ObamaVision: Europe Doesn’t Mind Leftist American Cultural Imperialism

by Michael van der Galien

Last week, Big Hollywood broke the news that the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) has proved eager to obey the orders of President Obama. Instead of following the American president’s Serve.gov initiative critically, 60 network television programs (including news programs) have decided to embrace it and shove it down your throats.

As BH’s editor-in-chief John Nolte explained:

…tens, if not hundreds of millions of Americans, will be urged through the (ab)use of public airwaves to log on to the EIF iParticipate site and volunteer” this week.

A memo published by Big Hollywood, Big Government and others, clearly shows the propaganda week was orchestrated by the White House and ‘fits into a broader White House plan, including the push to politicize the NEA, to redefine “art” as “service” and engage an all too compliant news, entertainment, and artistic community to start a volunteer army through these online portals.’

Although the EIF-scandal has been covered in depth here, on other blogs and by Fox, a question that has not been asked is how Europe will react to Obama’s massive liberal agenda? How will Europeans react to an obvious attempt to politicize art and the media? Will Europe react?

The last question has to be answered first, of course, and the answer is pretty simple: yes it will. If for nothing else, then because Obama continues to be adored by most of the European MSM. Everything he does is celebrated by our establishment journalists, who, like their American counterparts, pride themselves in being ‘tolerant,’ ‘compassionate’ and ‘reasonable.’ Keywords, of course, for leftists.

Which brings me to the second reason they are sure to cover this: This is a perfect leftist agenda. European Social Democrats have dreamed of doing what Obama does, for decades. It is, if you’ll excuse the language, every progressive’s wet dream. Of course, most European media and artists have a leftist agenda, but down here they have to hide it somewhat. They cannot speak about their biases and their long term goals. Their American ideological allies have no fear, however. They plan and plot all they want, and virtually nobody is doing anything about it. What is there not to love for the average liberal European?

Well, there is this thing about anti-Americanism. Europeans have complained about American hegemony, influence and dominance for decades. Especially under George W. Bush – but also before – European media tried to put the U.S. in as bad a light as possible. America was too powerful, too strong and its ‘culture of corruption and greed’ too pervasive. No matter where you turned, there was American influence.

Obama’s plans are unlikely to decrease American influence worldwide – they will only change its nature.  Where it was always pro-freedom and pr0-capitalism, its aim will now be to redistribute wealth and to transform the world into one happy multicultural community in which equality of outcome, not of opportunity, is considered the ultimate goal. Europe will be confronted with this new vision for the world constantly. We will not be able to escape this new ‘cultural imperialism.’

It is doubtful, however, that all traditional critics of American hegemony in the past, will condemn this new agenda as they did with the old agenda. To a lot of Europeans, the problem with American dominance was never this dominance in itself, but its nature. It was too capitalist, too ‘immoral,’ too American.

The new approach, on the other hand, will be completely different. It will be Social Democratic and therefore distinctly European. Sure, it will be America that tries to ’socialize’ the world, but who cares; the end result will be the same. These international leftists’ – a majority of whom are part of the MSM – problem with American hegemony and ‘pushiness’ was that it was not liberal. Once it is, they will forget all their old criticism, and they will herald Obama as the great liberal Messiah.

On the other hand, there will also be European leftists who will be angered by more proof of ‘America’s arrogance.’ Lest we forget, Socialism and its little brother Social Democracy is a European, not an American invention. These Europeans will be angered by what they perceive to be America stealing their number one issue. They will be more than pleased that the U.S. has finally joined the ranks of what they consider to be the civilized world, but it should realize who’s boss: Europe. America has to follow Europe’s lead, not the other way around; why, oh why can’t Obama understand that?

Of course, there will also be European conservatives – and yes, there are many of us – who will criticize the cultural imperialism Obama envisions. These Europeans have been indoctrinated by the European media, however. They believe that the Democratic Party is the equivalent of most conservatives parties in Europe. This is clearly not correct – many Democrats and especially Obama and his allies are further left than Labor in Europe – but it takes time for Eurocons to wake up. Luckily they have started doing just that, with Brits taking the lead. As usual, we can expect mainland Europe to follow in the Brits’ footsteps within a few months time. Because there is a tremendous lack of relationships between European conservatives and American conservatives, this process takes some time. But come, it will.

It will be fascinating to watch Europe’s reaction to Obama’s extremely ambitious plans to ‘radically transform’ America and the world. The Old Continent’s leftists will be divided over the matter, while its conservatives will find themselves repeating some of the criticism their ideological enemies – Social Democrats – made before Obama came to power.


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Posted Oct 22nd 2009 at 8:31 am in Celebrity News, Politics, Television | 17 Comments