[Zardoz]

BushCo has made America such an international pariah that now the UK's Foreign Secretary has to go before the press and "defend" the fact that his government is friendly with ours:

Miliband defends UK-US relations

How much worse can things get for Dubya and Company? Where is the bottom?

Is there a bottom?

[sjn]

The point from the British perspective isn't so much that Britain has friendly relations to the US, as the position of the UK government is such that the US government must always be appeased; full support right or wrong, especially in the international arena, i.e the Iraq War. There is also a trend of Americanisation of policy - copying American initiatives in education for example, even when they haven't worked out well in the US.

[Plantagenet]

There has always been a strong strand of anti-Americanism on the left in Europe. Its influence has waxed and waned through time. Bush didn't create anti-Americanism in Britain or in Europe. The U.S. aggression in Iraq has given the anti-American left a powerful argument against the U.S. which they are using very effectively within Europe at the present time.

[sjn]

I'm not "anti-American". I may be "anti-neocon", and "anti-Bush", but that's not the same thing. As for left, I'm not even on that axis!

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sjn', ' ') As for left, I'm not even on that axis!

[Bas]

It seems that the whole political spectrum in Europe is tilted to the left or that of America to the right, at least on a bunch of issues. What may be considered right wing politics in Europe may well be considered a centrist point in America. And what's a left wing "point" in America may be considered more of a centrist position in Europe. Also, having to look at eachother with binoculars across an ocean, no doubt magnifies these differences, making Europe far more leftist than it is in American eyes, and America more right wing than it really is in European eyes. For me personally it results that on this forum I often feel compelled to "attack" some "right wing" American points of view, while in real life here in Europe, I usually get to defend America against Europeans of whom I think they have overly simplistic views about the country; it's a feast of misunderstanding and I don't see it changing anytime soon though ending the Iraq war should go a long way in returning opinions to more favourable levels. I think apart from Vietnam and Iraq wars the general perception of America has always been positive and very much so in the years/decades just after WWII. There was also complete support for America just after sept 11th, which ended for the most part with the invasion of Iraq eventhough a number of countries were part of the "coalition of the willing" among which the country I live in.