Sound Familiar? Over Two Centuries Old, and Still Running Strong

…scholarship shows that anti-Americanism is nothing new. It's older than the United States

Kathy Krajco writes, quoting James W. Ceaser (danke zu Atlantic Review via Medienkritik).

Most experts agree that it was more rampant in the 1930's than it is today! Hardly a word of the European line on America has changed in over 200 years.

…What if tens of millions of Americans emigrated to Canada, Australia or Europe? That would embarrass America, wouldn't it? It would sting American pride. We'd think, "Humph, Europe ain't such a great place." Then we'd start finding fault with its political system, culture, actions. In other words, this mass exodus would damage America's image, and we'd set about damage control like a narcissist does for the sake of his image — by editing the image that puts ours to shame, to portray it as flawed and therefore no better than ours.

…Now let's put ourselves in Europeans' shoes. How do you think they're going to react? Are they going to acknowledge this brilliance that puts their own stupid and immoral feudal system to shame? I don't think so.

That's when Europeans started doctoring the image of "the American" to make a work of art of it. Over 200 years ago. That's when Europe found that "the Americans" are "stupid and degenerate."

That's what we get for making them look stupid and degenerate by having the gall to NOT be equally as stupid and degenerate. In other words, they just pulled an image-switch with us, to feel better about themselves. That's what every pathological narcissist does.

…Centuries ago, like neo-Nazis, Europeans tried to camouflage the malice in their myth about us as "science" with ridiculous lies, speculation, and illogic to prove their delusions of superiority. They claimed that people who came here declined both physically and mentally, so America would never be able to produce a decent culture or political system. Sound familiar? Their "scientific" explanation? It was "something in the air" here. In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton waxes sarcastic about this, saying, "Men admired as profound philosophers gravely asserted that all animals, and with them the human species, degenerate in America -- that even dogs cease to bark after having breathed awhile in our atmosphere."

This forbidden fruit was so juicy, and Europeans therefore so eager to swallow it, that Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson labored long and hard to disprove it so that Europeans would invest in America. One of these clowns was French "scientist" Georges-Louis Buffon (almost a fitting name). Five-feet tall himself, this buffoon saw his own stunted growth in America, a country he'd never been to, claiming that in America the growth of people and animals is stunted, and the birds don't sing. Infuriated by his willful ignorance and projection, Thomas Jefferson, brought him a seven-foot-tall moose carcass. Like every anti-American since, Buffon just revised his theory to claim that the people and animals in America are therefore either midgets or monstrosities.

…America was based on flawed premises, Maistre wrote. "All that is new in [its] constitution, all that results from common deliberation is the most fragile thing in the world: one could not bring together more symptoms of weakness and decay."

And so, Europe was predicting America's fall already two hundred years ago. As always when their predictions of America's imminent demise fail to come true, they just revised them as necessary, again and again and again. Now, when America didn't collapse, but survived as prospered, according to Ceaser, Europeans changed their tune "to charge that America's survival was at the cost of everything deep or profound. Nothing constructed on the thin soil of Enlightenment principles could sustain a genuine culture." Sound familiar?

…As is so often the case with European anti-Americanism, they condemned us for something in one breath that they denied the existence of in the next.

After I read the comments section, I decided to add the following:

Regarding the sentence, "Just for the record, hundreds of thousands of human beings were enslaved and (mis)treated for more than a century as mere objects - a fact that was reflected in the Constitution at the time by counting them as 2/5 citizens."

Why does this fit into anti-American pattern, TransatlanTicker?

Simply because you know about it, TransatlanTicker.

You know about it, as do millions of Germans and people throughout the world — foremost among them Americans themselves.

By contrast, how many people know (much) about — let alone get upset about — the thousands upon thousands of people that were enslaved in Cuba, Brazil, and the rest of South America?

How many people know (much) about — let alone get upset about — the European involvement in the slave trade to the Americas (which started because of the Europeans, naturally)?

How many people know (much) about — let alone get upset about — the Arab involvement in the African slave trade and — last but not least — the African involvement in the slave trade (after all, slaves sold to the Arabs and to the whites started out as prisoners taken in inter-tribal warfare)?

TransatlanTicker, you end your post with the following question: "why not be a bit more modest in your claims? I am sure many Germans who are not in their heart anti-Americans would appreciate that."

TransatlanTicker, the very fact that you assume that the (bulk of) Germans already are knowlegeable whereas the (bulk of) Americans are not is indicative of anti-Americanism, as is your suggestion that most Germans are naturally open-minded, modest, and reasonable.

