| "Moderate" muslims? |
| When pigs will fly. |
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, August 15, 2005
| The French laugh about what they have forgotten |
| I'm assuming that Plantu intended for the lady at the lower right represent Cindy Sheehan. What the French have forgotten, somewhere in the morass of their pacifist humanist illusionary soft power society, is that for something to be sacred you have to have sacrifice. |
 |
When being a poodle most of the time just isn’t enough...
The Muslim Council of Britain, the default face of moderation in the UK has wagged it’s finger at the producers of BBC’s Panorama program. The installment is said to ask the question whether or not Islamic organization and mosque councils in the UK can address the growth of extremism in their own membership. Of course the first word was ‘bias’.
It wasn’t even 6 days later that leftists howled about non-existent cencorship at the Beeb, which contrary to the World Socialist’s claim, uniformly censors or mitigates mainstream views.«In a letter to Director General Mark Thompson, Sir Iqbal states: "The Panorama team is more interested in furthering a pro-Israeli agenda than assessing the work of Muslim organisations in the UK."
He said this as if there aren’t any highly placed opponents to Israel at the BBC. The other foolish thing about it is that there is no hint that Israel is discussed in the program at all. The MCB mentions it, in all likelihood, because they have been conditioned by years of propaganda into dwelling on this pet peeve of theirs.
It goes on to suggest that the BBC is being manipulated by "highly placed supporters of Israel".»
In response, a few people at the BBC have located a spine somewhere in the attic at Broadcast House:«However, Ware told the BBC's staff magazine Ariel such a claim was "ludicrous". He added: "They haven't seen it; we haven't finished editing it.»
Next thing you know, someone will get worked up about the name of their newsletter, and not because it resembles the name of a laundry detergent that smells slightly of quick-lime and lye.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Nick Cohen to the left: Smell You Later!
Via Tim Bleeyah – Guardian columnist Nick Cohen leaves the hive mind of the left behind, for good, and with his dignity intact: «As in the 1930s, there's little doubt that few apart from George Galloway and others in the gruesome leadership of the anti-war movement were keen on saluting Saddam Hussein. The reason why one million people marched through London without one mounting a platform to express solidarity with the victims of fascism was that it never occurred to them that there were people in Iraq who shared their values.
…
On the other hand when confronted with a movement of contemporary imperialism - Islamism wants an empire from the Philippines to Gibraltar - and which is tyrannical, homophobic, misogynist, racist and homicidal to boot, they feel it is valid because it is against Western culture. It expresses its feelings in a regrettably brutal manner perhaps, but that can't hide its authenticity.
The result of this inversion of principles has been that liberals can't form alliances with the victims of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan or Iraq any more than the Auden generation could form alliances with the victims of Stalinism.
If the Archbishop of Canterbury were to suggest [that those who renounce Islam should be executed…] the same treatment for renegade Christians all hell would break loose. But as the bigotry comes from 'the other' there is silence.
…
the London bombs have added a practical reason for breaking with the consensus: now they're trying to kill us. Even if people think that the Iraq war has made Britain a bigger target, they are still confronted with a fascistic cult of murder and self-murder which allows no compromise.
The thing to watch for with fellow travellers is what shocks them into pulling the emergency cord and jumping off the train. I know some will stay on to the terminus, and when the man with the rucksack explodes his bomb their dying words will be: 'It's not your fault. I blame Tony Blair.'»
What? Nu? Again?!?
It's political blackmail to indulge Schröder's hunger for power, just as it had once with the Greens. The results were policy pandemonium worthy of Emperor Nero's ill-timed violin recital. I'm sure ol' Gerhard is thinking "win this one and deal with these whackos later", but if he cared for his country he should either try to win a majority for his party without the ball-and-chain of the left's poverty-creating view of the world. It failed for 30 years in the GDR, why would the former PDS types who are not Linkster want to try it again? Then again, maybe a non-functioning state could do less harm, but it's doubtful.
They still seem to be fighting the old fights. To illustrate Gysi's party’s lack of depth, he doesn't want to tax much more the small businesses because they're already hurting, and made up of people. Questions: what are big businesses made up from? Robots? Their economy is geared toward big business as a fundamental base of job creation - why try and kill it with this small-minded niedkultur (or culture of envy)?
Besides, how many people do you know who work for a poor person?
