How to have fun during a French train strike

There is a train strike on at the moment in France

writes Stephen Clarke

– but it has, perversely, become an excellent time to travel by train. As long as you don’t have to be at your destination at a certain fixed time, and don’t mind taking the risk that you won’t get a seat (unlikely on all except the really busy routes), now is a great time to take a TGV – one of France’s excellent fast trains. Most of them are running more or less on time, and there are lots of railway workers in red waistcoats at the stations telling you exactly when the next train is leaving. You can also look on the internet, which has reliable lists of non-cancelled trains. I have had to travel around quite a bit over the past few days and have had nothing but good experiences.

 … I’ve taken advantage of this situation recently by ignoring my reservations and travelling when I want. Once I even turned up a whole day early. It’s been very liberating.

… This hasn’t been the case for everyone. There have been the usual news reports about commuters losing income, waiting for hours on platforms, being forced to imitate sardines, and the like.

 … The strike, which has only been supported by a small minority of railway workers, is about reform, as most strikes in France are. The government is being forced by Europe to open up the railways to competition, and is therefore planning to split the French SNCF into three companies. Divide and rule, the unions say. They also don’t want to lose their very French privileges, which include retirement at age 52 for what they call the “personnel roulant” (those who actually work on the trains), with a lifelong pension of 75% of their salary. Enough to buy a decent train set. This has been sweetened even more by an offer from the government to give two years’ salary to anyone who accepts early retirement. They’re among the world’s most privileged industrial workers, which is why they’re on strike – they want to stay that way. Logical, really.

 … One of the places I travelled to by train this week was Waterloo. Not the station in London, the battlefield in Belgium. I went there to see what was happening on the 199th anniversary of the battle, on 18 June. The answer: nothing except massive renovation and building work in preparation for next year. By June 2015, the buildings on the battlefield will never have looked better since the day before Napoleon, Wellington and Blücher started firing cannons at them.

The official film on show at the Lion mound museum is very French, as are most of the displays. Fans of Napoleon seem to have recaptured the whole area now that Wellington has left. The film tells the story of the battle and concludes along the lines that although Napoleon lost (a big admission), at least during the years of his reign, he managed to spread French revolutionary ideas across Europe. It’s a very French interpretation, which made me think that in a way, you have to be grateful to Wellington and Blücher for stopping Napoleon in 1815. Otherwise right now we might have train strikes across the whole continent …

The Political Ad That Applies to Every Nation in the World

"We can't afford that" says the young adult in the Shopping Cart political ad reported on by The Hill (thanks to Instapundit).

Bart Guevara

From The New Yorker

"Old" Europe’s anti-American impulse never in fact went away; At most, it merely went into a latent state, awaiting the proper conditions to become virulent again

During the decade of the naughts and the two administrations of George W. Bush, Europe was seized by a veritable paroxysm of anti-Americanism

noted John Rosenthal a few years ago in regards to a German news report about "An Entirely Normal American" (Christine O'Donnell) or, rather, more loosely translated, "An Entirely Average American, a Simpleton Like the Rest of 'Em".

More precisely, this was the case for the “old” European core of Germany and France, as well as the neighboring countries most influenced by the latter. Back in the day, several “euro-blogs” documented the phenomenon on a nearly daily basis. These included Davids Medienkritik, focusing on Germany, No Pasarán, focusing on France, and my own Transatlantic Intelligencer. In the meanwhile, since the election of Barack Obama, the subject of European anti-Americanism is rarely touched upon even in new media and one could well have imagined that the phenomenon itself had simply disappeared.

But as the reactions of leading French and German newspapers to the Tea Party and the prospect of large Republican gains in the upcoming congressional elections make clear, “old” Europe’s anti-American impulse never in fact went away. At most, it merely went into a latent state, awaiting the proper conditions to become virulent again.

Consider, for instance, the sub-head of a recent article in the German daily Die Welt on Christine O’Donnell as the supposed “nightmare opponent” [Angstgegenerin] of the Democrats: “Christine O’Donnell is even simpler than Sarah Palin — but the Democrats are afraid of her.” When applied to persons, as it is in this context, the German adjective simpel carries a strong whiff of “simpleton.”

Lest it be imagined that the crack is reserved for just O’Donnell and Palin and might somehow be construed as sparing their supporters and/or Americans more generally, the front page features a distinctly unflattering photo of a seemingly unhinged and cockeyed O’Donnell, accompanied — with a wink and a nudge — by the headline: “An entirely normal American.” (In an allusion to O’Donnell’s now famous “I’m You” ad, the teaser-text states that this is what O’Donnell claims to be. But it then quickly adds that “ordinary people [literally, ‘people in the street’]” are indeed enthusiastic about her, thus lending credence to the claim.)

