According to France 5 the answer is: of course, do you think we would air anything on the U.S. otherwise? Doesn’t Serge’s Head Tilt give it all away? «Qu'a révélé le cyclone Katrina ? Une Amérique raciste et la fin
Is it finished? Yes, it’s finished! All 300 MILLION OF US PLAN ON COMMITTING SUICIDE FOR THE SAKE OF EMMANUEL TODD’S EGO!
de son hyperpuissance ? Est-ce un nouveau "11 septembre" ou
une catastrophe naturelle ? George W. Bush doit-il "déposer le bilan" ? Est-il fini ?»
On September 11th, a few of those arrogant self appointed big-brain types that France is so well known for decided that this would be a good time to engage in the usual class and nationality hatred on the air, and inviting viewers to gripe in a forum with the usual fashion with the usual arguments, much in the way a five-year-old takes comfort in repeating the same joke over and over. «11 septembre 2001
”Riposte de Choc”
Il y a quatre ans, jour pour jour, à New York, les tours jumelles s'écroulaient dans un nuage de poussière et de larmes. On découvrait alors, stupéfaits, abasourdis, une Amérique frappée au cœur, vulnérable. On découvrait alors une force terroriste capable de défier la plus grande puissance du monde.»
It’s a good thing that this is what they think of as an intellectual assault on America. It has the appearance of a hen party after that had 2 Margueritas too many.
At the end of the show the presenter looked at European Regional Chairman of Republicans Abroad, Robert Pingeon and said something to the effect of “You, who speak French so well, I am sure you realized that everything we say about America is colored by our love affair with her” Pingeon calmly replied: “Well, I must have missed that” and said he’d have to watch the show again later to see if he had indeed missed something. Indeed he did. There is no love in the pretext he uses to convince himself of his abusiveness, and there certainly aren’t many facts.
The French panel wouldn’t let Pingeon finish more than 2 sentences at a time, for fear of him saying anything balanced, realistic, or convincing. Repeating a moronic statistical fiction circulating in American leftist circles, Jake Lamar, an American who hasn’t lived in the U.S. for 12 years, quoted the NY Times and said W. had created 17% more poor in the USA than before. With purchasing power rising, and unemployment below 5%, (less than half of Germany and France), it’s an impossibly stupid argument that hinged on 17 percent of black people in the US not getting poorer, but not getting more well off as quickly as the top quintile, even though the income growth itself exceeded inflation. It also would require one to believe that the entire U.S. population is black. So in the lefty mind, of course, no racism could ever exist since only white males could be racist, and every last one of them IS a racist in their minds.
The president, does even have a way of ‘creating poverty’ without it being stupidly obvious and politically suicidal. It’s one of the looniest bits of leftist received wisdom out there, and not only did the NYT repeat it, but an American who appears to have it in for his fellow citizens has no problem parroting it on TV abroad.
Lamar, on his website refers to himself as the ‘leading writer of his generation’, indicating of course that as an American that this is how he’s seen in the U.S. An amazing assertion given that hardly a soul, even among black writers and readers, hardly registers a blip if they pay any attention to him at all outside of fans of mystery novels.
According to Todd, the decline of America has begun. While he was hogging airtime, you could see him smiling to himself once his little diatribes were over. Just grinning like a kid who’d just put one over on someone. Little do they know that the only people on the other side of the puddle paying attention to them are laughing, and are only mildly concerned about how this fits in with their benighted incitement and hate speech laws, and wondering if they will be met at the ferry with an ASBO.
Despicable all around. Think for a moment about the arguments that they were trying to make, and how small in scope and intellect their world really is.
This post written with the former E-nough-ista, Valerie.
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…
Monday, September 12, 2005
Etats-Unis: Un Colosse Aux Pieds D'argile ? – Is the U.S. a Giant With Feet of Clay?
The America-Bashers' Use of Symbolism on September 11
On that date, in 1973, General Pinochet overthrew Chile's President Allende.
This is supposed to make us think. Hard.
The problem with this, of course, is that there have occurred 500 September 11s in the past 500 years (to take the first round number that came to my mind), with varying occurrences on various continents, in various countries, in various regions, in various cities, in various neighborhoods, and in various personal homes around the world, and just about any one of those occurrences could have been picked to make a comparison with (and provide matter for reflection on, and some kind of metaphysical lesson for) September 11, 2001 (or September 11, 1973, for that matter).
As I have written elsewhere,
If looking down their noses, [America-bashers] ask "Do you know what other event occurred on September 11?", answer "Yes, a terrible tragedy." Pause while they nod approvingly, then add "George Washington lost the battle of Brandywine" (in 1777) or even "Brian De Palma was born on that date" (so was Ferdinand Marcos, by the way), although I'm not sure to what extent that counts as a tragedy. If they object that they are referring to something more recent and more tragic than that, agree and say "you must be talking of Hitler ordering reinforcements to Romania" (1940) or "FDR ordering any Axis ships in U.S. waters shot on sight" (1941) or even "wasn't it the first TV broadcast of a Miss America beauty contest?" (1954). How about, "that was the date (in 1962) that the Beatles recorded their first single at EMI Studios (you know, 'Love Love Me Do')".This symbolism makes as much sense as noting with alarm that our 40th president sported three names with six letters each, supposedly marking the alleged number of the beast.
(If any association with September 11 should be made — with regards to the 2001 attacks, that is, not the 1973 coup — as several readers have pointed out to me, it would perhaps make more sense to call up the 1669 defeat of the Muslim armies besieging Vienna, bringing an end to the Ottoman advance into Europe.)
But what it all boils down to this: for symbolism to have any kind of meaning, it needs to stay close to its subject and, in my opinion, reflect on the better angels of our nature. What it should especially avoid is collective guilt, not least because that collective guilt is necessarily one-sided, i.e., used exclusively against Americans and their allies (or, historically, by any group against any group's alleged enemies).
For instance, it would probably not be too difficult to search through Chilean history and find some kind of tragedy (nation-wide or otherwise) on a September 11 that proved that the 1973 coup d'état was the Chileans' punishment for the earlier disaster (notwithstanding the fact that many believe that Pinochet's coup averted a far worse catastrophe for the country). In another example, which is actually far more coherent than simply noting a similarity of dates, many state that every setback by Bush or by a Bush ally amounts to (well-deserved) punishment for sending troops to Iraq, but because members of the Coalition of the Willing keep winning elections, this symbolism is discretely ignored. (I call this the wait, wait, wait syndrome.)
The use of symbolism says far more about those who wield it than about those the symbolism is meant to describe (and judge).
So, anyway: we know the date that Pinochet grabbed power in 1973.
Bien.
But what was the date that he relinquished power?
What was the date in 1990 that Pinochet handed power back to a civilian government?
The answer is: March 11.
Now, we all remember what happened in Madrid on March 11, 2004, don't we?
