More to celebrate ...
... about the EU. It might even (partially) save the US from itself, by tightening standards for consumer goods in chemical content, recycling.
"Cameron points out that the United States and the European Union remain each other's most significant trading partners in the world--our entanglements are deep and abiding. But as Europe becomes a more assertive political force, the question will become, as he puts it, "Why shouldn't Americans enjoy the same standards as Europeans?"
Such a basic question used to run in the other direction, when the United States set the gold standard for the world's environmental health. And the answer strikes at the core of the Bush Administration's most savored narratives--that we, alone, are masters of our nation's fate."
From The Nation, via Arts and Letters Daily.
I've another celebration here.
Now I'm off to write my Christmas cards. My record is sending them on Boxing Day, but this year I'm aiming to actually get them to (most) people by Christmas Day.
posted by Natalie Bennett at 12/13/2004 01:38:00 pm
2 Comments:
The fact is that Europe and America are becoming comparable entities. The nation-states of the 19th C are becoming peculiarities of European civilization rather than its foundation, and the larger context of Europe (like China and India) are becoming more important. More importantly, the "single market" has become a benchmark for freeing Europe from spatial constraints, not just in economics, but in terms of culture as well.
However, Americans have been asserting themselves as a separate civilization itself, making the drive to compare EU and US more contentious.
Interesting thought. Was nationalism, one of the great pre-occupations of the 20th century, just a historical aberation, a minor footnote about an odd period?
Will the history of 2,100, or 2,500 talk about the world as a history of empires: Alexander's as the prototype, China, Rome, Aztecs, British, American ....?
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