The east opens up, poverty worldwide drops, yet we have our disaffected. Quite frankly it's not worth wondering why they think what they do any more. Nelson Ascher writing in EuroPundits, makes as clear an observation as any which could assemble the events of past 15 years among the western left into a pattern:
Those whom the fall of the Berlin Wall had left orphans of a cause, spent the next decade plotting the containment of the US. It was a complex operation that involved the (in many cases state-sponsored) mushrooming of NGOs, Kyoto, the creation of the ICC, the salami tactics applied against America’s main strategic ally in the Middle-East, Israel, through the Trojan Horse of the Oslo agreements, the subversion of the sanctions against Iraq etc.
And so, spontaneously up to a point, anti-Americanism became the alternative ideology that came to fill in the vacuum left by the failure of traditional, USSR-based communism and its Maoist or Trotskyite satellites.
Now, whatever they wanted to defend or protect doesn’t exist anymore. They have only things to destroy, and all those things are personified in the US, in its very existence. They may, outwardly, fight for some positive cause: save the whales, rescue the world from global heating and so on. But let’s not be deceived by this: they choose as their so-called positive causes only the ones that have both the potential of conferring some kind of innocent legitimacy on themselves and, much more important, that of doing most harm to their enemy, whether physically or to its image.
Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…
Saturday, February 12, 2005
There's no cure for gravity
DrThrockmorton.com reports that there ain't no such thing as a gay gene. From what I hear from the experiences of friends and acquaintances, it seems most frequently caused by being voilated or seduced in childhood. However Gaydar does exist. Make no doubt about it.
Josef Pieper on Socialism
I suppose this could serve as a better warning than any to the creeping dictatorship of Socialism in the western world. The Catholic German philosopher Josef Pieper wrote:
The proletarian is the man who is fettered to the process of work.
The causes may be: the lack of property with life being lived on the exclusive basis of the person's power to work... or due to the coercion of a totalitarian state... or by an inner impoverishment of the individual whose life is completely filled by his work.
These three forms mutually attract one another and in so doing intensify each other. The "total-work" State needs the spiritually impoverished, one-track mind of the "functionary"...
proletarianism, thus understood, is perhaps a symptomatic state o f mind common to all levels of society... A spiritual immunization against the seductive appeal and the power of totalitarian forms must be sought.
By the same token, "deproletarianizing" would mean: enlarging the scope of life beyond the confines of merely useful servile work, and limiting the sp here of servile work to the advantage of the liberal arts. This goal requires three things: giving the wage-earner the opportunity to save and acquire property, limiting the power of the state.
Day by Day
As long as we're talking about thick-headed UN fetishes....
As long as we're talking about thick-headed UN fetishes....
Fear, Wine, Cheese and Envy
Nearly twelve years ago, in an effort to gather French public support for the Maastricht Treaty, President François Mitterrand famously said, “We are at war with America.” And America, along with the rest of the world, laughed but otherwise paid little attention to this comment at the time.
“What we mistakenly see as a craven, anti-Semitic, hypocritical, hysterically anti-American, selfish, overtaxed, culturally exhausted country bereft of ideas, fearful of its own capitulation to fundamentalist Islam, headed for a demographic cul de sac, corrupted by lame ideologies, crippled by a spirit-stomping social elite and up to its neck in a cheesy soufflé of multilayered bureaucracy is actually worse than all that. It’s vile.
Libé argues against democracy
[La majorité des Européens désapprouvent cette forme musclée d'exportation de la démocratie. Mais que proposons-nous par ailleurs ? Pourquoi tolérer l'autoritarisme en Chine et la dégradation des libertés fondamentales en Russie, et en revanche accepter l'intervention occidentale pour la construction de la démocratie en Afghanistan ? Où passent les frontières de l'ingérence politique ?]
[The majority of Europeans disapprove of this exporting of the democracy. But what do we propose instead? Why tolerate authoritarianism in China and the degradation of fundamental freedoms in Russia, and on the other hand to accept the Western intervention for the construction of the democracy in Afghanistan? Where are the boundaries of political interference?]
Idiots. How mixed up, shortsighted, and unsophisticated can you get? How much finger-wagging and interference-running have they gone through before they asked themselves that question? It's about the future, and about right and wrong, stupid, not Europe's pocketbook.
[The majority of Europeans disapprove of this exporting of the democracy. But what do we propose instead? Why tolerate authoritarianism in China and the degradation of fundamental freedoms in Russia, and on the other hand to accept the Western intervention for the construction of the democracy in Afghanistan? Where are the boundaries of political interference?]
Idiots. How mixed up, shortsighted, and unsophisticated can you get? How much finger-wagging and interference-running have they gone through before they asked themselves that question? It's about the future, and about right and wrong, stupid, not Europe's pocketbook.
Who Is Most Generous? The Solidary European Humanists or the Greedy American Money-Lovers?
Charity to man's fellow man is praiseworthy, and Americans are the most generous people on Earth
declares Walter E. Williams. According to a quote by American philanthropist Daniel Rose in An Exceptional Nation, an article in Philanthropy magazine (November/December 2004), "American private charitable contributions this year will exceed $200 billion, equal to about 10 percent of the total federal budget; that some 70 percent of U.S. households make charitable cash contributions; and that over half of all U.S. adults will volunteer an estimated 20 billion hours in charitable activities." Americans contribute six or seven times more than some of our European neighbors.
Something That Is Unlikely to Happen in the French Media
Eason Jordan has resigned, something that would never happen in the French media.