So what is that supposed to mean? What is that supposed to symbolize?
Somehow, we are led to believe, the wholescale murder of 3,000 people in New York and Washington would not, or might not, have occurred had a strongman with no link to (and probably wholly unknown to) the perpetrators not grabbed power on that same date 28 years earlier.
What is the wholescale murder of 191 people in Madrid supposed to mean? That it would not have occurred had that same strongman not handed power back and had he remained in power 14 years earlier?
Your guess is as good as mine…
9-11 in Paris
Don't Tread on MeThe crowds weren't huge, but Hervé and one of your webmasters (photographed by Carine — read her post, much longer and much more detailed than mine) joined the gathering called by the MPCT in front of Le Trocadéro, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.
Sign the petition…
Different Viewpoints on the Usual Victims (Blacks), the Usual Heroes (Greens), and the Usual Villains (Red-White-n-Blue Americans in General)
Some in the black community are beginning to question what happened to the black leadership during the Hurricane Katrina disaster, especially in the city of New Orleanswrites Brian DeBose.
Meanwhile, Michael Tremoglie brings a startling revelation (thanks to Tom Pechinski). Incidentally, it would be interesting to hear the opinion of , among others, Gerald Gallinghouse of in the matter (if he is still alive).While a few black leaders, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Congressional Black Caucus, have singled out the president for blame, others say Mayor C. Ray Nagin, who is black, is responsible for the dismal response to the flooding that stranded thousands in the city's poorest sections.
"Mayor Nagin has blamed everyone else except himself," said the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder and president of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny.
"The mayor failed in his duty to evacuate and protect the people of New Orleans. ... The truth is, black people died not because of President Bush or racism, they died because of their unhealthy dependence on the government and the incompetence of Mayor Ray Nagin and Governor Kathleen Blanco," he said.
…Mr. Peterson … chastised those who would lay all the blame at the feet of Mr. Bush.
"If black folks want to blame someone for this tragedy, they only need to look in the mirror. Hopefully, this will help black people realize the folly of depending on the government or leaders and serve as a notice to avert future tragedies in other cities," he said.
As radical environmentalists continue to blame the ferocity of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation on President Bush’s ecological policies, a mainstream Louisiana media outlet inadvertently disclosed a shocking fact: Environmentalist activists were responsible for spiking a plan that may have saved New Orleans. Decades ago, the Green Left – pursuing its agenda of valuing wetlands and topographical “diversity” over human life – sued to prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from building floodgates that would have prevented significant flooding that resulted from Hurricane Katrina.So much for the race factor as well as for the myth of the flood being the result of greedy capitalists failing to heed the environmentalist call.
How about reaction of the average American? Were Americans overwhelmed by the magnitude of the disaster, or were they overwhelmed by something else (emphasis mine)?
Spending my days on the ground in Louisiana last week, I did not see much television. But I understand that some media let the violent and destructive acts of a few overshadow the many acts of compassion and heroismremembers Bobby Jindal as a ray of hope rises over N'Awlinz.
Contrary to the pictures you may have seen, the vast majority of New Orleanians did not take to the street with weapons--far more risked their own safety to help neighbors and strangers.
When first responders said they needed more flat boats to pick people out of the water, they were overwhelmed by the line of volunteers. When people at a shelter in Baton Rouge announced they needed drinks, within hours they were flooded with more Gatorade than they could possibly use.
Churches throughout Louisiana opened their doors to take in evacuees. Individuals organized a network to open their homes to strangers, using phone trees and the Internet to link up those in need with those who care. Evacuation centers are flooded with volunteers and supplies.
Many rescue and relief workers, themselves victims of Katrina, have not left their posts for days. Health-care staffers have hand-ventilated patients. Law enforcement officials braved high waters and violence. People from all over the nation are contacting me, especially people in areas recently devastated by their own tragedies, to offer assistance.
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Channeling the nonexistent
From Agence France Presse via Expatica: Unhappy, alienated America on view at film fest
It seems that the less the European social-political elite understand about a place, or feel unable to control it, the more nervous they get. They appear to be continuing to express these feelings not just in their endless yackity-yack, but in film festivals, which to them might seem like the height of human decisiveness and social action.
«DEAUVILLE, France, Sept 9 (AFP) - If movies coming out of a country speak to the fears and aspirations of its people, then Americans must be feeling very much strangers in a strange land right now, judging from the Deauville Festival of American Film.»«Brosnan, an Irish actor living in the United States, went further and laid bare Hollywood's general disdain for the man in the White House.
Now that sure took a great deal of grace, didn’t it? Short of making the nodding and wise film-fest organizers, speakers, the press road-show, and attendees look nodding and wise, it makes them look like resentful whiners who simply don’t understand the rest of the world.
"This man called President Bush has a lot to answer for," he said at the start of the festival. "I don't know if this man is really taking care of America."
The reflection of US society in its celluloid mirror will be brought into even sharper focus with the speeches at the close of the Deauville festival on Sunday -- the day America commemorates the fourth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.»
Then too, the predictability of their press release comes at so little of a surprise, I wonder why a news outfit would even carry it. It’s not like we wont be able to hear the exact same thing again in about a month or so, and it’s not like any of their predictions of doom and darkness have ever actually materialized.
Whether they’re “nodding and wise” Stepford-child-like poseurs or zit-faced twits sitting around in their Spiderman undies and beating off makes no difference – they don’t actually DO anything, and they are nothing more that a sideshow trying to wield more influence than they deserve as a sort of lesser tribe of the trazi guilt-trip circuit.
Far from being ignored, it’s probably not a bad idea to see just who it is that admires them. Whatever they do, be wary of it and look into the reasons to pursue the opposite course. In the past they haven’t been right about much of anything. They make an excellent contrarian guide.
So by all means CARRY ON Pierce, show us the way! In fact show EVERYONE the way, even Doctors, Lawyers, relief organizers, and people with PhDs in International relations. We know you’re an authority - after all you have all that experience in the “law enforcement look” that’s so ‘mid-90s’, and your stand-in can sight a pistol, pilot a plane, and apparently disarm a warhead and de-orbit a flight vehicle… Wow, what a CV! Tremendous for a man that didn’t get past high school.
In fact the over-reported cultural festivals of France are turning into a kind of social policy think-tank which is so ineffectual that they’re easily outdone by Loyal order of Moose in their ability to advance humanitarian causes and goals – without all the negativity, cognitive dissonance, and self-loathing that comes with being a wealthy socialist.
What’s left of the BBC's serious and professional heritage is losing it
”Bush Bashing Corporation” seems to be the watchword at Bush House these days. Even the BBC’s Radio programme “Reporting Religion” is in on the act.
FEET OF CLAY? «One commentator called it "the moral emptiness at the heart of God-fearing America".
