The Prize goes to Pasty Pascal

The most completely implausible rationalization of European Anti-Americanism that I’ve heard all year. It comes from serial "triangulator-but-I-don't-know why" Pascal Bonface interviewed in a propaganda rag that doesn't even bother running news - they depend entirely on wire stories, and pepper them with outbursts of tree-worshipping polemical tract that appear to predate the age of reason.

HUMA[nité]: Faced with American domination, how can France and Europe favour multilateralism and the research of diplomatic solutions to conflicts?

BONIFACE: First of all, the “anti-American” debate has to be brought to an end. As soon as George W Bush’s foreign policy is opposed, accusations of anti-Americanism pop up here and there. Incidentally, the phenomenon is similar to the anti-Semite accusations made as soon as the Israeli government is criticised. These shortcuts can be accounted for by the intellectual laziness which consists of demonising those who do not agree with such and such a policy. The problem with America is not American society, which in many ways could be a source of inspiration for France (representation of minorities/diversity, integration), but the USA’s foreign policy. This is illustrated by the war in Iraq. It is essential that France, and the other European countries constitute a counterbalance to curb the most harmful tendencies of American foreign policy.

In other words; “have you stopped beating your wife, and if you didn’t, didn’t she deserve it anyway?”

French anti-Americanism is as older than Boniface, older than me, and older than George Bush. The continuation of his argument also assumes that European demonisation is the only type that can be labeled criticism. Like the Iranian “limits of free speech” argument to “question” the holocaust, add to L’Humanité’s groaner the use of the counterpoint offered by neo-Nazis when you show them a picture of the gas chambers, and you have a real winner on your hands: the kind of European who think their criticism should never be permitted to suffer from having to face retorts.

In 2003, Chirac, Shroeder, and Putin wanted above all else to maintain the “balance of power” that provided them with an economic franchise, and provided the rest of us with the repression and decay in Arab and Iranian culture which bubbles over into every part of the world. Thinking that “balance” precious is more than just laziness, it’s a policy blunder, and at it’s core entirely absent the promoted euro-morality which imagines itself upholding human rights, even yesterday’s newly invented ones – all of that done in favor of selling their laundry detergent and automobiles.

To understand just how ignorant this “expert” is, you have to imagine that this is a new and recent phenomenon which should get any “thinking” person stoked about transnational warm-fuzzies:

We are now living in a world where what happens outside of our country has direct repercussions on our daily lives. On both economic and strategic fronts, globalisation has ruled out the notion of boundaries.

In other words, something that has been true since the invention of the boat is suddenly a threat. What would the world do without this man’s wisdom.