For the first 20 years of my life I loved complaining about ugly Americans.  You know what I am talking about:  Arrogant.  Ignorant of the rest of the world.  Loud.  Barely unilingual.  Chasing a purely materialistic version of the American Dream.  The kind that believes that the answer to every diplomatic crisis is a healthy bombing.

Useless Critique

As much as I could list the faults of ugly Americans, I realized after moving to the United States, that as much as these tired talking points about ugly Americans may have been on point, harping on about them was helping nothing.

Qualities of the Beautiful American

So I started thinking about the future of the United States.  What would constitute a “beautiful American?”  Weren’t there already American models of: savvy, global do-gooding?  Could this behavior become sought after as the new American Dream?

I recently re-wrote, the About section (do check it out, it’s WAY more concise) of CultureMutt and I define the blog’s “savvy, global do-gooding” as boiling down to:

“… these three guiding principles:

1) You are happiest when you are helping others.

2) The best kind of adventure is found in international do-gooding.

3) To be of service internationally you have to first understand people and cultures.”

Just as it is true that the ugly American is truly horrendous, the beautiful American, as defined by a willingness to help others through international, culturally-appropriate service, is genuinely impressive and has always been around.

I recently heard a definition of art as being “that which chases away ugliness”.  Let’s dedicate ourselves to chasing away the ugliness in American society.  It’s time to build on what is beautiful.  Let’s welcome in the era of the Beautiful American.

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Bjorn Karlman

What is the American Dream?  Traditional answers included any of the following:

1) White picket fences

2) Your own huge house

3) At least two cars

4) Being Number One

Excuse me while I yawn.  

Childhood Dreams

Growing up in the Philippines I was absolutely sold on the American Dream.  I remember being depressed and incredibly down as a 12 year-old when my family moved from the US to Europe for work-related reasons.  Somehow I knew  that America was the ultimate destination, that the American Dream was real and that I could have it.

Coming to America (Again)

I was incredibly excited to get to study in the US for college.  I could not wait to get my shot at the American life.  I took to my studies with some serious rigor and networked like a madman trying to track down all the best internship or work opportunities.  I found an employer that was willing to hire me and file expensive paperwork for me straight out of college.  I was on the verge of the American Dream.  I was making it!  Or so I thought.

Not so hot

I had come to the US in 2001 right before 9/11.  In the decade that followed, terrorism and America’s response to it put at damper on the allure of America.  Somehow life in the United States looked less attractive.  The balance of power and wealth in the world was shifting.  China was rising.  It passed Japan as the second largest economy in the world.  Other non-traditional players were emerging – South Korea, India, Brazil.  A lot of the members of the international intelligentsia that previously contributed to brain drain from other countries were choosing not to come to the US.

And then Came the Recession

I moved up to Northern California for my second job in 2008 as world economies were crashing and everyone was foretelling Armageddon.  America was on the brink of another depression.  Even illegal immigration was down and the worldwide opinion of American was not nearly what it had been.  Not much has improved despite the hope so many had during the last election cycle.

Here’s the Thing Though…

But I am not giving up yet.  Call it brainwashing or naivete, I still believe that the US will rebound.  The recent dip in the unemployment rate, a recovered auto industry and a few other flickers of hope on the American economic horizon are a few near-tangibles but there is something far more powerful that I am banking on:  American can-do-it-ness.  If there is one thing that has defined the American experience so far it is this:  AMERICA ALWAYS COMES BACK.  This is not a bet against the rest of the world or a patriotic plug for American imperialism.  Power has limits and there is nothing wrong with adapting with the times.  But here’s what I can say with confidence:  I truly believe that America is a uniquely resilient country.  Will it go the way of Rome?  Maybe.  But I am not convinced we have to resign ourselves to the cynical reading of history that armchair political prophets indulge.  Failure does not have to be inevitable.  Let’s rise above that kind of thinking.  Let’s remember that a colony threw off the chains of tyranny not so long ago and rose to heights unparalleled.  Let’s remember that slavery was abolished.  Let’s remember Normandy.  Let’s remember the bridge at Selma.  Let’s remember that preacher from Atlanta.  Let’s remember the man on the moon.  Let’s remember the Berlin Wall.

The American Dream doesn’t need to be shallow and materialistic.  Let it instead be an unflagging belief in the future and our capacity to work for something better.

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Bjorn Karlman

The world loves to lecture Americans.  It can come as a bit of a shock to US citizens the first time they travel.  After months of planning and excitement in the lead up to a big international trip, the giddy American is just getting used to the routine in the new country.  Then he or she mentions being from the US and someone has a question about the “crazy politicians” or why so many Americans are fat or why Americans always stick their nose in everyone’s business.  As much as you may try to diffuse the confrontation that ensues, things can easily get ugly.

