Il n'y a pas de médias qui traitent l'information correctement sur les Etats-Unis

Il n'y a pas de médias pro-américains [en France,]

Nicolas Lecaussin tells France-Etats-Unis's Carine Martinez.

Il ne faut pas oublier que nous sommes le seul pays à avoir publié une revue consacrée uniquement à l'anti-américanisme, Empire. Un autre exemple, je trouve une revue distribuée gratuitement dans le métro, qui s'appelle "Voyage Pratique", qui est censée donner des conseils sur le voyage, et j'y trouve un éditorial anti-américain à propos des passeports biométriques en accusant les Américains de ne pas vouloir nous donner des passeports pour aller là-bas alors que c'est la faute, tout le monde le sait, des syndicats de l'imprimerie nationale qui ont refusé de perdre le monopole pour la délivrance de ces passeports. Il n'y a pas de médias qui traitent l'information correctement sur les Etats-Unis. Il y a deux mois, j'ai vu dans le Figaro un article qui comparait Guantanamo à un goulag. C'est une insulte aux victimes du goulag, c'est comme si on l'avait comparé à Auschwitz, je pense que ce serait une insulte aux victimes d'Auschwitz. Le goulag était un camp de concentration et d'extermination, où des millions de personnes sont mortes exterminées, massacrées, mortes de faim, de froid au fond de la Sibérie. Quand on voit un article du Figaro faire cette comparaison, on peut se demander quel est le degré d'honnêteté de nos journalistes.

Their Last Remaining Clue has Already PCS’ed

In Europe, reality is always away on TDY:

The Air Force and Navy, in an undeclared competition to use the first Rafale against the Taleban, are deploying the new French multi-role fighter at the same time, with its new ground attack capability (F2 standard.) Having left France last week, three Air Force Rafales have been based in Tajikistan since Monday [12 March]. They were due to make their first flight yesterday. Three more have joined the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle via Djibouti.

This deployment is something of an event for both forces. It is indeed the Rafale's real baptism of fire, since these aircraft will be used in ground attack missions, whereas hitherto they have been used only for surveillance over Afghanistan. "At the operational level, the aircraft's multi-role capability permits a leap forward," Air Force Chief General Stephane Abrial explained.

So, I guess that as long as there’s a product coming to market to demonstrate, use of aerial bombing is perfectly okay.

To deploy the new fighter in Afghanistan it was necessary to pursue a crash programme, since the possibility of delivering laser-guided bombs was not initially envisaged.

In other words, they could only have been envisioning the indiscriminate use of unguided gravity weapons when they designed this thing to support ground operations. This brings us to the delusional, slanderous scribble of the day:


Elsewhere:

It is not the beginning of a withdrawal, but just seems like one. The French contingent in Cote d'Ivoire is to be reduced by 500 men during the coming weeks, from some 3,000 troops to 3,000
[figures as received].

Maybe they were breeding while they were there.

In Bed With Evil

Fret all you like.

The status quo is based on an EU policy paper dating back to 1996 which says that "the objective of the EU in its relations with Cuba is to encourage a process of transition to pluralist democracy and respect for human rights" but despite its tough wording the old EU model has done little to strengthen pro-democracy opposition groups.

But since 1996 the best they’ve managed is to attempt to conceal from view engagement endeavors with the Cubans using EU and member state monies and private arranged efforts. Imprisoning dissidents? Don’t ask, don’t tell!

But Spain, supported by Greece and Cyprus, wants Berlin to shelve the new EU paper despite its softly-softly approach. Madrid says any EU policy shift in mid-2007 could damage prospects of a "new era" in Cuba-EU relations, with the opening created by the fragile health of 80-year old leader Fidel Castro and upcoming elections in March 2008.

Aside from the wishful thinking that an election in Cuba could matter, one has to point out the obvious – even a “softly-softly” approach to the advancement of human freedom and the alleviation of poverty and misery is more than the ideologues in Madrid can bear. Quite simply, without a veneer of fake radicalism, it’s inadequate.

Alas, off in the distance, can’t one hear the thundering clamor for a “human rights Europe”?

"The visit of the Spanish minister of foreign affairs to Cuba is driven by bilateral economic interests," People in Need analyst Kristina Prunerova said, predicting that Mr Moratinos will not meet any real dissidents on the trip but that Havana might release a handful of political prisoners to help Madrid "sell" its policy back in Brussels.

Or is that the desperate sound of begging?

Forcing the other side to shut up is the goal of the movement

The chicken-hawk argument stacks the deck in favor of the antiwar movement because it permits only veterans and those currently serving to disagree with them

writes OIF veteran Benjamin Duffy as he compares presidents present and past.

Military service is a prerequisite for supporting the war effort, whereas absolutely anyone can oppose it. If you have no military service, you can either agree with them or you can shut up. Forcing the other side to shut up is, in fact, the goal of the movement.

…It is the knee-jerk reaction of the Left to bat away real arguments with the stale response of "why don't you go enlist." It systematically disqualifies most of the population from holding a particular point-of-view, and essentially shames them into silence. I don't have to worry about the chicken-hawk argument, because I almost always have more honorable military service than the person commanding me to "go enlist." Other people, however, should be free to support the war effort, whether or not they have actually served.

Read also:
• Shape Up, Shut Up, or Ship Out
• Dissecting the Chickenhawk Charge: The accusation is less an argument than an insult; it's also a form of bullying and it rejects the Constitution
• If your house is being broken into or is on fire…

Update I (thanks to trainer):



Update II: • America Victorious in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq
• An Armed Liberal Asks the Iraqi People About U.S. Withdrawal

When in Doubt, Start “Diebolding”

Maybe they think the machines will read their minds and suck out their souls. They also seem somewhat convinced of their own overraught accusations of others:

But with election day less than three weeks away, opposition to the electronic voting machines has grown, in part because a small percentage of them are made by the same American company whose machines were involved in a bitterly disputed Congressional election in Florida last November.

These machines... you know that their don’t just count votes, they, they, know the ideology of some electrons, and not others... and their cosmic rays are poisoning us!

Behold the NYT’s “frightened” looking French voters

“We have doubts about the reliability of these machines,” Gilles Savary, a spokesman for Ségolène Royal, the Socialist Party candidate, said in an interview. “I don’t want to lecture America. But we don’t want France to fall into the same Kafkaesque balloting as happened in the United States.”

