Kakki replied to me, a couple of days ago: "I only care that fellow people in my country are being led by nihilists with an agenda. I am a bit of a Pollyanna in that I don't want others to feel that everything and everyone in their government is so evil. I don't want them consumed with such negativity every day. Yes, there are bad people everywhere, but to say it is all corrupt and evil and bad is not true and it is extremely unfair and contemptuous of millions of honorable Americans who work hard and dilligently for their country and its defense."
"Nihilists with an agenda"? Exactly who are you talking about, Kakki? If it's leftists in general, most of them I know have as their purpose not annihilation of anything for its own sake, but rather, restructuring and starting again, with different and (from their point of view) better goals. I'm just not sure who or what you're referencing. And who said "everything and everyone is [our] government is so evil?" First of all, if that's true, then we should be talking about it, Pollyanna-ism be damned. But I'm not hearing that from anyone on this list. What I have heard occasionally is that, even for those who have spent their whole lives in their country, there is sometimes still an incomplete and unequal justice. What I've heard much more frequently is that *some* facets of U.S. *foreign policy* are unwise/imperialistic/short-sighted/stupid (take your pick of adjectives). I have NEVER heard any self-identifying leftist on this list, or, I've got to say, anywhere else, state that "everything and everyone in their government is. . .evil." Never. It's this all-or-nothing tendency that you seem to evidence on the issue of criticizing the U.S. or its various policies that, frankly, has me perplexed. I do not see the world, my country, my church, or most issues as requiring my full and unbridled support. Since when did this become a matter of black and white, full or empty? We've had some good exchanges in the past, Kakki, even when (or maybe, especially when) we disagreed. But I'm afraid I have to agree with Patrick on this one. It does seem to me that you brand EVERY attempt to criticize the U.S. as "anti-American." And that's a label that, even as I oppose this war vociferously and dissent on other actions and positions on which I think my country has fallen short, I'll never, ever accept. Mary P.