How many people — and first and foremost Germans — who know about the treatment of blacks (and Indians) in the United States know anything about Germany's presence in Namibia? And about how the Kaiser's army under General Lothar van Trotha (a name much less known than that of General Custer) killed tens of thousands of Herero natives (a tribal name much less known than that of the Sioux or the Comanches) — men, women, and children.

Anti-Americanism, my dear TransatlanTicker, is nothing more than double standards.

After an Italian joined the fray, I decided to add the following:

Four comments:

First of all, I should like to apologize to the Italian commentator. I am sorry for all the suffering that Europe has undergone at the hands of… Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Levi's, Hollywood, Bill Gates, and a rodent named Mickey… No, truly, my heart bleeds for you… (Thank God that, say, Poland didn't have to suffer the same horrors — ever wonder, by the way, why Warsaw is siding with Bush and not with the Western Europeans on the Iraq issue?)

Second, il Italiano refers to weapons and to "America's wars"; a basic tenet of anti-Americanism is to suggest that Uncle Sam's actions are gratuitious and occurred in lands where basically eveything was fine and all the people, as one, were enjoying a blessed and uneventful life — there was peace! — and there was not really anything to provoke the Yanks "dropping bombs" out of the blue… We can surmise that in the Iraqi crisis our Italian probably supports the peace camp. As it happens, people who are directly concerned by America's interventions (i.e., the locals) are often far less likely to view said interventions in an unfavorable light. Au contraire. (I remember both an MSM newspaper and an MSM news report asking young Iranians for their views on Bush's attacks on, respectively, Afghanistan and Iraq; the response was not what they had expected (and desired), it was more like, "the Afghans/Iraqis are lucky; if only the U.S. Army would intervene here too"…

In that respect, and third, I notice the Italian is doing the usual European trick (although I certainly don't think that ought to be held against him; that is out of habit and indoctrination): ignoring the individual in favor of referring to nations and peoples as abstract entities — abstract entities that share the same motives, opinions, desires, and fears. This is an exercise where you can prove basically what you want (i.e., any self-serving "opinion" you want)…

Finally, Europeans make a big hallyballoo of "God bless America". As Kathy said elsewhere, Americans do not go around burning people's flags and chanting "death to Iran/Iraq/Vietnam/Japan/etc"… I myself wrote some thoughts on American patriotism a year and a half ago…

"Retreat + defeat" is not an option

Video [.wmv]

When will those simpletons ever learn that the “grab your ankles” concept will not actually produce or preserve peace? In fact, their ever-shifting concept of justice will never create Peace. Parading their personal issues could never create anything beneficial either.

They don’t want peace. They want their own kind of war. One not prompted by actual events, trends, or risks, but one of their imagining. They hope for a struggle that props up their own view of the world which is limited to their wallets, the pub on the high street, and the school down the road – not a larger world. The reality of their actions is that it undermines all of our liberty, all of the well being that is used to help the unfortunate, and the societies that they live in, complain about, and want to destroy.

When you look at the history and origins of the leftist movement, (all variants of the “Frankfurt School”,) it’s obvious that whatever it is they actually say is trivial when enough of them believe that inventing your own facts is alright if it fits their idea of what the truth SHOULD be.

Human rights for animals is an albatross around Zeropa's neck

Libération PropagandaStaffel doesn't give titles to its cartoons ... yet, but they still have the hateful anti-Semite Willem to rile up Paris' limousine liberals with some of the more disgusting imagery to be manipulated by the French mainstream preSS. Here he treats the subject of those secret CIA prisons.

It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it

This drawing, called 'Force Feeding' (yes, all Le Monde cartoons now boast titles), appeared earlier this week in Le Monde Al-Jazeera on the Seine. The GIs are shoving the word 'Democracy' down somebody's throat.

Zeropean moral high ground is a joke in your town

This drawing, called Jetlag, appeared in Le Monde Al-Jazeera on the Seine earlier this week.

Merkel: I'm a bit worried about the secret prisons that the CIA has in Europe. Rice: I understand. We don't tolerate that kind of thing on American soil.

Americans are paranoid; terrorism isn't real

This Serguei drawing, called Paranoia, appeared in today's Le Monde Al-Jazeera on the Seine.

Imagine a world where Deepak Chopra is NOT the Pope

An Interview with the author can be found on that page as well.