First we have to note that “Reporting Religion” is one of the only programs on their international service that isn’t broadcast domestically, except when the use the World Service as an overnight filler for Radio 4. I guess they don’t think insomniacs will end up in the typical outrageous fear of faith ubiquitous in the UK, but know that someone on earth somewhere, most likely in Africa, might not be offended by the sound of the word religion. At least in a fashion not used for blame, personal problems, and heartache.
Have the scenes of devastation and social disorder following Hurricane Katrina shown another side to a deeply religious nation? What, if any, are the shortcomings that have been highlighted by the events of the last couple of weeks? »
But where to start with the web-page tagline, which wasn’t nearly as bad as the radio presentation played out to be. It simply assumes that all Americans are alike, the same way a jerk might say that all east Asians look alike. To the Beebazoid a nation is comprised of persons of a predicable nature. Variances from this are rare, and must be reported as aberrations similar to finding a lost tribe somewhere.
You would think that Reporting Religion would at least be aware that every society has people who do good and evil, even if they are just in transition between the two. Since they seem so madly in love with the notion of a “personal journey”, wouldn’t it dawn on them that people doing good or bad things have arrived at a waypoint or a destination in that hike of the soul. The life of the soul is more than just self-reflection, or in the case of the leading lights of British life the DISPLAY of self-reflection in order to be admired.
One of the program segments itself was perfectly comical. Two American churchmen were invited to discuss the lootings, shootings, and other horrible actions in the flood zone. While one was sincere, the other one who is an obviously political activist type and a lefty, talked about nothing other than taxes, and that they should go up. He simply couldn’t get on topic or stay off of his own topic. He truly seemed like a clown.
My thought was that this was a great way for the BBC to reintroduce comedy programming to the World Service. But seriously folks – because the presenter has to work with the BBC’s datum line on the constructed moral impression of refent events, he is forced to begin by talking to the subject from the viewpoint that the US thinks it’s some sort of “moral and religious super power”, and that there was “a perch that it was knocked off of”. I’m using their examples specifically. They are quite simply nonsensical solipsisms that come from believing that if you think something, then it is real and doesn’t require questioning.
It’s the leftist and eternally perturbed European press that implies that sort of idiocy. Repeating it so frequently, that if becomes a sort of received wisdom about the U.S. Any Christian can tell you that there is no such thing as a “good Christian” – just people striving to be “good Christians”.
Whether those who put the series together are unaware of what it is that the overwhelming majority of believes do, or is simply forced to take as a starting point the fictitious vision of the garden variety Guardian reader is immaterial. They aren’t reporting religion in view of today’s issues, they’re reporting it from within Europe’s corrosive Kultursmog where the faithful are suspect and society has devolved back to a point where people are struggling with the most basic ethical issues whenever a tragedy appears. In short, RR seems to have been demoralized into believing that they are dealing with an audience and programming executives who are idiots, at least when it comes to religion.
Their grandparents had significantly less trouble with common moral questions like “why do bad things happen to good people”, would have a place to start thinking through it, and would have been able to do it in adolescence. They then had a continuing and growing inner life which we still dignify with the title “contemplation”, but have a hard time admitting to ourselves that the public does it, especially people confessing to religions that the middle-minded don’t think if as exotic and cool.
Now many people struggle with simple moral dilemmas into middle age. No better for the experience, many end up surrendering to confusion, convenience, quasi-cults, pop-psychology, or just drawing a blank. Isn’t THAT worthy of a reporter’s attention, or is it too close to the bone for programming executives of a certain generation?
Les Américains remercient leurs amis français pour leurs marques de compassion et leur aide
Aujourd'hui, les Américains peuvent, à leur tour, mesurer l'ampleur du soutien et de la générosité de la communauté internationale. C'est dans les pires adversités que se reconnaissent les vrais amis.America's ambassador to Paris has an article in Le Monde.
The talking heads and the dead
CNN is suing the government in order to stick it to the White House. What they don't realize is that they are sticking it to other victims. How would you like to be notified of the death of a lost loved one on TV, complete with a reporter sneering? Do you want a loved one to become a martyr for a reporter's political cause?
Robert, an American blogger in Germany is pissed off, and rightly so. From Divided we fall:«I for one don't want to see the bodies televised, or found as photos in magazines. These bodies were once mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandmothers, grandfathers, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, nieces, step brothers and sisters. They deserve better than to be shown in various states of decay since their deaths.
We HAVE seen bodies. We WILL CERTAINLY see more. It’s not news that these people have died, but they want to follow mortuary teams around.
I ask you as any reader who has a sense on humanity in them, to write to CNN and tell them that this is inhuman. Their bloodlust must be stopped. I as a viewer of televised news don't want to see people who are dead by any means. You can write a comment to them by clicking here.»
If the former residents of these town, and the public for that matter find this to be an excessive invasion of the privacy of those lost, and do so in view of their humanity, then WHY DON’T the people at CNN feel the same things? In view of the empirious declarations of it’s founder that he single-handedly ended the cold war, one shouldn’t be surprised.
Another "Poodle" Who Sent His Troops to Join Bush's in Iraq Is Punished with… Electoral Victory
Based on exit polls on September 11, the LDP's Junichiro Koizumi has won a decisive victory in the elections in Japan. Following Australia's John Howard; following America's George W Bush; following Denmark's Anders Fogh Rasmussen; following Italy's Silvio Berlusconi; following Britain's Tony Blair; and with the singular exception of Spain's José Maria Aznar (and that only because of a series of bombs strategically set off three days before the election derailed large-scale predictions of a PP victory); yet another ally in the war on terror, one whose troops are engaged with the Coalition of the Willing with boots on the ground in Iraq, has won a national election, and indeed has won by a landslide.
New Orleans Flood Predicted 50 Years Ago by a French University Student Named… Jacques Chirac
• The report written for a Paris university occurred in 1954, writes the author, when "the future president of the Republic nourished a real admiration for the United States". The idea conveyed by the sentence is that the young idealist really made an effort to love America, suggesting that the dimming of his passion over the years and decades is nothing but the fault of the (clueless) Americans themselves.
• As would-be guard dogs towards any instances of racism, the French should perhaps be surprised when it bobs its head up amongst themselves — and that, not only unnnoticed but lauded, as Wieder describes a sentence as "a keen sense of social analysis".
[L' ]étudiant Chirac … y révèle déjà un sens aigu de l'analyse sociale, à propos de "l'état d'esprit" du "docker noir" : "Cela est frappant quand on visite le port, le docker ne paraît pas fournir un effort physique très grand, ni faire preuve de hâte dans son travail manuel (ce qui serait du reste contraire à la psychologie des Américains du Sud des Etats-Unis en général et du Noir en particulier)."Hm. Maybe Klansmen and other Nazis can get away with their antics by referring to them with the expression "a keen sense of social analysis".