Earlier, there was this:
One of the most common complaints [Michelle Malkin hears] from our troops is that the media rarely report on the military's good deeds.In other news, it turns out that 9/11 was an inside job, and not only was the White House, the CIA, the FBI, and Pentagon involved, but so was a colleague of Francisco Gil-White's, the University of Pennsylvania Psychology Department professor who also holds that "the United States is a secret enemy of Israel". As of this writing, it has not been ascertained whether Gil-White is the Philadelphia correspondent of CNN…
A simple column I wrote last month lauding the humanitarian efforts of our men and women in the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, for example, resulted in an avalanche of mail from military members and their families expressing astonishment and relief over a bit of positive press.
…Well, with folks like powerful CNN executive Eason Jordan in charge — a man who clearly has issues with the U.S. military — it's no wonder our troops so often feel smeared and slimed.
… Jordan's defenders say he was "misunderstood" and deserves the "benefit of the doubt." But the man's record is one of incurable anti-American pandering.
It is Just "socially just" to let Whitey drown
From the Times (UK): "Last month the Severn Area Rescue Association’s request for £5,000 to replace the 14-year-old Land Rover used to launch its lifeboats was turned down because it could not provide details of the social backgrounds of the people that it has rescued."
Thanks to Doctor John (no! not the musician, silly!)
Na und?!?
Set in the near present, the $100 billion that has been pledged by the United States to address the world's wrongs is used to advocate consumptive restraint...
Warning: It's a parody, and not to be taken seriously by humorless leftist as a "battleplan" for "World Peace."
| French kiddie diddler perfects the UN sex-for-food program. Snatch-for-chow? How much was he kicking back to Kofi? Didn't some paternalistic spittle shooting clown-faced shithead jabber that their was no problem at the UN? | Tripatouilleur de gosses franchouille perfectionne le programme de l'ONUzi sexe-contre-nourriture. Cul-contre-boustifaille? C'est combien le bakchich pour Kofi? Il n'y avait pas un connard de bouseu paternaliste qui postillonnait avec sa bouille à bozo en baragouinant qu'il n'y avait pas de problème avec l'ONUzi? |
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| Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir? | |
The Colussus and His Vision
Today is the birthday of "the greatest practitioner of democratic statesmanship that America and the world have yet produced" (Dinesh D'Souza)
that takes on criticism from both the left and the right)
(Thanks to the Ashbrook Center's Lucas Morel for the articleLincoln was the true "philosophical statesman," one who was truly good and truly wise. Standing in front of his critics, Lincoln is a colossus, and all of the Lilliputian arrows hurled at him bounce harmlessly to the ground. It is hard to put any other president — not even George Washington — in the same category as Abraham Lincoln. He is simply the greatest practitioner of democratic statesmanship that America and the world have yet produced.
that takes on criticism from both the left and the right)
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.Click here to read some specific examples of how Abe's words and thoughts are alive and well today (modern-day autocrats speaking out on democracy being against their people's respective cultures, the potential break-up of Canada, etc…)
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.
I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts.
If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him.
Iraq has | UN kiddie diddlers get help from French sexperts | Tripatouilleurs de gosses à l'ONUzi se font assister par des sexperts franchouilles |
| The French are so sophisticated about sex. The French don't call this sexual abuse. They call it race relations. Leftist humanist poets call it 'lurve'. | Les fwançais sont tellement évolués par rapport à tout ce qui concerne le sexe. En fait, pour eux ceci n'est pas un cas d'abus sexuel mais plutôt un cas d'intégration réussie. Pour les poètes zumanistes de gôche c'est une histoire d'amûûûr sauvage. |
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| Didier Bourguet, a U.N. official from France, is pictured here in an image found on his hard drive, which was obtained by ABC News. Also on the hard drive were thousands of photos of him having sex with hundreds of young Congolese girls. (ABC News) | |
Friday, February 11, 2005
Speaking a language they no longer understand
Forget trying to dope out the meaning of the cartoon below. I guess he geve up reason for lent.
The scribler who drew it probably isn't aware of any. Like his countrymen.
He might prefer this, which might be simple enough for him to understand - be passive and look for faeries, pal.
The scribler who drew it probably isn't aware of any. Like his countrymen.
He might prefer this, which might be simple enough for him to understand - be passive and look for faeries, pal.
| Sweet Jesus | Doux Jésus |
| The little dude on the left with the bag of cash is supposed to be Dan Brown, author of the Da Vinci Code. | Le petit bonhomme à gauche avec le sac plein de thunes est censé représenter Dan Brown, l'auteur de Da Vinci Code. |
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Another Example of France's Legendary Solidarity and the Unbridled Efficiency of the Country's Social Services
A hospital in northern France serving tens of thousands of people and facing closure was snubbed by the French medical fraternity but has been given the kiss of life by a massive influx of foreign doctorsEmmanuel Barranguet reports.
Fourmies hospital, in the economically stagnant region of northern France, was in intensive care and about to expire in 1991 despite being part of one of the most generous and efficient health services on the planet — because no one wanted to work there. …
In 1991 Fourmies' future was on the line despite the fact that it was the only hospital within one hour's drive for a community of 100,000 people.
"There were just seven doctors left, all of them about to retire," says Legros. He placed advertisements for staff in medical journals around the country but to no avail.
With an unemployment rate hovering around the 17 percent mark, an industrial landscape blighted by recent tumultuous economic change and a rigorous winter climate, the Fourmies region was not a first choice for France's ambitious medical class.
"The French simply did not respond," he says.
| The anti-semite Willem has a go at Condi | L'antisémite Willem cible Condoleeza |
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| You said 'punish France'. That was just empty promises? | |
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Run Lola Larry Run
Let's see if the unpleasable spiky-haired knuckle-draggers named "Bobbi" get worked up about this gender difference. Usually the ones that fall into no known category are a leftist favorite for a gold medal in the victimhood-guilt-trip relays.
