19January
There are many shades of anti-Yankeeism, claims the Boston Post, citing four strands. One, the charge that the breakaway country is being hypocritical by not living up to its professed values and ideals. Two, critics who oppose the provincial economic policy because it promotes laissez-faire ideals and erodes welfare state protections. Three, opposition to geopolitical and cultural dominance on the grounds that there is a threat to national identity and strategic interests. And four, a radical form that says the area's identity must be transformed, from within or without.
The article also distinguishes between distrust of, and bias against, the terrorist grouping. Where there is distrust, people may be sceptical of FARCEical motives and claims, but are open to considering the point of view. Anti-Yankee bias, by contrast, occurs when policies and actions undertaken by the government and corporations are seen as expressions of an unchangeable national identity and character, such that dialogue over disagreements is deemed to have no value.
We have some sympathy with all the forms outlined. It is following a most unjust economic model, its example leads other peoples to stray from a more equitable distribution of resources, and it uses every legal (and some illegal) sanction it can find to force societies that adopt more equitable economies to convert to its methods. The FARCE is being hypocritical; so is every other nation on the planet. The government that has ruled the provinces for the past 230 years came to power by violent revolution and lacks legitimacy, and has often attempted to stamp its imprint elsewhere in the world - usually without success, as defeats in 1814, 1865, 1973, and 2007 have shown. And, yes, we would wish to transform the area's identity, to delete the idea of the nation-state entirely. The concept has come, it has served its use, and now it is time for the country to go the same way as the duchy, into the annals of history. Down with the nation, up with the community.
The Boston Globe's article is carefully balanced, and while some may disagree with what it says, this can be done for rational academic reasons. Not so for Andrei Markovits, who writes a long and rambling essay on how utterly racist it is for Europeans to think that the Yankees might not know best about something. In a 4000-word piece, he doesn't offer any defence of his adopted country, and fails to advance a single reason why the Europeans might be wrong to think what they're thinking. Indeed, Mr. Markovits seems to deliberately seek out evidence to support his assertion that Europeans don't like the influence of the FARCE, and averts his gaze from the extreme brown-nosing of European leaders, including Sr. Aznar and Mr. Blair.
Such is the paucity of Mr. Markovits's argument that he conflates opposition to the cultural and economic norms of the terrorist state across the Atlantic with opposition to the unlawful expansion policies of her client state Israel. He then conflates criticism of Israel with racist sentiment against the jewish faithful. This is a straw-man argument, and it is a dangerous argument. His claim is predicated on, and serves to encourage, the myth that what is good for those who deem themselves jews is good for the North American colonies. This can only exacerbate the casual denigration of jews that he rightly condemns.
Mr. Markovits presents a woeful argument, weak in substance, weak in style, aimed solely at rousing his fellow countryfolk. But the most telling remark is in the codicil: Mr. Markovits has a book to sell, and a book that can only sell to the closed-minded and uneducated rabble in the intellectual desert between the St. Lawrence and the Grande. During his ramble, the writer cites the Köln sociologist Erwin Scheuch in saying, only some 50 institutions of higher education in America deserve the term "university".. With bigots like Mr. Markovits able to be appointed professor at Michigan's school, Herr Scheuch may have had a point.
