PZ Myers. 2004 Oct 19. Vive la France. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/vive_la_france/>. Accessed 2008 Aug 20.
Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Vive la France
Alright, this is enough. I thought it was insane that the right wingers were stamping their little feet in outrage that Kerry dared to mention that Mary Cheney was a lesbian, which is a complete non-issue as far as any sensible liberal is concerned. But now they have a new cause célèbre.
John Kerry spoke French in a campaign speech. "Je vais aider les Haitiens." How despicable!
This new faux pas has the wingnuts in a tizzy. Doesn't he realize that the French are the American bête noir? They've been plaguing us for years, sending that snooty Marquis de Lafayette to steal the credit for our revolution, cluttering up our harbors with oversized statuary, and making us nauseous with their escargots. And everyone knows that despite having two world wars fought fiercely over their soil, they are all cowards, and that Descartes and Rousseau and the Curies and de Broglie and Lavoisier and Fourier and Ampere and Agassiz and Rodin and Renoir and Sartre and yadda yadda yadda were aberrations—the French are all silly pseudointellectual poseurs who like Jerry Lewis.
It's déjà vu. Kerry has French friends. He has French relatives. He looks French. He speaks French. He has been to France. These are all gross sins in wingnut land. You'd think that by now it would be de rigueur for Kerry to avoid any sign of respect to or appreciation of one of the wealthiest and most populous nations in the European Union. It's far more rational for our administration to treat an entire nation of 60 million people, with a few centuries of history and friendship between us, with complete contempt.
Besides, speaking a European language is like announcing that you've actually received some kind of education and recognize the existence of those funny foreigners. Doesn't he know our president is supposed to play the fool? That showing even a hint of sophistication will summon the scorn of the yokels? That GW Bush's consistently idiotic demeanor is a tour de force?
I only know a few essential phrases in the language myself, but all I want to hear Kerry say to the right wing vermin with their stupid anti-French bigotry is "Va te faire foutre!" while showing them le bras d'honneur.
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Don't forget all those French fries making us fat.
#: Posted by on 10/19 at 07:45 PM
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Bugger that. Those are Freedom fries. Our rippling, corpulent midriffs are our Badges of Freedom!
They hate and envy our blubber. If we consume less, the terrorists will have won. -
I think that CIA Report is getting leaked. Bush was in trouble poll wise up to now, but if this thing hits the news stands, even some of his GOP backers will run for political cover.
#: Posted by on 10/19 at 07:56 PM
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Congress hesitated to buy Jefferson's library, because many
of his books were French. American anti-intellectualism, of which Wingnuts are a classical example, was worth one Pulitzer Prize. Perhaps it's worth another if anyone's inclined to write another book. If you'd prefer to make money, consider writing the Idiot's Guide to American Anti-intellectualism. -
I offer a resounding Merde! Only a detached college professor could come to the defense of the cheese-eating surrender monkeys of Gaul. Mon dieu
#: Posted by on 10/19 at 10:55 PM
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Wait... Now, I don't speak French (I'm a good American obviously) but that looks to me like he's talking to Haitians.
#: Posted by on 10/19 at 11:17 PM
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DS, you're not kidding about the CIA report??
Remember when Bush said something on the order of "They're just guessing" -- speaking of the CIA's assessment of conditions in Iraq?
I'd read that the agents were really pissed at the Bushistas, and were doing a little ongoing cough*payback*cough.
This report on culpability for 9/11 supposedly tells the specific names of certain people who were asleep at the switch. I'll bet Condie Rice is one of them. Would they dare name the Veep, or Bush himself? Rumsfeld? Ashcroft? -
Over-reaction or not, given everything that's been slung at him, franco-phobe-wise, you'd think he'd have more sense than to demonstrate his fluency. Wingnuts or no, it's not a tremendously sagacious political move.
OTOH, it's _just_ barely possible he has enough of a command of the language that it just came unconciously in response to the questioner's French. In which case, he can hardly be blamed, and ought to be lauded. Certainly can't be worse that the awful accents and Spanglish politicians use when talking with Latino voters.#: Posted by on 10/20 at 02:35 AM -
Here's a lovely quote linking the late Mr. Derrida (he was French too you know) and Mr. Kerry:
"deconstruction operates by subversion, its evasions are at the same time an attack: an attack on the cogency of language and the moral and intellectual claims that language has codified in tradition. The subversive element inherent in the deconstructive enterprise is another reason that it has exercised such a mesmerizing spell on intellectuals." Not only do they want to keep abortion legal, they want to subvert our very way of viewing the world!#: Posted by on 10/20 at 04:00 AM -
Hank I'd say between Plame, Tenet, blaming the CIA for Intel failures, and then appointing Goss, they're not very happy. Give it a few days, we'll see.