Above is the October 18 [2010] front page of Die Welt, one of Germany’s leading newspapers. It should be noted that of all Germany’s major dailies, Die Welt is probably the least prone to anti-American excesses.

Leftists' defense of Russia’s sphere of influence overlooks the question of whether the countries that fall within it are there by choice or coercion

Western intellectuals have long had a soft spot for Russia

writes Slawomir Sierakowski in a New York Times contribution entitled Putin's Useful Idiots. In the past century, following in the footsteps of Voltaire and Johann Gottfried von Herder,

intellectuals like André Gide, Pablo Neruda and Jean-Paul Sartre all stumped for the Soviet Union as what Lenin allegedly called “useful idiots,” apologizing for its monstrosities long after the rest of the world recognized them.

To those in the Eastern Europe left — myself included — who know Russia better than most, such naïveté has long been a source of chagrin. And yet it continues, even today, as many American and Western European intellectuals do all they can to minimize the dangerous aggression by Vladimir V. Putin.

Writing in The Nation, the Russia scholar Stephen F. Cohen argued that Mr. Putin was largely blameless for the conflict in Ukraine, that he had tried to avoid it but that the West had forced his hand. In Mr. Cohen’s eyes, the West has unnecessarily humiliated Russia by inviting countries like Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary to join NATO.

Ukraine, he wrote, is part of Russia’s sphere of influence, so why can’t we just accept Mr. Putin’s proposal that Ukraine be federalized, with neutrality guaranteed in a new constitution?

Mr. Cohen’s defense of Russia’s sphere of influence overlooks the question of whether the countries that fall within it are there by choice or coercion. Ukraine is willing to be in the Western sphere of influence because it receives support for civil society, the economy and national defense — and Russia does nothing of the kind.

Mr. Cohen and others don’t just defend Russia; they attack the pro-democracy activists in Ukraine. 

 … Strangely, Western intellectuals seem unbothered by anyone who notes the similarity between their pronouncements and Russian propaganda. Indeed, they dismiss such charges out of hand. Zoltan Grossman, who teaches at Evergreen State in Olympia, Wash., writes that it is “wrong and irresponsible to assert that the presence of fascists and Nazis in the new government is merely Russian propaganda.”

For Dr. Grossman, inconvenient details are less important than the fact that Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of the far-right organization Right Sector, had been appointed deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.

 … What naïve American intellectuals say free of charge, the canny Gerhard Schröder, the former German chancellor, says for 250,000 euros a year as a board member of Gazprom, the Russian oil giant. Mr. Schröder, the German father of “Gazprom socialism” — a new subspecies of limousine liberalism — has repeatedly embarrassed Berlin by supporting Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

He isn’t alone — another former chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, has likewise sung Russia’s praises of late, as has Günter Verheugen, a prominent former European Union commissioner.

What drives these men? Is it a case of poorly conceived pacifism? An eruption of remorse for war crimes carried out against Russians, so many years ago? Or the Stockholm syndrome of a victim fascinated by his executioner?

Obviously, they are entitled to their opinions. But in speaking out this way they are doing great damage to Germany’s postwar government, built on a commitment to democracy and national self-determination, everything that is currently under attack by Mr. Putin.

The irony is that by standing beside Russia and pointing fingers at fascist phantoms in Ukraine, Western intellectuals are aligning themselves not just with the autocrat in the Kremlin, but the legions of far-right parties across Europe that have come to Russia’s defense, among them Hungary’s Jobbik, Vlaams Belang in Belgium, Austria’s Freedom Party, Italy’s Lega Nord and the French Front National. Who says Russia needs propaganda? It already has its useful idiots.

The Chickenhawk comeback embodies every liberal’s response to well-considered arguments: Shut up!

Listening to Markos “Kos” Moulitsas wax indignant on his Daily Kos blog about critics of the Taliban “prisoner” swap is like déjà vu all over again

says Benny Huang.

Two thousand four is back, y’all!

Kos, who has never been as relevant since those early days of the Iraq War, dragged out the old “chickenhawk” epithet again to describe anyone who thinks it’s kind of a raw deal, not to mention illegal under the circumstances, to swap five Taliban heavy-hitters for one traitorous soldier who risked the lives of his brothers in arms on several occasions. Said Kos on his blog: “It’s been a while since we’ve heard the squawking of those chickenhawks, always eager to send our people into combat, yet unwilling to serve their nation themselves.”

