By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, September 1st, 2013 
Two cheers for President Obama! On his performance leading up to his speech yesterday in the Rose Garden. See video below.
Great that he is going to Congress. I hope this sets a precedent, making it harder in the future for Presidents unilaterally, and contrary to the constitution, to go to war. No guarantee this will be the case, but it is very much worth the effort, notable here because it is far from clear that the President will get the support he seeks.
Cheer two: I am pleased that he is standing against chemical warfare. Too many of my friends on the left are missing this point. In their generalized criticism about American power in the world (thus, for example, America now is “waging war on Syria”), they seem to not understand, even seem to purposively ignore, that the Assad regime in Syria has engaged in a horrific act, one of the few times since WWI that chemical weapons have been used so openly.
I know this is not the only time. I know that the U.S. was silent when Iraq used such weapons against Iran. I know that the U.S. has used chemicals in Vietnam and Iraq, and I know that Israel has used chemicals in Gaza. But Assad used chemical weapons for the sole purpose of indiscriminately killing people, his fellow citizens, actually his subjects. It was state terror, pure and simple. There are those who point to the less than certain evidence, but I think a pretty clear case has been made by the White House, and those who still doubt that Assad is a butcher do so out of willful ignorance, powered by ideology, close to home, a blind anti-Americanism. To the contrary, I believe that sometimes, there is something worse than American power, and sometimes, the U.S. does the right thing. As an expert on East and Central Europe, I especially appreciate this.
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Read more: Obama on Syria
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, November 30th, 2012 
 
To skip this introduction and go directly to the In-Depth Analysis “How to be an Intelligent Anti-American,” click here.
I saw Lincoln yesterday. I intend to write a post on its significance over the weekend. I have fundamentally two responses to the film, aesthetic and political. On aesthetic grounds, I don’t think it is his best, but, on the other hand, I am blown away by the film’s political power. The debate it has opened is impressive. Fundamental questions about the nature of politics, the connection of past and future, and the human capacity to change the world are now being raised in the discussion of Spielberg’s latest, and a broad audience is taking part and listening in. I will explain more fully on Monday.
Today, I have decided to post an essay I published ten years ago, inspired by my ambivalent response to Schindler’s List, which of course Lincoln resembles, for better and for worse, in many ways. My essay, as I explain in its opening, was inspired by two occasions which led to its composition as lectures. My theme on the two occasions was anti-Americanism, and Spielberg came to mind. I am posting the piece today both because I think an American film genius has does it again, revealed all the strength and weaknesses of American popular, democratic, culture, and because the main theme of my lectures, anti-Americanism, continues to be a pressing topic, both in its comic and tragic dimensions.
So today: an in-depth post, a lecture on how to be an intelligent anti-American.
To read the In-Depth Analysis, “How to be an Intelligent Anti-American,” click here.
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, November 30th, 2012 The original idea for this paper dates back to 1996. At that time, I was teaching in Cracow, Poland, in a summer institute on democracy and diversity. Since 1992, I had been teaching a course at that institute on democratic culture, utilizing both the political theory of major western thinkers, particularly Hannah Arendt, and major thinkers and political actors from around the old bloc, particularly Adam Michnik and Vaclav Havel. Since the early seventies, I had studied and worked with the developing democratic movement in Central Europe, particularly Poland. The course was a continuation of these activities. But something new and different presented itself in ’96. In a region where (outside official circles) Ronald Reagan could do no wrong, students started presenting fairly standard, but from this part of the world, very exciting, critical judgments of America.
The students came from East and Central Europe, Western Europe, North and South America. In the first years of the institute, the young Westerners automatic critical approach to liberal capitalism and their insufficient appreciation of the force of totalitarianism led to strong disagreements across the old political divide. Suddenly, in 1996, there was an informed and not so well informed anti-American consensus articulated around our seminar table, with some forceful dissenters. I found myself caught in between the consensus and the dissenters, between automatic condemnation and automatic celebration. With that in mind, for the last class, rather than proceeding with the seminar discussion and ending it on an informal note, as is my custom, I presented a formal lecture. It was my first anti-American advisory.
My second advisory was presented just a few months ago (but before 9/11/2001). One of the students in the original class, Jacek Kucharczyk, is now the vice-director of Poland’s major social science think tank. He had an idea for a conference on European Integration. There were sessions on political, economic and cultural integration. My paper framed a discussion about the cultural relationships between Poland, Western Europe and the United States. The paper was received well, meaning that it stimulated a spirited discussion. Particularly pleasing to me was my friendly public debate with the Polish film director, Krzystof Zannusi, over the films of Steven Spielberg. I was appreciative. He . . .
Read more: How to be an Intelligent Anti-American
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