Anti-Americanism didn’t begin with George Bush and it won’t end with an Obama presidency

I am always amazed by whatever Lawrence Solomon writes. I don't know why - but he manages to cut through the brown stuff. This article is no different for it addresses a deep need that we all have - to be liked. Solomon seems to be saying "don't hate the lion for acting like a lion".

Consider his comments:

I first noticed anti-Americanism abroad as a teen from Canada living in Paris in 1967 — Americans were commonly held in contempt in the 5th Republic of Charles De Gaulle (1958-69), who glorified France by slurring the U.S., and who explicitly sought to undermine U.S. stature in the world. As was popular among French intellectuals, De Gaulle decried America’s “arrogance of power” and its soulless materialism.

This French attitude demonstrates their parochial attitude of an empire they never really had.

With the general exception of the then-Communist countries, the sentiment — at least among the reform-minded people I tended to associate with — was overwhelmingly anti-American. The bitter criticisms of the U.S. often confused me. Anil Agarwal, a prominent environmentalist (now-deceased) from India for whom I had the greatest respect, decried the “Coca Cola-ization” of the Third World (this was circa 1980 — today we would call this “globalization”).

But why blame Coca Cola or America? Anil never did answer in a way I found satisfying, other than expressing a discomfort that the U.S. had become too powerful, that its corporations’ reach had become too extensive, that the U.S. presence had gone too far.

It is called "envy". It is one of the vices and shows the pettiness of so many politicians who can not even dream of the freedoms of America.

The most enduring of the stereotypes that denigrate the U.S. is that of the Ugly American, a best-selling book that came out in 1958, and then became a Marlon Brando movie. This American is loud and tasteless, insensitive to other cultures. A boor, and not one in uniform, the ugly American came to represent the American tourist above all, but also corporate big-wigs and stay-at-home slobs.

Finally, America is loathed because its brand of free-market capitalism remains ascendant, having outperformed European-style socialism and utterly defeated Communism, ideologies that attract many if not most of the world’s intellectuals. More than two centuries since its founding, the U.S. shows no sign of losing either its economic or military supremacy.

Very true - and the closing comment by Solomon is also frustrating.

America will be America after Nov 4. Anti-Americanism is safe.