 … His “chickenhawk” comeback is really just a warmed over version of every liberal’s response to well-considered arguments. Though it may take different forms at different times the gist is always the same: Shut up!

Shut up about the administration’s evolving rationale for the trade. Shut up about the illegality of releasing prisoners from Gitmo without congressional oversight. Shut up about an apparent attempt to cover up the fishy circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance. Shut up about the likelihood of these Taliban commanders returning the battlefield. Just shut up already, you chickenhawk!

Kos is not a combat veteran. There’s nothing wrong with that; he claimed to have “missed deploying to the Gulf War by a hair.” He stayed behind in Europe because that’s where the Army wanted him to be.

You know who didn’t miss deploying by a hair? John McCain. He’s been a critic of the Obama-instigated Taliban jailbreak. Said McCain: “Do not trade one person for five hardcore, the hardest of the hardcore murdering war criminals who will clearly reenter the fight and send them to Qatar, of all places, where they will be free to roam, including to the Taliban headquarters there, and then after a year they will be allowed to go back into the fight in Afghanistan.”

 … Markos Moulitsas became one of the world’s biggest bloggers when he did precisely because the Left needed a war hero on their team to call other people cowards and traitors. It is a sad commentary on the Left that the best they could come up with was Kos and, of course, John “Christmas in Cambodia” Kerry. Moulitsas’s service was honorable but not particularly remarkable or heroic, which makes his ten year marathon of macho posturing rather painful to watch, mostly for his sake. Obviously, no one has told him yet that he looks foolish.

Ten years ago, No Pasarán featured a major in-depth post on the subject :Shape Up, Shut Up, or Ship Out

Obesity

Serguei's take on evolution

"In Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell"

Ronald Reagan's speech at Pointe du Hoc for the 40th anniversary of the Normandy invasion (merci à Mike in San Diego).

Reagan also held a speech at the Omaha Beach Military Cemetery…

The story of D-Day.

 

The Longest Day in a 10-Question Quiz

For the 70th anniversary of D-Day, D-Day, Geo Magazine has a 10-question quiz on the Normandy landings (en français but readily understandable)…

The story of D-Day.

Civil Rights Act of 1964: The power of the word racist to close minds and mouths is unparalleled

Most people only think they support the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because they don’t know what it contains and because portions of it go unenforced

writes Benny Huang as the law celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Another reason people support the CRA is because they don’t want to be called racist. The power of that word—racist—to close minds and mouths is unparalleled.

But there are plenty of good reasons to oppose this lousy, unconstitutional law that have nothing to do with racism. Republican Republican Senator Barry … Goldwater’s opposition to the 1964 bill was threefold: that it represented an unconstitutional power grab by the feds, that it would be an endless source of litigation, and that it would force sovereign citizens to engage in involuntary economic transactions. The senator has been proven right on all three counts.

If liberals want to demonstrate their love of the CRA they could begin by following it; the whole thing, not just the parts that they like. The law bans discrimination in government and private commercial enterprises (which they erroneously label “public accommodations”) based on five protected categories: race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.

Liberals still support discriminatory practices based upon three of these categories—race, sex, and religion.

In regards to race and sex, liberals favor policies that give preference to women and racial minorities as a means of redressing historical grievances. Unfortunately for them, the law they claim to love so much does not contain a “redress of grievances” loophole no matter how much they wish it did. A preference for blacks is just as illegal as a racial preference for whites; a preference for women is just as illegal as a preference for men.

  … If liberals were administered a healthy dose of truth serum they might stop lying long enough to tell us what they really mean—they don’t really like laws that prohibit religious discrimination because religion is silly superstition at best, violent and repressive at worst, and thus not worthy of protection. They don’t say that because it makes them sound like bigots, which they are. They would also tell you that they don’t really oppose discrimination based on race or sex as long as the victims are always men of fair complexion.

When It Ends the Longest Day

Many men won't see the sunset
When it ends the longest day…

The story of D-Day.


From the Associated Press, the story of a Frenchman who joined American forces to free his homeland:

When he left Paris at age 18, the plan was to go to New York for a year and learn his father's sewing machine trade. Six years later, Bernard Dargols found himself crossing the Channel in a U.S. Army uniform, sloshing ashore on Omaha Beach to a homeland that had persecuted his Jewish family.

