Hating China

I predict that the new way to bore everyone will be hating China. Everyone without a real opinon or any politician will be making snide remarks about the Chinese and it will get worse. History will be forgotten and insidious intents shall be invented. It'll be like the French thing but worse. And once it starts it will not stop until anyone reading this has died of old age. LIke one of those lousy songs you hear on the radio and you realize - though terrible - you will be listening to that song for the rest of your life.

re: anti-Americanism is an empty platform for governance

michael ignatieff: "Around the world (and at home), America's long-held desire to export liberty and democracy is called hubristic, messianic, imperialistic and worse. But try imagining a world without it."

Despite Pew's findings, it remains the case that anti-Americanism is an empty platform for governance.

who's talking about governance? Hyping threats of Iraqi WMDs wass an empty platform for governance too, but it wins elections nonetheless --- which does appear to be the whole point.

Its a mistake to regard the European Union countries as historically hostile to democracy promotion. They've actually done pretty well in this area. Support from the historic core of the EU was very important in stabilizing democracy in Spain, Portugal, and Greece. More recently, EU nations get at least as much credit for supporting the Ukrainian democractic movement as the USA. Desire to join the EU, and the concommitant willingness of the EU to consider new members, is a positive force in partially democratic nations like Romania and Turkey. One of the unfortunate consequences of the recent anti-integration votes in France and the Netherlands will probably be postponement of Turkish candidacy for membership in the EU, which may inhibit the development of mature democracy in Turkey. Its been the political elites in the EU, precisely those people with the greatest disagreements with the Bush Administration, who have been the biggest supporters of a larger Europe composed of many democratic states.

Its been the political elites in the EU, precisely those people with the greatest disagreements with the Bush Administration, who have been the biggest supporters of a larger Europe composed of many democratic states.

oh hush Roger.... its an article of faith among conservatives that Europeans have always hated democratization, and its only because of Bush's initiatives that any progress is being made. Lets forget the role that Europe played in Lebanon.... and forget the fact that European leaders were urging full and free elections in Iraq long before the Bush regime finally gave up on its plans in the face of massive street demonstrations called by Shiite clergy demanding direct elections. None of that happened in the conservative universe --- Bush, and Bush alone, through the sheer force of his mighty will is bringing democracy to the planet!

Hush, Roger. Let's not talk about how "Europe" dealt with the Bosnia situation. Or how France solved that unfortunate Rwandan overpopulation problem. Or the millions of deaths from "Europe's" little temper tantrums of the 20th century. "Europe", the euphemism for a dozen little self-absorbed two bit fiefdoms joined in a temporary alliance of convenience, is a poster child for obsolescence.

1) Bosnia: A fair criticism but we didn't do much better. Its worth remembering also that a contributing factor to the genesis of the Bosnia problem was an unexpected consequence of European desire to spread democracy in Europe. The first component of old Yugoslavia to break away was Slovenia. In an effort to safeguard what appeared to be, and has in fact turned out to be, a real democratic movement, some European nations, with I think Germany leading the way, recognized Slovenia as a separate state. This was a factor in the breakup of Yugoslavia. Again, its a mistake to stigmatize European nations, even in the case of the former Yugoslavia, as being not interested in spreading democracy.
2) Rwanda; Did we do any better? Also, the topic under discussion here is democratization, not genocide prevention.
3) WWII and Before: How is this relevant? Do you want to invoke Napoleon's imperialism or the Thirty Years War while you're pursuing facile generalizations?

"Hush, Roger. Let's not talk about how "Europe" dealt with the Bosnia situation. Or how France solved that unfortunate Rwandan overpopulation problem. Or the millions of deaths from "Europe's" little temper tantrums of the 20th century. "Europe", the euphemism for a dozen little self-absorbed two bit fiefdoms joined in a temporary alliance of convenience, is a poster child for obsolescence."

Yes, let's also not talk about the tremendous genocide and near annihilation of the native American tribes that once inhabited the region now encompassing the USA. Let's not talk about how calls for "Manifest Destiny" were used to support massacres of Indian women and children or to initiate an obvious offensive war against Mexico in 1846.

Let's leave out the part about how the US, almost alone among modernized Western nations, was convulsed by an ultra-violent civil war before it freed its black slaves, in general much later than its counterparts. As for the "poster child for obsolescence," speak for yourself, Helen-- both Europe and the US are facing the same sort of demographic pseudo-crisis as their native (European-derived) populations, reaching high levels of wealth, essentially stagnate and gradually shrink while they're replaced by immigrants. It's probably the most peaceful way we could come up with to stabilize the world's population, which has to happen at some point.

