The new America First 

By Ron Capshaw 
web posted October 29, 2001

As a historian studying and teaching the 20th century, I have
often thanked my lucky stars that I was not alive during the
Spanish Civil War. That conflict demanded some hard choices:
support the Loyalists, in spite of the support of the Stalinists who
took every opportunity to drain any democracy from the cause,
or support the rebellion, backed by the Nazis. I hope I would
have supported the Loyalists, but having learned about Stalinist
behind-the-lines purges courtesy of Orwell and Dos Passos, I
might have joined the neutrals -- a difficult position even stateside
with Catholics screaming at liberals and Communists over the
conflict. I would have then felt trapped between two extremes.

Such a dilemma is not thrust upon me by the September 11
attacks. The Left and Right have produced something far more
sinister. There is no screaming across the aisles. Instead,
elements of the Left and Right have joined together. Call them
the new America Firsters...blame America first.

That the academic Left expresses these sentiments is not
surprising. For years, as a graduate student, I have listened to
tenured professors, nurtured by the money of the "evil, fascist
American Empire," extol the virtues of anyone aligned against this
country. Stalin. Castro. Mao. All are worthy of academic
admiration as long as they are against this country. And all the
evils of the 20th century are America's fault. America's
encirclement of the Soviets provoked Stalin's repressive policies
at home. America caused Pearl Harbor. America economically
exploited Europe through the Marshall Plan. America caused Pol
Pot. America caused the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. And
now, having a seemingly inexhaustible desire for masochism,
America caused the September 11th attack. A Rutgers
professor: "we should be aware that, whatever it's proximate
cause, its ultimate cause is the fascism of U.S. foreign policy over
the past many decades." Dr. Edward Said, a tenured Columbia
professor, blames the September 11th attack on a rightfully-
earned US reputation among Middle East countries when he
states that "the official US is synonymous with arrogant power."

All of the evil amoral equivocations of the sixties-for example,
the United States is as bad as the Soviet Union-have now been
surpassed by the academic left. American actions are worse than
the September 11th attacks. Nation magazine writer Robert
Fisk: this attack supposedly pales in comparison to "American
missiles smashing into Palestinian homes"; David Reynolds who
states that the United States has engaged in "the worst kind of
terrorism" reveals something about the academic left that I have
suspected for quite a while: that their stands are motivated not by
a specific ideology so much as a knee-jerk anti-Americanism.
How else does one explain their refusal to blame the
fundamentalist terrorists, who, if they were American
fundamentalists, would be attacked without question by these
same academics?

And irony of ironies, they are joined by some figures on the right.
In a statement after the attack, Jerry Falwell implicitly elevated
the attackers to agents of God by representing the attack as
God's vengeance on a sinful country. Recently, Dr. Laura
Schlesinger praised the garb of Afghanistan women as an
expression of decency and then contrasted it with the American
women who "dress like whores." (Never mind that Afghanistan
women's garb is not so much clothing as "chains" fastened on
them by a misogynist regime that attempts to hide female
individuality as something shameful; and never mind that her
choice of description for American women sounds suspiciously
like a Taliban spokesmen).

Both segments of Left and Right concur that something is
desperately wrong with America. For the Left, the country is
fascist; for the Right, it is secular. Both are sins in the eyes of
these people. They differ in the areas they cast blame upon. But
the sentiment is still the same: a kind of reflexive anti-
Americanism.

Far different from 1938 when Right and Left attacked each other
over the Spanish Civil War. In this conflict, they have joined
together, knowingly or unknowingly.

This is Ron Capshaw's first contribution to Enter Stage Right.

Enter Stage Right - http://www.enterstageright.com