The above is the opening of E P Thompson’s 1986 Letter to America which formed part of the pamphlet he wrote with Dan Smith, Protest and Survive.
Thompson who campaigned for an end to nuclear weaponry prefigures the current NATO crisis by noting that the US pays for the nuclear ‘protection’ of Europe, which he would rather configure as a protection racket.
The opening paragraphs however refer to the gap between official US political culture and that of Europe, again a current issue. He did not of course mean the many Americans who protest about it
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