I love the USA as much as anybody, but it gets really tiresome to see people who should know better toss heavy stones while living in their own glass houses. Claims to moral and cultural superiority of one nation over another almost inevitably founder on 30 seconds of common sense when subjected to even mild examination.

"Its a mistake to regard the European Union countries as historically hostile to democracy promotion"

That's not true. Europe lives pretty well with dictatorships. Saddam WMD program was mainly German based(private firms) , and weapons were from all world but mainly USSR and France.
If you said that Europe ONLY(actively engages) promotes democracy in Europe then i would agree with you.
In short Europes pronmoves democracy in "White" Ocidental countries, makes some noises towards Latin America but not much more than that.

"I love the USA as much as anybody, but it gets really tiresome to see people who should know better toss heavy stones while living in their own glass houses. Claims to moral and cultural superiority of one nation over another almost inevitably founder on 30 seconds of common sense when subjected to even mild examination."

I want to remain polite lets just say that you forgot a big chunk of History.
And i am European.
We were in Africa with colonies at that time and in case of my country Portugal until 1970's ; in 20th Centurey we started 2 World Wars and 3 Criminal Political ideologies...

"Its a mistake to regard the European Union countries as historically hostile to democracy promotion"

That's not true. Europe lives pretty well with dictatorships. Saddam WMD program was mainly German based(private firms) , and weapons were from all world but mainly USSR and France.
If you said that Europe ONLY(actively engages) promotes democracy in Europe then i would agree with you.
In short Europes pronmoves democracy in "White" Ocidental countries, makes some noises towards Latin America but not much more than that.

"I love the USA as much as anybody, but it gets really tiresome to see people who should know better toss heavy stones while living in their own glass houses. Claims to moral and cultural superiority of one nation over another almost inevitably founder on 30 seconds of common sense when subjected to even mild examination."

I want to remain polite lets just say that you forgot a big chunk of History.
And i am European.
We were in Africa with colonies at that time and in case of my country Portugal until 1970's ; in 20th Centurey we started 2 World Wars and 3 Criminal Political ideologies...

"but the leaders who are on the rise in Europe -- the UK's Tony Blair, Germany's Angela Merkel -- are the ones who favor closer relations with the United States."

Whoa there, Daniel. Angela Merkel indeed is on the rise, but Tony Blair????? Considering the solidity of Labour's position in 2001, and the tremendous erosion of Labour's majority to the feckless Tories and still-fringy Liberals, the 2005 election was in almost every way a dramatic failure for Blair. Even the losses for Labour grossly underestimate Blair's predicament-- he's especially unpopular personally, far less popular than his party in general, and 60-70% of Britain's population does not trust Blair and is extremely critical of him. Unlike in the USA, the British people are miraculously able to maintain their attention span on a single issue, and they're furious there about Iraq and the deceptions that Blair obviously used to drag Britain into it. Furthermore, Britain's Empire did the decline and fall thing since the Brits got massacred by the Japanese at Singapore and Burma in the 1940s, and so those crazy Brits *actually care about international law*, which makes them even more pissed at Blair for flouting it over Iraq.

Gordon Brown and quite a few other pretenders are waiting with sharpened knives behind the curtain-- a single major suicide bombing or mortar attack against a British base in Iraq, and Blair is toast. I don't think that Brown or any other Labour replacement would suddenly withdraw from Iraq, but Labour is already a lot cooler toward the USA than before the election, since they blame Bush in part for their election reversals. Look at the way George Galloway, a former Labour MP turned anti-Labour nemesis, thrashed Oona King over Iraq. Compared to where he was before, Blair is on very shaky ground.

As for Angela Merkel, be careful about your predictions. She'll probably prevail and probably won't be as distant from US policy as Schroeder, but you need to fill your pipe with higher quality weed if you think that she's going to send troops into Iraq. His intention to send soldiers into Iraq was the one factor that doomed Stoiber's leadership bid, and this was before the s**t hit the fan in Iraq recently-- Merkel has clearly indicated that there's no way she'll send troops into Iraq right now. Moral and financial support yes, but no troops, and thus not much of a change from the Schroeder policy overall. (Though Merkel almost certainly will free up Germany's capital and make the labor market more flexible, to Germany and Europe's benefit.)

"Despite Pew's findings, it remains the case that anti-Americanism is an empty platform for governance."

Wishful thinking, Dan. The bitter truth is that Bush's war on Iraq was based on claims which have proven embarrassingly false, and we're now trapped in a bloody quagmire of our own making. Even many of the most pro-American foreign politicians can't help but use this as campaign fodder. Failure is failure, Dan, whether or not you like the consequences.