A long article which quite coherently articulates the differences in mentality between Europe and America. Long but quite interesting.
I especially like this bit....
Link follows after extract.
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It is true that the UK today manages both to be part of the European Union and to manifest some of the trashier aspects of American commercial culture, but I doubt that this is what Garton Ash has in mind. He appears, rather, to see London's role as mitigating the damage done by American unilateralism on the one hand and "Euro-Gaullism" on the other ("the Chiracian version of Euro-Gaullism leads nowhere"). An internationally minded "Euroatlanticism" is his ideal and Tony Blair incarnates it: "Tony Blair has grasped and articulated this British national interest, role, and chance better than any of his predecessors." Of course, Garton Ash can hardly deny that Blair has so far ducked the challenge of selling the European Constitution to a skeptical British public. And I don't think he harbors any illusions about the "special relationship." Yet he still insists that Great Britain has this vital role to play in bridging the Atlantic gap.
I find that a very odd claim. Tony Blair is a political tactician with a lucrative little sideline in made-to-measure moralizing.[15] But his international adventures have alienated Britain from many of its fellow EU members without gaining any influence over Washington, where the British prime minister's visits are exercises in futility and humiliation. Yes, in certain respects the UK today has real affinities with America: the scale of poverty in Britain, and the income gap between rich and poor, has grown steadily since the 1970s and is closer to that of the US than anything found in Western Europe. British hourly productivity is well below most West European rates. However, New Labour was supposed to combine the best of the European social model and American entrepreneurship: Garton Ash himself concedes it has not quite managed this.
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http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17726
I especially like this bit....
Link follows after extract.
<begin>
It is true that the UK today manages both to be part of the European Union and to manifest some of the trashier aspects of American commercial culture, but I doubt that this is what Garton Ash has in mind. He appears, rather, to see London's role as mitigating the damage done by American unilateralism on the one hand and "Euro-Gaullism" on the other ("the Chiracian version of Euro-Gaullism leads nowhere"). An internationally minded "Euroatlanticism" is his ideal and Tony Blair incarnates it: "Tony Blair has grasped and articulated this British national interest, role, and chance better than any of his predecessors." Of course, Garton Ash can hardly deny that Blair has so far ducked the challenge of selling the European Constitution to a skeptical British public. And I don't think he harbors any illusions about the "special relationship." Yet he still insists that Great Britain has this vital role to play in bridging the Atlantic gap.
I find that a very odd claim. Tony Blair is a political tactician with a lucrative little sideline in made-to-measure moralizing.[15] But his international adventures have alienated Britain from many of its fellow EU members without gaining any influence over Washington, where the British prime minister's visits are exercises in futility and humiliation. Yes, in certain respects the UK today has real affinities with America: the scale of poverty in Britain, and the income gap between rich and poor, has grown steadily since the 1970s and is closer to that of the US than anything found in Western Europe. British hourly productivity is well below most West European rates. However, New Labour was supposed to combine the best of the European social model and American entrepreneurship: Garton Ash himself concedes it has not quite managed this.
<end>
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17726
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