His theory displays a simplistic and shallow view of how to be humane (never teaching a man to fish to cover the cost of giving away another fish), and a kind of economics based on his own emotions, or a desire to be though compassionate at the expense of a generation's future. In one interview I saw, he simply refused to discuss economics, citing that he didn't want Germany to become Britain, the US, France, or Sweden.
France and Sweden are neo-liberals?
Clinton's success in the US, as well as the Clark's success in New Zealand depended entirely on implementing right wing policies. The PDS rhetoric amounts to red meat for a population frustrated with malaise. It's a shame that it will bring them even more of it than before.
Sandbox Brinksmanship in Europa
Where geopolitics occasionally rises to the importance of extreme knitting, Bundesliga, and Formula 1.
«On August 3, Le Figaro ran an op-ed piece from M Stapleton, mostly the expected buttering-up operation, but including this paragraph towards the end:
Um, no – not really. U.S. policy cares about what happens in the world, as well as what American think. The French public does not get a greater vote in America than America does.
"Public opinion polls show that the French public tends to hold negative perceptions of US foreign policy, and some misperceptions about basic American values and society. It is important for Americans to understand those criticisms..."»
Why, I wonder, are French misperceptions of the U.S. anything that the U.S. needs to do anything about anyway? «But at the very least, you know darn well the oh-so-suave Dominique de Villepin is making fun of Bolton's moustache. When de Villepin was fighting with Colin Powell, at least he could have nothing to say about Powell's grooming.»
So what?
There’s always SOMETHING to say. For effective people it's more a matter of what that actually is. Do you think he would actually waste the thought on a matter of appearance? He seemed to have no problems with Arafat who seemed to resemble a woodland creature, and Robert Mugabe who isn’t just evil, but ugly enough to make children cry.
Repeating the hobgoblins of the whiny socialist’s mind, our “Expatican” writer is clearly tuned in to the media spin-and-buzz in France to a greater degree than to the U.S. as well. His repetition of the negative view held by John Bolton isn’t just held by the French, it’s held by partisan leftist trying to anything the White House does. They are also the source of information they have of John Bolton in France. «What's more, the United States has also expressed "enormous scepticism" of Europe's recent handling of Iran and its nuclear programme, according to a French diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity just this week to the French press about ongoing negotiations between Iran and a British/French/German delegation.»
Just remember that Gerhard Shroeder is running for office. Shorty will not be speaking with his own mind for a while.
What’s more is that the subject of Iran’s weapons program actually does matter. If anyone thinks that the U.S. government can be shooshed and bullied into not saying anything for fear of spoiling anyones’ fun, they clearly need to put the bong down and realize that the Iranians are buying enough time to roll out warhead number one. Clinton tried precisely what the fab-EU3 are doing with Iran, and it was a failure except in a Clinton White House press release.
Albright and Clinton basically gave Japan the opportunity to break another record, and become the only nation to be nuked more than twice.
Were the U.S. press really like the French and German press, they would only report stories like this one:
«Lille - A dozen firemen were required to lift a 200kg man out of his home»
And then sit around and grumble:
Hmph...
Typical...
Saturday, August 13, 2005
That'll be 2 souls, a dozen eggs, and the morning papers...
Amazingly, the BBC World Service dispenses unsolicited pity on those who have screwed up their own lives, but expects foresight of the impossible and superhuman abilities from Americans. Upon release of tapes and transcripts of the audio traffic of first responders on 9-11, they didn't reflect on methodology, patterns, outcomes, or even take much interest in what was happening in their on-air report. The lead in to the news item was «Americans angered by the Government's ability to plan for the unimaginable. »
HOW do you plan for an act of sabotage and mass murder, and find the needle in the haystack, if it is to secretive as to be unimaginable? Isn't that impossible by its' own definition?
The obsession with things that no-one can do anything about is a hint - the obsessive dwelling on helplessness reflects their own sense that they are helpless themselves to manipulate events with mood and hidden rhetoric concealed in news. Could the übermenschen of the beeb have that prescience, or even hint at a way that one could predict and locate 19 murder-kazes? If so, why the hell didn't they tell anyone?
Which disappointed Americans are they talking about anyway? The ones they always seem to be baiting over their success in life? Did they ask any actual Americans about this, and do they really think this reflects anything meaningful other that the emotional state of the ones they seem to selectively seek out?