A close look at pop-culture, pop-writing, high-culture writ low, and the Kultursmog of western life reveals a few simple things. Among them is the fact that if someone is truly stupid he will tell himself otherwise, and still be non the better. After all it’s the “00”s, and there are still people listening to Cher. You know who you are. All four of you.

Directeur de France Culture? snxph!!!

Envoyez une redoutable carte postale
à David Kessler
Directeur de France Culture
pour qu'il maintienne l'émission d'Alain Finkielkraut.

David Kessler, Directeur de France Culture
Radio France
116 avenue du Président Kennedy
75116 Paris

The Leader

In a spirit of brotherhood and goodwill among all men (and women), what with the Christmas season upon us, today we publish a poem about leadership that is non-controversial and neutral and can be agreed upon among all men (and women) of good faith.

The Leader

Patient and steady with all he must bear,
Ready to meet every challenge with care,
Easy in manner, yet solid as steel,
Strong in his faith, refreshingly real.
Isn't afraid to propose what is bold,
Doesn't conform to the usual mould,
Eyes that have foresight, for hindsight won't do,
Never backs down when he sees what is true,
Tells it all straight, and means it all too.
Going forward and knowing he's right,
Even when doubted for why he would fight,
Over and over he makes his case clear,
Reaching to touch the ones who won't hear.
Growing in strength he won't be unnerved,
Ever assuring he'll stand by his word.
Wanting the world to join his firm stand,
Bracing for war, but praying for peace,
Using his power so evil will cease,
So much a leader and worthy of trust,
Here stands a man who will do what he must.

Michel Moore's dystopia

A head of state trades on his name, and abuses his former office by acting to benefit personally from a shady pipeline deal he made while in office - the ultimate golden parachute.

It was all about ooooooooil and making a fortune off of war!

Not quite the first Western suicide bomber

The first self-detonating Western lefty-idiologue is a Belgian woman, writes Paul Belein.

Surprised? The Guardian blubbers on due largely to her whiteness. She's not the first, not nearly. Most of the worst emerged from European echo chamber. Surprised?

Spiked-Online's Brendan O'Neill:

Degauque may be the first white woman to blow herself up in the name of…Islam or something, but she is not the first Westerner to do so. The 7/7 bombers were four British citizens who did British things such as play cricket; one was a student, another was a former teaching assistant. Richard Reid, who tried to blow up a transatlantic flight in 2001, was brought up in Bromley in south-east London; his co-conspirator, Sajid Badat, was a speccy student from Gloucester. The ringleaders of 9/11 may have hailed from the Middle East but they became radicalised while studying in Hamburg; likewise, the Madrid train bombers were from north Africa but had lived rather cushy lives in Spain for years. Ahmed Omar Sheikh, convicted in Pakistan of slitting the throat of American journalist Daniel Pearl, was a Briton educated at posh schools and the London School of Economics. Why should it be more shocking for the Belgian-born Degauque to execute dastardly deeds overseas than for Sheikh to do so? Because her skin is white and his is brown? Both were born, brought up and educated in the West, in fairly plush surroundings.

For me, the similarities between Degauque and these other al-Qaeda supporters or wannabe insurgents are more interesting than the differences. Like many Islamist terrorists, she had a good upbringing (according to an interesting study by Professor Marc Sageman, 72.5 per cent of 'global jihadists' in or around al-Qaeda are either middle class or upper middle class);

One less zombie.

You. Yes You. Vote. Now.

Justice only goes one way. In EUtopia, it’s south.

In this case the renegades think by acting on their idea of the public good, that their destruction of property is legal. The court (which seems to no loger have an actual concept of what property rights are) backed them.

«PARIS (Reuters) - the appeals court of Orleans (Loiret) released 49 people who had destroyed two fields of genetically modified corn in 2004 and 2005. The court found that they had acted "in response to a danger of the consequences of releasing GMOs into the environment, even though their use is permitted under French law, even though it’s in contravention with the constitutional law on maintaining healthy environment". The Green deputy Noël Mamère, himself found by a court in Toulouse for the same act, was delighted by a "great victory" and a "historical first". "It is at the will of the president of the Republic who introduced the environmental “Precautionary Principle” into the Constitution, he told Reuters. "For the first time in the history of justice, a French court comes to give legal backing to this principle and it is a great victory for rights." Noël Mamère requests from now on the final acceptance of the anti-GMO and a democratic debate in Parliament on the subject. The American firm Monsanto, owner of the two destroyed fields, had claimed 398.000 euros in damages.»