Bullshit. When have the likes of this guy NOT lectured America? The only thing that was Kafkaesque about it to leftists was that they lost, and like 2000 and 2004 were caught stuffing ballot boxes, and then accused others of stealing elections.

Does America's Electoral-Vote System Reflect a Lack of Democracy, Something That Is Better Provided For By European-Type Popular Voting?

The post in the paragraphs below originally appeared in August 2004. Because of news from Arkansas, it is being reprinted today…

This October [2004], French periodicals will again be ringing with protests that America is a "false democracy" and with clamors to the effect that the only wise course would be to scrap America's outdated electoral-vote system in the presidential election in favor of a popular-vote system.

In that case, a newspaper would do well to publish a translation of George Will's Newsweek article. But… don't bet on it.

(Thanks to the Ashbrook Center)

(Read also Paul Greenberg's point of view
[Merci à Gregory Schreiber])

Kiss His Puckered Starfish, Get Gas

It’s all about oil. Again.

Simple Minds

KISS.

Tête de lopette

Pouêt pouêt.

It's All America's Fault

How was Airbus allowed to get in the mess it did? The threat of the lurking Americans was used a uniter. Because when you evoke the/an American bogeyman (Boeing, in this case), everybody shuts up and unites (while keeping their eyes — conveniently — shut). Airbus got good press, all its rosy declarations were believed, the champion of Europe brought hope and ecstatic pronouncements from all (from citizens to rosy-eyed reporters), and, then suddenly, when the whole edifice crashed, there was little choice but to open one's eyes. (I say "little" choice instead of "no" choice, because you may remember — and this (unfortunately) is the main lesson here — the number of Frenchmen in our comments section who leaped to the defense of the company and its thieving executives.)

In France, (un)covering the Total scandal is all about (or mainly about) dressing the portrait of the treacherous, lying, devious Americans. (And the people are nothing if not eager to buy an umpteenth time this (self-serving) story about the American bogeymen and their numerous plots.)

Incidentally: note that Jean-Michel Bezat grants two entire paragraphs to arguments (sic) supporting French officials' position (as well as a — self-serving — government report warning about the …American bogeyman and the attending plots!).

Dans un rapport intitulé Stratégies de désinformation des médias américains à l'égard des entreprises européennes, la délégation aux affaires stratégiques (DAS) du ministère de la défense recense les attaques avant et après le veto de Paris à la guerre en Irak et décrit les liens entre l'administration Bush, les think tanks néo ou ultra-conservateurs et les médias américains.

Le document note que les groupes français restent dans le collimateur, même si le French bashing ("casser du Français") est moins hystérique qu'en 2003 et 2004. "La création au Pentagone, en mars 2006, d'un "Iranian Directorate" constitue une claire menace pour les entreprises françaises ou européennes ayant des projets/activités avec l'Iran, comme Technip/Cryostar, Total ou BNP Paribas", prévient le rapport.

There are several things that the French forget; left untouched, for starters, is France's own anti-Americanism (or America-bashing) and whether it should rightfully be described as hysterical (oh que oui, and this very article serves as a perfect illustration thereof). Nor do the Americans get the benefit of the argument (in reverse) that anti-Americanism (or -bashing) is not such albeit only (understandable) anger because of Washington's policies and who is in the White House (the counter-argument, in this case, might be, hysteria and French-bashing (as far as those are the correct terms) are understandable because of Chirac and Villepin's policies opposing the Iraq war).

So, at this point, the question begs: should we be diplomatic and conclude that France's America-bashing and America's French-bashing, hysterical or otherwise, are at best equivalent and both actors are equally to blame? No. As I have argued before, there is a difference between a country that takes action and one that remains passive. In America's case, Bush (and Blair) — rightfully or wrongfully — took risks. George W Bush put his politics at risk, he put his popularity at risk, he put his presidency at risk, he put his party at risk, he put his country at risk, and most importantly, he took decisions that put the lives of his soldiers at risk. In France's case, it did nothing — nothing being lauded as courageous by one French citizen after another ("au moins Chirac a eu les couilles d'opposer Bush"). That was its policies (or lack thereof) — all the while bringing opprobrium on America and its foreign minister going out of his way to get the most autocratic countries to oppose Washington in this riskful undertaking. Trust me, America's anger was anything but hysterical.

The Great Glogal Warmering Swarndle

One can't say it often enough.

Up Yours, Europe

Go fly a kite! (Oh, and by the way, the Kyoto lesson-givers are far from implementing their own lessons, anyway…)

More on John Howard here…

Medievalism is the New Black

Andrei Markovits, writing in the Huffington Post (of all places) notes:

As I argue in my recently published book, Uncouth Nation: Why Europe Dislikes America, anti-Americanism precedes the misdeeds of the Bush administration and will remain largely intact even when - God willing - we will see this eight-year-long nightmare end on January 20, 2009 with the inauguration of a Democrat as our new president. Anti-Americanism has become a welcome currency in Europe and for Europeans.

Even to the mature ones who can’t seem to countenance conservatives find decades of demeaning anti-American propaganda in evidence. Nonetheless an entirely typical witch-burning peasant of the new, deeply superstitious progressives pops up like Dr. Strangelove’s arm:

It may be because GW Bush has murdered half a million people.

Attributing it in the only way they know how, to ill humors spread somehow with a time machine from 2007 to 1968.

Wow. Impressive.

Freedom: Not In Their Name

Amir Taheri:

Iraq's parties of the Left were shocked when the new Socialist government in Spain decided to withdraw from the U.S.-led coalition in 2004. "We had hoped that with a party of the Left in power in Madrid we would get more support against the Islamofascists, not a withdrawal," says Aziz al-Haj, the veteran Iraqi communist leader.

Elsewhere, on leftists being unable to conceal their hatred of civilization, one can easilt see that

While Chomsky and Moore see the United States as "an evil power," many leftists in the Middle East see it as a force for good that ended the tyranny of the Taliban in Afghanistan, dismantled the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and forced the Syrians out of Lebanon after 30 years of occupation.

"In our region, the United States has become a force for the good," says Jumblatt, who recently met President Bush at the White House for a surprise meeting.

Nostalgia Department

Rememberin' the good ol' days at the ("shameful-stain-on-America- needs-to-be-closed-down") camp of Guantánamo Bay…

Watch out! Behind you! Duck!

