THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
02/15/02 -- Vol. 20, No. 33
El Presidente: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
The Power Behind El Pres: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
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Topics:
Note on VOID Schedule
European Anti-Americanism (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
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TOPIC: Note on VOID Schedule
This week's issue is being sent early due to Boskone, even though
dated Friday, February 15. Next week's issue will be sent on
Friday as usual (February 22). [-ecl]
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TOPIC: European Anti-Americanism (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I have been reading from several different sources about the new
acceptability of anti-Americanism in Europe. Anti-Semitism and
anti-Zionism have been linked and fairly common in world media for
a long time but anti-Americanism has been mostly separate.
However, the United States's support of Israel has caused most of
the Middle East to link America and Zionism and that connection
has been readily picked up by Europe, so that the three "anti"
ideologies have become connected. Some of the same engines that
pull anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism pull anti-Americanism and the
three are acceptable in much of the world, not excluding the
United States.
An article in the October 1, 2001, BUSINESS WEEK reported on some
of the international reaction following the September 11 attack.
A caller to Radio France Internationale asked, "What is so special
about the American dead? Millions have died in Africa, but they
never left messages on answering machines since they were too poor
to have cell phones." In China one of the electronic bulletin
boards complained, "They are constantly intervening in other
countries' affairs. This is an opinion shared by all my co-
workers." These two people may think that they agree, and they do
as far as whom they are complaining about, but their complaints
are really diametrically opposed. One complains because the
United States is not intervening enough in Africa; one complains
that the United States intervenes too much. This is the price of
being the leading military superpower. Once you have the power to
shape other countries' affairs you are damned if you do and damned
if you don't. Some people want the United States to police the
world, others want them to stay out of other countries' business.
It is impossible to please both camps.
I was in Australia during the East Timor crisis in 1999. This was
the furthest I had ever been from the United States,
geographically if not culturally, and not far from the opposite
point on the globe from my home. People were dying in nearby East
Timor as the Indonesian government was trying by any means
necessary to hang onto control. The Indonesian military was
committing atrocities against people of the pro-independence
movement. This was a very near neighbor of Australia. And
Australians I heard on the radio were irate. Why wasn't the
United States doing anything to stop the killing? Why weren't
they sending in troops? Does it not matter to the Americans
because it is not in their part of the world? These people had no
expectation that their own government had any responsibility
either because of geography or morality. If my understanding is
correct, Australia did eventually intervene, but only after it was
clear that the United States would not be the world's policeman in
this affair. Any tragedy that the United States had the power to
avert but did not avert is the fault of the United States. If the
United States does try to intercede and fails, as it attempted to
in Somalia in 1993, it is condemned for its failure. It is
interesting that this complainer is French. France is a country
that has no small reason to be grateful to the United States after
two World Wars the last century. France's own incursions in the
African continent have been less than benevolent. But he assumes
that if there are so many dead in Africa it has to be the fault of
the United States.
One of the chief charges against the United States is cultural
imperialism. The complaint is that McDonalds and American movies
are invading so many foreign countries and taking healthy root. I
admit myself to be disappointed to go to Hong Kong and see
McDonalds was a going concern there. But their tactics did not
appear to be at any time be using force to get customers into the
store. McDonalds is profitable in Hong Kong because there are
large numbers of people in Hong Kong who want to eat at McDonalds.
The best way to avoid having to eat a McDonalds hamburger is
simply not to buy one. This is by no means a "conversion by the
sword." The only thing forcing this product on people is its
popularity. The same goes for Coca-Cola and Sylvester Stallone
movies. The United States has just had a very successful century
at least economically and Europe has responded first with a sort
of cultural pride and even arrogance, and by trying to copy the
united states concept by uniting their own states and creating
their own single currency. This is imitation and implicitly the
sincerest form of flattery. To remain even-handed they must
counter the unavoidable compliment with criticism. They want
Europe to be a single economic giant like the United States, but
the United States has done it wrong in dozens of ways they are
happy to list and they are going to do it right. They begrudge
the United States its economic success while trying to emulate it.
Much of Europe are those who want to remain even-handed and take a
middle view between the American view and that of the people who
are anti-American. But the gap where they are standing is
becoming wider by the month. To stand between the policies of the
United States and those people rabidly opposed to those policies
one has to make oneself half-rabid. As they continue to stand
halfway in that widening difference we can expect to see them move
further and further away. [-mrl]
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Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Congress - these, for the most part, illiterate
hacks whose fancy vests are spotted with gravy,
and whose speeches, hypocritical, unctuous, and
slovenly, are spotted also with the gravy of
political patronage.
- Mary McCarthy
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