My guess is that their writers (it's hard to call them journalists) pull most of these hidden editorials out of the thin air found circulating around an combination of who they are and what they think their audience's opinions are, but it's always rather passive aggressive. It also seems that a significant amount of their assertions are made up of bad, narrowly selective, or concocted data that takes an extreme assertion consitent with who they think their audience is, and them moderating it slightly. Through trial and error, they have probably learned that there is only so much that a producer will go along with, so what the producer can digest becomes the gold standard of opinion.
Maybe they’re worried about the fate of their imaginary "inner child". That helpless button that they'd like to push in all of us that is supposed to make us admire them for doing us all a favor by advocating something. When it doesn’t work, they retreat to running items on the dangers of margarine, the wrongness of rape, etc. etc. – in other words, things you already know.
As for out-and-out lies, an American blogger in Austria, Bill Spricht, (Ger.: Bill speaks) tunes us in to an act of true desperation. The newspaper „Der Standard” in the limited Austrian media environment is either repeating factless agit-prop and simply lie-ing when it headlined a story about the US holding 70 000 prisoners worldwide on the war on terror. A handful of German sources parroted it immediately as well. Their emotions, important as they think they are to the rest of the world, relieve them of the burden of checking up on their accusations of malfeasance. We're supposed to just accept and understand THEIR emotional difficulty with the world as it is and give them a pass, because, after all, it wounds them emotionally. It's an arrogant assertion that we shouldn't question their very familiar looking blame-a-palooza and forget about the legacy of what the US is trying to stop by short circuiting.
IF IT WORKS, IT’S OBSOLETE
It’s no surprise that the number of cults exploded a few years after the likes of Marshall McLuhan and many other media watchers could identify the power of this form of communication. It also followed a phase where the news media became far more “self aware.”
What can one do about it? First and foremost realize that your virtues are your own. The virtues of someone you don't know only become yours' when you're disconnected from real people that you know, and who know you.
Ignore shams built on trading in your own guilt. Don't take them seriously. They're defensive and unable to accept the majority of views and experiences in the world anyway, and it only feeds the thing they thrive from most: moral authority and an ability to color or control what people hear and eventually feel. Anyone who wants emotional access to someone they don't know all that well, or have instructive access outside of your consent to children who are not their own falls in this category. Deny them that affirmation that they want. Even if they don't learn from this, it counts as one less person or family group that they can harm. Keep government out of family life, and the life of individuals altogether. Even when there is "dysfunction". Dysfunction has been so overly and broadly defined that the helplessness-industry has isolated the people who are actually "whole" to about 5 percent of the population. If this really were the case, society would not function at all. When the description of a "condition" is entirely made up of subtext, and has few or hard-to-believe outward signs, it is almost certainly a lie.
«It’s also hard to ignore an analysis first published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in August 1967. Researchers followed 301 people who had been arrested for “public drunkenness” in San Diego and were randomly assigned to three groups based on the nature of the court-ordered follow-up: no treatment, referral to professional counseling, or Alcoholics Anonymous. Finishing dead last—with almost 50 percent rearrested during the following year—were the eighty-six individuals sentenced to AA. Second best was the group receiving the counseling. And most successful at staying out of jail? Those receiving no treatment at all. Now that’s self-help.»The therapy culture has brought us more harmful and destructive aberrance than it's "healed", or purports to try and "heal".
Journalists raised on a curriculum of activist "help to the world through reporting" are no different, and are certainly aware of the power of image-making and symbolic representation of the manipulative power of emotional blackmail.
Take the BBC's
Years in the media without scrutiny is a lifetime to the rest of us when it comes to being able to act unchecked. It's common knowledge that absolute power corrupts absolutely. No example of this is greater than a self congratulating, isolated press which has a massive state-mandated funding base and little competition to criticize it.
The consequence over time is a society at large that believes that the view of the world constructed and constricted by their opinions is the real background to people's lives. It works in the same way that the therapy culture has made many souls helpless receptors of an authors' inner workings in order to make them our own. The risks to real people who accept it without question is the same. Through their ubiquity, they have done more to find you then you did to find them. Like any judgmental stranger, they need to be taken with a grain of salt.
Friday, August 12, 2005
Arriving to its' Logical Conclusion
Who is Zapatero really?: «"We would like to note that ever since the European Union, encouraged by the government of Spain, re-instated normal relations with the Cuban dictatorship, there has been an increase in the repressive measures taken against peaceful opposition groups, which include physical aggression and persecutions in their own homes."»