Takes Only Small Bites, But Does So Often
AÏE, VA-T'EN, SALE CLEBS!
Cao (love his blog's title icon, as well as the Titanic painting of Charles and Camilla) asks us to tell our readers to check out John's Rottweiler puppy…
Cao (love his blog's title icon, as well as the Titanic painting of Charles and Camilla) asks us to tell our readers to check out John's Rottweiler puppy…
Apartment Exchange Near Versailles
I am looking to make a temporary exchange of my home in the Paris region for one (or for a room) in the United States, preferably in a large city, sometime between April and August.
I live in a two-room apartment in a house 20 minutes from Paris by train, and five minutes from Versailles.
Edison on the Three Things That Are Most Essential to Achievement
With regards to the stupidity, the cluelessness, and the uncouthfulness of the general U.S. population (compared with the sophistication of the far wiser Europeans, not to mention the innumerable Nobel prizes that the latter have won which cause boundless jealousy and resentment among American scientists), it is helpful to recall that today is the birthday of Thomas Alva Edison; with regards to what the European social system promises its citizens, it is hardly useless to remember that the inventor (1847-1931) said that
In addition, he said thatThe three things that are most essential to achievement are common sense, hard work, and stick-to-it-iv-ness.
There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.
Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. Accordingly, a "genius" is often merely a talented person who has done all of his or her homework.
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Personally, I enjoy working about 18 hours a day. Besides the short catnaps I take each day, I average about four to five hours of sleep per night.
I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others.
I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.
My principal business is giving commercial value to the brilliant — but misdirected — ideas of others.
I never pick up an item without thinking of how I might improve it. I am not overly impressed by the great names and reputations of those who might be trying to beat me to an invention. Its their ideas that appeal to me
I readily absorb ideas from every source, frequently starting where the last person left off.
I am quite correctly described as "more of a sponge than an inventor."
A good idea is never lost. Even though its originator or possessor may die without publicizing it, it will someday be reborn in the mind of another.
The first requisite for success is to develop the ability to focus and apply your mental and physical energies to the problem at hand — without growing weary. Because such thinking is often difficult, there seems to be no limit to which some people will go to avoid the effort and labor that is associated with it
I never did anything worth doing entirely by accident.
Almost none of my inventions were derived in that manner. They were achieved by having trained myself to be analytical and to endure and tolerate hard work.
Sometimes, all you need to invent something is a good imagination and a pile of junk.
Most of the exercise I get is from standing and walking all day from one laboratory table to another. I derive more benefit and entertainment from this than some of my friends and competitors get from playing games like golf.
If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.
Our schools are not teaching students to think. It is astonishing how many young people have difficulty in putting their brains definitely and systematically to work.
I have far more respect for the person with a single idea who gets there than for the person with a thousand ideas who does nothing.
Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.
Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up
Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work.
My main purpose in life is to make enough money to create ever more inventions.
Takes Only Small Bites, But Does So Often
Cao (love his blog's title icon, as well as the Titanic painting of Charles and Camilla) asks us to tell our readers to check out the Rottweiler puppy…
Abetting terror no more
Wind-up toy to any passing revolutionary cause (even intolerant fascist ones if need be), Lynne Stewart is going to the crowbar hotel. As a reflex, some are outraged. It's been a little dull for them lately. She'll fit the bill as another "Mumia" style "political prisoner" of the fascist ameriKKKan state. Expect shortly the manufacturing of a "hero of the people" (who shills for murderers.)If the link on the left isn't a hint that the poor are being exploited for the political advancement of a leftist sub-culture, I don't know what is.
For the political purposes of the Stewarts of the world, the poor need to stay poor, or at least stay downhearted enough to self-identify themselves as hopeless.
We Have Nothing Against America (In Fact Americans Are Our Friends), It Is Only Bush We Oppose
More than half of people surveyed in a BBC World Service poll say the re-election of US President George W Bush has made the world more dangerous
reports the BBC. Doug Miller, President of Globescan, said the findings "supports the view of some Americans that unless his administration changes its approach to world affairs in its second term, it will continue to erode America's good name, and hence its ability to effectively influence world affairs". [Cheers to Hervé]As you no doubt realize, it is entirely Bush's fault that France, in its entirety (and the world as well), has united against America; and the fact that members of the "peace camp" end up looking like they support autocrats and tyrannical régimes is entirely imputable to Dubya's arrogance, since that state of affairs is, needless to say, an unheard-of anomaly that has nothing to do with the reality of their friendship with Uncle Sam and the sharing, through the decades, of the common goals of democracy for all.
By the way, before we go on, here are two polls that have not been widely reproduced in the West (certainly not as much as the BBC one mentioned above)…
Of course, Max Jacobson's column in the International Herald Tribune somewhat takes the winds out of the sails of the legend that it is only Bush that people oppose, as the former Finnish ambassador to the United Nations deflates the canard that the members of the UN are lucid, visionary, and doing little else but trying to overcome reactionary America's opposition to a bright, peaceful future.
The United States … is like a magnet that both attracts and repulses. The other four governments [i.e., the other four permanent members of the security council] determine their positions less on the merits of the case under discussion than by the state of their relations with the United States.
And here, for your information, is an excerpt from Brian Knowlton's IHT interview with John McCain: I think the French were severely, deeply wounded and therefore took some of their anger out on us over this failed policy that they pursued.What was the question that the Arizona senator was answering?
What about the reaction to Dayton and the whole Bosnia issue?Dayton? Bosnia? Oh yes, the interview appeared in the January 8, 1996, issue of the IHT; I should probably also mention that Jacobson's column dates back to March 12, 1998.
