I think there may have been some changes since the dark ages, and this is a place for the seeding of changes.  There are some dunderheads at dkos, but it is a good forum for getting a message out there, and I think that it is an important message.  It is the same battle here as there, and we have been losing here.  I am not sure, and don't want to succumb to American exceptionalism, but I think it will be difficult for Europeans to prosper in the long run if the forces that are ascendent in this political system are uncontested.  Mybe I'm wrong, and maybe the political factors inherent in Europe now will protect you from the slow and steady grasp of neo-liberal economics which values economic freedom over all other facets of freedom.  If we lose, I hope that you are able to prevail and flip Churchill on his head and have the old world come to the rescue of the new.

I would humbly say that I think your last paragraph has the usual amount of truth as any other stereotype.  Some, but not the whole story, and that is what I, and poemless are asking for, tell the whole story, or your portion of it.  We are so big and insular that we have more myopia than is healthy.  I had a Spanish girl as an Exchange student in the early 90's and even here in Sonoma County California it was culture shock for the kids who would ask her stupid stuff like, "Do they have cars in Spain?"

"I said, 'Wait a minute, Chester, You know I'm a peaceful man...'" Robbie Robertson