Well of course - what do you expect from a tyrant? It always starts with duping kids into lovefests that cost their parents something, and ends with pride in a comprehensive national dental plan that includes, simply, pulling teeth. Actually where it all ends goes well beyond convincing some dipshit college kids to wear t-shirts with the North Korean flag on them (especially since they aren't emaciated).. it's when a fool like Zappo sells chemical weapons to Hugo Chavez.
Duh.
The Young Fleeing Institutional Malaise
Susan Bell in Paris writing for The Scotsman reports a phenomenon that closely matches the experience my generation had in Germany. There seemed to be nothing real to do and there was more nihilism that anyone could do anything about, or that some people could bear.
It’s also a sign that a new liberalism might emerge from the young both in the country and eventually from those who bring back renewed values from abroad.
“France's young set off on 'bon voyage' to better life”«FRANCE is facing an unprecedented new-generation exodus as many of its disillusioned younger people leave in search of a better life abroad.
There are also social problems. Bell point to ‘image’ being an issue, but oftentimes people’s suspicions originate in experience.
Fed up with a country they describe as rigid, racist and old-fashioned, French youngsters are opting for a new start in Britain, Canada, America or New Zealand where they can find housing and jobs more easily than in France.
Unemployment among the under-25s in France stands at 23.3 per cent, and 40 per cent of 18-30 year-olds describe their financial state as "difficult".
Many cite French employment practices as being at the root of the problem.
…
The French tradition of offering university graduates low- paid short-term work experience, rather than full-time employment, is also blamed for the precarious financial situation in which many young French people find themselves. A massive 36 per cent of the working population aged from 25-29 say they have no job security, and 43 per cent say they have changed companies at least three times since starting work.
…
[One interviewee] sent off five CVs to Canadian companies as an experiment and receive five job offers - a far cry from France where a mailing of 22 CVs resulted in only one offer. "I have trouble selling the quality of my work here," he said. "In France, they prefer to stress how many years experience you have." »«Sociologist Olivier Galland believes a cultural gap is opening up between the young and the rest of French society.
If their government really cared about people as much as they’d like to think they do, they should try something different. A life on the dole isn’t just a difficult social complex and a problem, but a disservice to the hopes young people could otherwise have, and the possibilities that they could look forward to. How else could their creative energy permit itself to be expressed? Yes, further institutional management?
"Eighteen- to 30-year-olds have an image of a rigid, authoritarian country lacking flexibility," he said. "They are looking for a more flexible hiring system... and they head for those countries where the culture of little jobs is more developed."
Young French people are also drawn to move by a climate of tolerance and dynamism which they can miss in French society.
"I feel I'm living in an ageing country which sinks further every day, where people are worn out," said Valerie, 34, a nursery school teacher who plans to emigrate to Quebec.»
Clearly there is a growth problem. The data for this quarter (as well as the past decade) shows that given all the same inputs, the results are being hampered by theories which have to change to mitigate the growth of not just social malaise, but poverty.
French Growth Slowed in Second Quarter on Consumer Spending«Gross domestic product increased 0.1 percent from the first quarter, when it rose 0.4 percent, statistics office Insee said in Paris today. Economists had expected a 0.2 percent gain, according to the median of 29 estimates in a Bloomberg survey.
I’d like to be hopeful too, but once rates are at 2 percent, what other meaningful stimuli are there to be used?
Economic growth in the dozen nations sharing the euro slowed to 0.3 percent in the second quarter from 0.5 percent in the first, the European Union's statistics office said yesterday. The German economy, Europe's largest, stagnated in the second quarter from the first, when it grew 0.8 percent.
Growth in the euro region will probably accelerate to the fastest pace in almost two years at the end of 2005, the European Commission said yesterday.
To help underpin a recovery from a second-quarter slowdown, the European Central Bank in Frankfurt on Aug. 4 held its benchmark interest rate at a six-decade low of 2 percent. The Frankfurt-based central bank hasn't moved rates since June 2003. »
To use a corny old joke, when a guy goes to the Doctor and says “It hurts when I do that”, the first thing the doctor says is “So don’t do that!”