Also, we have this letter to the American president, which appeared in Le Monde:
After the Somalis, who object to you as the world's policeman, there are some other underdeveloped beings, the French, who refuse as one to have their culture "gattified" according to your wishes. [You have] managed to build against yourself, in Paris, a holy union, the likes of which the Hexagon's [France's] Gauls are not used to …
Bertrand Poirot-Delpech's letter appeared on October 20, 1993, and it was addressed to Bill Clinton. Oh, and then — speaking of French talk of conciliation versus aggressiveness, of their indulgence toward undemocratic régimes, and of their love of words and expressions such as "responsabilité" and "réaliste" and "acceptance of realities" — there's this:
The French last night welcomed the Democratic gains in Tuesday's United States elections as good news. The government took no official position, but many French officials are known to hope that the Democrats will use their control of the House and their strengthened Senate position to press for a more conciliatory policy toward Communist China and toward the Soviet area in general. Many responsible French officials feel that the United States must agree to a recognition of Red China if only as the first step toward organizing an Asiatic defense on an acceptance of realities.
That appeared after the mid-term elections of November… 1954. But, you understand, it is only Bush we have something against! We actually share the same goals as you! We are your allies! We actively work toward the same ends! Americans are our friends!
Compare and contrast
David's Medeinkritik reports on further non-reporting from Deutchland.Oddly enough, the German media thoughtlessly repeated TF2's stage-managed outrage?
¡No Pasarán! and others have posted previously on the subject, and calling attention to some excellent analytical and editorial work by profesionals, academics, and interested citizens.
The Mainstream media does not appear to want to touch this with a barge-pole.
A friend of N-P has assembled the following collection of links on the latest evidence that French and Arab journalists staged the notorious shooting of a Palestinian boy that served as an excuse for the Intafada.
the blog Power and Control
www.hillel.montreal.qc.ca
FrontPageMag
primo-europe [EN]
World News Daily
Trans-Atlantic Intelligencer is looking deeply into the story.
Our very own Erik Svane reports on Le Monde's (partisan) take on the affair here at no pasaran in english and at Le Monde Watch in french.
An update from Erik: France 2's Arlette Chabot fires a news presenter for "unacceptable" behaviour.
The events are clear, but it's still Early Days for the REPORTING or HIDING of this story by the European Press.
What's so "International" about writing about Germany?
Never mind this guy who wants to look like Philippe Stark and his obsession with US-EU relations that only the EU cares about (hat in hand.)The rest of the world doesn't care.
Get Borked
Covers collusion problems the Socialist Swedish state hooch monopoly ([gesticulating forearm] Halliburton! Halliburton!), as well s their media, as well as "free" busses in New Zealand which *might* reduce auto traffic by a hopeful estimate of 3 percent) get Borked. Of course taxes are free!Never mind the emissions of empty busses joyriding around, the embedded energy in them, or the methane emissions of their supporters.
They're fuelled on hope.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
"There are many times when I hoped" that my accent when speaking English was not American, says member of EU parliament
Toomas-Henrik Ilves is a member of the European Parliament who happens to speak with a New Jersey accent.As Thomas Fuller doesn't say in his International Herald Tribune article on the prejudice against American-sounding accents, in which he fails to challenge the (self-serving) ugly and condescending view of Americans, "thinking like a European" means being wise, tolerant, generous, solidarity, lucid, and blah-blah-blah-blah-blah…
Ilves spent his formative years in the United States and acquired a fluency in English that served him well for most of his diplomatic and political career, including a stint as foreign minister of his native Estonia.
But since being elected to the European Parliament in June, Ilves says, he has received suspicious looks from some of his European colleagues in Brussels.
"The curious thing is that it's assumed that I'm a hawk on Iraq just because I have this accent," Ilves said. "People say, 'Oh, so you don't support Bush?' Or, 'So you actually do think like a European?"'
Ann Mettler is the executive director of the Lisbon Council, a pressure group that studies ways to make Europe more economically competitive. She is German but spent five years in the United States and has something resembling an American accent, a way of speaking that engenders a mix of curiosity and hostility in Brussels these days, she says."Increasing levels of suspicion". That's right. In "free and democratic" Europe, one's peers are always applying indirect and not-so-indirect pressure on one to follow the prevailing (and entirely self-serving) current of thought. Keep reading to hear about
"There are many times when I hoped I had a different accent," she said. "This is the only way I know how to speak English. I can't help it. But it would really help me if I spoke the tortuous English that other people speak."
Brussels is a place where English has increasingly become the lingua franca, a shift from the earlier days of the European Union when press briefings, political consultations and conferences were held in French.
But these days in Brussels it matters what type of English you speak, according to those who, for reasons of education or because their parents once lived in United States, have acquired American accents.
They make up a tiny portion of the thousands of civil servants, diplomats and politicians who work in Brussels, but the fact that they report increasing levels of suspicion toward their accents seems to signal that the malaise between Americans and Europeans has gone personal.
A Hungarian civil servant who studied in New York and worked in Brussels [who] says her colleagues derisively called her "the American." A Frenchwoman who grew up in the United States and now works in the Brussels bureaucracy says she switches to French to assert her European credentials.Isn't that a nice reaction? Isn't that a friendly reaction? Isn't that proof of Europe's far-more-adult view on the world?
"Europe is full of people who speak two languages without an accent in either one," said Ilves. "That's considered a plus. It's just that if you have an American accent, then there is this association.
"If someone has a prejudice against Americans, that's where you get a reaction."
This is the side of Brussels that President George W. Bush will probably not see when he visits later this month: the day-to-day resentment of things American, the slight frown at a dinner party when someone talks about European friendship with the United States, or the smirks at a gathering of European academics when comparisons are made with America.
