A World Without America

As already featured on Fox News' flagship political programme and produced in association with BritainAndAmerica.com, 18 Doughty Street has launched its fourth internet-based advert.  It discusses a world without the USA.  Tune into 18DoughtyStreet.com at 7.45pm tonight for a 45 minute discussion of the ideas behind the ad.

Comments

[Valedictoryan]

This ad will undoubtedly play-out well to Americans, allowing them to feel warm and cosy about their nation. For its anti-American audience (who are presumably the target), it appears to be a sycophantic tribute to America and is a total miss.

To be a hit it needed to be far more honest about people’s reasons to feel anti-America. I think that America is perceived as an ignorant, bible-bashing nation, walking the world with a mightier-than-thou attitude. The ad needed to show that none of that is true.

[Ken Stevens]

It rather depends on the baseline of a world without America.The advert starts with 1959, though presumes that the USA had existed during the Second World War, otherwise there wouldn't have been an Israel, nor many Jews left to yearn for a homeland. Shift the start date prior to WW2 and one might predicate that this website would now be conducted in German or perhaps Russian (assuming www had been invented at all or, if so, that it would have been permitted)and it would be less easy to communicate with our erstwhile cousins in the Japanese-speaking Antipodes. Not that there would have been so many such cousins, as the severed links mean that the rationale for postwar assisted-passage emigrations from the Republic of Britain to Australia & New Zealand would not have arisen.

Dipping into a few other incidentals:
#No UDI in Rhodesia (now part of the wider East African colony of Lettow-Vorbeckia)
#No Suez crisis
# No Falklands war (Die Malvinen long absorbed into Deutsche Republik Argentina.

On the other hand, Anton Blerr might still have risen to become Leiter of our Republik, with his wife Liebchen. Still, there's a downside to everything!

The premise seems to be that America had become totally isolationist and self-contained, as of a certain point in modern times. Had it simply never existed in the first place, then of course the whole pattern of history would have been radically different.

[Joolz]

Uhhh, no offence or anything, but whoever made this film is stupid. Considering Saddam Hussein could've only risen to 'tyrant' status because of the significant political, diplomatic and financial support given by America during the 70s & 80s, it's pretty ludicrous to use him as an example, especially when Iraq is much worse off since the American-led ousting of the guy...

And let's face it, a world without America is a world without the CIA constantly trying to manipulate sovereign countries and their (often elected) governments (all usually in the name of America's financial interests).

You Tories really do baffle me sometimes! You need to think of some better examples because the arguments here are not very convincing!

[Giles McNeill]

The real travesty about a world without America is that the West Wing would not have been made.

[leon]

How did you embed the player in this blog?

[Editor]

The code is at the bottom of the top post on this 18DS page.

[Matthew Spandler-Davison]

As a British conservative currently working in the USA I have to say that I feel right at home here! The judeo-Christian values that I cherish and the freedoms that I try not to take for granted are feircely defended here. Furthermore, no matter where I go, there is a wonderful appreciation for Britain and Britishness which we would be hard pressed to find any where else in the world. I love my home country, but I have a deep respect for the USA and the key role she plays on the world stage in defending my values and my freedoms and advancing democracy, progress, and freedom...thanks for the ad!

[Richard]

The ideas proposed were excellent but I confess I consider this a bit of a dissapointment.

Firstly, I think it would have had more impact if they'd got rid of the comedy tv reporters. Secondly, Hitler invading Britain (complete with some chilling images of SS troopers marching round London or people being herded into concentration camps) has much more impact than a news report of Stalin liberating Paris.

Secondly, instead of America facing down modern day tyrants (taking into account the fact that the Iraq war isn't very popular) how about America facing down Islamic fundamentalism? Someone had the idea of the Statue of Liberty in a burqua - a very powerful image which I expect the producers feared would be too controversial.

