It has become all the rage in some circles as of late to dismiss critics of American policy as “anti-American.” The purported poster-child of anti-Americanism is of course none other than Noam Chomsky, whose views are often criticized not because the historical claims he makes are false but because he dares to question the contrived stories that politicians and the talking heads of the media conglomerates try to pass off as the truth—a shell game made all the easier by an under-funded public education system. These misplaced charges of anti-Americanism ultimately trade on the fact that there are a number of distinct types of criticisms of America—some of which are anti-American, some of which are not.
For present purposes, I am only interested in two—the first of which truly is anti-American motivated as it is by an ideological rejection of representative democracy and the rule of law, and the second of which is motivated by a rejection of the historical uses and abuses of American power. The point of this post is to show that the latter view is in point of fact not anti-American at all but rather pro-American. It is only by conflating these dissociable ways of criticizing America, that the right can get away with dismissing out of hand people such as Chomsky who oppose not representative democracy, the Bill of Rights, a free and open press, universal suffrage, the rule of law, and the myriad of other non-market values that are requisite for a fully functioning democracy, but rather who oppose the seemingly unbridled show of military force that American politicians rely on to forward the corporate interests of the military-industrial-congressional complex that Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about as early as 1961.
Ironically, the people whose supposed anti-Americanism is driven by policy issues and not ideological objections are often staunch defenders of the fundamental principles of democracy, and hence they are staunch defenders of the greatness America could achieve if only the people could wrest control away from the forces that have appointed themselves as the masters of the hemisphere. If America were actually struggling to help spread democracy and political freedom throughout the world—rather than trying to set up puppet regimes that better serve corporate interests—many of the very people who get dismissed as anti-American would be on board so long as we were going about it in a peaceful manner. But as Chomsky himself points out, it is worth asking whether we would be in Iraq right now if their chief exports were “lettuce and pickles” rather than crude oil. The answer to anyone who happens to prefer honesty to make-believe is obviously “no” (think North Korea), but to merely pose the question is to be dismissed tout court as anti-American.
One can surely believe in the U.S. Constitution and the potential of America to serve as a beacon of democratic light for the world to see, and nevertheless think that we have throughout our history woefully failed to abide by our own ideals whenever doing so would fill the political coffers with cash from the corporations that stand to benefit from our prostituting our principles for profit. Chomsky merely suggests that the first thing we must do as citizens of the most powerful country on earth is to look carefully in the mirror—a painful but necessary first step towards insuring that we are a force of positive change in the world rather than a source of misery and pain for nearly everyone in the countries we “help” except those whose interests line up with the interests of the big businesses that control our country’s political purse-strings.
It is not the Chomsky’s of the world who are anti-American, it is the short-sighted, hypocritical, and greedy people who trample all over the U.S. Constitution in their make-believe effort to set up constitutional democracies in other regions of the world and yet who have the audacity to dismiss those who protest in constitutionally protected ways as weak and un-American. This is on par with telling the people who protest the current war that “if you don’t like this country, then why the hell don’t you move somewhere else?” Not only is this line of reasoning juvenile, but it is both anti-democratic and dangerous, suggesting as it does that dissent is somehow anathema to the American ideals of freedom and democracy.
Dissent concerning recent American policy decisions is not only the opposite of anti-American, it is essential if we as a people are to succeed in finally realizing the hitherto unfulfilled promise that America offers to the world’s weak and weary. Nevertheless, I fully expect that the same people who casually label those who dare to oppose the current administration’s policies as “anti-American,” will lack the intellectual integrity and insight to appreciate the irony that it is they who undermine the ideals and institutions that serve as the as yet unfertilized seeds of American greatness.
By my lights, the best way to defend the Chomsky’s of the world from the scurrilous charges of anti-Americanism is to turn these charges on their head by showing who the real enemies of the American ideals of freedom and democracy really are. For now, I thought it would be appropriate to quote from Eisenhower’s aforementioned farewell address to the nation in 1961, where we find the following prophetic warning:
[W]e must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Surely the denizens of the right won’t dismiss Eisenhower (who is one of their own) as anti-American. So, lest they are comfortable with continuing to talk out of both sides of their mouths—as they blindly pursue security and profit at the expense of liberty—I suggest they no longer use the “anti-American” label so lightly. It is a sword that I have tried to show cuts both ways. Whether I have succeeded remains to be seen.
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