The abuse can be worst from people from small countries.  I’ll admit to having been one of these nitpickers, especially when I still lived in Europe.  Unsuspecting Americans would come over to Europe and I would take my frustrations with parts of American foreign policy and culture out on them.

It works in _________ country so it should work in America

One thing I would frequently do was to insist that something that worked well in a small country like Sweden, would work well in the US.  Welfare policies that worked in Sweden and allowed for very generous policies on education, health care, vacation time, etc made perfect sense to me.  So what if you had to pay more taxes for it?   It was a better system, more enlightened and more compassionate.  Or so I felt.  Strongly.  And I would argue with Americans about what I saw as a heartless, greedy system where the rich got richer and the poor, weak or otherwise disadvantaged were largely ignored.  Sometimes Americans would listen.  Other times they would get upset and we would launch into huge critiques of each others’ countries.

Americans don’t seem to expect it

This is definitely not true for all the Americans I have met.  But for many it is:  the abuse they take abroad is not expected.  As much as most Americans have some knowledge of the anti-American sentiment out there, a lot do not quite understand the extent of it.  The anger directed towards America in large parts of the world is palpable and it only gets worse when Americans get defensive or act shocked at the abuse.  It’s a vicious cycle: people shout abuse – American tourist/traveler/expat is caught off guard/upset – people shout more abuse.

Stereotypes

As much as we all deny it, everyone loves to stereotype.  It prevents excessive thinking and fits so well into the modes of thinking that we have been able to construct for ourselves.  Americans have been pegged as loud, ignorant about the rest of the world, spoiled and, nowadays, increasingly as citizens of a fading superpower.  This is a hard stereotype to shake and unfortunately, there are enough brash American tourists out there with entitlement complexes to keep this image alive and ruin things for everyone else.

Jealousy

This is not one that most people admit to but, as a non-American, I definitely feel that much of the lecturing and abuse aimed at traveling Americans comes as a result of international jealousy.  Yes, it is true that America is not quite the same gleaming promised land of past decades.  The recession and serious foreign policy blunders have hurt the US image but America is still the big kid on the block – the richest and the most powerful nation on earth.  That is enough for some to want to make life difficult for Americans.

What to do?

So what do we do about all of this?   If you are an American, how do you brace yourself against the onslaught of haters.  I am not even American and I have had to take abuse for sounding like one.  I have found that overcompensating with false humility or forced praise of other countries comes across as trite.  Too many oversensitive tourists have tried this in the past.  Defending yourself doesn’t really work either.  The critics are not going to miraculously change their minds because of your sensible talking points.  Generally the only thing I have seen work is developing personal friendships with the critics and challenging their viewpoints from an experiential angle rather than a philosophical one.  If they like you, at worst they may simple label you “the one good American.”  Be happy with yourself even if you only get this far.  You may even get lucky and introduce the idea that Americans are a very diverse bunch that don’t fit into any boxes.

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Bjorn Karlman

adjusting to the American life...

Ever since I was in grade school growing up in the Philippines, I have had a confused relationship with America.  I love America but for some reason I have almost always ended up living in countries where anti-American sentiment could run high.

Breeds of anti-Americanism

In the Philippines there was the gratitude for American deliverance from Japanese control during World War II but anger at subsequent interference.  In Britain where I lived as a teen, politicians boasted of the “special relationship” that Britain had with the US while much of the population dismissed Americans as one giant, gun-toting Jerry Springer show.

I was studying in France when George W. Bush was elected the first time and I studied in Latin America soon after his election to a second term.  Those were bad – even dangerous – times to be identified as American.  But through it all I still saw the US as the place that had the most opportunity and I wanted my shot at living there.

Sounding American

I remember making a conscious decision at the age of 12 or 13 that I wanted to sound like an American.  By then I had already decided that I wanted to go to college in the United States and work there afterward.  I figured that any non-American accent would be a barrier if and when I moved to the US so pulling on my various stints in America (basically two six month periods), and the way my American friends and teachers sounded, I accent corrected until almost everyone mistook me for an American.

It helped BUT

I’m not going to lie – despite the fact that I got some crap from European friends for sounding “SO American”, the accent helped as soon as I moved to the US for college.  Somehow the barriers that accents created for other international students didn’t apply to me.  Americans assumed I was one of them until I told them otherwise.  And for the most part, I thought, “mission accomplished.”

