Katherine,

Point taken. However, comparing the Spanish socialists (or most socialist groups in Europe, for that matter) to Marxists is pretty misleading and inaccurate. They may be committed to a variant of socialism, but I don’t think anyone is worried about the elimination of free enterprise overseas.

Others,

I also wouldn’t say Europeans are less informed than Americans as a whole. Of course, there are many ignorant Europeans, just as there are many ignorant Americans. Unfortunately, the intelligence expressed among the posters to this blog isn’t representative to our country as a whole.

In many ways, Europeans are better informed, partially due to geography. We’re fairly isolated out here, contributing I think to our monolingualism and our relative lack of exposure to other cultures. Travel abroad (excluding Canada and Mexico) is prohibitively expensive for many Americans. In Europe, you can pass through several countries in one day on the train without spending too terribly much, contributing to a more international outlook for its people. Furthermore (and I have no data to support this but..) it struck me during my time there that international news dominated both televised and print media to a greater degree than in the United States. Again, geography plays a major role in this phenomenon.

As for the media, conservative media exists. In Italy, the best-selling newspaper is Corriere Della Sera, a right-leaning paper that usually writes pro-Berlusconi and pro-Bush editorials. Rupert Murdoch’s Times in England is another example. There are other examples but those are the two that come to mind.

Anyway, the point is, Euros don’t hold the monopoly on ignorance. Just as immigrants and visitors to the US have had to overcome our stereotypes, we ought to go overseas and show that Americans aren’t all arrogant, ill-informed hicks.