Why America Bash?

First, let me clear one thing up. I am not convinced that the whole world America-bashes. I am not convinced there is seething hatred in every non-American’s heart for citizens of the United States of America. And, I think in this context people are talking about the USA, not the Western Hemisphere. However, we see a lot of stories about it – how Anti-Americanism is on the rise. Of course, the irony of it is, “on the rise” means other countries are only catching up with the size of our own wacko contingents, who are themselves Americans even as they bash Americans.

Nevertheless, let’s assume for the moment there IS Anti-USA building out there. Why would that be? What is it about a nation that promotes freedom, does 94% of the world’s charitable giving (according to the UN) and uses our might to give power to the “little people”?

If you haven’t figured it out... it’s that last thing.

There are a couple subtle concepts at work here, but see if they make sense to you.

First, I believe that people naturally tend to think everyone else’s life is largely like their own – or at least they try to put other people’s lives into their framework. How this applies is that we tend to think, for example, that because our “press” or news media is free, unbounded, and often completely out of control, every society’s news media or press is equally independent of its government. And we tend to quote those sources as though they were that free.

Second, if you consider it is possible (and I think it’s a lot more than “possible”) that governments outside our own exert more pressure on their news outlets (or outright control in many places) it becomes possible that there are government-based reasons for the news stories we see. We hear constantly that leaders support our initiatives, but then go to their news media and bash us “for public consumption”.

I think that’s sick, personally. Their own terms suggest they’re FEEDING these lies to their own people. Why would they do that? I think the concept is marginally complex, but boils down to this:

People see how free and wealthy we are as a people, and how powerful as a nation, and they feel inferior or even outright miserable by comparison. They need a reason for this disparity. They are told they need someone to blame, or they need a reason why we are worse than they are, because world leaders recognize we are the most dangerous thing to their positions. Unless they’re actually attempting to give power to the people, to promote the kinds of free enterprise and democracy that got us where WE are, they are suppressing their own people and are in danger of being exposed. If people thought we were RIGHT, they would demand changes until they could do what we’re doing (and believe me, we would not be the only superpower if more nations instituted capitalism over socialism).

So why would world leaders want to promote the USA as vile, when instead they could increase their country’s power (and ostensibly their own) by focusing instead on improving their own country? Yes, it would require that they admit they’ve been wrong, which they probably think they can’t get away with (though I think they could in a BIG way if they showed results to their people) but even more there is another irony: the power that the President has carries more responsibility and more scrutiny than any other leader in the world. The leader of a country, like (say) France can get away with increasing personal power and wealth through (say) illegal deals with dictators and tyrants like (say) Saddam Hussein.

Lastly, there is the suppression angle. This can be confusing, but I’m going to say it anyway. There are several kinds of “revenue models”. The four I can think of are: profit, non-profit, regulated, and governmental (for lack of knowing the right term, which might be called “forced or involuntary non-profit”). This post has gotten out of hand, so I will write the next one up and attempt to explain in my next entry. It is technically part of the America-Bash phenomenon, but there is enough here that I think I have explained my point:

People tell us we’ve brought this hatred upon ourselves, and in a way they are right. We are successful, we have given ourselves the tools to succeed, and we have refused to give in to suppression. Additionally, we have a section of our free population that spews out despicable imagery about our own country (false imagery, I am convinced) but it is distributed to the whole world, who then believes that all we are is what they’ve seen on that screen.

However, I contend that the real reason is world leaders promote America-Bashing (and it gets picked up by media outlets) because they can’t afford to have their own people admiring us and demanding that their countries emulate those parts of us which would make the people stronger. They require misery (it’s a term called “immiseration”) to focus the public’s attention, to keep them incapable of doing without an overseeing government, and (in short) to keep themselves in power.