America, the Has Been

In the August 27th edition of the New Yorker Magazine, in house writer Adam Gopnik, who spent many years living in Paris and writing about France contributed an excellent piece on Nicolas Sarkozy, the current President.

That article is worth reading entirely on its own merit. But it is especially revealing in its final paragraphs, where Gopnik comments on the current view held Europeans of America.

He argues with calm persuasion that the old days of loving (Blair) or hating (Chirac) the USA are over.

Rather, he suggests that America has fatally shot itself in the foot on so many fronts (economic, political, cultural) that Europeans by and large just don't care any more. They look to China and Arabia and India for financial interests and elsewhere for almost everything else. In short, America is not the power it was even 10 years ago, or five, and that may be a good thing.

He also higjlights the dreadful experience that most everyone who is not a US citizen now has when arriving at JFK, an experience that seems to be echoing here at YVR. The assumption that if you are not a National, there is a high likelihood that you are a terrorist.

The whole article is available here.