#: Posted by on 10/20 at 05:38 AM
- Eric, that's the problem: when did pandering to xenophobes and bigots become an astute political move? This shouldn't even be an issue. Haitians are French-speaking inhabitants of our hemisphere, and the French are our allies and trade partners. Acknowledging and appreciating their existence ought to be commended, not condemned.
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Kim, Derrida is not dead. He is a social construct.
#: Posted by on 10/20 at 07:08 AM
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I am impressed. You even had the accents on "déjà vu".
Just to nitpick: Rousseau was Swiss (although he lived almost all his life in France and was ostracized from Geneva - I know Helvetians are very sensitive about that).
But I would even forgive Kerry to use tactical francophobia and forget all his language skills if that could help liberating the planet from Bush fils. -
Hmmm. That didn't work very well. Do a "Find" for Derrida on the page and you'll get the relevant post.
Aussi, Kerry est gauche, mais pas trop gauche.#: Posted by on 10/20 at 07:16 AM - I wonder if the Swiss are also sensitive about being confused with Swedes?
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Just a few hours ago I was I sitting with my oldest continual friend who is french. He`s had to put up with my frog jokes and jabs for 36 years. We had both just seen a documentary about fox channel. My friend was honestly puzzled (not insulted, not angry but truly totally mystified) as to how Kerry`s french speaking was a campaign issue and looked to me, in total faith, for a logical explanation which would make everything understandable. I was, for once, without words.
Damn Bush and the american right wing, now I can`t even joke about the french for a week or two!#: Posted by on 10/20 at 12:03 PM -
I wonder if the Swiss are also sensitive about being confused with Swedes?
They are probably less upset than the Norwegians were when Al Qaeda confused Norway and Denmark, and threatened to commit terrorist acts in Norway as a retribution for the Norwegian [read: Danish] troops in Iraq.#: Posted by on 10/20 at 01:57 PM -
What I couldn't help noticing was the number of English words in your post that have origins in Norman French... everything from `realize' and `campaign' through `sophistication' and `relative' derives from there.
(But, as usual, most of the function words and shorter words are from Old English. The ultra-crude rule of thumb `polysyllabic -> Norman French' holds fairly well here.)
(But, of course, if you go back far enough, the French, as Franks, were originally conquering Germans...
)
#: Posted by on 10/20 at 05:40 PM -
"Besides, speaking a European language is like announcing that you’ve actually received some kind of education and recognize the existence of those funny foreigners."
All well and good, as long as we keep in mind that Spanish (which Bush speaks) is a European language too!
"the French are our allies and trade partners"
Trade partners, yes, but allies? I have a feeling you're going to be rapidly disillusioned once Kerry's in the White House. Things weren't exactly sweetness and light between America and France from 1993 to 2000. Keeping American power in check is an explicit and longstanding goal of French foreign policy (hardly the sort of thing an "ally" considers primary), and it will continue to be so no matter who runs American affairs after the coming elections.#: Posted by Abiola Lapite on 10/20 at 05:40 PM -
The Spanish that Bush speaks is a western-hemisphere language spoken by a significant proportion of the electorate -- we can pretend it is no more European than English now.
Yes, they are our allies. I don't think the definition of ally has ever meant a nation that is altruistically promoting another at its own expense. We can have divergent and even conflicting interests with our allies while still considering them friends, overall. And while we're trying to increase our advantage over them.
I'm going to really tick off any wingnuts who bother to read this, but I think it is in American interests to have strong allies who check our exercise of power...just as I think it is in the best interests of the US and us Liberals to have a solid, sane Conservative party.
The current Republican party does not fit that description, by the way. -
"The Spanish that Bush speaks is a western-hemisphere language spoken by a significant proportion of the electorate — we can pretend it is no more European than English now."
I know a few Spaniards who'd take umbrage to that ...
"but I think it is in American interests to have strong allies who check our exercise of power"
Even if that check means, say, preventing meaningful action in Darfur (which a French diplomat dismissed this year as a local firefight affecting "just a few villages") or Rwanda (as France actually did in 1994)?