Check out the pair of duellists in Club-Internet's funky new ad…

Considering the side that kills the most has the easier path of victory, how can Democrats saying we're losing without telling us what the score is?!

"I'm not going to say, 'I support the troops'", says Bob Parks (gracias para Cubanology).

The word 'troops' is impersonal and political. You have names, and you chose a branch. I support the men and women of the United State armed forces — army, navy, air force, and marines.

In a 10-minute speech directed at service members in Iraq, a veteran of the USS Midway (aka the USS Neverdock) takes on "pantsy-ass politicians" and "a memory-challenged media".

The liberals in this country routinely tell us how may of you have died serving your country. … Will anybody in the media please tell me, how many of the enemy you have killed? … As the object of most wars is to win, and the easy way of judging success is in the body count of our enemy, why haven't we heard this number? Are we even going to? Considering the side that kills the most has the easier path of victory, how can Democrats saying we're losing without telling us what the score is?! Are you really losing? How many times have you had to retreat during a battle? Why are we being told at home that you are not able to get the job done?

…people who think so less of you and your potential … want to bring you home like some little kid picked on by the school bully. The only difference here is that today's school bully will leave a bomb in your house if he's not left in the school yard with a bloody nose. … Many who went to work on September 11, 2001, sure as hell felt safe that morning.

…many [in the West] … want you dead. Should you die, they can point their fingers in all of our faces and tell us, they were right. It's all about them. I know that's harsh and I'll tick off those anti-war types (like they have it bad) … some pantsy-ass politicians … want no part of victory. Should every one of you come home in a flag-draped coffin, they will declare it a victory. If you are victorious, they will be forever stained…

Those who use you for their own political gain are below the elements that make up dirt. … I believe President Bush when he sent you to find [the weapons of mass destruction]. It is a shame that while the UN, distracted by Germany, France, and Russia, stalled in enforcing one of the more than a dozen resolutions, the dearly departed Saddam Hussein probably hid those weapons in Syria. It would seem Saddam knew how to play our liberals…

"Europe has failed us in the Iran crisis"

This whole encounter is an excellent illustration of why Eastern European countries continue to look towards the hard power of the US and not towards the Franco-German led soft power thingy otherwise known as the EU. The EU will always leave its members and/or allies out to dry when reality comes barging into their little fantasy land.

"I was sitting there and I thought, 'why the hell is nobody in Europe realizing what is going on!'"

Which step comes after denial? Joschka Fischer has the answer:

Relating a recent incident where a former Indian foreign minister came to lecture at Princeton and said that the 21st century will see three superpowers – India, China and the US – Mr. Fischer said "I was sitting there and I thought, 'why the hell is nobody in Europe realizing what is going on!'"

Welcome to their world – one where their own population and press are so dissembled that they can’t figure out what’s fishy about state mandated Molotov cocktails.

The Golden Age of Dada

“Work, but at what price” is the topic on today’s Ripostes on the deeply irresponsible France 5. Adding to the cluelessness of this display of stupidity is that the guests are all selling books on the subject, when they know full well that property is theft!

How to develop a personal identity without working? Is all better than unemployment? The government announced loudly that unemployment fell to 8,4%, but does one have to take these figures seriously?

In truth, does one really have to do away with the 35 hour workweek, and reform the fair labor standards act to put France’s hourly workweek on par with the rest of the world? Or does one rather have to further protect the workers in their guarantees as the CGT proposes to have a social security for the job?

Other questions: is it necessary to set wages so that work pays more than being unemployed? How do you employ the greatest number of people without the anguish of terrible competition, and not devouring us with stress or even suicides which occur one per day at work?

Old Serge should open the show by welcoming the other 99% of humanity to the hall of mirrors.

Of course all the other channels in a culture which, no better than the most backward corner of Absurdistan is still dominated by state-run output. As such what better way could you find to blot the violent domestic gang warfare out of the public’s mind than to barely report it, and toss up a penetrating investigation of the violent gangs in... California!

Fresh Piffle Served Daily

Think the artist-general of the great continental suicide pact just has it in for Bush’s policies, and not America? Three decades of Plantu don’t hide a great deal.

• The 70’s: Jimmuh Carter rips his (naïve and overly) friendly mask off, as if he did.
• The 80’s: Reagan is beneath contempt, but characterizing Queen Elizabeth II with incredible indignity is fair game.
• The 90’s: the culture that tch-tchs the prudish view that their president shouldn’t be getting blowjobs from subordinates was tch-tching the president getting blowjobs from subordinates.
• The 00’s: all and anything to degrade W, all the time.
  

The French exception

They have two unemployment rates (a new one was just imposed upon French authorities by Eurostat because even the EU finds the French figures more than dodgy) and both vastly underestimate the reality of the situation.

Stating the obvious

EU reports no progress ... No kidding.

Fwance, ton militantisme politique fout le camp

Talk about jobs that only foreigners will do. Clear Channel has the monopoly for putting up French political campaign posters this year because no one in France wants to do it.

Since 2002, French political parties have a choice: get their militants to put up the posters (for free), or subcontract the work to a private sector company. French political party members, who traditionally did this kind of stuff for zilch, no longer seem to be sufficiently motivated.

With 1 million posters to be displayed in front of 85,000 polling stations, Clear Channel's French subsidiary won the 3 million euro contract. Clear Channel has in hand signed authorisations from all 12 Presidential candidates, including the most extreme America haters on both ends of the French political spectrum: José Bové and Jean Marie Le Pen. Clear Channel will be paid by the French préfectures (with French taxpayers' suckers moolah) to the tune of 2.02 euros for the posting of large format posters and 1 euro for each small format poster. The multinational estimates the profit margin to be 50% for this contract that will entail 8 days of work for 1,000 people starting on April 9 at midnight. Tell that to the 3 Trotskyst candidates and the altermondialiste globophobic-Luddite running to the extreme Left of the French Communist Party.

The American multinational was the only company that answered the call to tender. Something that saddens the campaign team over at José Bové's place. "We looked into this and no other company seemed capable of putting up the posters", according to Bové's Financial Director Roland Mérieux (... and what about your altermondialiste minions? They don't want to work for free while they await the advent of the French inspired post-capitalist era?).

Clear Channel is surging on the French political campaign market, having taken on the work for 7 of the 16 Presidential candidates in 2002, the French regional and the European elections in 2004, and winning a monopoly for this year's Presidential campaign.