Now aren't you a good little robot, Noël. The chemical pesticide industry must be pleased.

How Cozy

Consistent with any tenuous relation to the truth, sooner or later the lie becomes so sweet and useful that you start to believe it. John Rosenthal who runs the website and blog Transatlantic Intelligencer has an article on the current Tech Central Station discussing a situation which has grown into just that: the relationship between the Elysée and the AP/Ipsos polling operation, specifically the unusual amount of access, power, and priveledge extended to Didier Truchot.

«The most recent AP-Ipsos poll, released on November 11, brought bad news for President Bush. The headline told the story: "Poll: Most Americans Say Bush Not Honest". Coming just after the indictment of vice presidential aide "Scooter" Libby for perjury in the so-called CIA leak affair, the implication was clear: the majority of Americans were beginning to get what Democrats and Frenchmen had understood all along (or almost): "Bush lied!"

But this was not the first time that an AP-Ipsos poll had been the bringer of bad tidings for the President. Back in September, it was an AP-Ipsos poll that in the aftermath of Katrina first showed the President's approval rating falling below the landmark 40 percent barrier, thus confirming the widespread perception -- widespread, at any rate, in France -- that Americans were unhappy about the President's handling of and/or responsibility for extreme weather phenomena. Curiously, other polls conducted at the time (Rasmussen, CNN/USA Today) showed the President's ratings holding in the high 40 percent range.»

Here they are reporting on themselves:

«AP press releases identify Ipsos coyly as an "international polling firm". Ipsos's own releases on its AP work describe the company as "a leading global survey-based market research company" -- as well as "non-partisan" and "objective". One would hardly expect them to say otherwise. But here is what neither AP nor Ipsos want Americans to know and assiduously avoid saying: Ipsos is a French polling firm. Not that this should matter per se. But AP and Ipsos undoubtedly fear that to many Americans it might or that, in light of the current climate of Franco-American relations, it might at least raise some doubts about Ipsos's impartiality and objectivity.»

But the relationship with governmental power is a bit more disturbing, and looks like a case of one hand washing another:

Here's how a November 2001 profile in the French economics weekly l'Expansion described the cozy relationship of Ipsos co-President Jean-Marc Lech to the occupant of the Elysée Palace:

«During the two seven-year-terms of François Mitterrand, he was one of the advisors to the prince and he held open house at Copenhagen, the famous restaurant on the Champs Elysées not far from the "castle". Since he began working for Jacques Chirac, he has left the Champs and stays put in the XV arrondissement at lunchtime. Now, he merely delivers his confidential polls personally to the antechamber of the President.»

The same sort of primitive push-polling was seen in the 2004 US presidential election, and was laughed at, even by some in the MSM. Why then would anyone believe a poll knowing who owns to two red bat-phones which are connected to one another? Simple – self flattery.

I thought they had too many to begin with

Belgium needs wankers. Oh, Happy, happy... while the French are trying to keep kids from entering the misery and psychological desert of collapsed families, ones which exhibit the highest propensity for domestic violence, by the way, people on the margins are trying to undermine it and do whatever they can to bring unhappy and socially dependant people into the world.

AFP: French lesbians exhausting Belgian sperm banks

«PARIS, Dec 5 (AFP) - French lesbians have been crossing the border to Belgium in search of medical procedures to get pregnant, which are denied in France, creating a new sort of baby boom at Belgian fertility clinics.

Last year, 72 percent of the patients for insemination from sperm donors came from France, and the majority of them were lesbian, according to Dr Anne Delbaere, head of the fertility clinic at Erasme Hospital in the Belgian capital.

"We do not have sufficient sperm donations in reserve to meet all the requests" for insemination, Delbaere said at a recent conference on homosexual parenting in Paris.

Line and Magali, two teachers in the Paris region, have a lot of praise for the "moral support" they received from the Belgian hospital as Line went through 18 inseminations in three years before conceiving a daughter.

Delbaere said her Belgian clinic has been forced to limit appointments, suggesting that "it is perhaps time to change attitudes in France."

Since the French bioethical law of 1994, medical help for procreation is reserved for heterosexual couples who are married or who have been together for more than two years.

"We have friends of all sexes, sexualities, colors. Our daughters are not cut off from half the human race because they do not have a father!" added Boekholt, who with her partner has written a book about the experience.»

Never mind the narcissistic adults projecting their worst ideas and their problems on children – think about how they think “diversity” is a substitution to a growing up without a good father, expecting familial moral support from a hospital, and exciting a new European moral “race to the bottom”.

