29 Comments

1. Fausta:

Don’t miss the comments in the Spanish Barcepundit.

Someone asked why there’s no link, and it’s because it’s an email ad.

Either way, whoever came up with that is total SOB (hijepu– in Spanish)

Sep 15, 2004 - 11:25 am 2. Fausta:

And what makes the blood boil even more is the motto “El Pais, Entre en el club de los mejor informados”

Sep 15, 2004 - 11:30 am 3. mongai:

Will somebody please make me laugh because I am about to cry…

I’ll only go to Spain if I can visit with Barcepundit and spend my money at Barcepundit approved businesses. We should go to Spain and look him up and buy him a drink and give him our thanks. Think how he must feel. He needs a few out-of-town friends now more than ever. Only a thought. (In truth I live on an island and have become afraid of flying. Ships also frighten me. I ain’t going anywhere.)

Sep 15, 2004 - 11:34 am 4. Sansón Carrasco:

As a spanish citizen, I am deeply ashamed, and afraid of where my country is heading to. You guys complain of liberal bias in your media, but here is worse.

Just wanted you to know that not everybody in Spain thinks the same way as “El PaÌs”.

Sep 15, 2004 - 11:43 am 5. Katherine:

Death to Capitalist Pigs taken quite literally, eh?

One cannot look for humanity in truly committed socialists. They are deprived.

Sep 15, 2004 - 11:47 am 6. Franco Aleman (Barcelona, Spain):

Roger, thanks for the link and support. What I replied to that reader is that I can’t blame him, but I wanted him to know that this newspaper (as a comparison, is Spain’s equivalent to the NYT: liberal and “the newspaper of reference”) is not what the whole country feels. Are there more people enjoying the ad that there should be? according to comments I’ve been getting all day yes; there are quite a few. At the same time, lots of people, even leftist/liberal readers of El Pais, are appaled, and several have announced that they plan to cancel their subscription.

At the same time, I wrote in another email reply to another reader that I have a bit of mixed feelings about this issue: of course, I thought it was crucial to expose these bastards; at the same time, it’s sad if it helps to damage the image of the country (not that there was much to loose, after our treason to the Iraqis and the allies). It’s all over the blogosphere at the moment, according to my referrers.

Mongai, your comment is moving. Actually, I’m not the only sane people around here But yes, sometimes I feel I don’t belong much here anymore. Feels great to notice people concerned over the world. Thanks to all.

Sep 15, 2004 - 11:52 am 7. mongai:

Radical liberal bias is bad everywhere, but the engine that drives it is in the U.S.. And U.S. liberals wonder why the world is so anti-American. They are following your lead stupid! I would not be surprised if this image was taken from elsewhere. Or at the very least is a variation on a bad joke making the rounds.

Sep 15, 2004 - 12:00 pm 8. Cain:

Um Katherine, I think it’s a little rash to make such a sweeping generalization of socialists everywhere.

That being said, the ad is indeed reprehensible. A word on boycotts:

As Roger notes, Spain is a beautiful country and a great place to visit. I lived in Italy for quite awhile as a student, and I encountered my fair share of anti-American sentiment from a variety of people I spoke with (Italians are not shy about expressing their political beliefs to perfect strangers).

In each instance, when I delved deeper into the subject, I found that these people didn’t know much at all about our country and society. Their animosity toward the US was a consequence of ignorance.

Often, Italians (and other Europeans) expressed surprise upon meeting any American with an inkling of knowledge of foreign affairs or their nations’ customs.

There are, of course, legitimate criticisms of our country to be made, and foreigners can provide an interesting perspective. The ad in question is not a legitimate criticism. It’s disgusting.

So I would say- travel to Spain, to France, to Germany, and represent the US well so that a few minds might be changed. It would be a major tragedy, in my opinion, if foreigners ceased visiting the US due to erroneous generalizations of who we are.

And finally- for all of the idiots I’ve met here and abroad (and there have been many)- they are far outnumbered by good people with genuine concerns yet the equanimity to see both sides of the coin.

Sep 15, 2004 - 12:05 pm 9. Knucklehead:

Wow. That’s a real ad from a real, reputable newspaper? Thank goodness there’s so much of the world (and the US) I haven’t seen because I won’t be returning, ever, to France, Germany, or Spain.

Sep 15, 2004 - 12:07 pm 10. mongai:

Barcepundit,

You are are good man Mr.Aleman; and you especially belong in Spain. It needs all the good men it can get. But if you ever make it to Kyoto for a few days look me up, I’ll buy you that drink here.