The comparison is to what we know is possible in another populous post-industrial economy which also has technological depth. «The world's largest economy will grow at a 4.1 percent annual rate this quarter, the most since the first three months of 2004 and up from the 3.5 percent estimated last month, based on the median forecast in the monthly survey. Growth for October through December is predicted to reach a 3.5 percent pace, up from last month's prediction of 3.4 percent.
…
Central bankers will raise the rate to 3.5 percent today, the 10th straight quarter-point increase, according to the unanimous opinion of 70 economists in a separate Bloomberg poll.
…
The Fed is trying to stem inflation as growth accelerates even as oil prices rise to a record. Consumer prices are projected to rise 2.9 percent this year, 0.2 percentage point faster than estimated last month, the monthly survey showed.»
Starting to Sound Alike
«Q.: Is it permissible, to stand for presidency with a fellow muslim on a College Student Council? A.: If, by standing for presidency on a college student council, your friend would be required to act or pass decisions contrary to the teachings of Shariah, then you are not allowed to support such a cause. On the contrary, if there is benefit in holding such a position, in terms of requesting your permissible needs etc. then you are allowed to stand for presidency with your friend.»
Which makes him sound like Barbara Boxer, who wants a certain Supreme Court nominee to promise to ignore the constitution or legal logic and always rule in favor of leftist causes.
Because otherwise, that is haram: «Would someone please tell Sen. Barbara Boxer that John Roberts is not running for political office -- and get her a copy of the Constitution? Sen. Boxer indignantly announced recently that she would vote against Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court unless she can be convinced that he will support abortion rights. This conjures the silly mental picture of Judge Roberts sitting in the hot seat, being grilled by the Senate Judiciary Committee, wearing a button saying, "Abortion is safe with me.
- David Limbaugh
Vote Roberts for U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice." Since Boxer has, via the Peter Principle, managed to land herself in the United States Senate, wouldn't it be refreshing if she would demonstrate some comprehension of the Court's limited role under the Constitution?
The governmental powers and limitations the Framers incorporated in the Constitution came with a purpose -- usually to safeguard the liberties of the people. To the extent you ignore its prescriptions, you jeopardize liberties.»
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Sniper
Film at 11. And on their six.
Clicken sie Hier for video.
«''The 5-man Blackwater crew that was assigned to CPA Najaf were coming under heavy small arms and mortar fire, the city was being taken over by insurgents. The police stations and hospitals were taken over as well, after a day of fighting off hundreds of insurgents the city had been completely overrun, with the CPA in the heart of the city and no way out.
…
Well that night all hell broke loose and we flew back in. Over 1000 insurgents (reported by the F18 pilots) had taken the city and now wanted the CPA after a day of intense fighting by 11 BW guys, airstrikes, a handful of Marines and 1 sniper we were able to hold them off. After it DIED down and gunships and SF guys finally started to roll in the battle was soon over and the CPA was saved.
That's pretty much it in a nut shell...''»
Clicken sie Hier for video.
Professor Xue Muqiao
«In 1967 he was criticised, dismissed from most of his posts and sent to the countryside to relearn revolution. He did not resume work as an economist until the eve of Mao’s death in 1976.
Subsequent revisions of Xue’s book, a kind of textbook for the new State Commission for the Restructuring of the Economic System, called for obedience to the “objective laws of economic development”. He championed the “socialist commodity economy”, and criticised “leftist errors” of blindly worshipping public ownership. There should be a mixed economy with competition between state, collective and privately owned sectors. This state of affairs would endure for decades since the party had decided, contrary to what had been believed under Mao, that China was only at the “initial stage of socialism”.»
The Green, Green Grass of the Kolkhoz
"G Dawg" is still batting 1000. This time, writing for the Adam Smith Institute’s online journal.
Discussing the greenie blame game, he points out that rational metrics which for political and personal reasons, activists like to bury in the small print, show that the US is a lower emitter of pollutants per person, per unit of GDP and per unit of productivity that virtually every nation state in Europe, and that doesn't even take into account the factor of carbon absorption and conversion to oxygen. « It seems that for many in the environmental movement, the actual defense of Gaia has taken a back seat to a more important objective; specifically, to attack the capitalist economic system in general, and, in particular, its American exemplar.
