Paris, France. July 4, 2025. by Socrates George Kazolias

Why do we Americans say “We” or “Us” or “Our” when referring to our country’s actions even when we deeply disagree with them while the Germans and French, for example, distance themselves from that collective identity when critical?

At least this is the case for my generation and my father’s generation, a period of European immigration and descendants of slavery with a solid Anglo-Saxon education and environment. I can’t say whether this is true of post 1970s immigration from other parts of the world.

This Land is Your Land, This land Is My Land

I have Woody Guthrie, Led Belly, Cisco Houston, Paul Robeson and more running in my veins. I belong to one nation with a collective identity which outweighs all idiosyncrasies that stretches thousands of miles.

My Americans will say, “We should have never invaded Iraq.” They will say “Our country killed a million innocent people there.” And they will add, “That is why they hate us,” or “Our government is lying to us again.”

When Chirac became the first French leader to admit that France collaborated with the Nazis and helped deport Jews, he did not say “we did it.”  He said it was France. Until then it was always Vichy which the French claimed was not France as France was supposedly in London with de Gaule. 

A Frenchman will lay the blame squarely on the government or the country as if it is an entity he is not part of. But he will have no problem asking a German “How could you kill all those people?” To which a German will respond “I didn’t kill anybody.”

When I say to a German, that because they know what genocide is “so how can you give Israel a full third of the weapons it is using to commit genocide in Gaza?” the response I will get is “I ain’t giving anybody weapons.”

I am not a psychologist, sociologist, nor historian. I don’t have the answer. But I know that we were raised believing in collective values to be shared and promoted and this is deeply engrained within us. We are the children of Norman Rockwell paintings. When we discover that those values never existed, and that our country is built on a great lie, we are deeply hurt and try to set things right.

I learned in the Army, during the Vietnam War, just how wrong we are. I don’t try to extricate myself from our collective responsibility. I try to set things right. This is what Americans do while Europeans seem to blame others and distance themselves from identifying with the national entity when they disagree.

Macron did this or the Chancellor said that. But you won’t hear them say “We have to stop doing this!” Even President Macron will say “La France” rather than “Nous.”

I think our collective identity is important and must be accepted. By only assuming fully who you are can you say, “Not in my name!”

Zionist or Jewish Supremacist?

Norman Finkelstein says he will no longer use the word “Zionist.” He now only says “Jewish Supremacists.” This makes perfect sense to me as what is being done by Israel is in the name of all Jews. By saying Jewish supremacists, he is forcing all Jews to take a position.

I liken this to White Supremacists. I am White. I have to take a position as they are doing racism in the name of whiteness. I don’t personally feel attacked.

Finkelstein says his grandmother hated all Germans because she had never met a nice one in her Holocaust experience. So, he asks, why would Middle East Arabs not hate all Jews if the only ones they have ever come across are Israeli butchers?

I can also liken this to Blacks in America who hate Whites if the only Whites they had ever known were Jim Crow racists.

So, I too will use the term “Jewish Supremacists,” just as I use the term “White Supremacists.” Zionists have always fanned the flames of antisemitism. It is their bread-and-butter to justify and get support for their atrocities which, as I have written, is in the very concept of Zionism itself.

Pepe Escobar uses a different term: “Psychopathic, Genocidal, Old-Testament Freaks.” Spinoza tells us the Old Testament is a horrible place to live. Thank God for Jesus?

But my propos is about belonging and assuming as one’s own what is committed in “our” name. When and if I find myself the victim of a terrorist attack simply because I am American, I will understand however unfortunate I think that is.

The United States, under both Republicans and Democrats, have been doing horrible things in my name since I was born. Clinton made it much worse when he transformed NATO into an organization of imperial aggression under the false narrative of ‘humanitarian intervention‘; but 291 military interventions since the fall of the Berlin Wall! Illegal wars under false flags and lies (Serbia, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and now Iran).

Yes, it is important to identify with your country and to take as your own, what it is doing. Then you can consciously fight to stop it. I don’t think the values I was taught are wrong. I just believe they were great big lies and our behavior around the world is just getting worse.

I think if the French and Germans took on a little bit more collective responsibility, they too could do more to stop their countries from imperial aggression.

I was told you can find this collective identity of belonging to a nation among ethnic English, but not among Muslim and Caribbean migrants, nor the Scottish or Welsh. I don’t know. In France, making matters even more tense, those of recent migration, over the past 40 years, from African and Muslim countries are, in general, having a terrible problem identifying with ‘France.’

I would like to know how it is in your countries. Please leave a comment.

And Happy Independence Day!