Mongai

Sep 15, 2004 - 12:08 pm 11. mongai:

I think Cain is right. 9-11 Democrats must travel abroad now more than ever and engage the bias. It is seldom very heavy lifting and you usually end up on the receiving end of a drink or two. Most foreigners I meet deep down want to support America, they even want to like Bush, but they have not been shown how that is possible and still support notions like “peace” and other catch-all concepts.

Sep 15, 2004 - 12:29 pm 12. jdm:

Cain, you are absolutely correct. Europeans need to meet more intelligent Americans who don’t fit into nice little boxes: more intelligent Americans like, you know, those that inhabit the comments of this blog.

The times, they are a changin’, not only here in the good ol’ US, but also in Europe. You need to do your part to move them changes along.

Europeans are starting from a far less informed position than we in the US. In Europe, the tranzis and the socialists won. They took over and have fully monopolized the local media ever since. Most Europeans simply don’t know any better. Honest.

Sep 15, 2004 - 12:33 pm 13. scaramouoche:

Roger–As you feel about Spain, I feel about Portugal. It is the European country I have spent the most time in, including my three week honeymoon 17 years ago. And yet, despite the many pleasures of food, wine, and landscape, I cannot bring myself to return right now, nor in the forseeable future.

Sep 15, 2004 - 12:40 pm 14. Katherine:

Cain.

I specifically said “committed socialists”.

There is a difference between people who are trying to argue their values and those who are willing to impose their values. History of 20th century is littered with corpses of people sacrificed for the Marxist cause by the ìcommittedî variety.

I also have no intention of putting the blame for the revolting ad on the Spanish people in general. I happen to know that Europeans are mostly misinformed about the US, and lots of information they have has been true – 20 to 30 years ago.

Question remains, how they become better informed if the NYT is considered to be organ of American government propaganda.

Sep 15, 2004 - 12:41 pm 15. ambisinistral:

Amazing. The barbarians are at their gates and we’re being dehumanized. Europe seems headed towards another certain catastrophe. Very sad.

Sep 15, 2004 - 12:44 pm 16. Jim in Texas:

I love Spain, I loved being in the USAF living in Spain.

My wife and I have been agonizing over our annual two week vacation next year; Spain, Ireland or Scotland.

The list just got shorter.

The email adddress of the Spainish tourism offices in New York.

ontny@tourspain.es

You can get other email address from the Spanish Embassy website, I just thought the New York office would be more symbolic.

Sep 15, 2004 - 12:50 pm 17. Knucklehead:

Thanks, Jim. Done.

Sep 15, 2004 - 1:08 pm 18. mongai:

Mr. Simon,

Thank you for the kind words.

The next few years the world needs people like you traveling around it more than ever. Think of it as a new front on the war in terror.

Mongai

Sep 15, 2004 - 1:15 pm 19. Cain:

Katherine,

Point taken. However, comparing the Spanish socialists (or most socialist groups in Europe, for that matter) to Marxists is pretty misleading and inaccurate. They may be committed to a variant of socialism, but I don’t think anyone is worried about the elimination of free enterprise overseas.

Others,

I also wouldn’t say Europeans are less informed than Americans as a whole. Of course, there are many ignorant Europeans, just as there are many ignorant Americans. Unfortunately, the intelligence expressed among the posters to this blog isn’t representative to our country as a whole.

In many ways, Europeans are better informed, partially due to geography. We’re fairly isolated out here, contributing I think to our monolingualism and our relative lack of exposure to other cultures. Travel abroad (excluding Canada and Mexico) is prohibitively expensive for many Americans. In Europe, you can pass through several countries in one day on the train without spending too terribly much, contributing to a more international outlook for its people. Furthermore (and I have no data to support this but..) it struck me during my time there that international news dominated both televised and print media to a greater degree than in the United States. Again, geography plays a major role in this phenomenon.

As for the media, conservative media exists. In Italy, the best-selling newspaper is Corriere Della Sera, a right-leaning paper that usually writes pro-Berlusconi and pro-Bush editorials. Rupert Murdoch’s Times in England is another example. There are other examples but those are the two that come to mind.

Anyway, the point is, Euros don’t hold the monopoly on ignorance. Just as immigrants and visitors to the US have had to overcome our stereotypes, we ought to go overseas and show that Americans aren’t all arrogant, ill-informed hicks.

Sep 15, 2004 - 1:30 pm 20. Sandy P:

Jim, Ireland is very anti-American.

As to Scotland, start reading freedomandwhisky.

Cain–

Have you perused that monstrocity called their Constitution? — but I don’t think anyone is worried about the elimination of free enterprise overseas.–

http://european-convention.eu.int/

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/

http://www.eursoc.com/

And this charming comment from freedomandwhisky 10/02:

We are the masters now

It looks as though EU plans could result in the Scottish fishing industry being wiped out at a cost of 20,000 jobs. In an earlier report in Tuesday’s Daily Mail, I read that EU proposals for deep-sea fishing off our North-West coast would give France 80% of the quota, another 18% split between Ireland and Spain leaving 2% for Scottish fishermen. And Scottish taxpayers would have to fund the policing of this arrangement which covers areas that are entirely within UK territorial waters. Will our politicians do anything about this? Of course not.