His thesis is straightforward and persuasive. Ned Ricewriting in National Review Online takes a sharper attitude in pointing out the same disingenuousness found on the left. They are couching their anti-you-name-it ideology inside of contrived issues and ginned up studies and not surprisingly, blaming, say George Bush for (literally) the weather, and this time, the million and first time, it’s even MORE personal:
With regard to air pollution, the US ranks 114th in the world (first being the worst) with respect to urban sulphur dioxide concentration (the UK figure is about 33% higher), 63rd in ozone-depleting CFC consumption, 45th in urban NO2 concentration, and 13th in NOx emissions per unit of populated land area (the UK value is more than twice as high).
Of course, the greatest concern at present has to do with emissions of so called greenhouse gases. Interestingly, according to recent figures from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the US is not the largest per capita offender here, either.»«It was only a matter of time before this happened: The Left is now blaming President Bush for the weather. Specifically they're claiming that the current heat wave is a result of the global warming President Bush just hasn't done enough to stop. Whereas the consensus in the scientific community seems to be leaning towards an alternate explanation: It's summertime.»
In other words, the hatred and childishness of these leftist haters leads
them to reduce themselves to peddling lies to an equally duplicitous press, knowing full well that the responsible people in the world will have to live with their endless stream of scarlet letters.
It has gotten to the point where the data they cite as scientific comes from Associated Press anonymous staff writers and Barbra Streisand, who we all know, are “noted scientists”, and not just washed up, B-list nobodies hoping for something to do on a Wednesday afternoon.
Brett Bozell, in his syndicated column points to similar leftist propaganda in the American press for contrived leftist pieties, gin-ups, and false-flag assaults:« President Bush is spending some vacation time in Crawford, Texas, so the media, predictably, are once again glorifying his left-wing protesters with lavish coverage of their antics, while dutifully refusing to identify them in any way as left wing. Call it covering and covering up. Time and Newsweek both ran pictures of a tiny group holding MoveOn.org signs protesting the John Roberts nomination outside the White House. Neither magazine identified the group as liberals, nor even mentioned MoveOn; you had to squint at the photos to make out the group's name on the protest signs.
Peace lovers, indeed. Why do their campaigns always seem to lead to further physical and social decay? It seem like each measure the tip of the leftist sword takes has little, if anything to do with the goal itself, but about placing the public’s thoughts and feelings, and the sources of their information in their grasp in spite of the presence of any other view or of facts?
Can you imagine the networks ruining the Clinton vacation on Martha's Vineyard by making a big story out of a conservative protester there? I can't, because they didn't. In 1998, a few weeks after Clinton admitted sex with Monica Lewinsky, he went to his first partisan pep rally in Worcester, Mass. ABC and CBS did full stories, and the streets outside the hall were filled with protesters demanding Clinton resign, but ABC and CBS failed to interview them. Only Fox News brought up how a local Democratic city council member, Konstantina Lukes, refused to attend.
Late in the Monday program, they aired another seven minutes of pure propaganda on the "Raging Grannies" of Tucson, Ariz., who muster a whopping 15 to 20 protesters outside a military recruitment center every Wednesday.
What is it with these left-wing grannies, anyway? It was almost exactly like five years ago, when the publicity frenzy was for Doris "Granny D" Haddock, agitating for the liberal cause of "campaign finance reform."
After a syrupy story in which Alexander hailed them as "compassionate," but never described them as harsh or ultraliberal, even as they screeched against the "illegal, immoral war" and yelled, "No blood for oil," Morales interviewed four of the Tucson activists, dressed in stereotypical "granny" garb and praised them for their "witty lyrics" and their status as role models.
NBC never explained the "Raging Grannies" are a project of the local chapter of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, a 90-year-old "peace" group that despises any military spending and opposed even the Cold War. The grannies are loonies who pass out flyers stating that "The Iraq war has everything to do with U.S. controlling access to Middle Eastern Oil," and the war has nothing to do with terrorism, but "everything to do with U.S. world domination." Even so, NBC's [Peter] Alexander supinely claimed, "they say they're fighting for the men and women fighting for them."»
| Territoires occupés |
| Mardi, à quelques minutes de l'atterissage de Discovery dans un Pub Irlandais à Paris. Au bar, un connard qui se la jouait 'homme d'affaires' discutaillait avec son pote barman franchouille. Discovery était à quelques minutes de l'atterrissage. Monsieur |
Even Small Doses of Criticism Is Too Much for France
"What hurts" he says?
"What hurts" he says!
"What hurts"!?!
A Frenchman tells us that jokes about France during the Iraq crisis hurt. They hurt the French. The French feel hurt.
