they are unwilling to put up with the American militia and they do do something about it, there may be global change. It is their country, after all…

Meanwhile, global sanctions against America, boycotting products, marches etc - will these do anything?

By: skunkcabbage

skunkcabbage — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 22:31:16 +0000

Faust is a materialist, with one hell of a tutor.

By: skunkcabbage

skunkcabbage — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 22:25:52 +0000

I’m going to jump back in quickly. That last point about it being certain groups, powers, classes and ideologies that consider the rest of the world their sandbox (apt metaphor) is exactly right. I worry that when the discussion of America stays too general the specificity of pernicious hegemonic classes against whom we can organize and blinded subaltern classes whom we can organize (with) is obscured. It’s not, therefore, whether they’re are good Americans. It’s the old question, which side are you on? I’m with the world.

But I’ll own the fact that I’m an American, just like I own being white, and own being a male–two facts that grant me forms of privilege and power regardless of whether I ever asked for them, which I surely did not. America as represented by the bourgeoisie is terrifying and will be so until they’re interests, indeed, the interests of global capital, can be effaced.

What hurts is the feeling of impotence. But maybe it’s a pain that I can learn from?

As for Geothe’s Faust he never assumes the mantle of god. He is redeemed by the eternal feminine, or perhaps through his incessant striving, or maybe just because the game is fixed in the “prologue in heaven.” It’s unclear. What is clear is that like a good bourgeois he acts upon the idea that “What he perceives, that he may seize.” And dies savoring his “striving’s crown and sum.” Earthly to the last. Static heaven as a telos is going to be as limiting to the romantic mind as Faust’s study in Night.

By: anaj

anaj — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 16:25:58 +0000

Do not hate people - right, but once again, we are not dealing with individuals, and I honestly debate the statement that America turned its country into a battlefield. Go to Iraq if you want to see a battle field. It’s more like they’re making the rest of the world pay.

I don’t hate people - I guess hate (Abelardo brought that term in) is not what I feel, rather frustration and helplessness. One could say anger, yet I wouldn’t say it’s the type of anger one can get by by saying ‘let your anger go’. No simple recipes here.

And in any case, my frustration isn’t aimed at individuals. But please:

>Do not make them your enemies.

Sorry, but such ready-made advice is useless here. This is not a confrontation between individuals, this is about certain groups, powers, classes and ideologies that consider the rest of their world their sandbox. You don’t even get to choose whether you want to be an enemy or not.

By: void

void — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:20:55 +0000

And as for hatred. That is a tough one. I know people who claim to ‘fight for peace’. They go on Hate Marches (my name, not theirs) and protest various wars.
But they do not win people over with love, compassion, understanding…
They shout angrily, they wave fists in the air and vent their own personal frustrations. The march is about their own personal agenda, not the cause they are opposing.
You cannot fight for peace, and hatred is part of fighting because hatred is conflictive.
Peace comes when hatred stops, when conflict ceases, when war ends.
To finish wars, stop fighting. Stop hating.
Do not hate people. Do not make them your enemies. Instead, show them what they have done. Help them to understand. If they understand, they will feel shame.
Wars do not end wars. America paid for Hiroshima and Nagasaki by turning its own country into a battlefield and terrifying the whole world. The war never ended.

By: void

void — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:14:45 +0000

There are different kinds of things that we call fear.
Is it fearful to be apprehensive about fire, having once been burned?
Is that fear at all?
Is it not ‘common sense’, respect, based upon a cause-effect memory?
Your fear of America is understandable. The American militia has brutalised various ‘enemies’ because America is afraid of them.
See? This is a different kind of fear to yours, Anaj. What did America have to fear from the Vietnamese? Come on, they were peasants. Farmers.
America exists in a climate of fear, and if you believe the likes of Michael Moore, this fear is created by the US arms industry in order to make money.

By: anaj

anaj — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 08:15:11 +0000

And in any case: I AM afraid of America, so there you have your fear.

By: anaj

anaj — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 08:12:54 +0000

I am not even able to must a proper hatred, but if I were, I’d still say it’d be the appropriate response to Guantanamo. In myself, it’d probably manifest itself as disdain rather, yet there are certain things that are not acceptable, and I think that it _is_ acceptable to hate war.

To make up for the failed political system.