Freedom from America: For Safeguarding Democracy and the Economic and Cultural Integrity of Peoples

Anti-Americanism has now become an imperative for the sanity and stability of the world. Over the past 30 years almost every foreign adventure of the US has led to failure in compounding existing problems, and after the withdrawal of her forces, conditions have been left worse than when she intervened. Added to that is the resistance of her government to recognise the reality of global warming, and most recently, blundering policies have instigated a series of unexpected terrorist outrages on innocent victims which have made the world a more dangerous place. There are many justifications for anti-Americanism, but there is one which rises above all others: viz., a financial-industrial system which clashes with the long traditions of the social democracies in Europe and the Far East. Two incompatible capitalist systems have emerged amongst the advanced industrial economies in the post-War period: the Rentier capitalism of the US, and the Productive capitalism of Europe and the Far East. Each is guided by its own ideology, the neo-liberalism of America versus the social democracy (a broad term transcending party politics) of Europe and the Far East Tiger economies. With America emerging as the clear victor of the Cold War in 1989, her government and corporations have been sufficiently confident to impose their financial-industrial system on the rest of the world, and this is proving disastrous to the social democratic consensus and welfare policies built up since 1945 and before. The argument is propagated that the European system is no longer viable, and must therefore surrender to the American way and globalisation, but this is shown to be a fiction invented by US policy makers. There is an in-depth analysis of American culture which explains its political system, and the US is revealed to be very far from a true democracy. It is in Europe and elsewhere where the ideals of democracy, justice and equity are best promoted. The final chapters home-in on a European resolution to the most difficult problems of our time, viz., saving the environment; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and how to defuse the causes of Terror. The book is an appeal for the cause of civilisation, social justice and equity for all humanity.

