Sandmann Blog

Aus meiner Sicht ist der  Republikanische Vorwahlkampf in den USA ein absurdes Theaterstück, aufgeführt von einer Menge durchgeknallter Schauspieler mit merkwürdiger Weltsicht.   New York Times Kolumnist Nicholas Kristof beglückt seine Leser dieses Wochenende mit einem interessanten Stück Meinung zur merkwürdigen Europa-Phopie vieler Amerikaner, vor allem aber der republikanischen Präsidentschaftskandidaten. Da lernt man das eine oder andere! Und amüsant ist es obendrein auch noch.

Grafik: Jason Logan

“QUELLE horreur! One of the uglier revelations about President Obama emerging from the Republican primaries is that he is trying to turn the United States into Europe.

“He wants us to turn into a European-style welfare state,” warned Mitt Romney. Countless versions of that horrific vision creep into Romney’s speeches, suggesting that it would “poison the very spirit of America.” (…) (Monsieur Romney is getting his comeuppance. Newt Gingrich has released an attack ad, called “The French Connection,” showing clips of Romney speaking the language of Paris. The scandalized narrator warns: “Just like John Kerry, he speaks French!”)

Who knew? Our president is plotting to turn us into Europeans. Imagine:

It’s a languid morning in Peoria, as a husband and wife are having breakfast. “You’re sure you don’t want eggs and bacon?” the wife asks. “Oh, no, I prefer these croissants,” the husband replies. “They have a lovely je ne sais quoi.”

He dips the croissant into his café au-lait and chews it with zest. “What do you want to do this evening?” he asks. “Now that we’re only working 35 hours a week, we have so much more time. You want to go to the new Bond film?”

“I’d rather go to a subtitled art film,” she suggests. (…) And we must work out our vacation, now that we can take all of August off. Instead of a weekend watching ultimate fighting in Vegas, let’s go on a monthlong wine country tour.” “How romantic!” he exclaims. “I used to worry about getting sick on the road. But now that we have universal health care, no problem!”

Look out: another term of Obama, and we’ll all greet each other with double pecks on the cheek.

Yet there is something serious going on. The Republican candidates unleash these attacks on Obama because so many Americans have in mind a caricature of Europe as an effete, failed socialist system. (…) But the basic notion of Europe as a failure is a dangerous misconception. (…) After all, Norway is richer per capita than the United States. (…) If Europe was as anticapitalist as Americans assume, its companies would be collapsing. But there are 172 European corporations among the Fortune Global 500, compared with just 133 from the United States. Europe gets some important things right. It has addressed energy issues and climate change far more seriously than America has. It now has more economic mobility than the United States, partly because of strong public education systems. America used to have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world; now France and Britain are both ahead of us. (…)

So it is worth acknowledging Europe’s (…)  problems are real. But embracing a caricature of Europe as a failure reveals our own ignorance — and chauvinism.

Vielleicht sollte Kristof vermehrt auch in europäischen Zeitungen gedruckt werden. Denn was gut und richtig in und an Europa ist, gerät bedauerlicherweise auch hier zunehmend in Vergessenheit.