Meet generation “wasted load.”

An Expert's Admirable Principles: "I fully understand von Sponeck's opposition to the Iraq policy of the Bush administration"

Hans … Von Sponeck is frequently quoted in the German media (and sometimes in non-German media) as "expert" on the Iraq war. His criticism of President Bush and the U.S. Iraq policy is aggressive and polemic, and as such of course highly welcomed by his journalistic counterparts. In 2003 he received the Bremen Peace Award for the resignation from his UN post in protest "against the sanctions policy of the Security Council and in particular the USA, responsible for the death of several hundred thousand Iraqi children" (no mention of Saddam's responsibilities, of course).

Thus writes an understanding David Kaspar abut this remarkable example of a human rights activist.

In the light of the revelations in the Volcker report I fully understand von Sponeck's opposition to the Iraq policy of the Bush administration. After all, as a result of the invasion, he must have lost a steady source of income...

Ideas in the minds of that elite will eventually filter down, to the point where some slick but ignorant journalist will find slogans that correspond

…it is necessary for a political thinker to learn how to write

Roger Scruton says to Max Goss during the latter's interview (in two parts) with the author of The Meaning of Conservatism.

Marx solved this problem, unfortunately, but then so did Burke. Good writing affects the minds of the literary elite, and ideas in the minds of that elite will eventually filter down, to the point where some slick but ignorant journalist will find the slogans that correspond, at his level of mental life, to those distantly and vaguely perceivable notions. This is in part what Plato had in mind, when he advocated the noble lie. Not “noble” but elegant; not a "lie" but journalism.

I cannot begin telling how appropriate I found Scruton's conclusion in describing my feelings after years of research on my book on anti-Americanism in France and abroad.

I think conservatives should study the ideas and arguments that prevail on the left. There is always something to learn from these arguments, if only which way the wind of resentment is now blowing. And lifting your eyes from this joyless stuff, you will thank God that you are a conservative.

A single, superficial principle: oppose the powerful and back the weak, no matter what the powerful stand for or what the weak stand for

One of the main reasons our awareness of modern slavery remains so meager is that the flagship human rights organizations seem completely uninterested in the phenomenon

writes the University of Arizona's Uriah Kriegel (thanks to RV), echoing Ralph Peters and (more theoretically) Roger Scruton as he concludes that after "all, a right to one's own body is a condition of all other rights".

This is primarily because the perpetrators do not represent the kind of highly visible figures NGOs are eager to confront. Most human rights groups are driven today by a single, superficial principle: oppose the powerful and back the weak, no matter what the powerful stand for or what the weak stand for. …

Amnesty International is an unfortunate case, but many NGOs reveal similar propensities. Today's slave-owners and slave-capturers are usually Muslim fundamentalists who ride the African plains on horseback terrorizing local populations. But on the global stage, they wield virtually no power. As such, they do not excite the imagination of the majority human rights activists.

Instead of raising awareness and battling the existence of real-time slavery, the International Abolition of Slavery Day has become yet another occasion to rehash arguments for slave reparations in the US. Whatever your position on the issue of reparations, financial compensation to people whose current lives are comfortable (by comparison) should not take precedence over the liberation of actual slaves living in complete misery and utter destitution all over the African continent. Isn't there something rather perverse about the fact that concern for the treatment of terrorists agitates many of today's mainstream activists much more than concern for southern Sudanese people in the thralldom of Islamic fundamentalists?

It’s high comedy

While Martin parsimoniously lectures the US, his own corrupt softwood republic can’t meet Kyoto. In the mean time the UK’s fetishistic Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Right Honerable Gordon Brown, MP makes North Sea oil more costly to extract, making Britain MORE “addicted to imported hydrocarbons,” imposes a greater cost on the population, mainly those with the least, while having no real answers themselves.

Meanwhile social manipulators see the never-ending, non-productive Green sludge tossing festival as just another fertile ground to peddle guilt trips, and take financial hostages. Nevermind the distance it has from the actual matter at hand in Kyoto, everyone knows what the real issue is. Never mind the implausibility of their endless stream of scarlet letter too. All it really is, is a lifestyle issue for euro-lefties, and has grown into a kind of dismal and pointless science like most everything else that they are obsessed with.

A heeb-fixation so bad, that its almost European

Petty despots are as petty despots do. So do their buddies who think that a country and a people can just go away.

Newsflash, spanky. The Europeans already did their best, and are still trying to get them off of their patch too.

Either way, they might need these.