In other words, according to those poor things, the Yanks were/are not only duplicitous and treacherous, they are insensitive and rude, those clueless clods.
Wait a minute, Cédric, do you mind if we get real here? For just a moment?
How do you think Americans feel for being called imperialist? For being called duplicitous? For being called treacherous?
How do you think Americans feel for hearing, Yes, of course 9/11 was a tragedy, but, somehow, somewhere, they deserved it…
Oh, that's not being insensitive. That's being intelligent and lucide! I see… (It's just a total coincidence, I suppose, that being lucide happens to mean slamming the American government's position and being pretty much in total symbiosis with the French government's policies…)
And how about America's allies in the Coalition. How do you think they feel for being called poodles? And for being told, ils feraient mieux de se taire?
While we're at it, how do you think the Iraqis feel about the various peace activists, governments as well as individuals, who opposed the American action? What about the Iraqi people's hurt? Isn't it slightly more important than that of the French?
Because the difference with the members of the so-called "peace camp" is that while the latter remained passive, the Americans and their allies took action. Whether or not you agree with their policy, they put their soldiers into harm's way. (As for the leaders themselves, you can hardly deny that, at the very least, they took unpopular — and electoral — risks in making the popularity-defying decisions they did.) The hurt the troops risk suffering is somewhat of a more poignant type than that which members of the peace camp have the luxury of haughtily complaining about from the comfort of their living rooms (or government offices).
And you complain of the hurt suffered by the French?!
Having said that, Cédric, let us examine the content your post.
You contend that Americans have forgotten "the 300 000 dead French soldiers and [dismiss] most of the French military history".
Bearing that in mind, let us take a look at World War II, if you will, the war that (supposedly) the French have never forgotten America for.
I have never — and I mean never — had a discussion about World War II in France, where the sly comment wasn't brought up "Évidemment, ils l'ont fait pour leurs propres raisons". What's more, the BUT expression (Bien sûr on est éternellement reconnaissants aux Américains, c'est certain, mais…) suggests that American treachery is the bottom line and holds the deepest truth.
In addition to that, we hear of Washington's uncalled-for dissing of Charles de Gaulle (more insensivity) and even murder plots about same, and the 60th anniversary commemorations were replete with reports and descriptions of the Germans' sufferings and "the hidden face of some liberators", from GIs killing the innocent to practicing widespread rape.
Now, in theory, naturally, I have no problem with digging and (re-)examining, except: when it is one-sided and replete with double standards — that happen to self-serving. (Which is what this blog is all about.)
Regarding Iraq, there is little, if any, examination of the "peace camp" members' purpose being other than principled and, indeed, holy (for instance, whether the status quo relationship with Saddam Hussein amounted to "dictatorship for oil").
But to go back to the subject matter of the post at hand — the Revolutionary War — it is obviously taboo to say that the French authorities of 1778 intervened "pour leurs propres raisons." Where France is concerned, obviously, we are not to look for any "hidden faces"…
And unless I am mistaken, you are not an expert on the War of Independence, or 1770s politics, certainly not more than I am. In addition, it is no hidden fact that strategy planners have contingincies for every possible scenario, no matter how unlikely (thus, plans exist in the Pentagon for how to react should war break out with Britain, although obviously they are among the least studied).
I'm not saying I beleive Harlow Giles Unger's contention, but: given the above, why might there not have been, for instance, the circulation of an idea among the French general staff — even if only briefly entertained — to murder a general like George Washington?
More generally, why can one repeat ad nauseam that American policies, even if admitted to be for the general good, were carried out "pour leurs propres raisons" and one cannot do so with French policies (even when it concerned the régime of autocratic aristocrats)?
No, such an idea must be dismissed out of hand: unlike France's constant putting into queston of American policies, this becomes a collective "vomiting" on France, like "one pisses in a urinal" (to quote another commentator who I have grave doubts is any kind of expert on the revolutionary war or history in general, for that matter).
You add: "we've got books and editors saying that the main enemy of America has always been France". Is America being the main enemy of (or threat to or danger for) France and, indeed, of all humanity, not what you read about not only in untold French tomes, but in French newspapers day after day, month after month, year after year? Rather than American books being gratuitously anti-French, as you allege, the fact that such literature is so ubiquitous in France is the reason why a number of books on the subject (those you mention) have come out in America recently.