Dargols' journey from Paris to New York and back ended when he drove his Army jeep into a courtyard in the recently liberated French capital, striding upstairs into a darkened apartment and into the arms of his weeping mother. Until that moment, he hadn't known whether she had survived the Nazi occupation.

"She hadn't seen me in six years and I saw she was alive," Dargols said in an interview ahead of the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion that helped defeat the Nazis.

Update: a 10-question quiz on the Normandy landings (en français)…

What Are Prisons For If They Serve to Radicalize Muslim Prisoners and Make Them Killers?

The man who gunned down four people in Brussels last Saturday (he did this one day after Elliot Rodger shot three people to death in Santa Barbara) seems to have been identified.

Like Mohamed Merah before him, the suspect Mehdi Nemmouche traveled to Syria to fight the Jihad and when he returned to France, where he became a radicalized Muslim while spending time in a "terrorism-creating" prison.

Indeed, Farhad Khosrokhavar, the author of L’Islam en prison, told Stéphanie Le Bars that "Nemmouch will not be the last case" we see of prison radicals opening fire on civilians in the street, leading Plantu to draw a Le Monde cartoon telling "France" that "your flag is scramming" to Syria.

What Are We Waiting For?! It's Long Past Time to Outlaw Knives (Especially When Kids Can Get Their Hands on the Weapons)

The Associated Press reports that

Prosecutors say two 12-year-old southeastern Wisconsin girls stabbed their 12-year-old friend nearly to death in the wood to please a mythological creature they learned about online.

What Are the Bergdahls Proud of? That Their Son Is Wiser, More Talented, and More Tolerant Than the Average American (Soldier)

Is it uncouth or beyond the pale to do a little analysis of the statements by Bowe Bergdahl's parents on CNN?

I'm proud of you 

says Robert Bergdahl from Boise, Idaho, via TV to his son (02:25).  The man, who looks like (is it uncouth to note this as well?) a 1970s Marxist, goes on to say a few words in a foreign tongue (an Afghan language?) and to enumerate the army sergeant's alleged international credentials, as well as his multi-culti talents — traits that show Bowe's superiority to the average American.

And to the average American soldier.

I'm so proud of your character, I'm so proud of your patience, and your perseverance. I'm so proud of your cultural abilities to adapt, your language skills, your desire and your action to serve this country in a very difficult, long war. 

But in all this, what is Bob Bergdahl most proud of? More internationalism and more multi-culti stuff:

But most of all, I'm proud [breaking down] of how much you wanted to help the afghan people and what you were willing to do to go to that length…

Update: Did Bob Bergdahl delete a tweet?

Update 2 — from the comments section, Radegunda explains that  

Pa Bergdahl said some very significant words in Arabic: the "Bismallah" refrain from the Koran, which in this context sounds like a greeting or expression of solidarity from one Muslim to another. They both appear to identify with the Taliban side in the global jihad.

Indeed. And so it would seem that Bob's beard is less 1970s Marxist than Islamist… Plus what does this do to the leftists' insistence that rumors about Obama's Islamism deserve nothing but ridicule?

What Leftists Revel In: Shame — Shame for Being American, Shame for Having the Audacity to Speak Out, etc…

According to emails quoted by CNN's Jake Tapper (thanks to InstaPundit), freed POW Bowe Bergdahl is said to have vilified his country and deserted, while his "selfish act" caused seven deaths among the comrades who were trying to save him from his Al Qaeda captors.

"The future is too good to waste on lies," Bowe wrote to his parents [in 2009]. "And life is way too short to care for the damnation of others, as well as to spend it helping fools with their ideas that are wrong. I have seen their ideas and I am ashamed to even be American. The horror of the self-righteous arrogance that they thrive in. It is all revolting."

Bergdahl wrote to them, "I am sorry for everything. The horror that is America is disgusting."

If so, was the army sergeant (whose last name, incidentally, means mountain valley in Scandinavian) saying anything differently than the (admittedly slightly more diplomatic) woman who now lives in the White House? (That would be Michelle "for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country" Obama.)

Like Michelle, father Bob Bergdahl went on TV to praise his relative's superiority to the average American (soldier).

Notice that on his battalion's Facebook page, the moderator asked for "more respect to be shown":

I challenge any one of you who label him a traitor to spend 5 years in captivity with the Taliban or Haqqani, then come back and accuse him again. Whatever his intent when he walked away or was captured, he has more than paid for it.

We have seen this before: it is (or it is akin to) the leftists' typical shame-you-into-silence stance.

