USA Invades Europe
Or How Europe is Being Quietly Assimilated by a US Invasion
By Our Man in Newcastle, Greasy Jesus

Nearly seven-and-a-half years ago, I moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to a small former colliery village in the North East of England. Britons have often asked me what kind of adjustment this required and, indeed, whether I miss the United States. Reasonable questions, one might surmise. But increasingly I have come to realize that there is, in theory, no need for me to miss the United States. Conveniently, the United States has come to me instead.

To wit, when I wake up each morning, I can turn on the telly and check the news on CNN or MSNBC over my bowl of cornflakes before taking the bus to my job in the regional metropolis of Newcastle Upon Tyne (notable in another era for being a major centre of the coal mining and shipbuilding industries, but currently best-renowned as the city that spawned, amongst others, Sting, AC-DC's Brian Johnston, Bryan Ferry, Eric Burdon, Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys, Jimmy Nail and film directors Mike Figgis and Ridley Scott). An hour later, I disembark at a stop directly opposite a Pizza Hut.

Crossing the street and heading east takes me past, on the right, an outpost of KFC (or, as my generation once knew it, Kentucky Fried Chicken) and, on the left, a McDonald's. At the end of the block there's a Starbuck's (one of several in the city centre). If I turn left and walk half a block north I can grocery shop at Safeway. Alternatively, turn right and walk 50 yards south and there's a Subway sandwich shop.

Still heading east, just over a quarter-mile from my bus stop, I pass another Pizza Hut on my right and, on my left, just inside the entrance to a shopping mall, another McDonald's and another Starbucks. Another half a block and I turn left onto Newcastle's main shopping street, passing an office of the Manpower temp agency and a Burger King.

Now heading north, I pass another McDonald's before turning east again at another KFC. Two more blocks and I'm finally at my office, from where a Holiday Inn is visible. I've walked maybe a mile in total and passed three McDonald's, two KFC's, two Starbuck's, a Burger King, a Safeway, a Subway and Manpower. Plus that Holiday Inn. I could be in Cleveland or Seattle for all it matters!

After work, I get back on the bus and head home again. At the centre of the village is a giant Asda supermarket, recently acquired by Wal-Mart. And not too far away from that they're opening the village's first McDonald's. When I get back to the house I can settle down on my sofa and watch NFL football, NBA basketball, NHL hockey and Major League Baseball on satellite television. Many places in Britain are even within reach of a branch of Domino's Pizza now. The inexorable march of progress continues apace.

Living and working almost anywhere in the mainland UK is likely to elicit much the same experience. There are many British business chains, such as Boots, WH Smith, Marks & Spencer and Dixons, that are just as omnipresent in the UK's cities and towns as the aforementioned American ones. But considering that McDonald's didn't even have a single outlet in Britain until the early 1980's, it's apparent which way the cultural tide is flowing.

As the US corporate giants take over the nation's high streets, Britain is in danger of losing its soul and its unique character. As are many of its European neighbours, with what's happening in the UK being replicated in Germany, France, Belgium, Italy and beyond. Almost every major street now looks the same. With this invasion-by-stealth comes the low-wage, long-hours, zero-workers-rights culture that has created a new class of citizenry in the US euphemistically called the "working poor" but more accurately called "wage slaves". But some people here in the Old World are starting to fight back against this undeclared US invasion of their countries.

French farmer and anti-globalisation activist José Bové, for instance, rose to worldwide fame by using his tractor to destroy a McDonald's that was being built in a French village. And Helen Steel and David Morris took on the same fast food goliath in the McLibel trial and earned a split decision despite representing themselves vs. an army of corporate lawyers.

Europe is in a war to preserve it's culture against the creeping onslaught of Americanisation, and the battlegrounds in this war are the British high streets, French boulevards and Italian piazzas. The price of defeat would be the more homogeneous and compliant world that the big American corporations and their collaborators so transparently desire. Individual citizens are the only ones who will determine which side is ultimately the winner and which side loses out. As for me, I'm with José. Does anyone know where I can find a tractor?

Greasy Jesus
Sez...

He's got nothing to lose.

This is why we fight.

America hates itself.

USA is invading Europe.