Until I felt like a sellout.  Was I just masquerading as someone that I fundamentally was not?  Or was this simply the life of the Third Culture Kid (someone from a certain country/culture that has grown up in a different country and therefore created his or her own hybrid culture.)  I knew that travel and multiple major, long-term international relocations left me not entirely at home anywhere but very familiar with lots of different cultures.  But had I tried too hard and given up too much of my original identity to blend in with Americans? The question still bothers me today.

It Gets Touchy
My own wife confesses that she forgets that I am Swedish.  And almost everyone else does too.  As much as this can be convenient, conversations sometimes get tense when an American dismisses “socialist” Europe or I share my fairly Scandinavian views on the death penalty, divisive patriotism or the limits of American international influence.  As a disagreement brews and I sense that some sparring is coming up I feel really tense and I realize how American I am NOT.  I used to tackle disagreements head on (if you are a long-term CultureMutt reader you’ll remember some sharply worded opinion pieces:)) but nowadays I don’t think the fight is worth it.  Why not emphasize common ground rather than keep stressing about the things about America that I dislike?

Making it Work

Fundamentally I believe in this common ground and how it has to be the focus – not just for this Swede living in California, but for all of us internationally.  Helping to build international cultural common ground in order to do good things for society is one of the reasons I write CultureMutt.  I want to do my part.  The world is getting flatter and more connected every day.  Yes, this makes for a lot of confusion and tension.  But it can also lead to enormous progress and growth as we learn understand and accept each other.

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Bjorn Karlman

I was against the Iraq war from the very start.  Back in college a friend and I won a debate arguing against the war (see page 6 of the link).   As a European transplant in the United States, I protested the war as it began.  I remember waving a provocative anti-war sign in heavily Republican St Joseph, Mich. I counted a personal victory the time a driver gave me and my friends the finger as well as when one incensed local decided to make a countering “Saddam’s Convenient Idiots” sign and drive slowly past my band of protesters.  The decision to invade Iraq cemented my dislike for and lack of confidence in George Bush.  But the same could not be said about my feelings towards Tony Blair. To me, Blair had made a horrible mistake but was not the war criminal and failed leader that he was accused of being.

With the exception of the Iraq debacle, however monumental, Blair was an absolutely brilliant politician. I was in the UK and had just finished high school when he came into power in ’97.  I remember the jubilation and his undisputed popularity.  He was hot stuff. He oversaw a very prosperous near-decade in the UK; the sun-setting of the worst of IRA violence in Northern Ireland and had the powers of leadership and communication that saw Presidents Clinton (Monica Lewinsky) and Bush (any time he needed to sound coherent) scrambling to have him at their side, adding credibility to their voices as only he could.

Electorates, no matter where they are, are very fickle and Blair’s merits were lost sight of as the Iraq war dominated conversation for much of the last decade.  The latest evidence that the public cannot bring itself to focus on anything Blair-related but the war is the drama surrounding the release of his memoirs “A Journey:  My Political Life”.  His released his book in Ireland to a reception that included shoe and egg throwing.  The latest fad?  If you want to declare Blair a war criminal and are simply missing the political fire power to pull it off, you can join the Subversively move Tony Blair’s memoirs to the crime section in book shops group on Facebook.  The group has over 12000 members and if you are bored and narrow-minded enough, you too can join its blinkered, army of Facebook crusaders.

Here’s why it is ridiculous to be so hard on Blair though:  In stark contrast with Bush’s record that resulted in few achievements of any importance other than the war, Blair not only brought peace to Northern Ireland but is also focused on – and actively involved in shaping – the future in the Middle East.  Look at the way he talked about the 2008 election:  “Barack [Obama] was the supreme master of realism, cautioning an approach based on reaching out, arriving at compromises and striking deals to reduce tension.” (Christiane Amanpour – ABC)  Blair has been very supportive of Obama’s Middle East policies, especially praising him for, right from the very start or his presidency, seeking resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Blair’s work in the Middle East since stepping down as British Prime Minister is evidence of his ability to put the past behind him and make progress in the most tumultuous region on the planet.   Bush so far has stuck to Texas-ranch-bound work on his memoir.  Blair’s work as Middle East quartet representative (for USA, the UN, Russia and the EU) shows that he cares about progress even when the spotlight has shifted from him.  What worked in Northern Ireland was a consistent, purposeful approach to tackling the terror, the violence and the underlying politics.  Blair’s focus on the Middle East and the partner he has in the Obama administration present some of the best chances yet for successful mediation in the region.  The recently renewed talks between Israel and Palestine are a good sign, as is the fact that Israel is hinting that it is entertaining the idea of ceding control of parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority.  Blair’s interest in and involvement in this process may well ease the overly harsh view the public currently has of him.