Despite an ever growing French hatred of all things American and the constant use of Uncle Sam as a bogeyman by French candidates on the Left and the Right, Clear Channel has pledged to deliver a professional service for all the French presidential candidates, from one political extreme of the spectrum to the other. "All French political parties will be treated equally without any judgement as to their positions" declared Philippe Jay, Director of Business Development and Institutional Relations at Clear Channel France. La classe, quoi !

The Rancor

The last of three telling extracts from Andrei S. Markovits’ Uncouth Nation:

This rancor against Europe in American mass public opinion is of a completely different magnitude from anti—Americanism in Europe. In American politics and society; Europe is—if anything—a sporadic and insignificant element of the public discourse. For most Americans, Europe as such is a lovely vacation spot, something fine, quite tasteful, old, safely remote, and—basically—a matter of indifference. Surely this very indifference provides additional grounds flir Europeans’ anti—Americanism, since it intensifies the European notion of Americans’ narrow—mindedness. But, above all, this American disinterest offends European pride. It is, as everybody knows, worse when one is not hated but simply ignored.

Even linguistically there is no American counterpart to the European concept of “anti-Americanism” The word “anti—Europeanism” certainly exists as a concept, but except for the Europhile readers of the New York Review of Books, this is an almost unknown, and above all unused, concept for most Americans.49 Until the very current debate conducted on both sides of the Atlantic about anti— Americanism, the term “anti-Europeanism” did not really exist. Chat these two terms—and by implication their social reality as well - do not have at all the same weight in their respective historical anti-societal contexts is demonstrated by the following bit of Internet research: if one enters “anti—Europeanism” into Proquest, a search engine for scholarly journals and papers of record in Great Britain and the United States, 669 entries appear. For “anti—Americanism” the tally comes to 14,170. Google yields 2,420 entries fir “anti-Europeanism” hut 1 [6,000 for “anti—Americanism,” which in the world of search engines is the equivalent of “no longer countable.” Gerard Baker performed a similar experiment with Yahoo. Entering “anti—Europeanism in America,” begot 358 items. But “anti-Americanism in Europe” gave him 21,400, whereby the round number, as Baker properly notes, is simply Yahoo’s way of reporting “we haven’t got a clue how many are out there hut here’s the first hatch.”
This is confirmed by Herbert j. Spiro’s research. In a historically oriented essay about anti-Americanism in Western Europe, Spiro writes that expressions like “anti-Europism” or “anti-Europeanism” do not occur in either American linguistic usage or ways of thinking.’ This does not mean that even the slightest anti-Europeanism in the United States should be tolerated or justified. But to equate it with the phenomenon of European anti-Americanism would simply be wrong, both analytically and politically. The former is the temporary, marginal affair of conservative Bush fans who make themselves look laughable before the American public with things like “freedom fries,” while the latter is a resentment occurring on the entire European continent whose potential for politics and society is becoming clearer with each passing day. Gerard Baker wrote the following perceptive passage about this issue:

I will wager that, rough as the diplomatic road may get with the Europeans, no American will throw a brick through the gaslit windows of bijou brasserie chains in the Midwest, or carve rude messages about German labor-market rigidity into the back of a Porsche 944,
For even’ Euro-hater in the conservative establishment there arc. at least half a dozen Americans ready to laud Europe. The cultural elite still likes to decry US TV and it longs for the virtues of British television, blissfully unaware that almost every piece of trash on American TV screens -from American Idol to I’m a Celebrity, Get lie Out of Here - has a British provenance Many will chatter fondly about French cinema—though I doubt any of them has actually seen a French film since Belle de Jour. You can still reduce Americans to whispering awe by telling them that you attended Oxford or the Sorbonne, even though the average State University of Wherever knocks the best European academic institutions into a cocked hat. And they might scoff at the nonsense of medieval pageantry but they will roil over like a royal corgi at the prospect of an honorary gong. And it is not just the National Public Radio—listening, Chablis—swilling, cosmopolitan elite of Washington and New York I am talking about, either. out in the great heartland, you will find attitudes to Europe that are far from hostile.

The phenomenon is well captured by die words of Paul Lee, chief operating officer of BBC America: “There is no door you can’t open [in America] with a British accent.”

Great Moments in French History

Socialism blows.

Hot wheels

French youths' car torching makes it into State Department warnings to Americans abroad:

In the historic center of the French city of Strasbourg, cars face nonmoving threats as "vehicle arson has come into vogue here with an unofficial New Year's Eve competition" among vandals wrecking numerous autos each December 31, the report for France says.

Curiouser and curiouser

As things get more Orwellian in Europe, they get less Orwellian elsewhere.

Apartheid? Sure, why not? Call it Apartheid. What's the Harm in That?

A 33 year old employed Frenchmen is called a “alienated youth” for lack of any other reason given to avoid noticing the ugliness around them. His incitement to riot should be understood. Plantu reinterprets political Dada, and from the mouths of reds, we find willful and fake charges of class-warfare 7 sur 7...

« Ségolène Royal, the Socialist candidate, said the riot was a legacy of Mr Sarkozy's time at the interior ministry - including the November 2005 riots - which had worsened animosity between police and young people from ethnic minorities.

"Naturally passengers should pay for their ticket. But for a simple stop-check to degenerate into such violent confrontation proves that something is not right any more," she said »

...and a legacy of any other undefinable mist in the air that sounds nice too.

Some Definitions

The second of three curious extracts from Andrei S. Markovits’ Uncouth Nation:

Lest there he any misunderstandings or conceptual uncertainties as to what exactly I mean by anti—Americanism, here is the definition offered by Paul Hollander:

Anti—Americanism is a predisposition to hostility toward the United States and American society, a relentless critical impulse toward American social, economic, and political institutions, traditions, and values; it entails an aversion to American culture in particular and its influence abroad, often also contempt for the American national character (or what is presumed to he such a character) and dislike of American people, manners, behavior; dress, and so on; rejection of American foreign policy and a firm belief in the malignity of American influence and presence anywhere in the world.

