Posted on 11/14/2004 6:28:45 AM PST by O.C. - Old Cracker
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Now, with the American election over, the negative images of Europe planted in Americans' minds over the last four years by the fervently anti-European Bush administration will surely grow. Europe is a bunch of pacifists who wouldn't lift a sword in their own defense if the Mongols themselves reappeared! Organized Europe -- i.e., the European Union -- doesn't care a whit about helping to democratize the world, or "regime change" in dictatorships! Finally, Europe is "old" (particularly you-know-who), and we Americans are eternally, innocently, hopefully young!
The only problem with these "truths," which have predominated in the Bush administration, is that they bear no resemblance to reality. Europe is, unbeknownst to most Americans, deeply into the greatest democratic experiment of its history, or perhaps that of any region of the world. It is an experiment so well along in implementation that observers privately predict that, should America falter with its obsessive wars and overspending in the years to come, the enormously expanded Europe, with a market of 455 million people working at peace with one another because of their common institutions, would become the world's real "superpower."
Perhaps most irksome to those in the administration who call Germany and France "Old Europe" and the new, more pro-American nations of Eastern Europe "New Europe," is the idea that if events continue as they are, we could readily see a "New Europe" against "Old America."
When I stopped by his busy offices here in downtown Brussels, the E.U.'s respected acting foreign minister, Spanish diplomat Javier Solana, tried to explain to me the major spirit and principles behind the constantly expanding E.U., with its astonishing 25 member states.
"We just took in 10 new members of 100 million people," he began. "We will have to make a tremendous effort to bring them up to an economic situation where they can profit from the advantages of a single union. Yet it is quite a fantastic endeavor -- and we're going to succeed.
"The E.U. is not one country but a group of countries with a common historic development. Sometimes there were histories of differences and of war, but today ... war is out of the question -- among the members. Because within the E.U., we'll have institutions that are common and, instead of confrontation, problems will have to be worked out.
"Many borders will disappear, not only physical, but mental. This is a house of peace, not of confrontation."
Many Americans have dismissed what is happening in Europe, if they think about it at all, because much has happened so quickly. Starting incongruously with the coal and steel community after World War II, the European Community developed slowly through a customs union, a European Social Fund, a monetary union (the euro, now worth more than the dollar), and only this month, the formation of an actual European Constitution.
While many rightly criticize the Union's torpid bureaucracy and officious involvement in everything from the sizes of loaves of bread to the sizes of condoms, the fact is that the E.U. is growing rapidly -- the former communist states of East Europe and the Balkans are as enthusiastic as the original states, such as Germany, France and Luxembourg.
Next year, Javier Solana will formally become the foreign minister of Europe, and the diplomatic corps of the various member countries are already being merged -- indeed a historic moment for countries once at war.
Meanwhile, all around this expanding Europe are the European wannabes. In Turkey, Croatia, Macedonia, governments are avidly changing every detail to conform to European standards. Once they belong, they can partake of the benefits of the huge European market, and of companion states that will help them along.
Meanwhile, too, beyond these new borders lies what the E.U. calls "the policy of neighborhood." These are countries in the Middle East and North Africa that are not in line for membership, such as Jordan and Tunisia, but that will have other levels of institutional, and particularly economic, relations with Europe to constantly enlarge the circle of peace and order.
This kind of carrot-and-stick approach to bringing other counties into the European zone is what some E.U. officials call the real, workable approach to the "regime change" that the American administration is attempting to impose in the world through force. It is, indeed, exactly the counter-example of change in the world.
In his excellent new book, "The European Dream," long-time student of the E.U. Jeremy Rifkin goes so far as to aver that the American Dream, with its excess of individualism, is actually languishing in the world: "A new European Dream is being born which emphasizes community relationships over individual autonomy, cultural diversity over assimilation, quality of life over the accumulation of wealth, sustainable development over unlimited material growth, deep play over unrelenting toil and universal human rights."
One thing is certain: As the next four years see these two increasingly counter-dreams play out across the globe, two crucial and palpable examples of how civilizations develop will emerge.
What a load of garbage. Sounds like someone longs for the collective.
The mark of the beast, 666, is all coming together right before our eyes...
"deeply into the greatest democratic experiment of its history".
This is one absurd commentary, the organizations that have formed the have never been democratic... but run by unaccountable elites... come on is this guy serious. LOL
"cultural diversity over assimilation".... LOL look to the neatherlands for an example of their succes. Silly Euros.
Look up some of the crap written by this idiot! He considers himself a futurist, but I've never seen any of his predictions even come close to happening.
Georgie Anne Geyer is not a guy...
No, Georgie Anne, nobody here pays any attention to the Europeans because they are fervently irrelevant.
In his excellent new book, "The European Dream," long-time student of the E.U. Jeremy Rifkin goes so far as to aver that the American Dream, with its excess of individualism, is actually languishing in the world: "A new European Dream is being born which emphasizes community relationships over individual autonomy, cultural diversity over assimilation, quality of life over the accumulation of wealth, sustainable development over unlimited material growth, deep play over unrelenting toil and universal human rights."
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Sounds like so much Soviet B.S. to me...
Amen to that!
Its a workers paradise.(remindsme of what the liberals used to say about the USSR)
Their One Commandment: "Thou shalt not procreate"
Their Four Pillars: suicide · abortion · cannibalism · sodomy
Here is one of his lectures to the Church: An Afternoon with Jeremy Rifkin
G.Anne Geyer has always been sensible, so her current point of view is mindboggling. It sounds like wishful thinking, and she doesn't mention the teeny problem of entrenched Islamofascism or the European Union's inability to compete economically with an aging population and rampant socialism. Looks as if she swallowed Kerry hook, line and sinker.
The Big Lie.
"...to aver that the American Dream, with its excess of individualism, is actually languishing in the world..."
Yeah, sure thing Euro-weenie-socialist-commie-liberal-nazi-fascists: America's in the toilet and you are leading the way into the new century. Morons.
Looks like this old communist hag heartily approves of the new soviet Europe that emphasizes group rights over individual rights and worships the bureaucrat as the new soviet man.
I give it three years before the EU opens the indoctrination camps and sends away politically incorrect dissenters for re-eductaion.
That is, if you consider a fourth-string bench-warmer to be a "player".
The fun will start when it dawns on Chiraq, Schroeder, Putin and even Tony Blair, that once the European Union is fully ratified they are no longer heads of nation states.
They will be the leaders of a small part of the EU, much like one of the states in the United States.
When the President of The United States calls, he’ll be talking to his peer, the Leader of the EU in Brussels not in France or Germany. Of course Chiraq and Schroeder et al. will be welcome to meet with the US Governors.
And if you go the site linked for this article, (uExpress), Georgie Geyer is put forward as a conservative. She makes David Brooks sound like a hard right winger.
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