Blair is remarkably honest in how he looks at his years in power (despite the fact that there was that time when a Google search on the word “liar” would turn up his name as the first result).  As he talked about his new autobiography he said: “The whole point about the book is that it’s a journey. The journey is that I started as a politician that wanted to please all of the people all of the time… By the end I was wondering if I was pleasing any of the people any of the time.”  And that is politics.  It trashes even the brightest of stars.  But Blair is back, he’s staying relevant and he knows the journey isn’t over.

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Bjorn Karlman

She is a contender for “Most Infuriating American on the Planet”. After George W. Bush’s departure, the world needed a figurehead on which to direct frustrations with the ignorant American.  The beauty of the gift that arrived was that not only was she innocent of any real background in world affairs, gun-loving and prone to delightfully unfortunate colloquialisms in her adorable Alaskan accent, she was also incestuously aligned with pro-life evangelicals, the worst of studied, American scientific know-nothings and small town, hell-raising future Tea Partiers.  More importantly, she had the most photogenic gossip fodder for family since the Kennedys.  The world had found the new American it could love to hate, the very personification of all that was wrong with America.  AND she was hot.

Most of the international reaction to Palin was predictable.  Her (albeit downplayed) evangelical allegiance was bound to draw sneers from left-leaning journalists the world over. On April 9, 2008, French weekly Le Point called Palin “the fanatic of the American heartland”.  Her literalistic approach to religious narrative was enough to push some Europeans over the edge: “Who literally believes that Jonah made his home in a whale’s abdomen? Nobody really, apart from the US president – and the woman who was recently added to the 2008 Republican ticket.” said John Gibbons of the Irish Times in the heat of the 2008 election.

Unlike countless Americans with knickers-a-twist about Bristol Palin’s very obvious pre-marital knocking-up or Palin’s sister’s messy divorce, much of the world barely shrugged at these moral inconsistencies in candidate Palin’s family.  A Huffington Post piece on Buenos Aires residents’ reactions to the Palin nomination contained this reaction from architect Augusto Stigol, “I just wouldn’t consider the personal situation of a candidate. That’s related to his or her private life.”  This sentiment echoed the views of many continental Europeans that are almost disappointed if their leaders are not at least tangentially implicated in a saucy bedroom romp.

But while many were forgiving of and indeed, grateful for the soap opera drama that Palin et family brought to world political gossip, the less pardonable sin the world community pinned on the Alaskan had to do with one of the reasons she was so popular with much of the red-state electorate: her folksy, small-town, conservative, hopelessly-insular-yet-oh-so-patriotic-straight-shooting.  As reassuring as her dialect was to millions of Americans, she was jaw-droppingly alienating to much of the world community.

Take the East Asian commentary that erupted after Palin’s trip to Hong Kong to speak to those gathered for the annual investment forum for the Hong Kong-based investment bank, CLSA.  The Asia Sentinel rants that the standing-room-only crowd was treated to “90 minutes of boredom which had half the audience fiddling endlessly with their Blackberries. Ninety percent of her speech could have been – and probably was – written for a domestic US audience receptive to her ‘mom and pop’ populism.”  The speech was mostly an assault on US politicians she disagreed with, Obama’s health care overhaul and “the very notion of income redistribution” (Asia Sentinel).

The narrowness of Palin’s heartland rhetoric and her overall lack of world knowledge was annoying but hardly surprising. Palin’s 2008 vice-presidential run had unearthed precious gems such as her infamous claim to knowledge of Russia because you can see it from Alaska.  Fox News Chief Political Correspondent Carl Cameron claimed that Palin thought that Africa was a country and she didn’t know which countries were in NAFTA.  Her international travel was practically non-existent as she got her first passport ever in 2006.

Yet paired with global amazement at her lack of international savvy was fearful admiration of Palin’s political potential and raw popularity that, in more recent days, have cemented her undeniable status as Republican kingmaker. Conservative candidates are scrambling for her endorsement ahead of mid-term elections in the US.

As blogger Sarah Britten in South Africa’s Thought Leader put it, Palin is “a huntin’, shootin’, fishin’, Creationist, anti-abortion hockey mom who — to make that mouthful even more distasteful to Prius-driving pinko-liberal Obama-supporters — also has sex appeal and the apparent ability to connect with ordinary middle Americans”.

Palin is recognized worldwide as a force to be reckoned with.  And there are those that don’t share the left-leaning tendencies of much of world thought leaders.  “There are few sights more bloodcurdling than the liberal pack in full cry,” writes Janet Daley in an article titled “Sarah Palin gets the spiteful Margaret Thatcher treatment” in Britain’s Telegraph.

