Anti-American

Bene also asked yesterday

And what does anti-american mean? Is it more than one thing?

There are three levels where the phrase can be used. The weakest level is to make anyone opposed to the Bush administration's foreign policy "anti-American." In a global geopolitical sense, it might be seen as such, but doesn't necessarily mean that the person hates America; they can think its a great place with great people, but they think Dubya has his head stuck up his rump on Iraq. Using it here is a bit bogus.

The second level, one that would only be marginally fair, is where the person disagrees with long-term American policy in general, of promoting a individualistic, free-market, Christian-flavored-but-tolerant-of-other-faiths system that wants the rest of the world to be likewise. Many on the left (or even what passes for the right there) in Europe would fall into this camp, where their secularism, collectivism, and status-quoism makes the American system unattractive. They don't hate America per se but resent a growing hegemon wanting to spread their chaotic and moralistic system around the world. To pull out a Blogosphere special, they're more anti-Anglospherian than anti-American.

I try not to use that phrase for this bucket, but do so on occasion; that link was after John LeCarre's commentaries, but I've also used it at the Congress party in India a couple of times. In the context of the Cold War, that might almost have been fair. However, your typical European left-of-center politician is more anti-Anglospherian than anti-American and doesn't quite deserve that level of opprobrium.

The third level, where the phrase would be fully fair is where the person actively dislikes western culture and small-s secular market democracy; the modern jihadi would fit that mold, as I used it here. Those folks might be better described as anti-Western, but since the US is the biggest kid on the western block and has the lion share of troops interacting with the jihadis, anti-American is the label of choice, often self-applied.

Does it have a different meaning when used against US citizens versus the rest of us?

Yes. People are quicker to apply that to foreigners than Americans. For instance, John Kerry would not get that label merely for being a critic of Bush's policies, while a protester chaining himself to a fence to protest all the evils of America's socio-economic-political system might get the label. Conversely, if Jacques Chirac or Paul Martin were to echo Kerry's critique, the anti-American label might get trotted out.

It is a word that is used a great deal on Republican blogs and is pretty much directed at anyone of any persuasion that disagrees with the blogger.

Is is a label of personal choice or are there some solid definitions?

A lot depends on what you define as America. If you have a narrow definition of America=American conservative values, then there are a lot of anti-American folks; even folks like Bene who are merely skeptical of some stands rather than outright opposed to them can get tarred with that brush by the more zealous folks on the right. Folks who actually opposed Bush's policy in Iraq and his economics will get even more flamage, as they start to straddle the first and second definitions above.

Comments

[Bene Diction]

Forgive me for not sending you the invitation I sent out to the two other bloggers. I don't have your email addy, it got lost in the computer crash last month.
Thanks for taking time to respond to the shout out.