A Stereotype the French Could Look Down At and Laugh At …in 1905
The story of the birth of a cartoon character 100 years ago proves that the French sense of superiority, its need to demonize (or ridicule) its perceived opponents, and the vocabulary used in the process are nothing new…
Forms have MEANING
One of the failings of many of my fellow Architects is that they know that form have meaning, they just dont understand or care much about what that meaning is.
Iran's low-intensity war against the United States
One thing is certainwrites Amir Tahri (thanks to TIA Daily).
Iran is engaged in a low-intensity war against the United States and its allies, including most Iraqi political parties. The Iranian calculation is that the U.S.-led coalition is tired of Iraq and will disengage within a maximum of 3 1/2 years, that is by the end of the Bush presidency at the latest.Insoafar the war in Iraq can be compared to Vietnam, adds Peter R Kann, it is not because of what happened in Southeast Asia's rice paddies — the similarities "just aren't the ones the critics cite."
And then, as Khamenei has said, it will be the Islamic Republic — not the United States — that will decide the future not only of Iraq but of the entire Middle East.
…in the case of Vietnam, the war was lost less on the battlefield than on the home front. North Vietnamese leaders themselves have frequently credited "the peace movement of the heroic American people" as important to the communist victory. Few military authorities would any longer dispute that the vaunted Tet Offensive of 1968 was a significant military defeat for the North Vietnamese, or that well into the early '70s the military balance on the ground had shifted in favor of the Americans and South Vietnamese.
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Is their desperation the sound of the institutional media's self debasement?
Now get a load of this Stern dookie:"The History of the USA: No nation has ever dominated the globe like the USA. And its people could care less about the rest of humanity."
Not to be outdone there is always the BBC which has a facinatingly quiver-lipped habit of trying to hide it's quiet envy at anyone who escapes a lot in life that they can't understand. They have a little thing called BBC Online where they can broadcast policial screeds worthy of the Third Reich.
In their high sophistication and intellectual depth, they use CERTAIN ACCENTS as means of displaying negativity. Case in point: a 'documentary' about gambling addiction. They present a mock casino advert which obviously makes the casino out to be satan's disengenuous handmaiden while shaking the change out of people's pockets and convincing them that the tax money makes them great citizens. The accent? One of their butchered attempts at a generic American accent of the broadcast variety. One that they seem never to get right anyway.
Virtually every new radio documentary that they promote uses this childish signifier. They might as well be throwing red mead and PCP at the public, waving their arms, and howling 'nya nya' as a means of informing and entertaining them.
It's sickening, pathetic, and well beneath the mentality of their audience, if not insulting to their intelligence. Who do thie think they're fooling?
Now look at THIS little ditty. At first they were selling it as a sort of "who runs the companies and the media" thing which one would expect to find a platform with which they could plump themselves up with the notion that their programming is free. Far from the case.
This documentary is called "Who runs your world?" It's now being peddled without much of a veil, answering it with "George does".
Note that under "debate in" there is no obvious option for english, and that even though they run a promo for it every 90 minutes on the BBC World Service, they make it hard to get to from the English language page. I had to get to it through the "World Service Trust" (non-profit, surely) based in NEW ZEALAND.
You can also dig the leading questions on their "quiz" about power - where the only possible outcomes are limited to a view that power has nothing to do with leadership or ethics, but possibly something nasty like religion and war.
BBC: “The willful ignorance is breathtaking”
« This was not, however, the way the BBC's foreign correspondents saw it. British viewers got more dramatic eyewitness reportage from Matt Frei, actually on a freeway overpass in New Orleans. He reported with heavy irony, " [after days of neglected misery], the cavalry is on the way." - unable, as always in a Bush context, to resist western movie clichés. In any event, did Frei's eyes deceive him? It was clear from watching the footage that General Honoré and his 40 vehicle convoy were not "on the way" but were on the streets of the city and in control.Maybe they didn't want to notice this. As a BBC listener, I have begun calling it “monitoring enemy broadcasts” – the fact remains that in their frezy to find a political angle, they really aren’t informing anyone, not “adding value” that would make them any better than Yahoo News, Google Video, or raw feeds for that matter.
Back to the flooded streets and Hewitt speaking from his boat to a camera that was presumably held by a BBC man walking backward through the shallow water. It was unbelievable, he said angrily, how long it was taking the authorities to come to these poorest neighborhoods to rescue people, although he had to raise his voice as he spoke as there were three or four helicopters hovering overhead winching people up. Needless to say, help was "too little, too late". Why no large wheeled vehicles, he demanded? Instead, "it's pickup trucks and guns. More guns than doctors." Well obviously, to have equal numbers of both, military personnel would have to carry a doctor as well as a gun.
Back home in London, the prestigious current affairs show Newsnight weighed in. Moderator and inquisitor-in-chief Jeremy Paxman, under normal circumstances possessed of a sharp intelligence, suffers, like so many other on-camera BBC employees, from a form of Tourette's syndrome whenever President Bush's name is mentioned. Among his comments on the program, according to blogger Natalie Solent, were "This is going very badly for the Republicans", despite that the Republican administration in Mississippi was doing blazingly well and the collapse of New Orleans civil order was solely caused by Democrat ineptitude. Unable to stop himself, he kicked out again, hopefully, "This is going to have a big impact on the way President Bush is seen by history, isn't it?"»
If their notion of sophistication is the cowby movie cliche that I hear daily from them, then they deserve to be ridiculed, have their frauds exposed, and then sacked.
Métakrisis à la Cigale
"... Maurice G. Dantec, réputé le plus américain des auteurs français contemporain, à la fureur néoconservatrice dérangeante, ..."
"... Maurice G. Dantec, who has the reputation of being the most American of contemporary French writers, with his troubling neoconservative furor, ..."
Dernière apparition publique en France ce soir à la Cigale.
NOT a stunt
Inner City Minister Sues Democratic Party For Reparations « In his 100-page brief, Perryman concludes that the past racist policies and practices that were initiated against African Americans by the Democratic Party - were no different than the policies and practices that were initiated by the Nazi Party against the Jews. In both situations millions of lives were destroyed.»
From Perrymans legal brief: «During the past 21 decades the Democrats successfully disguised and concealed their horrific acts against the African Americans by operating and committing these acts under the following aliases: the Confederacy, Jim Crow, Black Codes, the Dixiecrats and the Ku Klux Klan. Congressional records, historical documents, and the letters and testimonies from several brave black citizens revealed that these groups werent separate independent organizations, but were actual auxiliaries, divisions and/or the legislative efforts of the Democratic Party. The debates on the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 further revealed that these auxiliaries were committed to use every means possible to carry out the Democrats racist agenda of White Supremacy, including: lynchings, murders, intimidation, mutilations, decapitations and racially bias legislation and adjudication.»
