16/09/03 Lewis Nelson : >Respectfully, you started it with your signature about French rifles! >With VRic, a frequent contributor from France, I think it is in poor >taste - on a list!
I don't care. Because it's too difficult: quote lines don't prove the sender's ignorance, so further investigation is needed, which would be considered annoying and arrogant in any case. And you couldn't educate real morons of course. So I save my efforts for when I care about the person and I'm sure help is needed and likely to succeed. I won't try to educate someone against his will and I certainly won't feel hurt by stupidity. I understand it's probably unnecessary here, but since the issue raised some interest I'll give it a shot despite what I just said ;-) Forgive me if you see that as a troll. Please don't forgive me if you disagree. 16/09/03 chris : >a joke, and not a new one either (I heard that WAY WAY before there was >any serious animosity between the uneducated people in the US and France). Because the misconceptions behind it date back to WWII at least. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4612648-111202,00.html There's of course no more french tendency to surrender than US record of success and generosity, but the latter seems hardly thinkable in the US. Not much research is needed to find that France beat many countries and innocent peoples throughout history, which is nothing to be proud of, that the US often failed when on its own, and that it always charged for the help it gave, whereas for example the french (individuals) who funded and fought its war for independance never asked nor got their money back (that's what the claims to cancel the 3rd world dept is about by the way). The french could probably have done better, but Germany was simply too powerful: if the french and english armies hadn't surrendered and withdrawn respectively, there wouldn't have been anything to save when the US finally showed up after being begged for years. The heroic feeling among the US people is a myth: it's the consequence of collective success and personal grief hiding the fact that US people had to be lied to and manipulated to support that war. Nobody wanted to tarnish the collective bliss here either. That "generosity" is the feeling caused afterwise among people by their losses for a good cause, it wasn't there before, doesn't show through the government's policy, and is again used to support US interests. Generosity is giving to someone who's in need, not risking the people's life in hope of gaining something or being reimbursed as a country. This doesn't make US achievements and sacrifices in Europe less admirable, but it definitely strips most generosity out of it. Old european countries are well-founded at discerning both attitudes, because they all applied the latter in colonies for centuries. So they're not ungrateful, they know what they once owed, it's just that they weren't similarly indoctrinated and thus don't share the US myth of being right and generous by nature. And of course foreigners have countless occasions to observe wrong and greedy US policies. This time morons failed to notice that France, unlike Germany, wasn't opposing the eventuality of war, it was opposing the bullshit that was being force-fed the UN to make it happen no matter what and justify it. Because the same weak arguments that gain approval of an emotional and previously brain-washed domestic population simply don't work on foreigners and UN officials. It didn't even work on UK people. For example, NOBODY in Europe and middle-east ever believed Saddam had anything to do with 9/11; Ben Laden and Saddam Hussein being known enemies (because until forced to pose as a true believer to get muslim support against the US threat, Saddam's regime was strictly non-religious and targeted as such by Islamists). So you get nowhere claiming Europe protects dictators or isn't supportive after the tragedy: the argument only works inside the US due to prior disinformation or ignorance. What might have brought french support would have been cutting the bullshit, reproaches or threats and trying to convince why THIS dictator, why THEN, which would have been a tough sell of course considering he was already on scrutiny with some success, unlike others. Failure to even try indicated that either they had no idea, or they weren't willing to confess their reasons. Yet, as stupid as it is to ask UN backing for obviously false reasons and then bitch about it when it fails, there were some intellectuals and politicians here who recognized that the US negociations were bogus, that they wanted that war anyway (which is what the french veto was about: the "anyway", or more precisely "automatically if certain conditions we will evaluate ourselves next month are met", which is a very childish way to put it), and so claimed that it would be stupid and criminal to ignore the US war because it was going to happen and joining would lower the damages (it may not be reported in the US, but the US military is considered rather incompetent for anything more subtle than massive destruction, in direct consequence of absurd zero-death doctrines and total annihilation strategies somewhat similar to those observed in business matters). It takes major naivety to believe peace can be obtained that way and