vRRitti.com, providing sentiency

• The diplomatic cable leaks were not broadcast to protest against the war, or to undermine a right wing government– they were broadcast because Anti-Americanism is a compulsive need.
• The problem isn’t the War on Terror or McDonalds or Hollywood or the dollar. Or any of it apart. It’s all of it together. There’s no fix for it, except to dethrone America. Turn it into a has-been, a former empire feeding off the good graces of others and opening its historical institutions to tourism.
• The appeal of the anti-American brand is directly linked to American power. Not the abuse of that power, merely the power or even the perception of that power alone is enough. The existence of that power alone is perceived as arrogant, isolationist and imperialistic. It’s perceived that way, because there is a psychological need to perceive it that way. For all that the left envisions a paranoid America seeking out phantom enemies that don’t exist, it is the left that desperately needs that phantom enemy. That phantom empire to childishly batter its fists against. The Big Daddy to rail against and finally slay.
• Anti-Americanism is not an informed critique, but an uninformed rant. An ongoing tantrum and a status symbol. It is that latter part which so effectively mobilizes the left. It is what drew Assange to successfully cash in on the glamour of anti-americanism. And what drew decrepit leftist shill, Michael Moore, out of his cave to grab a piece of the action.
• With Assange, Anti-Americanism isn’t just about defending some Kuwaiti or Somali terrorist with a Koran in one hand and a copy of Harry Potter from the Gitmo prison library in the other, anymore. Assange makes anti-Americanism cool again, replacing the more overt violence, with sabotage. Assange calculatedly acts out the fantasies of the left. And the left flocks to defend him.
• Assange allows the left to play at revolution, without fear of getting hurt. People may die because of Assange, but it will generally be in parts of the world that they hardly ever visit, except as protest tourists, flashing their EU or American passports, sweeping in to take some photos of the native wildlife, pose with a local human rights activist, maybe wave a sign or throw a stone, and then head on home to their flat and their flatscreen and their good life.
• Wikileaks is less a resource and more of a theme park, lending the experience of virtual revolution to the pampered sons and daughters of the prosperous West, allowing them to participate in imaginary assaults on the regime without ever leaving the comfort of their living room. So much of the activism has been headed that way, like Twitter campaigns in which people with nothing at stake pretend that they’re making a difference in the protest movements of countries like Iran, where protesters are tortured, raped and murdered.
• Virtual activism leads to actual dehumanization, whether it’s the informants whose lives Wikileaks placed at risk, or the women who have accused Assange of rape. The detachment of activism from those affected by it, makes it easier to reduce violent acts to button pushing. With no skin in the game, activism becomes a game. A social media contest with egotistical, not moral stakes. Not a contest of ideas, but of wills.
• America as a cartoon villain remains a vital prop in this virtual theme park. It’s a vital villain to the left, which forms a revolutionary identity by fighting against the powerful. Not those in the wrong, those with the power. By equating evil with power, greed with wealth, armed forces with war crimes, and ability with crime– the left’s own ideology makes anti-americanism inevitable. If America is powerful than it must be evil.
• It is that combination of power and fair play that makes America into such an appealing target. Its morality is a perfect target for accusations of hypocrisy. Like children bent on proving their parents wrong, the more America tries to do what’s right, the more it’s denounced as a monstrous evil regime. That way the game of revolution can go on endlessly. The anti-American junkie’s rush of fighting the power, before heading off to work, swollen with self-satisfied outrage at his own moral courage.
• America will still be hated no matter which party and what man sit in power. It will be hated because its haters define their identity through that hatred. Their conspiracy theories enlarge their self-image. Their anti-American activism is a form of petty rebellion by overgrown children. Their sabotage is not policy based, it’s ego based. Anti-American is an emotional addiction, not a reasoned policy critique. And there’s no way to take the product away from the addict. We are not the problem. They are.

More: 
http://www.eurasiareview.com/opinion/opinion-opinion/the-addiction-of-anti-americanism-28122010/