That amounts to a whole lot of shame coming from the left side of the aisle…

As Glenn Reynolds has quoted Richard Fernandez saying,

It is impossible to understand the politics of the Left without grasping that it is all about deniable intimidation.

The weirdest souvenirs in Paris's new official merchandise shop have to be the Parisian scented candles

The French, as we all know, are an inventive people Paris has just found a new way to earn some much-needed money for its anti-pollution campaign

writes Stephen Clarke:

a shop selling official merchandise. The new boutique at 29 rue de Rivoli, in the Hôtel de Ville building, is selling a  selection of knick-knacks with “Paris” written on them, as well as some bulky but authentic-looking souvenirs that will help you create your own corner of the French capital in your back garden. Sadly, not a full-size version of the Eiffel Tower – because an accurate scale model, with the staircases, lifts and intricate ironwork would make a great garden feature, especially if you could get it to light up and flicker like the real one does. But the shop at city hall is selling copies of the metal chairs you get in Parisian parks, as well as some nice wooden yachts like the ones children (and grown-up kids) can rent in the Jardins du Luxembourg and the Tuileries to sail on the ponds.

 … A good thing … : the boutique has a great selection of books, which are available on-line if they’re not in the shop itself. My recommendation would be the very cheap little volume of photos of the Marais taken in the 1960s and early 1970s. This was before the demolition of the Les Halles market, but also before the renovation of some buildings that are now looking very spruce but came perilously close to falling down. It’s all in Le Marais de Roland Liot that costs only €2.85.

 … The weirdest souvenirs in the shop have to be the Parisian scented candles. Now it doesn’t take much cynicism to ask what these candles should smell of if they want to be authentic. As the author of a book called A Year in the Merde, I won’t even bother to make the most obvious suggestion. The Marais candle is said to smell of leather and wood, reminiscent of the old houses there. Fair enough, though it’s more of a zingy, zesty, trendy place now. The St Germain des Prés candle tries to recreate the intellectual atmosphere of the Latin Quarter, not with red wine, cigarette ash and hot air, but with wood, amber and vetiver (the last of which does apparently have a smoky fragrance, so it scores a point for authenticity). However, I can’t understand why flowers, fruits and vanilla are meant to capture the atmosphere of the Canal Saint Martin in summer – it’s a prime picnic spot, so ham, camembert and gherkins would be nearer the mark. And why shouldn’t your kitchen smell of cheese rather than flowers?

But this is a little cynical dig at what must be a good thing if it in any way eases local taxes. Turning a chunk of city hall into a profitable boutique must be good news. The only strange thing about it is that recently, city hall has been repeating its campaign against Sunday trading by saying that it doesn’t want the city turned into one big shopping mall. Admittedly the official Paris shop is only open Monday to Saturday, but if the city can turn part of its own HQ into a shopping mall whenever it chooses, can’t some of its citizens do the same, whenever they choose, and give much-needed work to Parisians trying to afford their local taxes?

Dirty Bertie: an English King Made in France

The eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, [Albert Edward, nicknamed Bertie,] had a reputation for being the most fashionable man in Paris

writes The Daily Telegraph.

According to [Stephen Clarke's] biography, Dirty Bertie: an English King Made in France, [the Prince of Wales] also had a reputation for sleeping with the city's most famous prostitutes.

 … The prince became King in January 1901. His nephew was Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor from 1888-1918. "Bertie really was the only man in Europe who could calm the Kaiser's warlike outbursts," writes Clarke. "It was on a peace mission to Germany in 1910 that Bertie suffered the attack of cigar-induced breathlessness that would kill him. And as soon as he died, the French began to say that war was inevitable. Bertie, Europe's great peacemaker, was gone."

Superpowers Don't Get to Retire: What America Still Owes the World

Even the New Republic!

Even the leftists at New Republic state that the apologizer-in-chief's dream of America is a fairy tale.

A fairy tale given that, in the words of Robert Kagan, superpowers simply do not get to retire.

(One only wishes they would have said this six or seven years ago…)

Like squeegee-men at a Bronx intersection, EU leaders simply won’t take no for an answer

Enthusiastic supporters of the European Union (EU) are crying in their beers

chuckles Benny Huang,

after faring poorly in the European Parliament elections [last] Sunday. Those who dream of a new, post-nationalist Europe will have to make room for contrarians of both the Left and Right who are decidedly cooler to the great experiment known as the European Union.