Alvin Rubinstein and Donald Smith second Hollander’s definition of anti-Americanism with their own in which they see anti—Americanism“ as any hostile action or expression that becomes part and parcel of an undifferentiated attack on the foreign policy, society; culture and values of the United States.” And ‘Todd Gitlin offered the following trenchant view on this topic: “Anti-Americanism is an emotion masquerading as an analysis, a morality, an ideal, even an idea about what to do. When hatred of foreign policies ignites into hatred of an entire people and their civilization, then thinking is dead and demonology lives. When complexity of thought devolves into caricature, intellect is close to reconciling itself to mass murder.”15 Agreeing with all three of these definitions, I see anti-Americanism as a generalized and comprehensive normative dislike of America and things American that often lacks distinct reasons or concrete causes. Ant-Americanism has all the tropes of a classic prejudice. Beyond that, anti-Americanism also constitutes a well-identified and well— established “ism”—thus bespeaking its entrenched institutionalization and common usage as a modern ideology Indeed, with many of the major “isms” of the twentieth century; such as “communism,” “socialism,” “Leninism,” “fascism,” and “Nazism,” either moribund or certainly past their prime as ideas and, above all, as movements with international appeal, a definite global charisma, and the panache of antinomy and a direct challenge to the existing order; “anti-Americanism” might indeed have assumed at least partly such a function in the world, By being “anti-American,” one ipso facto seems to stick it to “the Man,” even if West Europeans, in notable contrast to people of the developing world, objectively constitute the very same “man.”

Vinvin en Amérique

Bonjour, America!

Cyrille de Lasteyrie, better known as Vinvin, might be a nominee for le Français le plus sympathique de l'année.

En Irak, la situation s’améliore

Article de Guy Millière paru dans Les 4 Vérités.

Stating the obvious

Fred Thompson rags on Zeropean radical pacifism.

Paris riots filmed via cellphone cameras

A short sequence shows tear gassed French youths trying to recover after fleeing to the Paris Métro subway. And here are some still shots of the action.

Personality Crisis

France has a little problem with its identity.

REMINDER

The official description of this blog is

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…

It was born three years or so ago, in response to the ugly responses, in France, in Europe, and around the world, to 9-11 and the War in Iraq.

In that perspective, it is vital to check out what is going on now with the Total oil company. We have always said that it is not enough to notice (and analyze) the anger (foreign or domestic) directed — the anger conveniently directed — at Washington's foreign policy; one must also see what is not spoken, i.e., what remains — conveniently — hidden beneath the "root causes", i.e., the hardly-mentioned benefits or advantages (whether financial or "merely" psychological) of those clamoring "No oil for war!"

As Frank Hart reminds us, the Wall Street Journal does a good job of describing the decades-old scandal.

The company and [Chief Executive Christophe] de Margerie deny any wrongdoing, but the Total experience is all too typical of the way European firms cut deals with dictators while their own governments provide political cover.

Never must we forget that this includes — and this is far from an innocent detail; au contraire — lots of self-righteous clamoring against the sins (supposed or real, but in the final analysis, rarely greater or even as great as the castigaters' own sins) of the greedy, the treacherous, and the simple-minded American leaders, American capitalists, and American citizens.

The Five-Year-Old Utopia that they've been told is the only hope for mankind

(…As in five-year-old child…) If and when you have three quarters of an hour available, do take the time to listen to Evan Sayet (thanks to btesh) — and don't forget to check out his blog.



From the blog:

John Kerry, in so many words, recently called those who serve in the American military "stupid." This is important not just because Kerry is a United States Senator and the Democratic Party's most recent standard-bearer, but because it is the way Democrats in general feel about those who serve others.

The definition of a Democrat today is narcissism. With nothing bigger than themselves to believe in -- not G-d, not America and typically not children which a great many do not have for one reason or another and those who do typically consider them nothing more than playthings ala Madonna or pawns in their political activities ala Rosie O'Donnell. It is not a coincidence that one of the groups most likely to vote en mass for the Democrats are unamrried, childless women and children themselves (college kids).

With nothing bigger than themselves to believe in they become their own gods. And jealous gods at that. Jealous of those who would give their service to things like Jesus or America or their children. Their efforts are expended, then, trying to undermine others' belief in the things that take reverence away from them.

It's not surprising, then, to find so many of these narcissists are found in positions that basically demand "look at me!" "revere me!" "I'm like a god!!!"

So you'll find them larger than life on the giant movie screen, and bringing you "the truth" on the nightly news and being in position to lecture to the children in classrooms where they are they only ones to give voice to their beliefs.

Don't forget that Evan Sayet is a comedian, though:

George Bush could be Jesus Christ himself and liberals would say, "Well, sure. His father got him the job."

And check out some of the other conservative jokes on Luke Ford. My favorite was a Jeff Wayne joke:

I have the solution to gays in the military. We should have a separate gay army. Scare the hell out of everybody. "If you don't settle down, we'll send our gay army over there. They take prisoners."

Soft-Powernap

Continental divide:

Disputing the oft-asserted claim that Europeans work less than Americans because they have perfected the art of living, Messrs. Alesina and Giavazzi contend that European idleness is the predictable result of stultifying labor market regulations, high taxation, and the excessive power of Europe's labor unions. In France, Germany, and Italy especially, shortened work hours are now coupled with diminished productivity and lack of technological innovation. In 1970, the authors note, Italy's gross domestic product per capita was 68% of America's; by 1990, it had reached 80%. Today it is back down to 64%. At current rates of relative decline, Italian GDP per capita will in 25 years time be one third that of America.

And why is this a problem? After all, a country with one-third the GDP per capita of America is still a rich country. It is a problem because relative decline tends to become absolute decline.

I’m So Disillusioned

I though they would be different. I thought they farted daisies.

It must be America’s fault.

So Much for that “Accidental Tourist” Argument

Australian David Hicks is seen holding a bazooka in this undated photo taken in Kosovo. Hicks, a 26-year-old from Adelaide, southern Australia, has been captured by northern alliance fighters in Afghanistan. The Australian government says he has trained with the al-Qaida terror network.

In spite of it being an RPG, justice delayed remains justice denied, even if he was a foot soldier who doesn’t deserve any, so with Hicks’ defense using stalling tactics, one can obviously only blame George Bush for the detention of this “Man of Peace”, of course.

Newsflash to Australians wondering “whose victory” a Hicks hearing is: no-one in the United States, save for the usual desperate defenders of their own world-view from reality cares who David Hicks is.

