What will be left of America? (Kathimerini)

[struggle4progress]

Commentary

Kathimerini Greece | Nikos Konstandaras - Kathimerini
ATHENS

In the hurly-burly of our days, sometimes a certain image or a snippet of information manages to crystallize a complex issue and present its nuances in a way that large amounts of information usually cannot. This happens in the most unexpected ways. Last week, two American women broke through the fog and noise of the daily news routine like a burst of clear light before the wave of events swallowed them again. One, Marla Ruzicka, was killed in Baghdad last Saturday (April 16) when a suicide bomber drove into a convoy as she was passing. Ruzicka was in Iraq, as she had been in Afghanistan, campaigning for compensation for the relatives of civilians killed in the US invasion. The other, outrageous right-wing polemicist Anne Coulter, appeared on the cover of TIME magazine, along with the seemingly innocuous question: "Is she serious or is she just having fun?" (This refers to her insulting everyone to the left of Attila the Hun with inventive and obviously self-satisfied abandon.) <snip>

In this historical metamorphosis, America appears more divided than it has been at any time in its recent past. The quality of life and security of a wealthy democracy allowed people with very different convictions to get along, with all believing that they were part of a great nation whose historical mission was to spread democracy and freedom across the world. Triumph in two world wars had consolidated this belief. But the terrorist onslaught of 2001 awoke a sense of mortal insecurity in many Americans and stoked feelings of anger and revenge. The ensuing "war on terror" and the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq (with the ensuing cost in blood, money and political capital) acted like a fire which brings a seemingly uniform liquid to the boil and results in different substances crystallizing into very different forms.

One of the dichotomies is between Americans who are most self-assured in their sense of superiority with regard to the rest of the world and those who lament the fact that their country appears to be losing its way as the world's leading voice for freedom and enlightenment. <snip>

In a country suffering from division, Coulter exults in the schism. But this is an exhilaration that is based on fear. And at one point in her interview with TIME, Coulter confides that she is afraid she will be killed by a stalker. Reports from Baghdad said that when an American military doctor rushed to tend to Ruzicka, who had burns over 90 percent of her body, she said, shortly before she died, "I'm alive." <snip>

http://www.iht.com/getina/files/242028.html

Rather muddy analysis, but it's interesting to see an outsider trying to thrash through the mess ...

[bemildred]

1. Agreed, muddy.

But it's nice someone cares, and Coulter bashing is a duty
and an honor. Coulter is not fit to shine Ruzicka's shoes.

[Skittles]

3. I find it somewhat distasteful

to mention Ruzicka and bush whore coulter in the same article

[aneerkoinos]

2. Beware the Greeks

Kathimerini is the biggest right of centre bourgeois-paper in Greece. Eleftherotypia ( http://www.enet.gr/online/online_p1.jsp ), which is only in Greek on the net and is an independent leftist paper, usually has much less muddy analysis about US.

BTW in Greece all the TV-channels and most of media call the US president the "Planetarchis", often even in official news casts. I have my issues with Greeks, but one thing is clear: they are anti-tyrants, and recognice one when they see one.

[struggle4progress]

4. Thanks for this info.