VIEWSrn(T THE ENDrni OF THErnAMERICAN CENTURYrn”^nnff^nnrnBjjWH^MJrn- – ^ j l ^rnf^^^^iP®^ ^^|fflrn^ ^ L – •’IHLJ^MMJrnmS^^^^^lrn^M^sSSrn^^^^mrnSI p.rn• VrnThe Anti-American Centuryrnby Bill KaufiFmanrnThe anti-American Centurv began with a bad moon rising.rnOur new possessions across the sea were awash in colonialrngore. Surveying from afar the corpses of Filipino independencernfighters and our blood-spattered flag, Mark Twain suggestedrnthat we substitute the skull and crossbones for the stars andrnstripes. The hidiana-bred poet William Vaughn Moody, arnGrover Cleveland Democrat, despaired that “We havernchanged our birthright for a gourd.”rnIs it too late to get a refund?rnHow appropriate that Henr)- Luce, minter of that counterfeitrnphrase “The American Century,” was born in Tengchow, China,rnthe son of missionaries who devoted their lives to pesteringrnChinese persons who had never done them an’ harm. For thernarchitects and wardens of the American Century have been distinguishedrnlargely by the tenuit)- of their connection to any ofrnthe thousands of little American cultures they have worked sornassiduously to stamp out. The Wise Men of the 1940’s and 50’srnwho offered our gold, frankincense, and men to their god of anticommimismrnwere the Anglophilic products of eastern board-rnBill Kauffman is the author, most recently, of With Goodrnhitentions? Reflections on the Myth of Progress in Americarn(Praeger).rning schools—placeless persons from the age of 12 or wheneverrnit was that their invariably alcoholic parents packed them off tornGroton or Hotchkiss.rnThe poliHcians and propagandists of the Serbian massacrernare just as countr}-less. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright isrnCzech, and in full possession of the unwarranted arrogance ofrnthat notable people. Senator John McCain, a military brat, wasrnborn in the malarial symbol of American imperialism, thernPanama Canal Zone. The hawkish Weekly Standard is ownedrnby a drably sinister Australian and edited by a warmongering (ifrnwar-avoiding) TV celebrit)’ beside whom the epicene GeorgernStephanopoulos looks like Chesty Puller. Bill Clinton, alas, isrnAmerican, albeit a recipient of Cecil Rhodes’s blood money.rnWe are in a real fix —the fix is in, and we are out, so itrnseems—but what are you gonna do except trust that there remainsrnenough independence and spunk and hey-boss-go-tohellrndefiance in the character of Americans that a patriotic resistance,rnor perhaps even restoration, might develop. “I shouldrnhate to spend the only life I was going to have here in being annoyedrnwith the time in which I happened to live,” said RobertrnFrost, who placed his faith in “insubordinate Americans.” Asrnthe beginning typing drill goes, now is the time for all good insubordinatesrnto come to the aid of their country.rnAUGUST 1999/13rnrnrn