"just as I think it is in the best interests of the US and us Liberals to have a solid, sane Conservative party."
Liberals and Conservatives are at least part of the same citizenry, so the divergence of interests isn't fundamentally as wide as it is with a country like France, and given what I know of French policy on the African continent, propping up dictators and murderers left, right and centre, there is simply no way on Earth I could ever wish such a power acting as a "check" on the United States. As bad as past US foreign policy may seem in the eyes of many Americans, the French manage to make it all look like one long Red Cross mission. It was only two weeks ago or so that Chirac was in China agitating that all EU arms restrictions against that country be lifted, so that French firms could get their hands on $4 billion in contracts - this despite routine Chinese sabre-rattling against the Taiwanese, a brutal occupation of Tibet, increasing stifling of free speech in Hong Kong, and death penalties being handed down to Chinese citizens for "crimes" as trifling as hosting x-rated websites.
Fundamentally (ahem), my vision of the role of America in world affairs is a moral one, tempered by self-interest, to be sure, but still acting for the most part in favor of the good and the decent. The French foreign policy tradition is very, very different, and much more in line with the traditional European attitude of amoral machtpolitik. As such, any world in which the likes of the French were able to effectively curtail American power would be a foul one in my eyes.#: Posted by Abiola Lapite on 10/20 at 06:30 PM -
Hi, I am located in Germany and I am Romanian ("New" Europe, according to Rummy).
What always was one of the main qualities of American society, is its openness and tolerance against any particularities. We are learning this in Europe too, since WW2, and America had a big part in it. Currently, to me it seems like we in Europe are doing quite well on this issue (remember, we are a lot of _very_ different, small countries very close to each other), while in America there is a regression. Did Osama BinLaden manage to initiate a transformation of American society? I hope not.
I am totally astonished about this French-bashing mood in the U.S. among many Americans - on the one hand there is real antipathy of the French, and beyond that it's cool to hit at all that's French. Everything bad is French. Hey, that's not antisemitism, that's antifrenchism. Why exactly France and not - let's see, N. Korea, or Vietnam or Germany (Germany, because the Brits have a strange view of Germany, although the relations are excellent)??
Ok, the current U.S. administration did a lot to encourage anti-french sentiments, but that can't be all.
You all know that in Europe as well exist prejudices about America and Americans and even anti-american conceptions/emotions. I always say to such people: go there and take a look. I have crossed the U.S. from coast to coast and met a lot of people and I revised a lot (although not everything of my view about America, in a positive sense.
I can only say to French-bashers: go there and have a cheese! If after that you still don't like them, at least it is founded.
By the way, to those who call the French cheese eaters: folks, that's a compliment! -
Trade partners, yes, but allies?
As a member of NATO, I think that France qualify as an ally to te rest of the NATO members, including USA. Do note, however, that NATO is a defense pact, not an attack pact, so France decling to venture into Iraq on the basis of false and/or bad information can not in any way be said to break the premisses of NATO.
Also, France has quite a number of troops involved in Afghanistan, a fact often overlooked when Americans bash the French.#: Posted by on 10/21 at 04:52 AM -
"I can only say to French-bashers: go there and have a cheese! If after that you still don’t like them, at least it is founded."
I don't know that I qualify as a "French-basher", but I assure you that my thoughts do not spring from an ignorance of the French. Not only am I an admirer of much of French culture, but I studied the language for quite a few years, and am actually in Europe at this very moment, interacting on a regular basis with many French people. The lazy assumption that any opposition to French foreign policy must stem from ignorance or personal antagonism ought to be guarded against.
"Also, France has quite a number of troops involved in Afghanistan"
And how many is "quite a number", pray tell? I know, but do you? Tell me how many were there at the beginning, when the fighting was fiercest, and what percentage of the current troops happen to be from France, if you can ...#: Posted by Abiola Lapite on 10/21 at 05:02 AM -
From the French embassy to the US:
From October 21, 2001, French reconnaissance aircraft and air tankers have contributed to the air campaign over Afghanistan. They were reinforced from the winter of 2001 to the summer of 2002, by French naval aviation forces and French Air Force transport planes and fighters. France was indeed the only country, along with the United States, to have flown bombing missions over Afghanistan, in direct support of American ground troops, in particular during operation Anaconda. From October 23, 2001, to September 30, 2002, a total of 12,000 flying hours were conducted in support of operations in Afghanistan by the French Mirage IV reconnaissance aircraft, the C135 tankers, the C160 and C130 transports, the E2C and Super Etendard from the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, and the Mirage 2000D strike aircraft. The Mirage 2000D and Super Etendard destroyed 33 targets linked to Al Qaeda or the Talibans in direct support of American Special Forces. Today, 130 military are based in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, helping to operate the airport and supporting 2 transport aircraft engaged in the support of the French contingent in Afghanistan.