People interviewed for this column describe it as subtle hostility, a minor annoyance.That's freedom, European-style, and proof of the continent's reputation for toleration. (Although Fuller does quote two EP members as evidence for the fact that "Not all Europeans with ties to the United States report encountering problems here.")
It is probably just a footnote to the larger problems that the United States and Europe have encountered in recent years. But does the stigma of the American accent in Brussels and other places in Europe have consequences larger than just awkward moments and hostile looks?
America's desire to attract foreign students comes to mind: The decline in enrollment of foreign students in the United States has mainly been attributed to the tightening of immigration policies. But it is also possible that some students are staying away because the idea of traveling to America is looked down upon by their family and friends.
Europe and the United States may have drifted apart in cultural and political domains, [Gijs de Vries, the European Union's antiterrorism coordinator] said in a recent interview, but his day-to-day contact with American counterparts has not been affected.There the Europeans and America's MSM go again, equalizing everything with moral relevance. (Although de Vries, interestingly, does go on to put the burden of the proof on European parliaments:)
"The fact that we raise our eyebrows mutually on either side of the Atlantic should not prevent us from continuing to have practical cooperation," he said.
Increased levels of human contact between the United States and Europe could help eliminate trans-Atlantic suspicions, he said.
"There are many European parliaments that could benefit today from more person-to-person contact across the Atlantic," he said.Yes, and in Europe, in general, when behaviour or positions (not just accents) are not well looked upon, the pressure quickly builds to tone down one's views and to conform…
Mettler says the hostility and suspicions she detects when she meets fellow Europeans is a recent thing, a sign of the times. She does not remember having problems with her accent the last time she lived in Brussels, in 1999.
But now, she says, she gets suspicious reactions "all the time."
"When you speak with an American accent there is a certain assumption," she said. "It's not well looked upon."
Al-Jazeera on the Thames
No good news, or political event relating to Israel may go unmolested to the Guardian. Hey, they're "all about" peace and inventing causes, Cha-cha - unless there's a jew involved. After all, they have so much to lose. - peace would cost them circulation.
They've done a nice job of building up a readership eager to build a brown shirt factory in every EU capitol. Solely for economic purposes, I'm sure.
Keeping Mum About, and Keeping Secrets Regarding, Facts that Disprove the Myth of the Great Yankee Bogeyman
Did you know that "a French general now commands the NATO forces in Afghanistan as well as in Kosovo"?
I sure didn't. And that is probably due at least partly to the fact that France and America's mainstream media alike never make a big deal about items in French-American relations which serve to disprove France's complaints and to prove that France's carping and whining to be exaggerrated.
Which also explains the background to this item:
France and the United States are also working closely together on intelligence, particularly since the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington.No wonder the French keep quiet about the ways in which "Paris and Washington have … been working much more closely together". Keeping such relationships secret (i.e., the positive ones) help to perpetuate France's self-serving myth of the great American bogeyman, abroad as well as amongst the populace.
"We do it quietly," said a French official who asked to remain anonymous.
"We had to work on our intelligence very hard during the 1990s, when there was a wave of terrorist attacks on French targets from Algerian Islamists. We have the linguists and we have the expertise. And the U.S. knows that."
By way of a post-scriptum, let us add this from Judy Dempsey's International Herald Tribune article:
Antonio Missiroli, a NATO expert at the Institute for Security Studies in Paris, said, "There is a gap between the rhetoric and the practice of what France does because this reflects the old differences between the Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry.
"The French military have their boots on the ground and have to be pragmatic while the Foreign Ministry has traditionally pursued a Gaullist view that wants a Europe, depending on the issues, more independent from the U.S."
Frenchmen "Stunned" and "Shocked" by the "Steely, Deeply Ideological" Condi's "Scary" and "Very Disturbing" Remarks in Paris
- During her visit to Paris, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "stunned" some Frenchmen
- "It was scary", said one of France's main pundits, not of Iran, but of the fact that Condi would call the latter a totalitarian country. "She gave no proof that Iran was totalitarian, because she didn't have any."
- "She didn't give us a practical path", said another intellectual. "It was very disturbing."
- Instead, a third pundit said that if the West ought to fear anything, it was …an ally of Uncle Sam (Pakistan)
The left-leaning daily Libération ran a headline that read, "Condi's Great Game: To Seduce Paris." … But Ms. Rice, who was once called "the princess warrior" by the weekly magazine Le Point, is still regarded with a degree of suspicion here.A "degree of suspicion". As usual, the New York Times quotes foreign officials, media, and citizens and their negative views of Uncle Sam, without ever bothering to even begin looking into the possibilities that the "opinions" may be self-serving, that they may be based on double standards, or that they may deride from incomplete information (deliberate or not).
Personally, I would say it is a combination of all three, which serves to form an evil circle which becomes self-propagating.
Notice that degrees of suspicion are never levelled at countries such as Russia, China, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, or (Saddam Hussein's) Iraq, nor are the leaders of same ever subjected to the newspaper editorials and the pundit deliberations that greeted Condi (see below).
"Can We Trust Rice?" asked the popular daily France-Soir. Jacques Lang, the Socialist former culture minister, told France Inter radio that while he recognized Ms. Rice's "charm and seduction," she is still the "Madame Hawk of yesterday" who had been "aggressive and fanatical" on "Iraq in particular."Ever so lucides to the treacherous Yanks, the French are.
On Wednesday, Le Monde ran a cartoon of Ms. Rice perusing a menu in a restaurant as the waiter asks, "We can also heat up some French fries for you." It was a not so subtle reminder of moves in the United States to rename the fried potatoes "freedom fries" to protest France's opposition to the war in Iraq.And how about reminding the French (subtly or not) of their policies during that same time that would have allowed a dictator to remain in power? (I am asking the question both of the French and of the New York Times…)
Indeed, at a private breakfast on Wednesday with six French intellectuals at the American ambassador's residence, Ms. Rice revealed her steely, deeply ideological side.How about the "steely, deeply ideological side" of the French (pundits or other) and their resistance to seeking out opinions that show the Yanks in a positive light, if only partly so?
