Well looks like Bush is going to win - congratulations, every nation gets the leader it deserves as they say. Now what does this mean for Europe? Political commentators over here agree on one thing: if Kerry had won, European nations would probably agree to let their troops stay in Iraq. Now that Bush is re-elected, it's a different story. Then there's also agreement on that the gap between the US and Europe will get wider. That means that the EU is forced to strengthen its efforts to strengthen a common foreign policy and army - this process has in fact already started. So while it seems that the US become more and more divided, Europe is uniting and getting stronger politically.
Exactly, a weak U.S. is an opportunity for Europe and the rest of the world. Now if only we could get rid of Blair...
I still don't understand how the interests of Europe and those of the US are necessarily mutually exclusive.
Well yesterday I was consistently told off for having an opinion about the US so I decided to stick with Europe this time, hoping that I am allowed an opinion on that at least.
so what if you were told off? you are allowed every opinion you can muster - perhaps americans, especially bush voters, should just learn to stop telling everyone to shut the f*** up if they want to be such a "free country" interested in "spreading liberty" when a person decides that they can't ever learn anything from anybody else, it is time to call kevorkian... because what's the point?
I agree, I'm just not really in the mood for Anne Frank and Srebrenica references today. Yesterday was a pretty tough day for the Dutch news-wise as you know.
I just can't wait to see how Europe handles it's "superior" social welfare system once it has to spend 1/2 it's budget to defend itself. This will be fun to watch.
Defend ourselves from what? We have no enemies. Also with the size of the EU and number of member states we can have a big enough army to protect us all without spending excessive amounts of money. It's a concept called "sharing", something I understand you right-wing freaks may have a hard time understanding.
Why would Europe want to do that seeing that we don't have any enemies? Unless you know something I don't: is Bush planning on invading us then?
It means that we all gather our funds and by every European we know this book; only by demonstrating to the world that a different, powerful vision of how the world can be can thrive in terms of "the dream" as well as "the reality" will Democrats finally understand the template, the REAL shift they must undertake, to motivate - to INSPIRE - the American masses. They need an example, a template. If Europe, hesitating now with their own vision i nthe face of those that want the American model's front-end success (while ignoring it's back-end failures), abdicated their "dream," the world acquieseces to not just the American vision of how the world is, but the NEOCON expression of that vision, which is for others to be subjects to empire, economic, military or otherwise. Europe won't need to spend on the military other than taking what each member nation spends now and using 60% of it for a continental rapid reaction force. the myth that they need to spend as much as the US is in fact a myth; as long as they don't START to spend that much (and thus institutionalise that level of spending), they'll never have to do so, unless the world totally goes down the shitter and there's a war with like CHina, in which case the spending won't be the issue, will it? No, acknowledge that you've built the most ambitious trans-national / internal market experiment in history, out of the jaws of defeat and war, not out of imperial victory, that that "dream" instituionalises the waging of peace and expresses a new, counterbalancing vision of what freedom means; access and embeddedness in communities and quality of life, as opposed to an individualistic, exclusive notion of freedom that focuses on useless measures like GDP and commits to personal wealth accumulation without considerations of quality of life at all. It's not that you've lived up yet to this vision, that's not the issue; America doesn't live up to their "Dream." It's acknowledging that the EU is comprised of such a DIFFERENT dream than the US.
I am sure that now that the election is over, France and Germany will realize that it is in their best interest to reach out to the US. And viceversa.
Interestingly, I think that this is true, but I don't think that "reaching out" will mean the same thing to France, Germany and the EU as it might mean to you, or to the US. Not even close.
Hi Mel. Interesting point, as usual. What do you propose 'reaching out' means to France, Germany and the EU, and what do you propose it means to me personally, and to the US in general?
The political situation in both France and Germany is such that it is unlikely that their governments will go against public opinion, and public opinion is very much anti-US in both countries. So I can't envisage your scenario.