The viciousness of the attacks on Sarah Palin is a testimony to the degree of panic … in Leftist circles… She is a renegade, the gender equivalent of an Uncle Tom…. Like Margaret Thatcher before her, Mrs Palin is coming in for both barrels of Left-wing contempt: misogyny and snobbery. Where Lady Thatcher was dismissed as a “grocer’s daughter” by people who called themselves egalitarian, Mrs Palin is regarded as a small-town nobody by those who claim to represent “ordinary people”.

What the metropolitan sophisticates failed to understand in the 1980s when Thatcher won election after election is even more the case in the US: most (and I do mean most) ordinary people actually believe in the basic decencies, the “small-town values”, of family, marital fidelity, and personal responsibility. They believe in and honour them – even if they do not manage to uphold them.

The life of small-town USA is based on the principles of those Protestant colonial settlers who founded the nation: hard work, self-improvement, personal faith and family devotion. Mrs Palin speaks to and for them in a way that patronising “liberal” elitists find infuriating.

As much as liberal commentators may find comparisons between Palin and Margaret Thatcher laughable, they are not completely unfounded.  Before the bulk of the Thatcher/Palin talk – way back in December 2008 – long-time Thatcher Aide, John O’Sullivan wrote a Wall Street Journal article titled Conservative Snobs Are Wrong About Palin / I know Maggie Thatcher. The two women have a lot in common. O’Sullivan speculates about the future:

She has plenty of time, probably eight years, to analyze America’s problems, recruit her own expert advice, and develop conservative solutions to them. She has obvious intelligence, drive, serious moral character, and a Reaganesque likability… she shares with Mrs. Thatcher a very rare charisma. As Ronnie Millar, the latter’s speechwriter and a successful playwright, used to say in theatrical tones: She may be depressed, ill-dressed and having a bad hair day, but when the curtain rises, out onto the stage she steps looking like a billion dollars. That’s the mark of a star, dear boy. They rise to the big occasions.

And that is why this folksy fighter can’t be written off.  She may turn off the urban elite along with huge swaths of the blue states.  But this scrappy pit bull always comes back, usually connects and never forgets her lipstick.  Under the liberal sneer of disdain lies fear and trembling.

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Bjorn Karlman

Remember John McCain’s “Obama fame” epiphany during the 2008 presidential elections? His negative ad pegged Obama as out of touch and the “world’s biggest celebrity”, pejoratively splicing in clips of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton with crowd shots of Obama rallies as the Democratic contender drew record numbers both at home and internationally.  Reactions abounded. Paris Hilton struck back with this parody ad about the “wrinkly white haired guy”, the “oldest celebrity in the world”.  The media was abuzz as, at least temporarily, the message of Obama’s supposedly counterproductive celebrity seemed to stick with some voters. But ultimately the roadblock proved incapable of doing any real damage and the young Democrat rode his wave of popularity all the way to a very decisive November 4th win.  The raw celebratory energy worldwide was palpable.  Gone was the bumbling, trigger-happy Texan who had infuriated world citizenry with his failure of a foreign policy and the near-sighted disaster of an economic policy that had brought the world to its knees. Impossibly high expectations and desperate hopes for something far better were pinned on the new guy. Conservatives prayed for the bubble to burst while liberals crossed themselves, willing global patience with the new administration.

Skip to the present.  As fickle as the American electorate can be, and despite his substantial drop in domestic popularity, Obama’s international celebrity and popularity have remained high.  While American memory of the blunders of his predecessor may be fading, international scars are still keenly felt and there’s still much hope in the new president.  Cracks are appearing though.  Take recent daggers thrown in the UK over the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster.  Conservative UK commentator, Norman Tebbit, recently called Obama’s approach to the BP disaster a “crude, bigoted, xenophobic display of partisan political presidential petulance.”

The source of UK anger against Obama stems from what is seen as an overly aggressive stance against BP.  Tebbit’s rant finds at least partial backing in some of Obama’s BP-related posturing:

“crude” = “I don’t sit around talking to experts because this is a college seminar… we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick.” (Obama’s June 8 NBC interview)

“bigoted” = The relentless attacks on Obama’s attacks on BP as the disaster spirals completely out of control and Obama plays into British accusations of of “‘buck passing’ and ‘beating up’ the British-based company” (Daily Mail) instead of problem-solving.

“xenophobic” – Obama’s occasional use of the name “British Petroleum” that BP dropped years ago and therefore (it can be argued), playing this up as an issue with Britain when really this is the mistake of a multinational, a large stake of which is American.

