Les comparaisons qui ne choquent même plus

Si l’on veut mesurer l’extraordinaire effondrement de l’“influence morale” de l’Amérique et de l’image de la “vertu américaniste”, on peut se référer à ce texte de critique politico-littéraire de Dmitry Shlapentokh, sur atimes.com aujourd’hui. Le livre est Driving American foreign policy — The Endgame of Globalization, par Neil Smith.

Le thème du livre est celui-ci: l’Amérique de GW Bush est équivalente à l’Allemagne nazie (et à l’URSS de Staline, en prime). Le thème de la critique du livre, qui n’est pas d’accord avec le jugement de Smith, est celui-ci: c’est discréditer l’efficacité de l’Allemagne nazie (et de l’URSS de Staline) que de faire cette comparaison. Sur le fond de cette comparaison, — que l’américanisme de Bush ne vaut guère mieux que le nazisme de Hitler dans ses entreprises extérieures, — guère de discussion, comme si la chose allait de soi.

D'autre part, l'argument de Dmitry Shlapentokh est intéressant, notamment dans sa conclusion (la transformation de l'Amérique en régime fasciste efficace est impossible): « The analogy between Bush's US and Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany does not fly, but not because most inmates in American prisons eat better than the captive workers of Siberian camps or the prisoners of Auschwitz.

» The reason is much deeper. Stalin and even Hitler had rather sound views on war compared to those of the current US administration, which might be more successful if it followed the Nazi line. This reviewer is sure the author would recoil in disgust at the idea that a change along national-socialist lines would make the US more successful in the hard work of empire-building and survival in a world where it is losing its economic edge.

» But one should remember that Hitler's policy was not just gas chambers and millions of slaves, but also a variety of sound social-economic arrangements that made it possible to fight, and almost win, a war against the majority of the world's population.

» Hitler, while not discarding private property, understood that a long, global armed conflict could not be carried out on the basis of privatization, social/economic deregulation and mercenary armies, with the assumption that casualties would be low. Strict government control went along with a strong safety net, and the wounded soldiers from the Waffen SS in World War II did not need to engage in long litigation with the Reich to get decent medical service, housing and food. Their trust that the state would never abandon them contributed greatly to their fighting spirit. And, of course, there is no doubt that Hitler's kind of bureaucracy would work much better in dealing with natural disasters such as Katrina.

» There is no way that Bush or any democratic president could change US social/economic arrangements in radical ways. Thus, “fascistizing” America, transforming it into a militaristic empire poised for global conquest, is out of the question. But this does not mean that American rivals should be cheered up. The point is that the conflict between what the American elite and the public want and what they can do might well lead to increasing irrationality in the elite's behavior, as is reflected in recent changes in military doctrine, which now authorizes preventive nuclear strikes. »

Mis en ligne le 8 octobre 2005 à 17H32