Friday, September 09, 2005
Le genre de truc qui serait écrit par un RMIste syphilitique
The quagmire in the heart of Europe
September 11, 2001, in France
Cel phone communication is hard to come by on trains, but at one point I heard I had a message on the answering machine. I called the number to hear the message. It was my (New York-born) mother, and all the message said was to please call back: "There has been a series of catastrophes in the States".
Befuddled, I headed out into the corridor and called my parents, and after answering, my mom said I should talk to my dad. I listened incredulously as my father explained that planes had been deliberately flown into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and that both Twin Towers had collapsed.
Needless to say, I headed back to the dining car in another state of mind, totally closed off and unable to communicate with anyone.
At one point, three or four members of some state-owned company (they may have been EDF) entered the dining car. Although they discussing the day's events, they were obviously heading to Paris to demonstrate against the government, and during their conversation, I overheard one of them making a joke (sic). With a snicker, he said "Ils l'ont fait exprès pour saboter notre manifestation" (They [obviously meaning the Americans] did it on purpose, in order to sabotage our demonstration). Alhough the others barely laughed at what was obviously an instance of sophisticated humor à la française (smiles were in order, though), the comment should give a better idea of the real state of friendship harbored towards America then the presumed one extant in the myth of the squandered sympathy.
I was too emotionally drained to react to this comment, and anyway without a radio and a TV set to get a better idea of the situation, the extent of the terrorist attacks was hard to believe. I had listened to learn more, and had certainly not expected anything but empathy for Americans.
(Meanwhile, fellow webmaster Bill was taking a drink in a Paris café — listen to his experience with French proclamations of ever-lasting friendship.)
Anyway, another two hours went by without news, without images of any kind, and when I arrived at Gare de Lyon, I rushed home faster than I ever have before, arriving drenched with sweat just in time for the 8 o'clock news. That night I hardly slept, as I stayed up in front of the TV all night long, wishing, wishing drastically that the news wasn't true.
At my office the following day, there was certainly nobody among my fellow journalists who had anything sympathetic to say about 911 (or what they had to say they certainly weren't sharing with the guy wearing Old Glory on his head).
The previous August, I had joined a group of a dozen hikers (all of them French) in crossing the Himalayas at a point in northern India, and we had decided to meet again at one of our apartments on the Saturday three weeks after our return from the trek. This turned out to be September 15.
A couple of people brought their companions along. Eventually discussion turned to the events of the previous Tuesday. I never expected anything but sympathy to be shown (like I had on the train), but one female hiker's boyfriend obviously had none. I don't remember if he actually said he was happy about 911 or in so many words that Americans deserved it, but he certainly had not the smallest empathy for them, saying he hated their guts.
That is where I lost my cool.
"So that is the famous French solidarity, huh?!" I interrupted from my chair.
He tried to say something, but he wasn't about to get the chance.
"So that is the famous French generosity, huh?!" I bellowed.
He again replying, but…
"So that is the famous French tolerance, huh?"
I got up.
The others were begging me to drop the matter, to shut up.
"So that is the famous love of fellow human beings, huh? I am so-o-o-o impressed!"
His girlfriend was begging me, begging both of us, to let the matter drop, but I piled on with acerbic irony.
"Do you have any other examples of France's famed lucidité, we would love to listen to them!"
The other people were alarmed, they seemed to think we were going to come to blows, and, truthfully, both then and later, I felt like I was battering him, except by the use of words instead of fists.
"Oh, I am so impressed by your avant-garde feelings of solidarity towards the entire world — please, please, can you give us some lessons!"
Suddenly, the guy got up, crossed the room towards the front door of the fifth-floor apartment, and — walked out. Leaving his girlfriend behind, he started running down the stairway. In my fury, I still managed to register surprise, because that was the last thing I expected.
I sat down again, fury still registered on my face, and the topic quickly changed to something totally unrelated to international news.
The point is that, as John Rosenthal (among others) has pointed out, the story of the squandered sympathy is nothing but a myth: Over the following months, or years (weeks?), we are told, America's president (i.e., Bush) and his government squandered the sympathy that the world generously bestowed upon America in the immediate aftermath.
As it happens, the comment I heard in the apartment occurred four days after the terrorist attacks, and the comments that I heard in the train and that W heard in the Paris café occurred within hours (if not dozens of minutes) after learning of the terrorist attacks.
Those give quite a different context to the expressions of friendship such as those seen by clicking on the photo above. As many of our French commentators make clear, what is said in public (and nobody denies Europeans' mastery in handling the délicatesse of diplomacy) and what is said behind one's back can be quite a different matter; in any case, the friendship is tinged (soaked, rather) with (self-serving) paternalism.
Close friendship with America: it is all a lie, folks, it is all a lie. (Or if you want to be charitable, at best it is self-deception.)
Love and Sprockets
« Hernandez’ not-so-well-written article, if I’m reading it correctly, seems to be a celebration of race-based sado-masochist sex in which black people get off being whipped and called “nigger” while others get their rocks off impersonating Auschwitz guards.It never dawned on me, however that some of those ‘progressive’ protestors who litter our streets might in their minds be wagging their bums in delight at the sight of certain symbols.
A product of the 6O’s, I really don’t care what people do to turn themselves on, it’s all fine by me. But the clear implication of this article and its distribution by AlterNet seem to strongly suggest that there is something “progressive” about all this, something that lefties ought to embrace under their umbrella of ...um...diversity.»
It's actually quite amusing how many peace protesters out there will advocate societal violence to seize power for a leftist minority, unable to consolidate it with the notion that they say they're doing it "for the people".
Only when they want to achieve their affection through forcable submission, or long to be used with neglect for the soul. Progressivism seems to try to found itself on the health of the mind and body. Maybe its' most violent advocates choose that path to coceal their disappointment in themselves. Personal liberties are part of a trusting and caring social philosophy, not something to reserve solely for oneself.
The actions are a symptom of a wayward soul – in this case being told that abusing one another emotionally makes them part of a ‘community’.
The most overcrowded place in the city was the Medical Examiner’s Office
Thomas Galvin:«…A five day period of an unfolding natural disaster was not enough to merit any federal attention or direct help from President Clinton.
[ … ]
Curiously, the role of the federal government never came up in the University of Chicago Press's interview with Mr. Klinenberg. FEMA and Bill Clinton were never mentioned in the interview.
No one will every really know how many people died.»
Oprah, Dr. Phil emotionally exploit flood victims save the day on TV
Profiteering in a disaster area:«Oprah Winfrey has taken a helicopter tour of hurricane-ravaged New Orleans with the city’s Mayor Ray Nagin for a special “Oprah Winfrey Show” airing today, entitled “Oprah on Location: A Special Report from the Katrina Catastrophe.”
[...]