She shocked at least some of her guests by branding Iran a "totalitarian state," said four of those who took part. She added that the free world was wrong to accept the Soviet Union on its terms during the cold war and must not make the same mistake now with Iran, they added.The "give", as well as the soul-searching, always has to come from the clueless Yanks, doesn't it? And the evidence available is never proof enough, when it comes to autocrats opposed to Uncle Sam, n'est-ce pas?
A number of guests challenged her assertion, but Ms. Rice is not the type to back down. She called her characterization of Iran deliberate. A year ago, she said, she would have called Iran's Islamic Republic authoritarian. But after flawed parliamentary elections last spring that produced a conservative majority, she said, it moved toward totalitarian, a term that historians tend to use restrictively to define violently absolutist regimes that govern through terror.
"I tried to explain that Iran was not like the Soviet Union, that the mullahs were deeply unpopular but unlike their predecessors over the last 150 years they were not in the hands of the British or the Russians or the Americans," said François Heisbourg, director of the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris. "She gave no proof that Iran was totalitarian, because she didn't have any. It was scary. Unless there is some give on the American side we are heading for a real crisis."
Ms. Rice also expressed deep skepticism about the European-led initiative to persuade Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment programs in exchange for economic and political rewards, participants said.No she isn't as aware (aussi lucide) as the French, n'est-ce pas, and their European brethren?…
France, Britain and Germany, Iran's negotiating partners, know that any meaningful benefits for Iran depend on American support, something that Ms. Rice made clear would not be forthcoming. Such an approach, she said, would only help sustain the hard-liners' grip on power.
"I told her that it is my sense that public opinion in Europe, and maybe even elected officials, are ready to accept the idea that Iran may have some kind of nuclear weapons capability with some limitations," said Nicole Bacharan, an expert on the United States at the Institute of Political Studies. "She was startled. She wasn't quite aware of what she is up against."
For his part, Mr. Parmentier said he told her, "We in Europe believe that it is more likely the regime would fall if we are opening up to Iranian society rather than closing off."Yes, isn't that what your predecessors told Ronald Reagan about the USSR a generation ago? (I wonder why so many Eastern Europeans are allied to the Americans in the Iraq crisis, rather than to the bien-pensant members of the "peace camp"…)
Fiddle faster, spanky
After years of "lucide" handling with kid gloves at the urging of others, we find more cheap bomb-throwing by way of press release from Dr. No's torture kindom, with probably more to come.
Past encouragement and lack of vigilence finally come to their conclusion. Europeans were shortsighted enough to accept it, and eat up the hermit kingdom's propaganda.
While the DPRK is helping others still to burn the house down, we see history repeating itself.
The Weekly Standard summed it up quite some time ago:
So far, our would-be friends are getting at best a mixed grade. It is striking that while China, Russia, France, and the rest insist that America act multilaterally in the Middle East, they insist on U.S. unilateralism when it comes to North Korea. The United States would love to get cooperation from other countries to punish North Korea for walking away from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The U.N. refused to oblige.Meanwhile Euros are worried about palliatives for their own anxieties.
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
| The fun never stops | On n'arrête pas de se fendre la gueule |
| France bashing still going strong.
| Taper sur les franchouilles rapporte toujours gros. (N'en déplaise aux pédaloïdes chez Libé)
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| L'enfer de la |
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| Giving new meaning to the term 'idiot box'.
| Une nouvelle façon de produire de 'la merde en boîte'.
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Tuesday, February 08, 2005
"It's Only About Bush, See, the United-Statians Are Our Friends…"
"Unfortunately, since W has done none of his huge, usual, bloody stupid blunders in the past two months, anti-Americanism has fallen off a bit in France lately: not good for the sales of the second issue!"writes a founder of The (Simple-Minded) Anti-American in answer to E-nough's questions (emphasis hers). Which leads Carine to comment on her blog:
But you are pro-American, right? And I bet all the profits of [l'Anti-Américain (primaire)] are being sent to help Iraqi children, right? Not just in your pocket.
Calling the media to the mat on their Bait and switch
American media figure Alan Nathan, writing in FrontPageMag takes the Washington Post to task on silly conclusions it draws from the Volker report on the U.N. oil for food program. The Post uses a lame distraction tactic: make it into a complicated soap opera so that the scale of responsibility for a minor party disguises the actual miscreant. Their headline shoud say: "Attentive reader left with head spinning." It's either that or someone pull a "nothing left to see here folks" apporach which humiliates the author at the sight of the first sore thumb.
Question: if it’s a “preliminary report,” how can you conclude that the greatest amount of smuggling wasn’t connected to the UN – it’s preliminary! Unless you took Telepathy 101 at Clairvoyance U, how can such an exonerating determination be made?
Additionally, if we are to make assumptions, how can the UN director of the program in question (now shown to have been on the take) be anything but proof of the UN having everything to do with the smuggling? He was the UN!
| My ill spent youth | Les années où je menais une vie dissolue |
| Condi speaks at my old school.
| Condoleeza fait un discours à une ancienne école à moi.
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There Are No Rotten Zapateros in the Kingdom of Denmark
The timing for Denmark's early elections on Tuesday could not be better for Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussenwrites The Associated Press.
The country's economic forecast looks good, and his Social Democratic opponents are suffering from record lows in opinion polls.
With few issues dividing the country, pollsters predict that the prime minister will stay in office because of his charm, or his main contender's perceived lack of it.
