Stardate 20010923.1137 (On Screen via long range sensors): This London Times editorial speaks to the British about anti-Americanism and where it comes from, and about what he views America as really being about. I don't agree with everything he says, but most of it is important.
He points out peripherally that the US has a reputation in Europe for being uneducated. That's more than strange, because anyone's top-ten list of universities in the world will consist primarily of American ones. Nine of mine would be Harvard, CMU, MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Berkeley, Oxford, Cambridge and the Sorbonne. I could make a good case that the tenth should be Johns Hopkins, and I can list off lots of other American universities which are world class: USC, UCLA, UCSD, Yale, RPI, Princeton, the list goes on. Any one of those would be a gemstone, a source of local pride, for any other nation in the world. Boston and the Bay area and LA each have more world-class universities in their metro areas than most nations. And when you think "High tech companies", which nation's companies are on the top of your list? Is there any British company you'd place in the top ten? (I can't think of a single British company I'd think of as being world-class high tech except ARM, and that's tiny. I'd put the Dutch company Philips in there; that's the only European company I can think of I'd put in the company of IBM, 3M, Dupont, Intel, Agilent, Applied Materials, Tektronix, Eaton and Texas Instruments. We have the best medicine in the world, unexcelled science and engineering and the world's best university system. Why is it that we're viewed as "uneducated"? Hmmph.
He talks a bit about American anti-Americanism (especially mentioning Falwell) but seems to miss the point that it is a strength of the US that it not only tolerates but encourages such dissent and is strengthened by it. It is precisely because Falwell can make an ass of himself on TV without any legal fallout at all that I know that I have freedom of expression. Still, his fundamental point is critically important: When it really comes down to it, whose side are you really on? (discussion in progress)
