by Euston station, I sat down and wept with laughter

Ho hum. Another day, another wholesome dollop of decency. I’ll let Mildred have first crack:

It's full of the same old stuff - a whinge about the lack of representation in the 'mainstream media' for these views, in a piece written by Nick Cohen, columnist in the Observer, the Evening Standard and the New Statesman, with the report signed by Francis Wheen, deputy-editor of Private Eye, columnist in the Guardian, John Lloyd, editor of the FT Magazine etc.

The Eustonauts themselves say in their great furling manifesto type thing:

The United States of America is a great country and nation. It is the home of a strong democracy with a noble tradition behind it and lasting constitutional and social achievements to its name. Its peoples have produced a vibrant culture that is the pleasure, the source-book and the envy of millions.

Hmmm. If you make that case for the United States, why not make a similar one for the UK: “lasting constitutional and social achievements”, etc. And the idea that people envy the United States seems to imply an emotional commitment by the Eustonauts that goes somewhat beyond factual analysis. And what’s with this “noble” crap? That made me think of…guess who?

For the past fifty or a hundred years, transferred nationalism has been a common phenomenon among literary intellectuals. With Lafcadio Hearne the transference was to Japan, with Carlyle and many others of his time to Germany, and in our own age it is usually to Russia.

From Notes on Nationalism. This bit’s pertinent too…

But the peculiarly interesting fact is that re-transference is also possible. A country or other unit which has been worshipped for years may suddenly become detestable, ans some other object of affection may take its place with almost no interval. In the first version of H.G. Wells's Outline of History, and others of his writings about that time, one finds the United States praised almost as extravagantly as Russia is praised by Communists today: yet within a few years this uncritical admiration had turned into hostility.

…given the tankie past of a lot of the signatories.

Comments

[Jimmy Doyle]

Sorry; what's "tankie"? Pro-Soviet/anti-Dubcek-type?

[jamie]

yes, strictly: pro the tanks going into Bufapest/Prague, etc. I'm using it generically for "former member of far left group"

[Chris Bertram]

A tad unfair about ex-Trots (being one such myself) ... though I'm pretty sure that John Lloyd has a genuinely Stalinoid past.

[jamie]

Mere relativism. One has to make a clear stand against bad things and in favour of good things. This is how one distinguishes the good from the bad.

[dsquared]

time to seriously abuse the privilege of access to the Guardian blog I think.

[dearieme]

It seems only minutes ago that that Wheen chappy was telling us that Karl Marx was a warm, lovely human being.

[Tim]

There's a strange typo on the manifesto's homepage. The seem to have spelled it Euston, when surely it should be the Houston Manifesto, in honor of the home of George W. Bush International Airport.