L/D Sideline: Michael Moore and Internationalism
WARNING: HIGH FLAME CONTENT.
SERIOUSLY. YOU SHOULD PROBABLY GO AWAY.
OK, you asked for it…
No American has done more to screw his countrymen abroad recently than Michael Moore.
This trip was the third time I’ve had to deal with the impression that clown has created of American conservatism. A Canadian au pair, a South African working in Britain, a (former) pharmacology student from New Zealand doing a post-graduation world tour, all got most of their ‘education’ on American conservatism from that lying @#$-clown. So I don’t get any time to articulate my own positions, I instead have to get back to zero by refuting all the crapflooding he’s done.
The world’s superficial understanding of America does really bad things for our world image already — how could it not, when most of their knowledge of American culture comes from Hollywood? Moore has capitalized on that superficial familiarity to make his fortune and gain fame selling distilled hyper-leftism and fomenting what often transforms into hatred of America at the international level. He’s got the right to do it (and as a capitalist, he’s quite good at marketing his product), but that doesn’t make it any less of a disgrace.
Furthermore, if the world expects America to respect its opinion, engage in reasoned, honest debate, and not resort to juvenile bullcrap like the Freedom Fries fiasco, it is about darned time that it accord us the same courtesy.
By this point, the reflexive and inflexible nature of much of the world’s anti-Americanism is crystal clear to anyone paying attention — it’s just like baseball fans hating the New York Yankees, purely because they’re on top. (As a confirmed Yankee-hater myself, it hurts to admit that. But much of what the Yankees do as a franchise, including Steinbrenner’s antics, would be mildly amusing at best if they were the Kansas City Royals.) Rational critiques of our foreign policy (and there are good ones out there) are being overwhelmed by the masses that spout off about “AmeriKKKa” or the “Nazipublicans”, not unlike when I go off about the Detroit Red Wings being spawn of Satan. The thing is, I’m not taking myself seriously then, but they are deadly serious.
It’s about time to get some give-and-take back into the equation, and for people outside the States to acknowledge the basic facts about why America does what it does. (A good start comes in the 21 January 2004 (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) The Age: They like Bush, and they are not stupid. (Hat tip: Tim Blair.)
American liberals have their own role to play in this, by not proclaiming unquestioning deference to foreign opinion (as most of the Democratic presidential front-runners have done, by promising they will get approval from the UN before using the American military). Because of our limited experience as a nation with foreign travel and foreign culture, we tend to fetishize the foreign — shoot, one look at the rack of soccer jerseys in my closet would convict me of this as much as anyone. They’re cool because they’re foreign, not unlike the people who wear T-shirts with Japanese kanji characters on them and think those are cool because they’re foreign. But that’s not a rational method for constructing foreign policy, and all it does is encourage those who wish America ill.
“I warned you, but did you listen? Noooooo!”
This article is dated as of the time I actually finished writing it (other than one addition), not its posting time, partially so it stays off the front page. Commenters: be civil, or I will zap you without mercy. This is my house, I’m the only one who gets to do things like this here.
30 December 2003 / 4 Comments / Tags: politics, media, travel