Quite predictably for the Borg hive-mind of the Daily Kos, they have managed to objectify opposition to terror as support for the right while they support someone also known as Abu Muslim al Australia which makes no sense at all in Arabic, aka Abu Muslim Philippine, and aka Muhammad Dawood, which at least has the name “David” in it.

Their love seems to know no bounds.

Too little, too late

Flyers are being distributed door-to-door in the notorious Nine-Three Paris suburb begging residents to support the police before the worst occurs. The first thing wrong with the flyer is ... it's written in multisyllabic French which won't get you far in the Nine-Three. Thanks to Jawa Report.

French youths riot, like Clockwork

French socialism and Nanny State policies are, at last, leading up to the implosion of this flacid excuse for a country.



Ah, pour une splendeur c'était une vraie splendité, miamiamiamiamiam. Et quand c'est arrivé au Scherzo je me suis reluché aussi net cavalant et cavalant sur des nogas genre tout ce qu'il y a de léger et de mystérieux, et en même temps je taille tailladais à grands coups de mon britva coupe-chou dans tout le litso du monde, qui critchait. Et il y avait encore à venir le mouvement lent et ravissant dernier mouvement avec les voix qui chantent. Pour ce qui est d'être guéri, je l'étais.

Support French youth

T'en veux ?

Just do it. Turn up the sound or you won't hear it above the rioting outside.

The antiwar movement didn't shorten the Vietnam War by a single day

[To the question,] "What was the purpose of the 1968 Tet Offensive?" [Colonel Bui Tin, the NVA officer who received the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam in 1975,] replies, "To relieve the pressure Gen. Westmoreland was putting on us in late 1966 and 1967 and to weaken American resolve during a presidential election year."

In "Dangers of the Fifth Column", Benjamin Duffy compares Iraq and Vietnam.

"What about [Tet's] results?" asked [reporter Stephen] Young. The colonel replied, "Our losses were staggering and a complete surprise; [Commanding General] Giap later told me that Tet had been a military defeat, though we had gained the planned political advantages when Johnson agreed to negotiate and did not run for re-election � If the American forces had not begun to withdraw under Nixon in 1969, they could have punished us severely."

Tin simply confirms basic intuition. The antiwar movement didn't shorten the Vietnam War by a single day. It made the war longer and bloodier, and it eventually resulted in our nation's first unequivocal military defeat. The movement didn't prevent a single name from being etched onto that black wall. To the contrary, our boys could have been home years earlier, and South Vietnam could be a free country today if the antiwar movement hadn't acted as Hanoi's useful idiots.

Benjamin Duffy proceeds to wonder what questions some people should ask themselves.

Last night's Jungle Boogie at the Gare du Nord

The Kids are Alright ... Tear gas and mob violence. Paris au Printemps.

Art Imitates Art

Ah, another day in paradise...

The youths responded by throwing trash cans and other objects at the officers. A group of youths smashed the windows of a sporting goods store and looted boxes of shoes. Others attacked automatic drink dispensers and set fire to an information booth.

While “yoofs” riot over the police arresting a crate-jumper, we discover EUtopia reaching another pitched peak of civilization:

Inspired by the success of up-market wine centres in California and Australia, a French wine merchant from Bordeaux this month opened a new 20 million-euro (26-million-dollar) complex, the first of its kind in France.

For-shame. On one hand they start modeling the wineries wine-snobs and enthusiast can visit after those found in California and Australia, not to mention the composition of their wines, but can also take solace that their massive sums of “humanitarian aid” have been well spent in Gaza.

A huge sewage reservoir in the northern Gaza Strip collapsed Tuesday, killing five people in a frothing cascade of waste and mud that swamped a village and highlighted the desperate need to upgrade Gaza's overloaded, outdated infrastructure.

Similarities can be readily found with the Gare du Nord, a massive, sprawling complex of creepy old access tunnels and modern concourses punctuated with evidence of 70’s élan that I like to call the Bronze-anodized aluminum Age, and only slightly more evolved than the Stone Age. But I digress...

They get to join others who are also full of shit. Pitched luddism should find this just: Imagining whirled Peas, Greenpeace occupies a nuclear power plan in what may be a misguided attempt to repeat the great Gaza surfing challenge:

We want to denounce the dangers of nuclear power in general and the EPR in particular," said a Greenpeace spokeswoman Adelaide Colin. France derives more than three-quarters of its electricity from nuclear power, the highest ratio of any country in the world,

It’s a great moment for reality.

The Underworld with Bayrou

As Don Chiracone gets ready to retire, which potential successor will receive the support of the gangsters of France? Since the UDF claims to represent the center (uniting the left and the right) and since the expression "the Middle" in French is synonymous with the Underworld, it was only natural that La Baf would conclude that the Mafia would place its support behind François Bayrou, the man who unites all "the families", and that it would pull its latest prank (starring Jixie Juny) at the UDF's Zénith convention, in front of 6,500 supporters…

Anti-Americanism: Comparisons to Anti-Europeanism

The first of three extracts from Andrei S. Markovits’ Uncouth Nation:

Just as an imagined America has served all kinds of purposes for Europeans, so too have the different notions of Europe that Americans created in the course of their history served to sketch out a sense of “being different” for Americans, The phenomenon of America as Europe’s counterimage and vice—versa has best been characterized by Bernd Ostendorf, certainly one of Germany’s most profound America experts, a compulsive folie à deux for over three centuries with a remarkably stable set of choreographies, but with a rather uneven, historically specific set of performances.”

I detect, however, an important difference in the respective agencies of folie à deux on the two continents: Whereas, in the United States, the carriers of prejudice and antipathy toward Europe have been located predominantly (if at all) among the lower social strata, American elites (especially cultural elites) have consistently extolled Europe, and they continue do so.

This love for and emulation of European tastes, mores, fashions, and habits remained a staple of American elite culture even during the country’s most nativist and isolationist periods. Practically all sophisticated culture in America is European. One need on]v look at the humanities departments of any’ leading American university to observe this continuing cultural hegemony, which, even in the persistent attempt to negate its own Eurocentrism, resorts to ideas and methods that are completely European. American elites continue to he completely fixated on Europe, in spite of the repeated fear voiced in Europe that America might be drifting toward Asia. That dr ft exists—although only partially—in the economy, hut by no means in the realm of culture A European vacation after final exams remains more or less obligatory for every graduate of an elite university in the United States. Every aspect of the consumer profile of American elites—from classical music to cuisine, from ears to vacation spots, from interior decoration to preferences in clothing—shows a clear predisposition for Europe and things European.