“Winding up a hate campaign against the British is not a terribly smart policy. It may win Mr. Obama political support amongst the less well-informed voters right now, but the long-term effects are less sure. BP is also a major US company. Busting it might not be a very smart idea and not just on economic grounds. The message that non-US companies are likely to be treated as political punchbags would be a profoundly political message, too.”  (Tebbit)

Joining the ranks of political malcontents, Boris Johnson, the Conservative mayor of London, said that he was concerned about “anti-British rhetoric” and “name-calling” from American leaders.   And it’s not just a few oversensitive conservative politicos that are pissy: the UK’s Sunday Times quoted a survey that stated 64% of Brits and 47% of US residents claim Obama’s handling of the BP crisis hurt the relationship between the two countries and that in both countries, 22% of respondents went as far as calling Obama anti-British.

As exciting as this rift-rhetoric can be, much of the Anglo-American hand-wringing about it took place before a June 12 conversation in which Obama tried to soften the perceived attack on Britain over the disaster by saying that his unhappiness with BP had nothing to do with its British identity. Following the conversation, The Times‘s journalist Giles Whittel wrote: “The notion that American attacks on BP are anti-British is embarrassing. It is a fiction incubated by the thin-skinned, solipsistic and broadly anti- American world view that bubbles up like warm bitter in the best-kept villages of Little England whenever anyone in Washington has the temerity to break with the tradition of referring to the Old Country and its pretensions with anything other than awed admiration.”

Further evidence that Obama wanted to make peace?  He put beer on the table.  The trick worked a year ago when Obama invited black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and white Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. James Crowley to the White House for a beer after causing an uproar by saying the police had “acted stupidly” in arresting Gates, Jr. for disorderly conduct. This time around, Obama and Cameron wagered a beer over who would win the June 12 US/England World Cup game.  When the teams tied, the politicos presented each other with their respective beers and gushed about the special relationship between the two countries.

There’s even a chance that the Anglo-American relationship will improve after the BP fiasco.  The evidence? Obama’s gift-giving is improving.  A beer far outshines his last gift to a British PM.  In exchange for an ornate pen holder from former PM Gordon Brown, Obama presented the British leader with a set of DVDs that don’t even work in British players.

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Bjorn Karlman

Talk to enough of the American cultural elite about the upcoming World Cup and you’re bound to hear about those ignorant xenophobes in the fly-over states and their backwards claims that soccer is un-American and a gateway to socialism.  Unlike the demographics of soccer in the rest of the world where it is the game of the masses, the bulk of soccer in the United States is confined to women’s leagues, recent immigrant enclaves or upper middle class suburban communities where births are particularly awkward as one has to accommodate the silver spoon protruding from each babe’s rear.

Despite optimistic attempts at tapping into the star power of international brands like Beckham, Major League Soccer (MLS) in the United States is at best considered an emerging league and, more frequently, is the butt of jokes in the American sporting world.  This truth puts America at odds with the rest of the world, not because anyone is defending the quality of the MLS (everyone agrees it sucks), but because soccer is, by far, the most popular sport in the world.

The World Cup is not only the biggest sporting event on the planet, IT IS THE BIGGEST EVENT, end of story.  FIFA, the international governing body of soccer, estimates the viewership of the 2006 World Cup final at 715 million viewers.  Despite this kind of worldwide interest in the sport, the average American is barely aware of the World Cup and is still saying things like, “If they got rid of the goal keepers I might watch it.”  The reasons for this kind of unawareness are complex.  Access is one of them. Twenty years ago, following major European games basically required learning a second language and hunting around for obscure international newspapers.  Even today, coverage of world soccer on American sports websites is thin.  But the problem is not just access.  You also have cultural crusaders in what How Soccer Explains the World‘s Franklin Foer calls the “anti-soccer lobby”.

Says Foer: “There exists an important cleavage between the parts of the country that have adopted soccer as its pastime and the places that haven’t.  And this distinction lays bare an underrated source of American cultural cleavage: globalization.”   The message is clear: parts of the country – the blue parts on the electoral map – tend to be more susceptible to globalization and are therefore more interested in a global phenomenon like soccer. The red states cling to guns and religion and baseball and shun outside influences like soccer. Zeroing in on the anti-soccer lobby, Foer sums up the haters’ sentiment as he quotes USA Today’s Tom Weir: “Hating soccer is more American than apple pie, driving a pickup, or spending Saturday afternoons channel surfing with the remote control.”

