Europeans and Americans share a common mindset of domination, states Posener, something he wrote exactly one year ago about the EU, the "true imperial power" of the two nation states (English translation). Posener's wanting a truer anti-Americanism is harder to nail down than pro- and anti- but instead a call for discussion rather than a call to arms, at best without falling back on references to the current American president. He says that whoever agrees with the universal application of the declaration of independence, right or wrong, is part of the American revolution (with its trusty sidekick, Americanization) regardless of what George W. Bush thinks. And that the adherents of this revolution, he says, have the best reasons to oppose Americanism and its potential dangers. The differentiation between anti- or pro- is boring. What is valid are counter-perspectives offered by the French intellectuals who are nervous about the all-levelling, common denominator effect of America's soft power. Or the German socialist conservatives that wish to defend the welfare state against economic liberalism. Or the French and the Germans who both reject a society that places the individual and his happiness above mutual commitments. As followers of Americanism (Anhänger), German "friends of America" have every right to offer honest opposition. The fact that no open anti-Americanism exists in Germany outside of the designated "club" of intellectuals, Posener says, is a moral shame.