The issues of immigration control and Denmark's contingent serving in Iraq have been conspicuously absent from their campaigns, which have focused instead on how to defend and improve the country's vaunted welfare state. …
Demands from leftist groups, intellectuals and artists for Denmark to bring home its 501 troops from southern Iraq never became a campaign issue either.
"It has never been a campaign issue because nearly all parties in Parliament back it," said Søren Søndergaard of the leftist Red-Green Alliance, which opposes the war in Iraq. …
More Proof of Europe's Commitment to Human Rights and of Its Attachment to the Principles That Caused It to Shun Washington Over the Iraq War
More proof that "it is only against Bush", and that allies and friends should be allowed to disagree and to vent their differences with impunity and not be expected to blindly follow along. (And don't the Americans understand that? Every other sophisticated society in the world does.)
• Belgium — the nation famous for its commitment to human rights and its lectures to Bush and his European allies as well as attempts to put same before an international tribunal — asks that the Dalai Lama cancel his visit to Charleroi in June (in officialese: "The problem was put to the Dalai Lama") because King Albert II is to pay an official visit to China that same month. It's a "very difficult situation" says foreign minister Karel De Gucht, using traditional jargon to describe what amounts to double standards and/or caving in to authoritarian governments.
• On a visit to Tripoli, a smiling Defense Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie tells Muammar Gadaffi that she brings the Libyan strongman the "very warm salutation" of Jacques Chirac and holds a speech in which she says that she would like "to explain [sic] to her host" that — in typical "war is never the best solution" mode — the military solution is not the correct one with regards to the problems of the African continent.
In addition, the first French minister to visit Libya since Gadaffi seized power in 1969 hopes that the two parties "will soon concretize the relations of trust between Libya and France" through the signature of an agreement on "strategic cooperation", i.e., on arms sales. While Dassault, Thales, and Snecma have British and Russian rivals, there are none of the unprincipled and treacherous Americans present in Libya, since Washington retains its embargo on arms sales to Gadaffi's régime.
• And from Hervé, we have this Sky News report on the death of an African dictator:
While this comment causes Hervé to call France "the cemetery of dictators", notice how Éric Fottorino's column on Chirac's dubious elegy concerning the "dinosaur of Françafrica" reveals a troubled or slightly ironic tone of voice which is the most critical flavor one can expect from France's mainsteam media on French foreign policy, far from the castigating, mocking, and crusading tone used when and where Uncle Sam is involved.Africa's longest-serving ruler, Togo president Gnassingbé Eyadéma, has died while being flown to France for medical treatment.
The Togolese army said it had decided to hand power to one of his sons, Fauré Eyadéma.
…The European Union suspended aid to Togo in the 1990s in response to vote-rigging by Mr Eyadema in parliamentary and then presidential elections.
Britain's Foreign Office website says opposition to his rule often resulted in imprisonment without trial, torture and even execution.
French president Jacques Chirac was reported as saying: "France has lost a friend, and I, too, have lost a friend."
| Condi reads the riot act to Zeropeans | Condi dit ses quatre vérités aux zéropéens |
| Bulls eye. "There cannot be an absence of moral content in American foreign policy," she says. "Europeans giggle at this, but we are not European, we are American, and we have different principles."
| Droit dans le mille. "Il ne peut exister une absence de contenu moral dans la politique étrangère américaine," elle a déclaré. "Les éuropéens ricanent devant une telle idée, mais nous ne sommes pas des européens, nous sommes des américains, et nous n'avons pas les mêmes valeurs."
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| Bedtime reading | Livre de chevet |
| Neocons with influence in high places. Didn't some paternalistic spittle shooting clown-faced shithead jabber that neocons were on the way out?
| Les néoconservateurs ont l'écoute de ceux qui sont bien placés. Il n'y avait pas un connard de bouseu paternaliste qui postillonnait avec sa bouille à bozo en baragouinant que les néoconservateurs étaient en perte de vitesse?
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Une belle demoiselle parisienne…
Talked to a pretty bourgeois Parisian today. After confirming that I was right to live in France — the best, safest, most protecting society on Earth, she called it — the woman from the humanist, rationalistic, cartisian, peaceful society (the one that never amalgamates and that is only against President Bush) said that she would never visit America.
"On devrait vraiment faire la guerre aux Américains", she added. "Ils méritent une balle dans la tête" (We Frenchmen really ought to make war on the Americans. They deserve a bullet in the head). I didn't stay around long…
"On devrait vraiment faire la guerre aux Américains", she added. "Ils méritent une balle dans la tête" (We Frenchmen really ought to make war on the Americans. They deserve a bullet in the head). I didn't stay around long…
Ronald Reagan on Noble Causes
Yesterday was the birthday of a former California governor (1911-2004) who said
Also check out Trey Jackson's tribute…Double, no triple, our troubles and we'd still be better off than any other people on earth. It is time that we recognized that ours was, in truth, a noble cause.
Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidise it
Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have.
Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.
Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.
History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
Condi glares at pillowbiter
She had a few words of caution for the Ba'athist Syrian leadership.
In case you're wondering about the source, they were resisting Jihad before resisting Jihad was cool, and generally being an island of reason in a sea of feudalism.
In case you're wondering about the source, they were resisting Jihad before resisting Jihad was cool, and generally being an island of reason in a sea of feudalism.
Frederick Douglass on Being True to Oneself
Today is the birthday of Frederick Douglass, the American Abolitionist (1817-1895) who said
I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.
I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.
When men sow the wind it is rational to expect that they will reap the whirlwind.
Helloooo!!! McFly!!! Listen to the man!
Antoine Basbous, writing in Le Figaro shakes the cobwebs out of the aged reasoning of the French left with the sunlight and fresh air of a few facts and some analysis and opinion based on observation, not by emotional projection.
