Susan,
thanks for responding. I knew that what I said about Blair was going to be picked-up on and I thought really carefully about what I said.
You said:
>"But I think you let yourself off a little easy, by blaming "America" and
>letting off the "UK." If Tony Blair were doing this alone, he would be
>a dictator; the UK has the same kind of simulated democracy that we do
>these days."
and I take your point, but i am almost certain, and I think that most Brits would agree with me, that it was Tony Blair's mindset and character that took Britain into the war, especially when you consider the way in which it happened.
It is very arguable about what would have happened if the Conservatives had been in power; of course they backed Blair to the hilt - they wanted a scrap too and were desperate to believe every reason given by Blair for going to war - but a good deal of that support was in response to Blair's concrete deceptions, even if they did believe him because they wanted to, and there were some strong antiwar sentiments on the Conservative benches too, anti-interventionism is a lot stronger in the Conservatives, despite Thatcher, than it is in the Labour Party. The fact that Blair's line of thinking was a lot closer to the US right than the British Conservatives is still shocking. This is pure conjecture of course but I do not think a Conservative Government would have taken us into that war without that needed second UN resolution and I think they would have ben a lot more wary of the legalities. The majority of the country was against the war, the majority of the Labour party was against the war, the majority of Parliament was against the war, but Blair used every trick in the book to get what he wanted. Yes, I have nothing but contempt for those who chose to look the other way because it suited them, it suited them to follow the leader etc; but that is why they did it, for their own skins or because it was their 'job'. There were a few exceptions, the few who believed what Blair believed, but not many.
That is why there is a difference.
You also said:
>"And don't the UK and the USA share many characteristics: racism,
>classism, sexism, rampant use of energy resources, and so on?"
Yes, it certainly does, as does the rest of the Western world. But there are two differences. The first is the extent of US power, as you say, "Historically speaking, the USA has simply taken up the imperial gauntlet." So it is a matter of how the American form of racism etc is exported or transformed from an internal phenomenon into something that affects externally, and by that I mean something that affects negatively entire populations and cultures. The second difference, and by far the more difficult to pin down, is the particular nature of that racism etc - partly the fundamentalist religious root and underpinning that gives it a strength that seems to be increasing, not decreasing as in Brit culture for example, but also partly ideological - and remember I am not just talking about racism here - the novelty of American ideology lies in its symbiosis of economic philosophy with nationalist righteousness. That is alien to Europeans now, though it wasn't in years past, as the world knows to its cost.
All the very best
Tim A.
