[Peace-discuss] Sissy Europeans

[David Green]

Apropos to a consideration of what we are really up
against, this lead editorial from today's Tribune
clearly demonstrates the mentality of the ruling
class, which leads directly from neoliberalism to
neoconservatism to bombing Iran. Note that the writers
are not even diplomatic enough to distance themselves
from the French racist Sarkozy.

______________________

The frightened European

April 23, 2006

In France, an Ipsos poll asks adults in their early
20s, "What does globalization mean to you?"
Forty-eight percent of the respondents answer, "Fear."
And in a book titled "The Fearful Society," author
Christophe Lambert describes a France plagued by "fear
of the future, fear of losing, fear of others, fear of
taking a risk, fear of solitude, fear of growing old."

Lambert was writing as much of a continent as of a
country. Consider:

- A stagnant Italy is so factionally divided--witness
this month's fractious national election--that real
economic reform there doesn't stand a heretic's chance
at the Vatican.

- Germany's new chancellor, Angela Merkel, didn't get
enough of a mandate from voters last autumn to push
her proposals for economic reform. She now busies
herself with the tedium of coalition politics.

- The Economist magazine recently explained why
Europeans view change as painful: "In Europe, insiders
have permanent jobs with nigh-impregnable security,
high wages, guaranteed pensions and a still generous
welfare state that they know how to exploit. ... Many
work in the public sector. Others, such as
shopkeepers, taxi drivers, lawyers or pharmacists, are
insulated from competition by a web of regulations.
Outsiders have none of these benefits." (As in Chicago
politics, guess who prevails.)

- With Europe's fertility rates plunging, its
population--even with immigration--could drop from 12
percent of the world's population to 7 percent over
the next half-century. What would that mean? One
example: Germany could have one-third fewer workers in
2050 than it has today. Who, then, will support the
cradle-to-grave welfare state that western Europeans
hold so dear?

- The Washington Post, writing of France's bleak
economic growth and high unemployment, notes the irony
of who most fears cutbacks to those expensive welfare
programs: "College students--the standard-bearers for
change in revolutions past--have become the strongest
advocates of the status quo. They are trying to cling
to the social security blankets that have protected
their parents' generation but which many economists
say are crippling France's integration into a new
world economy."

And that French labor law intended to cut unemployment
by making it easier to dismiss young workers? That's
no longer something to fear. Prime Minister Dominique
de Villepin said the government would capitulate to
protesters and gut the law's central tenets. Interior
Minister Nicolas Sarkozy offered a doubly snide
analysis of France's labor market paralysis that
became an instant classic: "The left has nothing to
propose, nothing to say, nothing to defend. It can
only feed off the right's mistakes."

- Yet for all these fears--most of them, note, in the
economic realm--Europe has had immense difficulty
engaging the life-and-death threat posed by the
prospect of Iranian nuclear bombs atop far-ranging
missiles. As Iran's nuke program progressed, European
governments led the world's diplomatic efforts to
negotiate an end to that program. This was
sophisticated Europe's opportunity to outshine, to
humiliate, the more muscular foreign policy fomented
by those cowboys in Washington. Instead, as every
European knows, Europe whiffed.

Western Europe's inclination to see Iran as a
misbehaving business partner rather than as a
potentially destructive menace with a grudge fits a
troubling pattern.

The frightened European tends to fear 20th Century
uncertainties--free trade, free labor markets--more
than 21st Century realities. Even multiple murders by
train bombings in Madrid and London haven't moved
Europe's focus into the present. Global terror? No,
that's an American obsession.

What will it mean for the U.S. if Europe's narrow
fears of all the wrong things persist?

American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Novak
recently wrote that Europe's two passions are peace
and security--"but you cannot have peace unless you
are willing to prepare for war, and you cannot have
security unless you are willing to take risks. Few
signs indicate that Europe is willing to do these
simple things.

"In the past, that has always proved costly for
America."

So the frightened European fears globalization but may
be willing to live with Iranian nukes. As the threat
from Tehran accelerates, what will he or she do about
that?


Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune 



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