to wonder why 3rd world countries aren't grateful. In 71 or 72 my father was serving as a doctor in Cambodia (until conscription ended recently, french could choose not to serve in the military and still serve, longer, as civilians), where he heard, along with the whole continent, the US official in charge of that war declare he was going to take Viet Nam back to the middle ages. Literally. There was absolutely no doubt in the minds of native doctors that (a) that was incredibly wrong (b) the US were barbarians, or stupid (c) it would fail, unless you consider killing everybody a success. Too bad so many had to die to find out. Such incomprehension is nothing new: the US treated the french officials who annoyed them repeating "liberating" Irak would be a bit more complicated than that exactly like they ignored De Gaulle who warned them around 1956 that Viet Nam wasn't as easy as they thought (and he should have known as France was just thrown out despite being regarded with some gratitude for such things as education or written transcription of vietnamese -- my mother is viet). The US failed to understand that the main reason why they were once well received as liberators in Europe was because they were asked to come, NOT because they finally felt so right about it. If they had acted on their own, they would have faced the exact same problems as everywhere else ever since. Until recently my grandparent's building in Marseille still had a paint mark reading "shelter" (meaning it had a basement where people were to regroup during bombings). Those bombings were a few italian raids at the beginning of the war and thorough US bombings in 1944. What would have been the reaction if we hadn't been allies and involved in the decisions? How could Irakis find that friendly? >I also think that VRic could probably pipe up with some jokes running >around France about the US people (actually, I'd love to hear some, to >see what is considered funny there). I'm useless at quoted jokes (not my kind of humor). And I'm not sure there are many anyway. Most would have to do with the US people's image of ignorance, roughness and self-interest, and that isn't something we're inclined to laugh about (hence our image of contemptuous arrogant pricks). There are some heavy jokes about foreigners, but most target belgians for their alleged stupidity, swiss for their slow motion and cleanliness and english for being uptight, probably the kind you have between states. The only ones that bear some resemblance to those in question here should be seeked in the racist type, but those are immune to current affairs. Maybe very illiterate people grow such news-related stuff, like my girlfriend's pupils who used "Kosovar" as an insult because they heard it about the refugee camp neerby. The only laughable (but not necessarily mainstream) US trait I can think of is that extremist take at hygiene that causes some trade disputes and US difficulties to see civilisation outside. What's considered clean or dirty is a fascinating part of cultures and an endless source for humor. This reminds me of a viet uncle of mine who lives in the US. He once had skin problems because he washed too much, which was amusing, but more recently suffered severe illness because his US doctors wouldn't touch or undress patients, which could have been dramatic if he hadn't fortunately been examined "normally" by an alien doctor. >And he may also be able to verify if the people that take them seriously >(ie: the people of France that *really do* hate the US) are very possibly >also just the uneducated, follow the flock, can't think for yourself, >people like what tends to be the case here in the US. I'm afraid those wouldn't have much to follow because the "anti-american" media don't target them. The ones criticizing the US are intellectuals, most of whom love the USA or used to, and only address political and social issues anyway. There's no such thing as US jokes in our media (I didn't check the worst of them, maybe there is but I doubt it). I don't think I met anybody who seriously hates the US or US people. Many do hate US policies, like myself, and some blame the US people for them, but that's it. The only people I know who actually say bad things about US individuals are those who know some, like a pilot friend of mine who spent a year training in the US, goes there regularly and told me a few times that he couldn't stand US people anymore because even fellow pilots were just too fucking stupid outside big cities like New York or Washington, which didn't inspire him any jokes. Also I met a doctor who had been amazed at the dangerously stubborn attitude and unwillingness to adjust to local conditions of US doctors in international humanitarian missions, but then again nothing meant to harm or make fun of them. Just the amazement you get from incomprehension, which only translates into aggressiveness and malice among brain-washed morons. Not to say that we don't have morons. Just that they're not indoctrinated against you yet. But I don't know how constant "educated" reproaches (that I found formulated identically in a 1929 book by a french living in the US) compare to mindless news-driven bullshit. My bet is that neither eases the relationship. ---- VRic ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