In massive contrast to the negate and pejorative—at best ambivalent—notions that the word “American” conjures up in Europe, “European” invariably invokes positive tropes among Americans (elites and mass alike), such as “quality,” “class,” “taste,” and “elegance,” be it in food, comfort, tradition, romance, or eroticism (as in European massage, European cleccr, European looks ... and the list can go on and on). Every Madison Avenue ad agency knows full well that the best way to sell quality and rare curiosities to American elites is to conjure up European associations.

4 potes de Djamel Debbouze serrés

Des chances pour la Fwance passent à la Trappes.

Free 50% Off Tibet

He got the Douste!

Il rayonne, Douste. Mais vachement!

- Val, who is still cracking up at this

Today on Arrêt sur Images, the foreign minister known far and wide for his sympathetic head-tilt told a Chinese journalist that France loved China because they are a great civilization and because China has never waged war on anyone outside of their own borders except the South Koreans, Russians, and Vietnamese.

I suppose threatening Taiwan is okay, though too... right?

Inside the dark side

EU Black Box.

What future?

Begging for Billions

Someday, they might have “a declaration” celebrating another successful 20 year plan:

Barrot warned that if steps were not taken, the project could nose-dive. “The US’ future [version of] GPS would take the place of Galileo,” he said.
“In any case, profitability would be limited. The applications on which many expectations have been pinned would be delayed.
“But I can’t believe that scenario because it would represent a great European defeat. Industrial instincts will kick in very quickly. And, member states have their pride.”

Galileo, and all the purported economic value that goes with it was due to be betamaxed before it was even initiated.

A university in the US has cracked the secret codes of the European satellite system Galileo's first satellite in orbit, making it doubtful that the €3.4 billion project will pay for itself through commercial fees as promised by Brussels.

"That means free access for consumers who use navigation devices," said the scientist who broke the code, Mark Psiaki, in a statement

Nonetheless we hear the sounds of whistling past the graveyard, The shell company that is supposed to run Galileo is trying to sell something that’s already available for free. Go figure. Good luck, spacedog.

Just what the French need -- more racaille

Palestinian Foreign Sinister Ziad Abou Amr to make official visit to Paris sometime after April 2.

So much for Zeropean "rule of law"

German judge rules "if you can't beat 'em, beat 'em" in Muslim domestic violence case. So much for the European moral high ground.

A Glimpse into the Coocoo’s Nest

Where every day is red-nose day.

Treating it like what it is, people living under communism have always been either prisoners, or prisoners of the madness of the state. Romanian writer and playwright Matéi Visniec puts it in context for us is a novel published this past summer called The History of Communism as Told by Mental Patients

From the editor’s foreword:

It was Moscow in 1953, a few weeks before Stalin died, the director of the Hospital psychiatric ward invites a writer to remain among the “patients” and asks them to rewrite, at their level of understanding, both average and severe, the history of Communism and the October Revolution. He was convinced that this “therapy” could cure some of his patients. Matéi Visniec plunges us in the fuzzy universe of these psychiatric hospitals where real patients and jailed opponents of the state display their nature in their own ways. It shows us once more that whatever the circumstances, man cannot live without concepts of utopia... at the risk of sinking into horror when he tries to put the ideas into practice.

Visniec, born in Romania in 1956, is a historian and philosopher cum dramatist and journalist in the tradition of the broad-ranged intellectual. He first published poetry in 1972, and went on to write for the theater but was cencored by the communists. In 1987 he fled Romania for France seeking political asylum, and became a French citizen in 1993. He lives in Paris and works for Radio France International.

Don't bother thanking us, shitheads

Ungrateful Europe.

Though it won't be widely noted in Berlin this weekend, the Union would not exist without the U.S., which gave its strong backing from day one. The Marshall Plan assisted the Continent's postwar economic recovery, and an American military umbrella has since kept it safe. Whatever the trade or foreign policy disagreements, Washington hasn't wavered in its support for a stable, rich Europe.

This success has sometimes gone to European heads. Some in Brussels truly believe they have created a soft-power utopia that can talk its way out of any trouble, such as a nuclear Iran or Islamic terrorism. In reality, its peace has always depended on the will to spend blood and treasure, often American. Others, especially the French, imagine Europe as a check on the U.S. "hyperpower." Both delusions have helped keep the EU a small fry in foreign affairs. To become a more mature player, Europeans will have to pull their weight in the likes of NATO.

Old Europe fiscal policy

If you can see it, tax it.

The Left is full of shit

C'est ce qu'on appelle "avoir le feu aux fesses".

Special Ed

Parallels

The European past meets the European present: the home truths invented out of comfort and conformity haven’t changed one bit:

In the 1960s I was still a young kid living in the USSR. The available literature led me to believe that in the United States it was an era of romantic class struggle, moral battles, and massive heroic protests against American imperialism. In the USSR we also had massive rallies against American imperialism. They were meticulously organized by the Party apparatchiks. Attendance was mandatory because nobody in the right mind would join them voluntarily.

The new dead-enders are in fact little more than people seeking affirmation from one another that their uncertainties about their own views can be ameliorated by ignoring history.

- with thanks to Walt

With Chiraq's blessing

Muslim group (Union of Islamic Organizations of France) to appeal cartoon decision.

Trader's Call to Arms

The Wall Street Poet, Eugene Schlanger, will be reading poetry from
his book, September 11 Wall Street Sonnets and Other New York City Poems, on April 9 (6PM) at the Cornelia Street Café in New York City's Greenwich Village and on May 2 (6PM) at the Reading Center at Marymount Manhattan College. The Marymount reading will be bilingual with the poems being read in French as well.

Il a oublié de mentionner Dantec

Sarkozy states that the future of the French language depends on Anglo-Saxons and America:

Dans l'enseignement supérieur, il est urgent de commencer à réfléchir à la création de chaires francophones, quasi inexistantes en France, afin de retenir des talents littéraires comme Maryse Condé, Alain Mabanckou ou Achille Mbembe, qui ont fini par s'exiler aux États-Unis. Le coeur et l'avenir de la francophonie sont de moins en moins français, mais, paradoxalement, de plus en plus anglo-saxons. La francophonie sauvée par l'Amérique ? Un comble !

