The vociferous character of these British reactions should tell us that perhaps Todd hits some marks. Again, I see no concrete refutation of Todds' many assertations. Many of them make sense to me.
The main thing about Todd is that he reflects a relatively new "realpolitik' perspective on the part of the leading sectors of the Euro bourgeoisie, which is most assuredly not lodged in states such as Spain, Poland or even Italy. Todd does state, though, against Brzezinski, that Britain is important for EU autonomy. He stated in Apres L'Empire that the passage of Londons' financial markets - second only to New York - into the Eurozone will be a deathknell for US financial hegemony. That is the thing about Britain: not really important for the US, but very important for the EU.
I fail to see the "rubbish" Murray sees in all this. I still seek concrete refutation...
OTOH, 'Little England's' politics are about as "viciously provincial" as America's - for very different historical/structural reasons having little to do with Todds' "Anglo-Saxon world", and is also a fertile breeding ground for a very nasty far right. For that matter, so too can be France: Popped open a copy of "Lutte Ouvrier", the paper of a leading French Trotskyist party, and _every page_ was all France, all the time! You'd hope for at least one page devoted to international affairs, but there is not even a mention of German workers, much less the international situation. Eh, the provinces...
-Brad Mayer
Message: 3 To: lbo-talk <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> From: Michael Pugliese <debsian at pacbell.net> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 12:48:44 -0700 Subject: [lbo-talk] Caput in rectum usque ad faeces (blogger on Emmanuel Todd) Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
http://englandssword.blogspot.com/2003_06_01_englandssword_archive.html#200396397 Friday, June 06, 2003
Posted 9:45 PM by Iain Murray
Caput in rectum usque ad faeces
That's the schoolboy Latin translation of the phrase Kris used to describe French philosophe Emmanuel Todd in his interview in Prospect Magazine. (A publication I used to describe as Blairite. Either it, however, has moved to the Left or Blair has moved to the Right because I think he'd roll his eyes at some of the rubbish contained therein these days). I used to subscribe to it -- I even had a letter published in it once -- but cancelled my subscription after realizing how tedious its tone was getting. For some reason, however, a copy dropped through my letterbox this month, which enabled us to read the Todd interview, which is not available for free on the web site.