Meanwhile, Oprah’s protégé, Dr. Phil McGraw, was in Houston last weekend consoling the thousands of evacuees housed in the Astrodome for an impromptu “town meeting” that was taped for a future “Dr. Phil” show.»"Protégé"... okay, stop laughing, will ya?
An expat losing touch with citizenship
It's happening might seem only natural, but it's wrong.
Expatica Germany editor David Gordon Smith completely misses the point of citizenship. Even shallower, are his eternal solution for what is at best a temporary problem (to HIM that is.) The solution, he says, is to avoid feelings of exclusion: «However so-called 'third country' nationals also need to have the right to vote in national elections. Quite simply, anyone who has the right to permanent residence in a country should have the right to vote there. If not, immigrants may feel like second-class citizens. With the recent rise in Islamic extremism in Europe, the need to ensure immigrant communities feel part of wider society is more pressing than ever.»
Note that in Germany, all prisoners can’t vote. One should realize that they shouldn’t when you think that getting one’s vote BACK is an incentive to reintegrate into society. In the UK the standing government did its’ best to disenfranchise members of the armed services for nothing other than political reasons. I’ve heard multiple complaints and frankly find it appalling. Not that we haven’t seen it in the US.
One should ask how wrong THAT is. But to give a second vote to people who can and often DO vote in another nation of citizenship?
Are you kidding? At that point should nations disenfranchise their own citizens abroad?
What IS a nation anyway? In its’ most basic form it’s a culture (or defined group of them), a language (a defined group of them), and borders (in the case of the EU, a defined group of them.) If Smith is serious about issues related to citizenship, or its’ meaning, he shouldn’t advocate the erosion of the meaning of citizenship itself. He should first ask who among those entitled to vote has been unable to.
His proposal is not well thought out. In fact it is a sort of mild treason. Not against the expat’s nation of citizenship, but to the expat’s neighbors.
There is a reason for citizenship. It’s to ask an individual to commit decision of a certain level of importance to the society they choose to make their lives in. This is partly expressed by voting. Smith proposed that people should be able to leap over the component that involves a personal decision that requires the immigrant to think through where his or her future lies. « Think non-citizen suffrage couldn't work in practice? It already does, in New Zealand. Since 1975, permanent residents who are not New Zealand citizens have had the right to vote, without the country descending into anarchy.»
New Zealand is an island group without a large influx, a problem keeping many of it’s citizens at home, and has arrived at this as a result of the politicization of immigration.
Those are the WORST reasons to take Smith up on his idea.
Where do Euros get off using the race card when a disaster strikes?
Lou Minnetti:
«I've been thinking about this. One of the differences between Europe and America is that while both sides of the pond engaged in the horrific practice of slavery, America was stuck with cleaning up the mess and Europe cut and ran. For example, Haiti and most of the Caribbean. For example, Brazil. For example, Mexico. Europeans LOVED the slave trade and profited handsomely. When it became too odious, they cut and ran. Leaving us to clean up their mess.I merde on them too. Couched in pretensions of seeking insight the European press are basically doing everything they can to kick a victim around. This tender ministration will not last long. I expect the pretense of concern to disappear in about a week.
Then there's Africa. Europe pretty much raped Africa to death over the past 150 years. When I look at a map of colonial Africa, I see a sea of European-"owned" countries. Like in the Americas, Europe cut and ran. Africa is now a basket case thanks to Europe, and all Europe can do is demand more money from America to solve the problem.
Excuse my French, but I merde on Europe's opinions when it comes to racial issues. Once Europe cleans up the messes they have made around the world, THEN they can criticize us. »
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Proclamations de bonnes intentions non suivies d'effet : Promises, Lies, and Silence
(Incidentally, French pride in the superiority of their journalistic tradition and, indeed, of their entire society led me to write the following letter to Le Monde seven and a half years ago.)
In contrast to Americans, the French know they can trust their government and the world knows they can trust French expressions of die-hard principles and the willingness to fight for them.
In unrelated news, Le Monde published an interview with Gore Vidal, in which, among other things, the author calls himself a "born-again atheist".
Sarkozy on the French Economy
Not only is the purchasing power of the French stagnatingsays Nicolas Sarkozy,
it trails that of the Americans by 30%.Le Monde has a portrait as well as an interview of the leader of the ruling UMP party.
They're blinkered by their blinding hatred
If there aren’t any Roma, Turks, or Jews around, I guess we’ll have to do.
«BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) -- A conservative German minister in a southern state has caused uproar by saying U.S. President George W. Bush should be "shot down" for his handling of the crisis in hurricane-struck New Orleans.
Andreas Renner, Social Minister in Germany's southern state of Baden-Wuertemberg, clarified later that he had only meant Bush should be downed politically.
During a visit to a local company on Tuesday, Renner said of Bush: "He ought to be shot down."»
Okay - just ONE more time… Andreas, HOW WOULD YOU DEAL WITH THIS:
First 100 daze
French press : gloating 24/7
We won't be pushed around! We've got to attack Iran.
Bush : Poor Americans!? Dying from hunger!? Cheney : Don't worry about it too much. They're surely not our voters.
Now THAT'S the way to solve a commodity problem!
Good on ya, fellahs!
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Villepin’s 100 days are up
And the pre-cambrian left couldn’t wait to make a Juppé out of him and anyone else who tries to move their cheese. Never mind the fact that the left’s policies have consistently created poverty, misery, stupid policies, and social hatred, the pansies have been reduced to trying to trip him at any occasion possible. They plan to make a early a shambles of the state once again this fall, whether there is anything to gain from it or not.
No better are these sick little mall-rats who, like the left, see everything in the universe through the prism of power and control. Pathetic. Simply pathetic.
The great France 2 gin-up
Like John Rosenthal, Melanie Phillips discusses Nidra Poller’s authoritative summation of the Al-Dura affair, where a France 2 TV news-crew was found to be complicit in constructing inthifada “oppression video” – the set up of which got a child killed, and not by the IDF, but by a Palestinian combatant.
Poller:
«The rest, as we say in French, is literature. There can be no further attempts to reconstruct the incident by adding to those 55 seconds since, as France-2 has now revealed, there is no additional footage.»It needs to be understood how difficult is was for this story and it's investigation to get out. For nearly a year the segment’s producer as well as their news executives stonewalled. At its’ core is the very worst of journalism – making the news that you’re supposed to report. It’s beyond unethical, it’s an empirious abuse of one’s position, especially when the employer is a state funded broadcaster.
Poller again:
« It was later on that same day that a cameraman for France-2, a channel of the state-owned French television network, captured the death of a twelve-year-old Palestinian boy, allegedly shot in front of his helpless father by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip. A news report, dramatically narrated by France-2’s Jerusalem correspondent, was instantly aired and was offered free of charge to the world’s media.
