That summary of that article is a crock. Europe is not drifting apart from America, it's actually moving toward it and it scares the heck out of the educated elites.
Everywhere I've gone in Europe in the past year, American products, American television, American music, and American business practices are being adopted. Elites in Europe see the writing of change on the wall and it frightens them.
I remember in the early eighties we had a similar love/hate relationship with Japan. We worried about our loss of jobs, our loss of prestige and our loss of power. Europe's desire to integrate is a manifestation of this change fear mindset. They've come to realize, as individual nations, they sense little control over their economic and cultural future, but together, they believe they can slow down the progress of American influence.
Most Americans have little sense of how deeply our corporations have penetrated the nooks and crannies of every corner of Europe. The Internet is exacerbating this phenomenon.
To put it not so mildly, a revolution is taking place and old Europe is largely watching from the sidelines while American companies compete, compete and compete. In so doing we are extending our cultural influence.
The Japanese gave us a much needed wake up call, since the mid to late 80's American companies have learned, changed, grown and adopted so many sound business practices they have left old Europe in the dust.
Our disagreement in Foreign policy vis-à-vis Iraq was a venting of this latent fear, not the other way around. Japan, Australia and England are much more comfortable living in their competitive shoes, old Europe is not. |