 In Britain, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) swayed 29% of voters with its decidedly anti-EU platform, finishing better than the Labor and Tory parties. Those limeys, they just have to be different; and thank goodness for it or else they might have adopted the Euro like a lot of other foolish countries, thus handcuffing themselves to the moribund economy of Greece and other ailing European economies not far behind.

The French came out in force for National Front which won 25% of the vote, more than any other party. An anti-EU party in Germany, a nation where pro-EU sentiments are still the default position, managed to win 7% of the vote and elect a few members to the Strasbourg assembly for the first time. In Denmark, the Danish People’s Party defeated its rivals with 27% of the vote. While these tallies may seem insignificant in an American context, they are in fact very healthy returns in multi-party parliamentary systems.

 … Getting everyday Europeans to love the European Union has always been a tough sell. Nine years ago, when the EU’s proposed constitution was put to a popular vote in France and the Netherlands, most political observers agreed that the election was a referendum on the very essence of European integration; until the vote actually happened, that is, then it didn’t mean a thing. Both nations roundly rejected the constitution. Shortly thereafter, a proposed vote in Ireland was cancelled, which was the ruling class’s way of saying that there shall be no more voting until the people can figure out how to do it correctly.

A number of European nations have ratified the EU constitution, though nearly all by parliamentary vote. Only in Spain and Luxembourg did popular majorities say yes to the EU. In several other nations—the UK, Portugal, Poland, Denmark—the vote has been “postponed.” There is little chance that popular majorities in these countries will approve the EU constitution so a vote on ratification will be put off until public opinion can be massaged in the proper direction.

Noticing a trend here? Like squeegee-men at a Bronx intersection, they simply won’t take no for an answer.

 … Those who favor the EU understand well that Brussels has a sleeper hold on its member states, they just don’t talk about it as if it’s a bad thing. Where others complain of lost sovereignty, they say good riddance to ugly nationalism. Where others mourn the demise of national identities, they rejoice at the slow fading of artificial lines that have divided people for too long.

The EU cannot be stronger without the member states being weaker. It’s a zero sum game. More decisions being made at the Union-level mean fewer being made in the various capitals of Europe. The message of Sunday’s vote was loud and clear, if the elites are willing to hear it: Europeans don’t want a superstate if it will cost them their homelands.

Who, Exactly, Is It Who Should Apologize for Slavery and Make Reparations? America? The South? The Descendants of the Planters? …

Instapundit links a Richard Epstein article, The Case Against Reparations for Slavery.

I wrote about what follows 17 years ago, when the topic came up during the Clinton administration. Shortened versions of the post below appeared in the International Herald Tribune, in the Washington Post, and in Le Monde (and I admit to feeling honored when a college professor of philosophy later contacted me to ask to include my letter to the WaPo editor in his course book).

Notice that in 1997, all that was being asked for was an apology, and (to his credit) Bill Clinton did not give one. Only a dozen years later or so did the Congress vote for this — with one leftist lawmaker wondering "why nobody ever thought of doing so before" (perhaps, answered one pundit, because 600,000 Americans happened to have died between 1861 and 1865). And now, the liberals have gone to the next step and ask for reparations… (Nor will that be the end of it…)

Having said that…

    I should like to know on behalf of whom, exactly, slavery should be apologized for and whom remedies should be made to. I myself, like the majority of today's U.S. population, am descended from immigrants who arrived after the turn of the 20th century and therefore have nothing to do with the treatment of blacks on the plantations (or that of Indians on the plains, for that matter).

    As for Americans living at the time slavery existed, over twice as many whites lived in states where slavery was illegal and where it had been so, for the most part, since before the French Revolution. Nobody can hardly apologize for the South either, since most whites even there — two thirds of them, to be precise — did not own a single slave.

    Maybe somebody should apologize for the planters and slaveholders? (Their descendants?) But they inherited the system they dwelled in, and although they certainly did little if anything to change it, in what way are they more guilty than the English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and other European nationals who introduced it in all their colonies (including, of course, the future United States) and whose only reason for not introducing it onto the European continent proper (as well as the North of the future U.S., needless to say) was the absence of a propitious climate?

    And how, finally, are the above-mentioned whites more guilty than the Arab traders and, especially, the African tribes whose warriors raided neighboring villages to gain slave labor (slaves of the same skin color in this case) themselves or to sell their enemies to the Europeans?

    And speaking of remedies, didn't as many Americans die in the Civil War as in all of America's 20th-century wars combined? Didn't one Southerner of military age out of four lose his life in the conflict? How many bereaved families is that, altogether — North and South? And apologies, and remedies are still supposed to be owed?!