The effect was immediate, electrifying, and global. Overnight, Muhammad al-Dura became the poster child of the incipient Palestinian “struggle” against Israeli “occupation” and a potent symbol of the genocidal intentions of Israel’s government. A doctored photomontage was soon produced for Arab-Muslim viewers, featuring an imported image of an Israeli soldier apparently shooting the boy at close range.»
And it isn’t without larger consequences:
« That the death of Muhammad al-Dura was the real emotional pretext for the ensuing avalanche of Palestinian violence—and a far more potent trigger than Sharon’s “provocative” visit to the Temple Mount—is attested by the immediate and widespread dissemination of his story and of the pietà-like image of his body lying at his father’s feet. Streets, squares, and schools have since been named for the young Islamic shahid. His death scene has been replicated on murals, posters, and postage stamps, even making an iconic appearance in the video of Daniel Pearl’s beheading. His story, perhaps the single most powerful force behind the Palestinian cult of child sacrifice over the last years, has been dramatized in spots on Palestinian television urging others to follow in his path, retold in a recruitment video for al Qaeda, and immortalized in epic verse by the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.»That avalanche has led many to their deaths in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and everywhere a Jihadist was inspired by France 2’s staged footage.
« Within days, an elaborate narrative was being disseminated to flesh out the elusive details of the 55-second video. On October 3, 2000, testifying under oath before the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, the cameraman Talal Abu Rahmeh alleged that Israeli soldiers had intentionally, in cold blood, murdered the boy and wounded the father. Abu Rahmeh’s testimony was precise and vivid. There had been, he said, a five-minute exchange of fire between Palestinian policemen and Israeli soldiers. This was followed by fully 45 minutes of gunfire coming exclusively from the Israeli position and aimed directly at the man and the boy crouching desperately behind a concrete barrel. According to the cameraman, he had captured on film a total of 27 minutes of this fusillade, risking his own life in the process. As an experienced war photographer, he could attest without hesitation that the Israeli outpost was the only position from which the boy and the man could be hit.[ … ]
But we do have extensive evidence of what was occurring at Netzarim junction on September 30, 2000. More than a dozen cameramen were at the junction filming the action that day. They were all Palestinian, but they were working for Reuters, AP, NHK, France-2, and other prestigious networks. Aside from Abu Rahmeh’s footage, brief excerpts from what they shot have appeared in news broadcasts. But hours of outtakes also exist, and their eloquence is astounding. I cannot claim they show everything that happened, but enough raw footage exists to substantiate what follows.»Jeambar was lauded by the media and the ‘high society’ of France’s political and social life. Under scrutiny, Jeambar’s story fell to pieces.
«But the bubble of tolerance protecting the French media had begun to stretch and tear. Three months after their October 2004 meeting with France-2, Denis Jeambar and Daniel Leconte came forward with their side of the story. The gist of their essay, published in Le Figaro after being rejected by Le Monde, confirmed the MENA release while chastising both Rosenzweig and MENA for jumping to the unwarranted conclusion that the death scene had been staged. Jeambar and Leconte also enjoined France-2 to make a full disclosure, withdraw its unjustified accusations, and recognize the incalculably damaging effects of its report in inciting violence and blackening Israel’s name.»Immediately, someone needed to save his hyde.
« The very next day, Enderlin responded with an article in Le Figaro suggesting that his distinguished colleagues join him in a sort of gentleman’s agreement to lay the affair to rest. His broadcast may have been hasty, he wrote, but it was justified on the grounds that the public had to know the truth, because so many children were being killed. He should have said, “were going to be killed,” because Muhammad al-Dura, as his father proudly proclaimed, was the firstshahid, and Enderlin’s broadcast itself was instrumental in much of what followed. But, more than four years later, Enderlin was still trying to defend his report as an accurate reflection of the situation on the ground.»It’s a fascinating look into the ugly world of news-making, and another kind of post-mortem for an ‘activist’ press which would like to think it owns its’ own facts, and the right to get a child killed for THEIR flavor-of-the-week cause.
Chump change
While only 13% of Americans polled believe that Bush is primarily responsable for the Katrina fallout, the French press continues to sound the anti-Bush drumbeat, all the better to ignore the looming European economic slowdown (in truth, it was very slow already, so this is going to be, like, well, alot slower. In response to the trickle-down economy, the Europeans invent the slow-crawl economy).
What country is that? Is it far? We must launch an intervention!
Racism in America
Three Lessons From Foreign Tourists in New Orleans
Jacques Salin, 47, a French resident of New Orleans now staying with relatives in Houston, complained that French officials should have done more. "When I contacted the French consul in Houston all they did was offer to reserve a place on an Air France plane for me," he said. "I could get the same services from a travel agent."Lesson one: The claim that European governments would naturally — mais naturellement! — be far more ready, humanitarian, and efficient than Washington is not necessarily true. Certainly, it is not a viewpoint shared by the European citizens dans le feu de l'action.
Salin weathered the storm at his home seven blocks from a levee that was breached. Referring to his government, he said: "They should have created a place where French people could gather together. It was a case of every man for himself."Lesson two: Those people who are in symbiosis with the rest of humanity and are reknown the world over for their generosity and for their tolerance and for their solidarity-mindedness, what seemed to be their fondest wish? To help their neighbors, Americans or other? No, to have a place where they could gather together amongst themselves (and, presumably, râler about those oafish Américains)…
But French diplomats said that, with probably the largest European community in Louisiana — about 900 French nationals living in Louisiana have registered with the consulate, and many others were not registered — the government had been working around the clock to help.Lesson three: Whereas in regards to Uncle Sam, the mainstream media, in America as in France as elsewhere in the world, will lead with the government's statements followed by criticism thereof; in regards to other governments, the MSM will lead with the criticism, waiting until the end to provide the government's response thereto (justifications, denials, etc) — thus allowing the authorities to have the final word, that final word being a piece of self-serving reassurance that all is well and that trust is warrented. This, in my view, is part of the double standards that amount, consciously or not, to anti-Americanism.
"We have special staff coming from Paris and consulates throughout the United States, going to shelters, hospitals, everywhere they can in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas to make sure everyone is O.K.," said Nathalie Loiseau, an embassy spokeswoman.Dieu merci, quel bonheur. (Lesson two again.)
"Thank god for the moment," she added, "no casualties."
Why Europe's System Is Far Better than the American One
Bureacracies "are poorly incentivized, if at all. Budgets ... make bureaucracy's managers first responders to constant political whim"
Naturally, it was all the president's fault. Everything is George Bush's fault in a dazed and rancorous nation. Whatever the actual defects of federal efforts to manage the Hurricane Katrina disaster, Bush is the boy to blame, because the federal government has become in our minds the guarantor of ... everything.While Claudia Rosett has praise for America, Roger Cohen scribbles nonsense about America's image (it never was up in the first place), and a former state legislator who represented the legislative district most impacted by the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 adds his two cents' worth:
You can see the logic of it. In size, in cost and in presence, the U.S. government dwarfs every company, every institution and even every combination of governments. … how, if people are hungry and riotous in New Orleans, it must be Bush's fault. It must be, because he's the president -- and, as various Democrats would add, using their lips to make a rude and famous noise, never should have been.