Thirdly - some brief mentions of America popular culture at the end. There should have been more emphasis on this. American popular culture is very popular over here and, while it certainly has its vulgar elements, adds a lot of colour to our lives and high streets. Think Mcdonalds, American rock bands, jeans etc.

Fourthly, I'm a supporter of Israel. But it's not the most popular country in the world and more should have been done to show the impact of Israel being invaded by the Arabs (cue firing squads etc).

[Giles McNeill]

In response to Richard

I think that Star Trek did an episode recently where Britain had been invaded by the Germans during WW2. The footage was chilling and the speech delivered by Churchill in that episode was a clever idea.

The add could have started earlier with a churchillian style broadcast of our surrender.

[Ken Stevens]

I would perhaps disagree with Richard about Hitler invading Britain, in 1940 anyway. Britain would have been hard put to survive without the Atlantic convoy supplies and could therefore have been left alone pro tem while Hitler concentrated forces on its eastern front against a Russia munificent in manpower but lacking in materiel (because we alone could not have sustained the cargoes of the Arctic convoys)and facing an Axis force unbothered by a western front. Whether or not Hitler would have invaded later on is a moot point but otherwise we would have been strongly conditioned by a peacetime Third Reich extending to nearby Calais, with a cultural influence akin to what in practice we have absorbed from USA. Lederhosen rather than denims?

[Jon Gale]

If America had not existed there would have been no American Revolution, therefore no French Revolution, therefore no Napoleonic Empire, therefore no spread of national identity, therefore no German Unification, therefore no WWI therefore no Hitler!

The British Empire would rule the world! (cue fireworks, chorus of Rule Britannia, crowds waving little flags)

/well, its as possible as anything else :)
//Would've made a better ad.

[Richard]

"I would perhaps disagree with Richard about Hitler invading Britain, in 1940 anyway. Britain would have been hard put to survive without the Atlantic convoy supplies and could therefore have been left alone pro tem while Hitler concentrated forces on its eastern front against a Russia munificent in manpower but lacking in materiel"

I happen to agree with you but as the advert wasn't aiming for historical accuracy I thought they could get away with it.

[Ken Stevens]

Richard
"Hitler's Britain" would certainly have had more impact within the constraints of a short advert!

[Saint-Germain]

"If America had not existed there would have been no American Revolution, therefore no French Revolution"

What an excellent result that would have been!

The Americans are indeed a nation of ignorant warmongering vulgarians. A pack of uncultured Babbitts.

Sadly, their biggest cheer-leader in the UK have long been the Conservative Party. Churchill and Macmillan kick-started this deplorable trend.

[Ken Stevens]

Saint-Germain
You only have the freedom today to make such comments against America because of America.
Thank God, we owe Churchill to America as well (ie his Mum).
Long may the Tories continue the "deplorable" trend and may they also revert to Churchill's view of Europe (sorry, couldn't resist that one!)

[Alex Forsyth]

While I have some distaste for certin American attributes, they are currently the only nation which is standing up for Western values.

Our European "partners" have well and truly run up the white flag.

I dislike and distrust the "Neocons" including their UK equivalents such as Gove and Osborne, but what mainly concerns me about the Tory Party today is the element of anti-US defeatism

It seems to infect most of the Camerloons.

[Gabriel]

"Uhhh, no offence or anything, but whoever made this film is stupid. Considering Saddam Hussein could've only risen to 'tyrant' status because of the significant political, diplomatic and financial support given by America during the 70s & 80s, it's pretty ludicrous to use him as an example, especially when Iraq is much worse off since the American-led ousting of the guy..."

Uhhh... no offense or anything, but you're a halfwit.

Personally, I think, as an ad, it's absolute rubbish, I found myself squirming when watching it; shame. Frankly, anyone who hasn't worked those points out already is probably not the sort of person who would be persuaded by nay information whatsoever anyway

Finally, I'm afraid that the idea of lots of Jews being massacred might actually cause the average Guardian reading type to get a funny feeling in his pants.

This camapaing won't do any good.