Monday, February 07, 2005
| That French Ambassador dude, that guy who's always whining about bad press and nasty rumors | Le bonhomme qui passe pour l'ambassadeur de la Ripoublika Franska aux USA. Celui qui n'arrête pas de gémir au sujet de la mauvaise presse et des médisances à l'égard des franchouilles |
| French gal living in DC reads the riot act to the French ambassador. Awesome.
| Une française qui habite à Washington DC dit ses quatre vérités à l'ambassadeur franchouille. Trop fort.
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Good riddance
I'm glad these tedious people are willing to make themselves somebody else's problem. The NYT found a bright light or two, but I'd hardly call them a skill-rich community, or people who wouldn't let decent folks in Canada down as well at the drop of a prom-dress.
| Robot soldiers in Iraq | Soldats robots en Irak |
| When they come back they can be used to kill leftist humanist poets.
| Dès qu'ils sont rentrés au pays, ils peuvent être employés pour tuer les poètes zumanistes de gôche.
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| High tech, low concept | Haute technologie, faible concept |
| In the US bloggers are shaking up MSM and re-shaping political parties. In France, many bloggers are copy-pasting the State Party Line©®™ (all together now!) and then flashing their shriveled peckers on the Internet. Hey, whatever.
| Aux USA les bloggeurs malmènent les média et provoquent la refonte des partis politiques. En Fwance, de nombreux bloggeurs font des copier-coller de la |
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| Connard de blogueur franchouille montre son moignon de zob sur l'Internet. Sa tête de dégénéré syphilitique n'est que la cerise sur le crapeau.
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| The USA is developing the vaccine | Les USA mettent au point le vaccin |
| Western elite have been contaminated by a fanaticism for tolerance.
| L'élite occidentale est contaminée par le fanatisme de la tolérance.
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| No problem here | Circulez, il n'y a rien à voir |
| Toil and trouble for the UN. Didn't some paternalistic spittle shooting clown-faced shithead jabber that their was no problem at the UN?
| De l'eau dans le gaz à l'ONUzi. Il n'y avait pas un connard de bouseu paternaliste qui postillonnait avec sa bouille à bozo en baragouinant qu'il n'y avait pas de problème avec l'ONUzi?
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Sunday, February 06, 2005
| Artist? How about 'jerk-off'? | Artiste? Et 'branleur', ça vous va? |
| It's incredible to what point the term 'artist' is completely meaningless. The United States doesn't need any Eurotrash from Ripoublika Franska. Thanks to Eric.
| C'est incroyable à quel point le mot 'artiste' est galvaudé de nos jours. Les Etats-unis n'ont nullement besoin de ces zanartistes Euro-crasse de cette Ripoublika Franska des Zarzélettres. Merci à Eric.
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Fast Food for Slow People
Does anyone think that Americans alone are chucking malbouffe down their necks? Hardly.
It is, however becoming fodder (as it were) for further lunacy and whining. Here's one man who just doesn't buy it.
Make your own choices in life. When you start to think that lunch is a political act, you're getting into wierd territory, even in the Francophonie.
Symbols rendered meaningless by demonstrators.
To some members of the EU, some mass murderers are somehow less meaningful than others.
In other words, the ones that their elders had to contend with are evil, the ones other Europeans had to suffer under arent - especially so if they are your ideological heros.
If dinosaur extremists keep using the Magen David next to swasticas and the hammer-and-sickle, will it have to be banned too? What will the protestor zombies turn to? The Greatful Dead dancing bears?
In other words, the ones that their elders had to contend with are evil, the ones other Europeans had to suffer under arent - especially so if they are your ideological heros.
If dinosaur extremists keep using the Magen David next to swasticas and the hammer-and-sickle, will it have to be banned too? What will the protestor zombies turn to? The Greatful Dead dancing bears?
Why the world’s elites gnash their teeth.
Victor David Hanson points to a great many things that are only accepted after going through the drip-drip of repetition by an egotistical press and cultural luminaries who are know-nothings when opining outside of their imagined bailiwick of speaking for an unwashed proletariat.
Then there was our media's hysteria: Donald Rumsfeld should be sacked in the midst of war; Abu Ghraib was the moral equivalent of everything from Saddam's gulag to the Holocaust; the U.S. military purportedly tried to kill reporters; and always the unwillingness or inability to condemn the beheaders, fascists, and suicide murderers, who sought to destroy any shred of liberalism.
What explains this automatic censure of the United States, Israel, and to a lesser extent the Anglo-democracies of the United Kingdom and Australia? Westernization, coupled with globalization, has created an affluent and leisured elite that now gravitates to universities, the media, bureaucracies, and world organizations, all places where wealth is not created, but analyzed, critiqued, and lavishly spent.
If the American Left is furious over the loss of most of the nation's governorships and legislatures, the U.S. House, the Senate, the presidency, and soon the Supreme Court, the Europeans themselves are furious over America's power — as if Red America is to Blue America as America is to Europe itself.Perhaps the result of this frustration is that European intellectuals damn the United States for action in Iraq, but lament that they could do nothing in the Balkans. Democrats at home talk of the need for idealism abroad, but fear the dirty road of war that sometimes is part of that bargain — thus the retreat into "democracy is good, BUT..." So here we have the global throng that focuses on one purported American crime to the next, as it simmers in the luxury of its privilege, education, and sophistication — and exhibits little power, new ideas, intellectual seriousness, or relevance.
In this context, the Iraqi elections were surely poorly attended, or illegitimate, or ruined by violence, or irrelevant, or staged by America — or almost anything other than a result of a brave, very risky, and costly effort by the United States military to destroy a fascist regime and offer something better in its place.
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