tops in the news recently (aside from the massive spasm of winter which has left deposits of snow-ice, the mutant crossbreed child of snow & ice, all over the area) has been the birth of the euro. a brand new currency, owned by almost a dozen countries, squeezed its way out of the fiscal uterus, through the theory canal, & into the world's banks the other day. of course, it won't exist in a physical form until 2002, but that isn't stopping europe from throwing a party.

& so they should. the euro's quite a big coup. eleven different countries, with different governments, different languages, different ideologies, different snobby attitudes... all agreeing to use the same money. sacrificing a significant portion of their identities to unify commerce. this is as big a deal as the u.s constitution (& i don't mean the battleship). in what is arguably the only way that matters, all those countries are the same unit now. it's expansionism evolving.

i always wondered what'd happened to manifest destiny. it was allegedly the driving force of our nation (of the world, even) for hundreds of years. then sometime in the 19th century we just quit. with the exception of a few flukes (alaska & hawaii), after the u.s reached the west coast, we just sort of quit taking new territoty. it was as though we'd had our fill of expansionism. sure, the subterfuge, the subtle domination of other lands continued, but not at the same level. it was all manipulation; we wanted to control everything, but not actually own it. i kept waiting for us to cede canada or mexico (not that there's much worth wanting in either place). eventually, as we spread out across continents, we'd have to change our name from the united states of america to the united states of earth. (please note that i didn't want any of this to happen; i was just a bit surprised that it hadn't.)

now i see what happened to manifest destiny. it was merely hibernating while it went through a period of metamorphosis. old-school expansionism just doesn't work anymore. it's considered barbaric. nowadays, whenever some upstart nation tries to seize new lands & new civilizations, the u.n (mostly the u.s) leaps in to put a stop to it. it's like we all think we're so much better than them, even though a hundred years ago we were doing the same thing.

the euro's usurping all that. we're witnessing the new face of unity. who cares about governments or territorial borders? everything's about economics these days. money's what matters now.

one of my roommates asked me recently if i thought we'd ever have a single world government. my answer was no, not unless we come into contact with extraterrestrials. there's too much nationalism in the world. everyone's so proud of their country, no matter how crappy that country is. it's always us against them; everyone needs someone to fight with. even within individual nations there's constant bickering & infighting. not unless there is a common enemy do i ever see the planet banding together under one government.

but a unified global economy? that's a different matter. every country wants to be able to trade fairly, to make a profit. & if you believe the press, the internet is blurring international trade barriers as we speak. maybe the euro'll be eclipsed by the eartho someday. no alien invasion required.