I have been accused of being "anti-American", and I feel it essential to examine my conscience and the possible meanings of this potential misdeed on my part. The result is that I still feel that my conscience is completely clear.
My reasoning is simple, just as I always tell people that I am a simple soul, and is based on what this hyphenated expression can possibly mean.
Firstly, the prefix "anti-" would mean that I was against something, and although I try my hardest to remain more positive, I have to be strongly opposed to obvious evils, such as any form of injustice or any vile dogma based on injustice. Some of the most repulsive of these are Zionism and any other form of racism or maltreatment of others on the basis that the dominant group is intrinsically superior to the dominated.
Secondly, the word "American" has many meanings, of which I normally only use one, namely as defining someone or something as pertaining to America, or the Americas, namely the continent which stretches from the furthest north of Canada to the southernmost point of the Tierra del Fuego. For reasons which appear to be an expression of insufferable arrogance, people (particularly politicians) within the United States of America (perhaps some 10 to 15% of the land area of the continent) use the word to mean citizens of their country to the exclusion of all other inhabitants of the continent (especially Mexicans, who are expected to stay on their side of the frontier which resulted from the conquests of the USA in the 19th century).
We should remember that the title of "America" was originally given to areas further south than the USA as a result of the travels of Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1512), the Florentine trader who from his Spanish base in Seville set out westwards and thereby 'discovered' the coast of what is now Venezuela. We owe this name to a somewhat obscure German cartographer of his time operating in provincial France, one Martin Waldseemueller, who first published maps calling the newly found continent 'America'.
Logically, the people who should be called 'Americans' (to use Waldseemueller's word) are the people of Venezuela, but I think it highly unlikely that they will suddenly claim to be 'Americans' to the exclusion of all their neighbours. I shall continue to think of all the inhabitants of the Americas as 'Americans', and I have no reason to be opposed to them. Quite the contrary in fact, since I am delighted to see various American countries breaking free from the domination of the USA, which can only be good for them and for the suppressed subjects of the rulers of the United States, who may one day, I hope, free themselves from the shackles of servitude to the highly corrupt corporate bosses.
As in every scenario of change, it is almost certain that the newly freed nations will make mistakes - errare humanum est - but they will at least have a chance to live more satisfactory lives than in bondage to the primitive socio-economic system set up by the rulers of the USA, based on a hideous form of ever-dominant imperialism.
However, if by "anti-American" my detractors mean that I am viscerally opposed to this imperialism, then they are right, but they should use another expression to convey this truth, perhaps calling me an "anti-imperialist", which I would gladly accept as a term of the highest praise.
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