Dig Deeper

Christopher Dickey. American Dream, American Nightmare – US Nationalism Run Amok. Dickey, CFR member, long-time fluffster and "left" leaning writer has been around a while. I remember his "exposé" products during the '80s era of Contra, Corruption, and Crooks.

From his Paris apartment Newsweek's Dickey parses and pusses around with words in this fluff piece on nationalism versus patriotism using Orwell definitions. "The nationalist's thoughts "always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations." (So do soccer games and the Super Bowl. Politics. Beauty pageants. Job promotions.)

But for a couple of statements in the article I would have ignored the piece and surfed on to read elsewhere. But a few words, as often does in fluff like this, irritated my craw; specifically his use of adjectives and the nouns they describe.

Dickey: "Is Israel’s current strategy of crippling the rudimentary infrastructure of Gaza, forcing one million people to suffer for the kidnapping of one Israeli soldier, in any way proportional? No, nor humane, nor very relevant to winning his release. But it fits into a nationalist narrative that says the only way to deal with Palestinians is to hand them one humiliating collective defeat after another.

And in the same paragraph: "… a Muslim fanatic’s slaughter of innocent Israelis…"

Are not Israeli racists slaughtering innocent Palestinians? Guess not, Israel is merely "crippling" the "rudimentary" (primitive) infrastructure of Gaza. Palestinians "suffer … humiliating … defeat." Muslims slaughter innocent Israeli. Oh, I see the difference.

Dickey fluff on Americans: "We pushed westward because we wanted to have land, which was almost free, and we wanted to have the freedom to forget whatever histories bound us to the past. Ours has become a society based on "having" in a way that's almost indistinguishable from "the American dream," or indeed, "the pursuit of happiness." There’s no need to apologize."

"No need to apologize" … where have I heard that before. Native genocide and slavery were for "freedom… and land ... which was almost free." Ummm, I see.

Dickey: "In Africa, the forces of tribally based nationalism constantly threaten the future of a continent…" And, it was "in Balkans in the 1990s, this history-driven, blood-driven nationalism can become brutally racist and explosively xenophobic: we belong, you do not." I see, Africa, whose borders were drawn up by white folks, threatens itself with nationalistic tribalism (the need to belong). Has nothing to do with white folks still arming, financing, and backing "warlords"?

America has a much neater method for the "we belong, you do not" crowd - i.e. white flight, institutionalized racism, gutting New Orleans, prison industrial complex, the legal system, drugs to the ghetto, 2 textbooks to a classroom, illegal labor, outsourcing, 7 knucklehead patsies from Miami, Viacom/BET, etc.

Basically Dickey claims there's a difference between cultural needs of "belonging" versus "having." Dark-skinned and/or Muslim folks prefer "belonging" and Americans/Anglo with "having," which I guess explains "ever-strengthening sectarian and racial nationalisms" over there. Does that mean Arabs prefer to "belong" to violent sects rather than "having" materialism and peace? Remember, psycho-babble experts agree US gang members (black and brown) have a deep need to "belong." Would that mean gangs are culturally "having" to "belong" in their pursuit of happiness? Silly Dickey.

Mindless 5-minute-to-write fluff and crap articles/columns like US Nationalism Run Amok feed the semi-schooled, potentially critical, small group of progressive hungry Americans who read it as the voice of "opposition" speaking for them. Voices presented as serious political analysts - but Dickey is damn near as entertaining as Olbermann, Stewart, and Colbert.