Letters to the Editor
-
the change in our behavior is NOT fundamental
The shift has occurred because Bush has removed the velvet glove from the iron fist. He has used military force to overtly defend our empire, instead of using economic coersion as previous presidents did.
Just look into the World Bank, the "Washington Concensus" and their role in poverty creation and resource extraction. See Perkins' "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" or the works of Walden Bello. Economic imperialism is too well documented to deny or even argue.
Bush HAS changed how we conduct ourselves, but the change has not been fundamental.
-
It's not the Bush Presidency...
The reason why our position has altered -- permanently, in my view -- is not the US's terrible bahavior over the last six years. Rather, the reason is the 2004 election and the associated public support for Bush's policies.
In the past when our government mis-behaved, people in other countries gave us the benefit of the doubt, and were often proved correct: the American people would not long suffer tyranny on their behalf.
But under Bush, the American people explicitly embraced tyranny on their own behalf, thus revealing a hateful side of our national character that we had not revealed quite so clearly before.
The difference in our standing in the world is that we showed people that the American people were in fact capable of hate, tyranny, selfishness, torture, etc.
Don't blame Bush. He didn't re-elect himself.
-
1968?
Antiamericanism in Europe that year was a tidal wave. I don't suppose that our purported ideals counted for much as large chunks of the French population under the age of thirty was rioting. After all, Ho Chi Minh liked to quote Thomas Jefferson too.
-
Ummm?
The dearly departed Billmon last year observed...
Has Billmon actually "left the building" for good? Perhaps you know something we don't but we can hope it's just a prolonged hiatus or extended sabbatical.
-
Billmon
Has Billmon actually "left the building" for good? Perhaps you know something we don't but we can hope it's just a prolonged hiatus or extended sabbatical.
As far as I know, he has only departed the blogospheric plane, not the earthly plane.
-
It's not just the behavior; it's the attitude
Glenn, you're dead-on in writing that before Smirky and Darth, the world's opinion of America was nuanced, understanding that for all our mistakes, the good outweighed the bad.
But I think there's another huge change since 2000.
Before The Usurpation, the world saw America expose its mistakes, admit them, punish wrong-doers, make statutory and Constitutional changes to correct those mistakes, and struggle to do better next time.
It may have been slow (civil rights), it may have been imperfect (allowing Nixon to resign instead of imprisoning his ass), it may have been overcompensating (the left's aversion to all things military after Vietnam), but it was always in good faith and in the open.
The problem since 2000 is not just the war crimes and treason committed by this maladministration, but the absolute refusal by the opposition party, the press and the citizenry to hold malefactors accountable.
It's the bushies' "fuck you" attitude the world can't take.
-
On a further note...
The dearly departed Billmon last year observed that the Bush administration has "forfeit(ed) forever its ability to chastise the human rights abuses of others without triggering a global laughing fit."
I think Bernhard is only minimally correct about the information revolution. The plain fact of the matter is right there in Billmon's statement last year. It's what used to be called "plausible deniability".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausible_deniability
Perhaps America has behaved pretty much the same since the 50's when we started toppling democratically elected popular governments around the globe because they were too far to the left for our liking. IOW, saying one thing and doing the exact opposite. We always had "plausible deniability". The doctrine of plausible deniability was not so much dispensed with, this bunch lacks the finesse, nuance or patience and just doesn't care.
-
Thank you
I just wanted to add my thanks to you Glenn, for so often putting into words what I cannot.
My frustration renders me unable to adequately respond to charges that I somehow 'hate America'. It seems all I can reply with is "! But I do hate your vision of America!"
Everything the Bush administration and its enablers have done and cheered for these last 6 years has been completely contrary to what America stood for, and why I loved it.
Perception can trump reality for only so long, though it seems too long for my taste. That's one of the reasons I've read your blog since the day I was pointed in its direction - finally a collection of voices to know that I was not alone in seeing past the curtain of propaganda.
Also - on a different topic, just wanted to say I love the term "The Parrots of Versaille"... it just fits! I'm sorry I cannot recall the exact sequence that led up to it, but all have my thanks.
-
Behavior?
Would this administration have intervened in Bosnia? Did that use of leadership and military force diminish our standing in the world?
I think one of the things that works against us - and everybody - is that human nature shows a willingness to believe the worst about anybody. A good example is how, in the '80's, the KGB was able to spread rumors that we (the USA) were kidnapping Latin American babies for use as organ donors.
So when you make an asshole out of yourself, as is being done now, people are more willing to listen. It's hard to reverse that. I feel that is going to be one the major tasks of the next few administrations.
For an example of the point, I still see GWB's drinking brought up, even though he's been dry for years. We're going to have to deal with the damage wrought by GWB for years , long after he's left office.
-
This is why we MUST begin Impeachment investigations
We need to re-assert the constitution and show the world we reject this administration. Nothing else matters at this point, IMHO.
-
Abu Ghraib
"In the last six years, America's brutality, unrestrained aggression, and violation of our own professed values have been transformed from destructive aberration into our defining attributes."
Abu Ghraib provides perhaps the best example of why this is true. The photographs of sadistic and homocidal behavior were published extensively in foreign media--much more so than within the US. Perhaps more than any other single event or policy, the photographs from Abu Ghraib opened the world's eyes in shock, horror, and disgust.
As evil as Abu Ghraib was, it was followed by the Taguba investigation, with its calculated limited scope, and immediate removal of Taguba himself from the military, his career ruined. Listen to Taguba's recent speech before the Commonwealth Club of California (CSPAN). The handling of the scandal was nearly as shameful as the behavior itself, designed as it was to look no further up the chain of command.
I believe the Abu Ghraib revelations ocurred at the approximate midpoint of the period being measured by Pew, and those photographs cannot be spun, cannot be argued with, cannot be smoothed over.