As to whether there is a difference between French enmity and its American equivalent, Joe N points out where it lies: "Any criticism of France occurs in small doses and almost never in the mainstream media — unlike the near daily nonsense in the Paris papers."
But even those (small) doses are too much for France!
I am not saying I believe that Vergennes wanted Washington surreptiously shot. But what I do believe — and what, indeed, I do know, preuves à l'appui — is this:
In what is claimed to be the rational, emotion-less pays des débats, there is indeed room for debate. But, as your post proves, it is far narrower than is commonly believed (as Stéphane pointed out in his insightful post on Fox News). And that, incidentally, cannot have happened without the connivance of the ministry of education, which you laud so much.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
What's Behind [_______]?
Many thanks to some of my favorite boozehounds for pointing this out, to the fine supporting cast and crew, and to my parents for making me possible...
Oh, and they also point out the most critcal thing - the fact that it's the apologists and self blamers who have to learn to live with their overreaching accusations:«Peter Wilby seems to be struggling in his straitjacket with an article titled "Citizens in democracies will be held to account for what is done in their name". How nice. Nice to know that he thinks these people were all held accountable.»
Now how on earth can Harold Pinter, Ward Churchill, Wilby, and their ilk call anyone else a 'poodle'?
Why don't they read about the lives of people they'd rather call "Little Eichmanns" in their pathetic attempt to seek attention.
Experience has convinced me that serious anti-Americanism abroad is wildly exaggerated by pollsters with agendas and a sensation-hungry media
…experience has convinced me that serious anti-Americanism abroad is wildly exaggerated by pollsters with agendas and a sensation-hungry mediawrites Ralph Peters (thanks to Gregory).
From Indonesian cities declared "hotbeds of Islamic fundamentalism" to that darkest of continents, Europe, I've found far more visa-seekers than would-be suicide bombers. After about 30 seconds of blowing off steam, my interlocutors from Sulawesi to Strassbourg only wanted to know how to get a green card.
Don't be fooled: America remains the most inspiring symbol in the world. A minority of a minority may actually prefer punitive religion, gender apartheid, poverty and filth, but much of the superficial rhetoric you hear directed against our country is a sign of jealousy and longing.
There are real America-haters out there, of course. The worst are deadly, and they'll menace us for decades to come. But there are no long lines of would-be émigrés outside of any Saudi, Iranian or Chinese embassies. No Africans or Latin Americans dream of building a better life for their families in Russia or Syria.
The American dream is still very much alive. For countless human beings around the world, the United States remains the shining city on a hill.
We forget how blessed we are. Having seen bitter poverty, disease, miserable corruption and life reduced to the most basic needs, I find it increasingly hard to put up with complaints about our country from spoiled professors and actors grown rich in a society they disdain (it makes me want to add a personal touch to their lattes). Even conservatives often underestimate the transformative genius of America and the power of our ideas.
We live in the one country on earth where pessimism is never warranted.
I've spent a month in a different part of Africa each of the last three years. And I've met one truly ferocious anti-American on that continent. She was an absolute nut-case who reminded me of those domestic leftists who blame America for their self-wrought misfortunes and personal discontents.
On the other hand, I've been taken aback by African fury toward "imperialist" Arabs and militant Islam. Nashville at its most patriotic has nothing on one educated Kenyan who all but volunteered to swim to Pakistan and kill Osama bin Laden single-handedly.
Foreign correspondents, academics and even some of our diplomats will disagree with the claims made in this column. A few will sincerely believe that the world despises America.
Let me tell you why my experience has been different from theirs. It's simple: We speak with different people.
Diplomats listen to politicians. Academics confer with their fellow academics. And journalists — especially the lazier sort — crib from local journalists, or interview politicians and academics.
Imagine trying to form a picture of America by interviewing only Ted Kennedy, Ward Churchill and Dan Rather.
Myself, I avoid embassies, rarely interview politicians and seek out students, not professors. I like to listen to shopkeepers, mullahs and missionaries, to workers, businessmen, medical personnel and the local equivalent of Joe Sixpack. And I never claim to be a journalist. That reveals a very different picture of any society.
Take your own poll. The next time you go on vacation or a business trip to a developing country, stroll off the resort or skip the lunch at the hotel restaurant. Don't be afraid. Work past the touts who prey on tourists everywhere and wander the streets. Just for an hour or two. And let conversations happen.
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