Foer quotes prominent American conservative, former Buffalo Bills quarterback Jack Kemp who, in 1986 said the following on the floor of Congress: “I think it is important for all those young out there, who someday hope to play real football, where you throw it”; that “a distinction should be made that football is democratic, capitalism, whereas soccer is a European socialist (sport).”  It seems that wild claims on the Congressional floor about creeping socialism never go out of style.

Foer also quotes radio shock jock Jim Rome who raved, “My son is not playing soccer.  I will hand him ice skates and a shimmering sequined blouse before I hand him a soccer ball.”  With this kind of rabid and fundamentally maddening reasoning adding to the national conversation, it is no wonder that many stay away from soccer.

Max Bergmann for the Huffington Post: “What is so bizarre about this is how much the neocons sound like American-hating Europeans. Both dismiss American talent, American enthusiasm for soccer, and American understanding of the game. Just as neocons — and other soccer-hating sports writers of my parents generation — insist that we don’t get soccer and don’t care, European soccer writers are right there with them saying that Americans don’t get it and don’t care.”

David Winner, author of Brilliant Orange / The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Soccer, claims that American soccer fans  “tend to lean liberal”  like Holland’s national team because they are “predisposed to liking the country itself”.  He then waxes lyrical about how Holland “represents the best that bourgeois society has to offer: a genuine liberal spirit, the epitome of a certain idea of civilization.”

Soccer Against the Enemy’s Simon Kuper writes, “The game remains too good a way of understanding the world to discard.”  “In the States, being a New Fan is often a mark of being a cosmopolitan.  Soccer’s advance in the country is an idex of how American daily life is globalizing.  The two groups of Americans who are probably keenest on the game – immigrants and their direct descendants on the one hand, and the highly educated on the other – are precisely the most globalized Americans.” (He includes Obama, “the alleged West Ham fan… son of a U.S. born mother and immigrant father,” in this cross-section of America).

In The Ball is Round / A Global History of Soccer, David Goldblatt quotes British historian Eric Hobsbawm who wrote, “The twentieth century was the American century in every way but one: sport.”  Goldblatt says, “This is not exactly news to anyone, but it remains an extraordinary and under-explored anomaly; an almost unique reversal of the dominant patterns of global influence and power.”

So what should the future hold for America and soccer?  Will we continue to see the cultural cleavage grow as it is pushed up by soccer, or are there other options?  As a Swede I’ve had to nurse my own disappointment at not having Sweden qualify for this summer’s World Cup with the hope that the US will go far instead.  The US advanced to the quarter finals in what many considered the coming of age of the US team at the 2002 World Cup.  Americans that had previously not paid attention to soccer learned that the US could not only compete in the sport, but that it had a chance of dominating.   Although the 2006 World Cup was a disappointment, continued American successes, along with the forces of globalization will hopefully result in a burqa being tossed over our supple cleavage.  America has always enjoyed a new frontier to conquer.  Why not soccer?

“Soccer’s mission in the United States is not, I think, to supplement or challenge American football, baseball or basketball, but to offer a conduit to the rest of the world; a sporting antidote to the excesses of isolationism, a prism for understanding the world that the United States may currently shape but will increasingly be shaped by.”  (Goldblatt )

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Just because George W. Bush said something doesn’t mean it was dumb.  Or at least that’s what Jeffrey Scott Shapiro seems to claim.  He’s the founder of Honor Freedom, a non-profit created to “Unite Bush Supporters”;  “Correct the Historical Record” and  “Teach America”.  “You don’t need to be a genius to be president,” says Shapiro.  The Honor Freedom website defends the most contentious Bush-era issues like:

1) The Iraq war (and all its disastrous related issues: hyped/non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction; oil greed motivation; the mere suggestion that this was all daddy’s idea, etc.)

2) Why Saddam and his policies were bad and how that justified “the liberation”.

3) The dollars of US aid pumped back into Iraq to clear up Dubya’s mess.

4) “Information on how you can help correct the historical record or start a chapter of Honor Freedom in your area.”

In “The Bush Restoration Project“, Slate’s Jordan Michael Smith says, “Shapiro talks about George W. Bush the way Buddhists talk about the Dalai Lama. ‘He stands for truth, compassion and freedom,’ he says. ‘Bush instinctively sees the global picture that every living person has the right to be free.’ “  Smith exposes the “nationwide public education program consisting of op-eds, media appearances, and free public seminars, the nonprofit group intends to teach Americans that George W. Bush was actually a great president and an even better man.”

