Fear the USA and Its Ghastly Weapons, Weapons Far More Redoubtable Than America's B-52s: chewing gum, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, MTV, Michael Jordan, etc…

Anti-Americanism is as common in France as a baguette

writes Richard in an email. "This is Bloc Identitaire." The Awakening of Identities is the professed goal of the block, which pouts that "we have been Americanized"; which displays a photo of a Yankee "predator" (a pedophile?) tending (fellatio-like?) a bottle of soft drink (drugging?) an unsuspecting little innocent girl; and which claims that since 1945, America has been wielding "weapons far more redoubtable than all the B-52s mass-produced by America's military industry", an assertion followed by a partial listing of the ghastly weapons in question: "chewing gum, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Desperate Housewives, MTV, Michael Jordan, etc."

Depuis 1945, l’environnement culturel européen est façonné par les Etats-Unis grâce à des armes bien plus redoutables que tous les B’52 produits en masse par l’industrie militaire américaine : le chewing gum, Coca-Cola, Mc Donalds, Desperate Housewives, MTV, Michael Jordan, etc…

This sounds almost like my (tongue-in-cheek) statement to Frenchmen in my book on anti-Americanism, La Bannière Étalée, in which I politely ask several ranters to forgive me, but I cannot say that tears well up in my eyes when I think of the "horrific sufferings" that France, Europe, and the rest of the world have been confronted with under American imperialism, since I can hardly abstain from pointing out that there have existed, through the centuries, peoples who have suffered worse ignominies than to have to submit to jeans, to Coca-Cola, to McDonald's, to Schwarzenegger movies, and to a rodent named Mickey.

[Les alarmistes] voudront bien avoir la gentillesse de m'excuser de ne pas montrer plus de solidarité avec leur indignation intense, mais je ne peux pas dire que les larmes me viennent aux yeux quand je pense aux "terribles souffrances" auxquelles ont été confrontées la France, l'Europe, et le reste du monde sous l'impérialisme américain, et j'ai peur que je ne puisse m'abstenir de dire que je pense qu'il existe des peuplades qui, au fil des siècles, ont souffert de pires ignomies que d'être soumises aux jeans, au Coca-Cola, à McDonald's, aux films de Schwarzie, et à une souris prénommée Mickey.