The G-8 Summit now underway in Italy raises some pointed questions, especially about the Bush II administration's policies on global warming and nuclear weapons. Discuss.

Um ... but don't shoot any protestors.



-- Anonymous, July 21, 2001

Answers

Well, at least all there'll be to shoot at the next meeting is Albertan wildlife. Glad to see that the "leaders" are getting the message.

Ack.

~

Yes, while the American public as a whole has almost *always* been out of step, we've usually had leaders who could at least bridge the gap. Now, well. Umm. I can't even put it to words. Hell, I'm even hoping for a strong EU these days to counterbalance US foolishness (and that's coming from a hardline eurosceptic).

Mind the gap, please.

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

I've been http://dav idgrenier.weblogger.com/2001/07/20">keeping a blog of the G8 protests over at my site, if anyone is interested.

I also must respectfully disagree that the "public" is out of touch and we need "leaders" to do the right thing. How long did the public have to fight for the eight hour day and the weekend before the leaders finally gave in? How close to revolution did we come in the thirties and the sixties before we got a few policies blunting the sharpest corners of Capitalism and White Supremacy? How long did women struggle for the vote before they got it (like it did a lot of good, they still make 3/4ths what men do)? How badly are we fucking up the planet as our "leaders" obfuscate and hemnhaw and talk about the need for 'market based' solutions? Our "leaders" have gotten us involved in war after war after war while the people resisted. Our leaders have given us a phony "war on drugs" that allows us to brag about having the highest incarceration rate in the world. Our leaders didn't heed the call of the public for a nuclear freeze, and keep stealing our money to build more weapons that the public is not calling for.

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

I'm not really up for starting in on much of that, David, other than to point out that I think we're talking about two different things. Your examples (aside from not really being representative of "the public", but rather a small subset of it- active union members/labor leaders) are domestically focused. I'm talking about the public here being out of step with the rest of the world- an outward international focus- not something our domestic unions are really known for (with some recent small, but notable, exceptions).

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

I find it interesting that the EU even in its infancy is already influencing the American debate (such as it is) not only on international topics like globalization and climate change, but also on such national topics as the death penalty. The US is infamous for its inward gaze and for discounting the rest of the world, an arrogant stance stemming from our cold war position of international power. But it looks like that is beginning to change.

I suspect that Bush's wrong-headed stance on weapon systems is going to speed up the pace of that change. The best way to unite a group of disparate people is to give them someone to revile. Bush provides a great foil for anti-US feeling, with his wrong-headed low-brain- function backslapping style.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001

Do you really see the EU influencing the US right now? The EU is having a hard enough time with accounting right now, nevermind putting together (and maintaining) coherent EU-wide policy aims that could influence/counter the US.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001

More that I see the attitudes of the EU influencing the media commentary here for the first time. Did the fact that Europe has a much different attitude toward the death penalty than the US make any diff to us in previous decades? No. I'm not saying we're falling into lockstep or anything (or that the EU has anything like lockstep), just that the US media has never even noticed in the past that Europe was anything more than a place to have a cool vacation or send correspondents to cover confusing wars.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001

That's a good point Viv, and it's probably just because there is such a thing as a European Union. The US isn't dealing now with individual small countries, but a loose federation of nation-states that have some degree of strength. Curtis will probably say it's just all the gangsta rap I listen to warping my brain, but it's only now that Europe as a whole was something the US needed to pay much attention to. In times past, we've been responsive to individual countries doing Very Bad Things or allying with us, but not to a union of nations.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001

Just to chime in, the Internet itself is having an effect, I think - not just regarding Europe, but the world as a whole (or for that matter, anything that is outside the 'average American's' immediate sphere of concern.

As people go online, they just can't pretend that their own neighborhood is reflective of the way 'everyone' thinks anymore. We're all influencing each other to a certain extent.

10 years ago, you had to want to know about what was happening outside your own region and go hunt for it in order to be exposed. If you didn't want to, it was fairly easy to ignore that it existed - now, if you don't want to be influenced, you have to actively resist. If the average person tends to be more passive than active about what they learn (and I think that's the case), then the trend is for the passive position to learn more and more about a wider locality, so the US should slowly be developing a more global consciousness.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001

Too much Vanilla Ice, Michael.

A "loose federation of nation-states" is very kind description of the EU. As I noted above, there's so much infighting (and not just on bureaucratic issues- tho' that's what the EU specialises in) that the US might as well be dealing with individual states. The next time we need to bomb someone, we'll do it with England. The next time someone in Europe raises a fuss on military matters, it will be France. (And now, it seems, when we need endorsement of BS policies, we go to Italy. Both GW and the Italian premier do have a thing or two in common- a tendency to take things that aren't theirs).

This isn't to say that there haven't been some important issues pressed under the imprimatur of the EU- privacy and antitrust are two public examples that spring to mind. While the privacy bit was more of a PR war, the antitrust thing was huge (but way under the public radar). But I'm afraid that the EU won't have its act nearly together enough during the next administration or two to make much of a difference.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001

But I'm pretty fly for a white guy ...

No, I agree ... the EU is not any kind of a world power. It's more symbolic than anything.

Also yes, the Internet has, I think, more potential to bring people together and undercut totalitarianism than any other technology ever invented.



-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001

Good point about the internet, Lynda. I know tons more about the English-speaking rest of the world than I used to, that is for very certain. The rest... not so much.

And Michael, I agree very much with what you said about how one country at a time was easily ignored, but as even a loose gathering, their combined voice has more power to gain our attention.

The EU will surely be something to be reckoned with in the future, if it can ever get over itselves. And if so, we're going to be left out there on our own, refusing to join in the Kyoto accord, cranking out gas-guzzling SUVs and hanging out in the company of the third world when it comes to policy on the death penalty and gun use.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001