Smith quotes Shapiro as saying Bush critics ” ‘are selfish people who don’t see the value of national liberation … isolationists who don’t care that the U.S. freed a people enslaved by fear.’ ”

Inherent in Shapiro’s approach is a realization that Bush’s reputation is in tatters and is in need of immediate mouth-to-mouth.  With the enthusiasm of a fanboy at an early nerd special premier, Shapiro wants to manipulate the public faster than time and presidential libraries can: “Those wishing to restore the president’s reputation must take a pro-active, aggressive approach that exports knowledge to the people. Merely relying on a passive institute such as a presidential library and waiting for people to learn the truth on their own will not be sufficient in this unique case.” (Shapiro in a commentary piece for The Washington Times)

“On much of the world stage, President Bush has been widely reviled as one of the worst U.S. leaders of modern times, and it is hard to think of an American president who has received a worse press since Richard Nixon,” states the UK’s conservative Telegraph.  The paper concedes that early moves in the Iraq war flopped; that Bush’s public diplomacy was disastrous; that his management of global anti-American sentiment failed and his response to Russia over Georgia was cowardly.  However, the same article argues that most of the critiques launched at Bush have been couched in “a venomous hatred of Bush’s personality and leadership style, rather than an objective assessment of his achievements.”  Praising Dubya, the paper raves, “Ten or twenty years from now, historians will view Bush’s actions on the world stage in a more favourable light. America’s 43rd president did after all directly liberate more people (over 60 million) from tyranny than any leader since Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.”

Time has absolved past presidents (Jimmy Carter and Harry Truman come to mind) of their sins and perhaps Shapiro and his flock will be successful in their spin.  For now though, what does Bush himself think about all this chatter?  It’s not easy to know.  Unlike Dick Cheney, the former president has laid low since leaving office and it looks like we’ll have to wait for his memoir (slated to be published this year) to gauge his current thoughts on his presidency.  And Bush has no formal ties to Honor Freedom. However, Shapiro did recently stay at the ranch of Bush’s nephew, Pierce, who introduced president and salivating one.  “You’re doing good work,” said the president.  Or at least so says Shapiro.

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Had enough of the Tea Party tirades against Barack Obama?  For some perspective, take a look at what the rest of the world thinks about the United States since Obama took office:

“People around the world today view the United States more positively than at any time since the second Iraq war,” says international polling firm GlobeScan’s chair Doug Miller, after a study conducted in partnership with the Program on International Policy Attitudes (Pipa) at the University of Maryland.  The BBC notes that there can be little confusion as to the cause for this surge in popularity as the uptick in approval ratings coincided (roughly) with Barack Obama becoming president.  The improvement has been drastic and unquestionable: “America’s influence in the world is now seen as more positive than negative,” (Click here for a look at the graph) says the BBC of the results of the survey of 30,000 people in 28 countries.

There are of course going to be the isolationist, deadbeat, know-nothing boobs who shrug at this and claim that world opinion and active diplomacy do not matter.  To a chump of this breed, “us and them” thinking dominates and the outside world is willed away.  Whether they are attention whores waving their home-made signs of xenophobic desperation at anti-immigration rallies or whether they indulge in Rush/Beck/Hannity bulimia – force feeding themselves with ultra-right propaganda and then projectile vomiting, booty grazing style, across their sturdy white picket fences – the viability of their shortsighted thinking is quickly fading.

“They’ll just say that this is further proof that Obama is selling America to his wicked, socialist brethren in the empire of Europe,” said a commenter on the Rachel Maddow Blog.  These antediluvian, paranoid wrecks are as quick to fire off the “s” word as a high school sophomore is to boyfriend drop in every hallway conversation.  Newsflash: Working for better quality of life at home and reaching out diplomatically abroad is not socialism.  It is common sense.

“The idea that a better reputation abroad is meaningless uplift is foolish. It helps the US leverage its power to greater ends. The more popular the US is, the likelier it is to have a positive impact on other countries’ leaders. ” (Andrews Sullivan, The Atlantic)

Sullivan makes the point that the American face-lift began in 2007 , “when Cheneyism was in retreat, when Rice and Gates were beginning to reorient the US away from militarist adventurism, when the surge was beginning to tamp down violence in Iraq, and when the Supreme Court had begun to push back on the presidential power to torture at will. But it’s also worth noting that the gain in respect endures and strengthens as Obama holds office, at a time when every other country’s reputation is declining.”

No courtesy fart was needed after the last administration’s train wreck of a foreign policy.  We needed change.  The massive work of diplomatic reparation was before us.  And in place of cowboyish black and white rhetoric came a more nuanced approach to international collaboration:

“We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.  The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history. … Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America. … As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. … America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more. … To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”   – President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address.

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