He's on to something but I think someone beat him to the punch.







Editions Underbahn: offshoring the French language since 2005. Heh.

Europe's Luddite Leftists

Europeanism, Environmentalism, Crétinisme.

Barroso rocks

European political correctness suffocates. Suffocation kills.

Charlie Hebdo acquitted

Check Out the Cartoons of Gary McCoy

Meet Gary McCoy (go to Editorial Cartoons and go (back) to 13 of 13 and, while you're at it, go (back) to magazine cartoon 14 of 16)

What Chiraq really thinks of poorer underdeveloped countries

A South American country struggles to avoid being buried under the trash sent over from a rich country behaving like an outlaw State.

Throwing the book at him

Claire Berlinksi reviews Sarko's latest book which has just been released Stateside.

That's what happens when you behave like a bull in a china shop

The kind of Europe that France was hoping for is not going to happen. ... and it's France's fault.

Dessine-moi un mouton

Chiraq is a feckless appeaser:
After the cartoons appeared, the Muslim groups attacked me by filing suit against me on racism charges. President Jacques Chirac, who campaigned for this just-completed trial, offered them the services of his own personal lawyer, Francis Szpiner. Dalil Boubakeur, the rector of the Grand Mosque, who always took orders from the Élysée, was apparently not convinced this case was necessary; he told me as much several times. But Mr. Boubakeur was under pressure from the fundamentalists at the UOIF (Union of Islamic Organizations of France), who had come to dominate the French Council of Muslim Worship, which he heads, and Mr. Chirac. Why? Only he knows. We can only guess. Probably to nurture his friendships in the Middle East and win arms contracts for France, while at home playing to Muslim public opinion that's supposedly in thrall to fundamentalism.

Great Moments in Optimism

Perchance to feel:

More than 600 BBC journalists led by the director general, Mark Thompson, joined vigils for kidnapped Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston across London this afternoon.

Some 500 staff left their desks at Television Centre while 100 World Service members demonstrated their support at Bush House.

Seeming to resort to the supernatural, the very idea has the air of a séance. When one starts to believe that having empathy and good intentions will cause barbarians to change their ways, then you are indeed proving that you’re out of options, and that the concept stinks – that is, if you can admit that the world isn’t always what you hope it is and have a Plan B.

Fearing for their lives, European Union monitors stationed at the Rafah Crossing that connects the Gaza Strip and Egypt have asked the defense establishment for help in drawing up escape routes from Gaza...

...The third proposal, which was accepted by the EU monitors, was to make a dash for the Gaza security fence that separates Israel from Gaza, where they would be rescued by the IDF.

"They want to know that we will help them escape if the need arises," the defense official said. "Their concerns are understandable if you take into account the large number of threats they face."

Then again, with such great aspirations of peace and love among the innocent and downtrodden that the same mass of humanity holding vigil is willing to promote through their reporting, such a thing hardly seems necessary.

Chinoiserie

Quite frankly, I’m proud. We must be doing something right.





However, note who appears to be just honky-dory. Birds of a feather...

Roxanne Puts on the Red Light

In fact the red light has always been on. neo-luddism for thee, but not for me:

Trudie Styler, wife of Sting and self-styled eco-warrior, recently took a helicopter to travel 80 miles from Wiltshire to Devon, a journey that would have taken less than two hours by train.

I guess that’s the way of the “eco-warrior” making the sacrifice of leading by example.

It later emerged Sting had twice used the airfield in question from which to roar off in his private jet.
Styler's personal assistant declined to comment on her boss's travel arrangements when I called.

On a Trafficked Human

The father of Alan Johnston, the BBC Gaza(n) journalist who has been missing for a week made an appeal for his saying: “that’s no way to treat a friend of the Palestinian people,” using any appeal possible, but forgetting that a journalist is not supposed to befriend the subject of their reporting. The BBC announced that they suspect that it’s just an armed gang looking for some money, and finally admitting that these kidnappings are frequently undertaken by factions as a means of harming one another, which hardly sounds like a simple ransom scenario.

Around the web, other scattered points are made of this matter, but not too loudly. As unsurprised as near-east watchers are, they certainly wouldn’t want to see any harm come to Johnston, even if he did report for the same World Service that spent an hour referring to Valerie Plame simply as “Valerie,” and reported he claim that her very being was a secret, and that she was some sort of highly placed operative who simply didn’t know that it was wrong to recommend a biased spouse to a position where he could do a political hatchet job against their countrymen.

As for Johnston, the BBCeye blog takes up the BBC on their ‘cause’ quoting former PA Information Minister:

"We are opposed to the kidnapping of foreign journalists who serve the Palestinian cause."

While a fine fellow from Sweden noted in straightforward manner quoted him, saying:

"We are opposed to the kidnapping of foreign journalists who serve the Palestinian cause," he added.

Or if you allow me to paraphrase: Don't touch our journalists who support us.

Is it journalism or is it advocacy? Is it because Johnston was only biased 90% of the time, or was it because on rare occasion he would hint that there is an internecine tribalistic feeding frenzy going on among the Palestinians at the very moment they have a chance at their own state?

The only thing that’s certain is that you can’t call the BBC’s reporting journalism, not because of its’ editorial political stance, but because they frequently suppress basic reporting that doesn’t support the world view of their reporters.

To the Casual Visitor the Glumness is Baffling

Alert the Külbel!

Israel's refusal to enter into a deal with Monsieur Chiraq was probably the best Israeli decision of the whole war.

I’m sure you’re shocked, but not in the way the French leftists’ image of themselves will: France urged Israel to hit Syria. Doublegame, against their own bitch no less.

French President Jacques Chirac told Israel at the start of the war in Lebanon that France would support an Israeli assault on Syria, it was reported on Sunday.

Army Radio reported that in the message, which was delivered by Chirac to Israel via a secret channel, the French president suggested that Israel invade Damascus and topple the regime of Bashar Assad. In exchange, Chirac assured Israel full French support for the war.

According to the message delivered from Paris, Syria was responsible for the flare up in the North and encouraged Hizbullah to attack.

While they were telling the thin-skinned, yet terror-symp French public that religiously driven murderers were O-tay! with them.

Image of self, including banal leftist “truthy fairy-ness” and international marketing tactics : gone.

Have a nice day.

Purple helmets of peace pull out of that Middle Eastern hole

Never know what you might catch.