Anti-Americanism Is the New Black... Armband

Contemporary anti-Americanism is taking on the feel of pre-WWII anti-semitism. That's the conclusion I'm driven to after years of watching the rise of anti-Americanism in the international press, and after two stories I came across yesterday.

The first was a news article in The Times of London reporting on research into the neurological bases for understanding sarcasm and irony. Doesn't have much to do with politics, does it? Nevertheless, out of the blue, the journalist wraps up her piece with a jibe at Americans. This is one of the hallmarks of early 20th century anti-semitism: Jews were made the butt of "jokes" of every sort, and this endless, non-sensical, and ubiquitous calumny became socially acceptable.

From objects of widespread derision and "humor," Jews increasingly began to be villified as sub-human parasites on society -- particularly in the Nazi press. Well, lo and behold, we now have this:

That's the cover of "metall" the monthly magazine of the largest German trade union. The caption, kindly translated by David's Medienkritik, reads: "US Companies in Germany. The (Blood-)Suckers." Nice.

Follow the link to David's site and you'll see just how close this is to some of the anti-semitic cartoons put out by the Nazis during the 1930s and '40s.

The question is, what is the parallel for the escalation from derision to physical violence that was visited upon the Jews by Nazism? Will all this virulent and growing anti-Americanism become increasingly radicalized, and lead to the formation of European non-Islamist anti-American terrorist organizations? Let's hope it doesn't, and that, instead, the current fad of anti-Americanism ebbs as its practitioners gain some sense of self-awareness about how low they have sunk.

UPDATE (May 25, 8:07pm P.T.):

Medienkritik has a new post on this subject with a lengthy and very interesting excerpt from an article in The Spectator magazine.