Table of Contents:
Preface p. v; Chapter ; America Versus the World; 1 - Defining the divide; 2 - An end to the old bases for conflict; 3 - The internationalisation of political issues; 4 - America is the enemy of world justice; 5 - The ideology of corporate power; 6 - Benign and malign economic systems; 7 - Fall of the Berlin Wall saw the onslaught of America's economic aggression; 8 - Failure of the counter-attack; 9 - A strategy for the future; 10 - Restoring the lost tradition of social progress; 11 - Futility of debt cancellation; 12 - Why privatisation is a misnomer; 13 - Need for personalisation policies; 14 - What they would mean for the poor; 15 - How America repudiates equal trading rights with the Third World; 16 - Personal property is necessary for the free individual; 17 - Need to stage development in the Third World; 18 - Personalisation policies in industrially advanced economies; 19 - Why international power today is economic but not Democratic; 20 - Defining Economic Integrity; 21 - But this clashes with the interests of American corporate power; 22 - Internal capitalisation versus rentier exploitation; 23 - Flunkeyism never gains respect; 24 - Why Britain should lead the initiative for world freedom; Chapter 2; America and the Deception of the World; 1 - Why anti-Americanism is necessary; 2 - The fraud of American democracy; 3 - The charlatanry of her foreign policy. 4 - Her gung-ho militarism; 5 - The rule of the philistines; 6 - How "presidential" government is replacing democratic government; 7 - But corporate power is more wide-ranging; 8 - American-style finance has undermined Japan; 9 - Need to politicise the underlying economic issues; 10 - How America won her reputation as a benevolent superpower; 11 - And how she lost it; 12 - The futility of inter-party strife within nations; 13 - Anti-Americanism is necessary in concretising complex socio-economic policies; 14 - Reservations with regard to anti-Americanism; 15 - The nastiness of the complacent; 16 - The fallacy of the chosen-people syndrome; 17 - The poison of American religiosity; 18 - A wake-up call to the American people; Chapter 3; America and the Debasement of Cultural Values; 1 - Interrelationship between cultural and political values; 2 - Some difficulties in defining Freedom and Democracy; 3 - Americans subject to universal dislike; 4 - Problems of debasing cultural standards; 5 - Comparison between American and non-American values; 6 - Origin of American values; 7 - Their disparaging of the strange and foreign; 8 - The proletarianisation of society; 9 - The movement to dumb-down culture; 10 - Examples of American mass culture; 11 - A dumbed-down culture unique to America; 12 - Emergence of a hedonistic youth culture; 13 - Early response to youth culture in Europe; 14 - America and the drug culture; 15 - Art forms and their influence on character; 16 - The need to resist American power; 17 - Origins of the cultural-political divide between the US and the non-American world; 18 - Hypocrisy of American freedom and democracy; 19 - Populism and the debasement of standards; 20 - Cultural cleft between the US andl non-American mindset; 21 - Money is the criterion for American values. 22 - Monetary worth directs the American moral sense; Chapter 4; America and the Debasement of Democratic Values; 1 - Limitations of the American concept of freedom; 2 - The USA is not in origin a democracy; 3 - Why freedom is better understood in the non-American world; 4 - The brutality of US industrial relations; 5 - When a democracy becomes a plutocracy; 6 - The non-American world has a better understanding of democracy; 7 - How America repudiated the politics of justice; 8 - American democracy corrupted by a debasing populism; 9 - The problems of populism; 10 - Comparison between superficial and real freedom; 11 - Necessary conditions for the achievement of full freedom; 12 - Establishing electoral mechanisms not sufficient to create a democracy; 13 - The American system is corrupted by high finance; 14 - The de-humanisation of life; 15 - Enslavement through the unstoppable demands of an economic system; 16 - America in need of an upward-inducing mobility; 17 - High culture as an aid to political consciousness; 18 - American is against majorities everywhere; 19 - Confronting the issues of price competition; 20 - America does not carry the emblem of ideal modernity; Chapter 5; A Global Strategy for the Planet and Humankind ; 1 - America's irresponsibility to the world community; 2 - The consequences of absolute power; 3 - Confronting America is an ethical imperative; 4 - Political justification for anti-Americanism; 5 - A pattern for a more creative politics; 6 - Moving from a class-based to an internationally-based politics; 7 - National interests only achievable through international cooperation; 8 - Anti-Americanism is the creative radical politics of the future; 9 - The call for a more intelligent political class; 10 - Enlightened business magnates and the mantle of power; 11 - How business leaders will succeed where Socialists failed; 12 - Contrasting attitudes of experts and ill-informed to problem-solving. 13 - Launching the politics of tomorrow; 14 - Confronting climate change with clean energy; 15 - Desalination, afforestation and hydrogen power; 16 - A National Planetary Service; 17 - America incapabl;e of meeting the funding needs of the environment; 18 - Reconstituting the United Nations; Chapter 6; De-fusing the causes of Terror; 1 - Political injustice gave rise to terrorism; 2 - Liberal values the key to inter-racial concord; 3 - Religious bigotry is always self-destructive; 4 - Worldwide Jewry must resist the mischief of American diplomacy; 5 - Why the Islamic and Western civilisations are incompatible; 6 - The political secularism of the non-American world must confront the political religiosity of the USA; 7 - An Islamic Conference to promote international understanding; 8 - Women and freedom in Islamic societies; 9 - The question of polygamy; 10 - Reforming Shariah law; 11 - A hierarchical Islamic church for sanity and stability; 12 - Dissenting Christian clerics often no less mischievous than those of Islam; 13 - A dialogue with Islam is an imperative for world peace; 14 - De-fusing the future social crisis in India; 15 - The non-American world will carry the torch of progress; 16 - The underlying unity between Europe and the Far East; Appendix A; Draft proposals for an association to be known as Freedom From America International; Appendix B; Draft proposals for a manifesto for Freedom From America International; INDEX

About the Author :
Robert Corfe is a prolific writer who has written extensively on the benefits of social capitalism. He is a political scientist and businessman, with considerable experience of political life, and in this book he sets out the arguments for a worldwide systematic anti-Americanism, as the only means for reviving effective democracy. For many years he was a senior manager in manufacturing industry, and later a management consultant advising SMEs, usually in the engineering sector. He is also the author of two autobiographical books under different pseudonyms: Death in Riyadh dark secrets in hidden Arabia (Geoff Carter), based on his experiences as a businessman in the Middle East in the 1980s, and, My Conflict with a Soviet Spy the story of the Ron Evans spy case (Eddie Miller), based on his adventures in Scandinavia in the 1960s. In 1987 he founded the Campaign For Industry, to which he was elected Chairman, and for which he wrote many pamphlets on the problems of contemporary business. His broad experience, frequent travels overseas, and years of residence in Continental Europe have given him a unique perspective of socio-economic issues.