Just what the political boo-birds would have done themselves to head off or alleviate the disruption in Louisiana no one is quite sure. The mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana traffic less in policy proposals than in invective. That helps a lot, as we all see. Yes, we need trucks and buses. And, yes, we need roads and streets to drive on.
A highly intelligent column by the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger suggests that a basic cause of the mess is over-reliance on bureaucracy, given that bureaucracies tend to personify inefficiency and waste.
"This was the primary lesson of the 9/11 Commission Report," Henninger notes. "Large public bureaucracies, whether the FBI and the CIA or FEMA and the Corps of Engineers, don't talk to each other much. They are poorly incentivized, if at all. Budgets ... make bureaucracy's managers first responders to constant political whim." Henninger's understandable preference, regarding the New Orleans crisis, is for infinitely greater reliance on private sector generalship, with bureaucrats functioning as "infantry."
Meanwhile, what about the looters and carjackers and rapists whose emergence and persistence in New Orleans must also somehow be Bush's fault? Here we get to another unpleasant byproduct of our reliance on government: namely, moral complacency.
The primary responsibility for dealing with emergencies does not belong to the federal government. It belongs to local and state officials who are charged by law with the management of the crucial first response to disasters. First response should be carried out by local and state emergency personnel under the supervision of the state governor and his emergency operations center.Indeed. The infighting has started to erupt…
The actions and inactions of Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin are a national disgrace due to their failure to implement the previously established evacuation plans of the state and city. Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin cannot claim that they were surprised by the extent of the damage and the need to evacuate so many people. Detailed written plans were already in place to evacuate more than a million people.
Inside the Paelsetinians' Murder, Inc.
These dime-store Schickelsgrubers have killed this Schickelsgruber. Confirming that the Pali militants never evolved beyond their past behavior seen in southern Lebanon during the civil war.
That it occurred over a political disagreement sure makes a joke out of their babbling on about a commitment to peace, love, and understanding, and especially to all the people duped from the outside by suspicious NGOs into funding this rollerball drome of their violence which this pathetic lot consistently refuses to mention.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
"Look, Lance, the French don't like winners"
Quite different from an article in Le Figaro, which turns out to be a diatribe against the the United States and its oafish inhabitants. Here's the kicker: the "anti-American tripe" (merci à Michael Dundon) comes from an American journalist based in Paris.
I know Ted Stanger. I met him after the former Newsweek correspondent wrote a very funny book called Sacrés Français, and a bunch of like-minded expats and Frenchmen celebrated its publication together.
Many months later, I met a fellow admirer of his again (the same who had invited him to the dinner party on the Seine péniche) and when his name was mentioned, her eyes turned sad. With disappointment in her voice, she said that he had sold out. Indeed, his editor had "made" him write Sacrés Américains.
Offhand, you might think, where's the problem, it's simply writing a funny book about one nation followed by another book about another (about the rival) nation. That's not taking into consideration the differences in tone: while the first book was filled with light-hearted and sympathetic observations of a (single) foreign observer, the second basically revisited the (community-wide) judgmental scorn and self-serving prejudices applied to clueless Americans by the far superior French, taking that scorn (and the accompanying prejudices) for granted.
Although I can't say for sure, of course, I can imagine the author as well as the editor(s) having been subjected to a barrage of pressure from friends, colleagues, co-workers, and family members. That pressure amounting to what? To deciding that in the final analysis, France (or Europe) and its system come out on top (as more lucid, more generous, more tolerant, etc, etc, etc…)
I have seen this happen again and again, among expats I hardly know as among loved ones, and at times, truth to tell, it is not a little disheartening.
John Vinocur mentioned a famous example in the International Herald Tribune.
Faced with the constant barrage of news proving Americans' backwardness in all things worthwhile, along with constant pressure from their French friends, co-workers, and acquaintances (snorts, snickers, guffaws, tch-tchs, nose curls, head shakes, and dirty looks accompanied by "mais certainement vous pouvez admettre que Bush a commis des erreurs/a raconté des mensonges", "pourquoi vous êtes en France si vous pensez ainsi?"), foreigners and other American friends (whether consciously or otherwise) cave in, not wanting to face the heat and not wanting to rock the boat…
Incidentally, the journalist, whose Sacrés Français: le roman is to be published this week, has been mentioned on this blog before, with Douglas wondering, did you know that at points he was even more anti-American than the average Le Monde Web reader?
The longitude without the wrongitude.
Johnson Mies Corbusier deconstructs a rather interesting letter which he called my attention to which typifies the bad juju on the east side of the pond:
translation: «"France has proposed to help and we are happy to do so. It should help (and I think it will), especially in a region where the French culture most maintain its presence."»
Corbu’s interpretation: «This is in keeping with the French tendency to lay claim to all of its former colonies, whether they lost them 200 years ago (Haiti, Louisiana) or 50 years ago (Vietnam). Having lived in Louisiana, the affinity between Cajuns and French nationals is like settin side by side West Texas cowboys with contemporary Czech citizens. I hate to break it to them, but nobody speaks French…»
translation: «"I think that Mister Bush should use the army to bring in aid at the devastated population instead of shooting at looters. And to continue quietly his vacations was shocking for us in France."»
Corbu’s interpretation: «Am I to understand that the French perceive that the National Guard was brought in strictly to shoot at the looters and that they are not bringing aid? That it isn't the looters shooting back at the army or police but rather a case of the armed forces just targeting helpless victims just trying to survive? As I've seen it reported in every news outlet, the looters have taken up arms and have shot at innocent people taking care of the sick, or attempting daring rescues of the stranded.»
Corbusier is right on the money. There is an absurd subtext floating around in what the situation looks like from what the letter writer is seeing in the press. To accept the way France 2 and France 5 reported it, you would have to believe that the Police were NOT there to actually help, bacuase that’s what the next group was supposed to come in to do ‘instead’, and likewise with the National Guard, etc., etc., etc. It like some fool on BBC R4 said about using cruise ships to house 7000 people temporarily – “only 7000?” The ‘co-presenter’ had to correct her saying that that certainly wasn’t the only thing being down. Response was a quiet, confused hush. Likewise: «And for the amount of aid, we Americans are grateful for any offer but France's contribution is just a drop in the bucket. A couple of planes and a few million dollars doesn't come close to a private fleet of leased helicopters, a cavalry of privately owned rescue boats and hundreds of buses. I have a feeling that some French are completely unaware at the massive resources at our command.»
Certainly. With a press manipulating the perception of events so wildly, how could anyone understand the magnitude?
Les Américains, ce sont des grands enfants
They did it for fun!