French forces arrived early on the ground. From December 2, 2001 to January 27, 2002, a reinforced company secured in Mazar-e-Sharif the detachment of US engineers repairing the airfield in order to fly in humanitarian assistance. In total, some 5,500 French soldiers were sent to the region. Today, 200 special troops are involved alongside American troops in the fight against the remnants of the Taliban in Southern Afghanistan.
Now, 540 French troops are deployed in Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force, whose duty is to maintain security at the Kabul airport and its surroundings. And France is also playing a significant role in training the new Afghan army, alongside the US and the United Kingdom, having organized three battalions of 500 men and being presently involved in the training of all Afghan officers.
With the Navy contribution to OEF, a total of 1,470 French troops are involved in the stabilization of Afghanistan. They will amount to 1,820 with the arrival of Eurocorps in Kabul during the summer. -
Estman, my take on French bashing: In every population, there are a certain number of cowards who love to huddle in safe places and snarl out at everyone else. Occasionally, when they see someone weak and defenseless, they work up enough courage to creep out and bash them with a club.
Usually, that cowardice is kept in check by a generalized social atmosphere of disgust towards it. The bullies and cowards that come to light in news stories, etc., are reported as ugly aberrations.
On occasion, groups of cowards band together and gain a certain amount of power. When they briefly take control of a society, the way they protect themselves from charges of cowardice is they tell stories about how their cowardice is GOOD. This opens the gate for other, more timid, cowards to come out and find defenseless victims to bash.
In the U.S. right now, we have cowards in control of the White House, and they're inspiring the smaller cowards to pick at the French.
Why, specifically, the French? First because the Jews, Mexicans, Chinese, blacks, etc., the usual targets of this type of cowardly bullying, are now off-limits. Second, I suppose, is simply because the French government dared to question the god-given war plans of our Coward-in-Chief.
Trust me, most of us know what he is, and what the people surrounding him are. It's a feeble defense, but we CAN say we didn't actually elect him; he just sorta happened. Most of us are still fairly decent people, but ... until we can get the lot of them out in January, we -- and the French, and the rest of the world -- just have to live with them. -
Why the French?
The real shock in the Iraq war was the German evolution.
They had been more "compliant" and Atlantist than the French (sometimes even more than the British). Their decision not to support this war was more significant than the French decision.
But Condoleeza Rice said "Let's forgive the Germans and punish the French". Why? I guess because it is easier and less expensive. -
France is providing flu vaccine to the US. I guess the French boycott is over?
#: Posted by on 10/21 at 08:43 AM
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You wrote: "making us nauseous with their escargots."
Check Fowler's, but I think you meant that "they are nauseous with their escargots, making us nauseated with their escargots, or, equivalently, nauseating us with their escargots."#: Posted by on 10/21 at 03:12 PM -
I agree with you that French foreign policy sucks, especially in Africa as you pointed out. Yet you say:
"Fundamentally (ahem), my vision of the role of America in world affairs is a moral one, tempered by self-interest, to be sure, but still acting for the most part in favor of the good and the decent. The French foreign policy tradition is very, very different, and much more in line with the traditional European attitude of amoral machtpolitik. As such, any world in which the likes of the French were able to effectively curtail American power would be a foul one in my eyes."
Maybe your vision about American foreign policy is a moral one. But that doesn’t make American foreign policy any more moral than the French one (or as you say "A Red Cross Mission"). Everything you have accused the French of doing, America has done it. But not only in a single continent but all around the world. With the extra that Americans have the costume in the last 50 years of spreading their military power, something the French have abandoned since Algeria.
And you may be well educated concerning the French culture: that doesn’t change that there is a trend in the US to hate the French from ignorance. Their government may suck (and it does!), but their citizenry and their concept of society is a bit more sophisticated than the one of Americans, as it is also the case of Europeans in general terms. That is why most people opposed the war on Iraq.#: Posted by on 10/27 at 07:18 AM