First a word from Penny Red:
I rarely talk about American politics on this blog, and even less so since the hype has ramped up over the November election. Part of this has been because I believe that voyeuristic obsession over a political event with which British voters are relatively uninvolved exacerbates British political apathy.
Eloquently put, as ever. But also a policy which (as is most likely clear to our regular readers) which this blog has never followed. The reason is that although the democratic structures in place remain rigidly national, the economic and diplomatic ones are far less adherent to such localistic restrictions. Hence we became fantastically wealthy off of the internet bubble (with the internationalist elements blatantly obvious here: observe companies such as Amazon simply colonising with a .co.uk url) and then slumped once it burst, we became bloated courtesy of property markets and then were dashed against the rocks of Sub Prime (I was one of the few British victims, primarily the practice of mortgage selling is an American one).
Jonathan Freedland outlines this argument after joining Anatole Kaletsky in being an American writer who has become targeted by American right-wingers after writing an article that attracted their ire. The results were tiresomely predictable to any accustomed to their ilk:
I love it! A pansy-ass limey Brit begs the US to do his bidding while his own country slips further towards total Islamic rule.
As ever the American Right’s line on Europe can be summed up in a word: “Muslims”. As far as they are concerned Europe is socialist, thus needs a young workforce and as the only workforce available is the dreaded Muslims they are doomed to be taken over completely. So far as can be determined this is all the view they have of the Europeans, since their eschatological view of the outcome of immigration allows all other facts to slide into insignificance.
Unfortunately there seem to be an awfully large number of these cretins, with most of them being vocal to a disturbing degree. For the most part they congregate on The Times’ website (which seems to host an extraordinary amount of Americans) but that they found their way onto the Guardian’s comment section and into Freedland’s inbox fails to surprise me.
His response to the shout-down is also entirely correct: you can not establish yourself as a world power and expect none to be concerned about your leadership. If you begin intervening with the affairs of other nations they have a considerable stake in your government, as it is exerting an influence upon them regardless of whether or not they have an opportunity to hold it accountable.
But this also leads to a rather grim consideration: in many ways the American election matters significantly more to Britain than does the British one. Consider: the next prime minister will either be atlanticist interventionist Gordon Brown, atlanticist interventionist David Cameron or perhaps avowed atlanticist interventionist David Miliband. Now does it truly matter more which shade of poodle will trot along obediently with the American line, or is the dichotomy between McCain or Obama more important?
With regards to Iran, the difference between the potential Prime Ministers is minimal. Americans get a real choice and the American President is who matters when it comes to British foreign policy. Just one reason amongst many that the run-up to the presidential election is worth watching.