Mark my words. It’s only a matter of time before the EU lays claim to North Sea oil.

Sep 15, 2004 - 2:02 pm 21. Fausta:

Cain, I sympathize with your opinions, but the fact that El Pais is using two photos as one day/next day is immoral. Notice how in the “nextday” picture even the clouds are gone from the pristine-blue sky. And, for the “most well-informed” paper, it sure doesn’t show the smoke from the WTC fire, which burned for two months, and was certainly noticible on Sept. 12 2001.

Sandy, I agree with you re: North Sea oil.

Sep 15, 2004 - 2:37 pm 22. Katherine:

Cain,

I only meant ìignorant about the USî.

I know for a fact ñ as I grew up there ñ the vast discrepancies between reality of life in the US and how it is perceived in Europe.

Of course, you are also correct in pointing out that Americans are quite ignorant about Europe, but I found that while for the most part the Americans are prepared to listen to Europeans explain their ways, Europeans love to lecture Americans about our political/economical/social inferiority and get huffy when one points out the error. I encountered enough of this BS on my travels and suffer it from my own family. What I found troubling is that very few Europeans even bother to stop and consider that their ìknowledgeî about the US may be outdated or plain wrong.

One more point: on what philosophy is socialism based if not on Marxism?

Sep 15, 2004 - 2:57 pm 23. Jim in Texas:

Sandy,

Yeah, I knew that. I lived in the UK and Scotland and can always find an “American Tourist” friendly place there, it’s just sad that I have to look for one. I hadn’t heard that about Ireland, but I’m not surprised.

My recent April trip back to Devon and Cornwall was good, but there were some “embarrassed silence” moments.

I just like (want?) to believe that the United Kingdom’s and Ireland’s U.S. roots are so strong and pervasive that they’ll get over the current snit; I never plan to visit mainland Europe again other than for business.

Cain,

Two points.

“Travel abroad (excluding Canada and Mexico) is prohibitively expensive for many Americans.”

Did you just make that up or decided that this sounded good or do you have some reason to say that?

I can travel to London, England round trip from Dallas, TX for less than $700 while a Dallas to Newark, NJ ticket just set me back 1,015.

“In the past three years, [1999, 2000, 2001] approximately 39.9 million Americans (19.3% of U.S. adults) traveled outside the continental United States for pleasure on trips lasting five or more nights. We refer to these travelers as outbound pleasure travelers (or as outbound travelers for short). In our 1999 TravelStyles survey, the number of outbound pleasure travelers was approximately 37.4 million persons (18.5% of U.S. adults). This difference represents an increase of 6.7% in the number of outbound pleasure travelers”

“Although comparatively few Americans travel internationally for pleasure, those who do tend to travel frequently. The majority of American outbound travelers (54.0%) took two or more international pleasure trips in the past three years; 31.7% took three or more trips, and 18.0% took four or more (trips)”

http://www.etc-corporate.org/resources/uploads/MENLO_ETC%20Member%20Report.pdf

Those numbers are from November 2001 and I suspect the numbers are down some, but as the report illustrates the U.S. citizens who travel, tend to be well educated, older and, supposedly, less likely to poorly represent the U.S.

If you have any numbers that would indicate that the “prohibitively expense” is keep those citizens from travelling?

“Anyway, the point is, Euros don’t hold the monopoly on ignorance. Just as immigrants and visitors to the US have had to overcome our stereotypes, we ought to go overseas and show that Americans aren’t all arrogant, ill-informed hicks.”

1. Why is it the responsibility of the citizens of the United States (God forbid I use the inaccurate phrase “Americans”) to educate or illuminate anyone anywhere about anything?

And,

2. I doubt anything we would do would change anyone’s opinion.

I’ve spent most of my life outside the U.S. and found that no one is really very interested in the “truths” about the U.S. since it would conflict with their cherished common skewed viewpoints.

Viewpoints, I hasten to add, whose roots can be traced back to what Europeans were saying about the U.S. during our Civil War.

So the bottom line is, most Europeans don’t like the U.S., but don’t despair, this isn’t new, they haven’t liked us for over a century, we just never cared or paid attention before.

Sep 15, 2004 - 3:10 pm 24. Ray:

As a foreigner living in the States, I see people falling into an inconsistency:

1) People outside the US judge the US and it’s people by what they see in the US media (as reported in their own media).

2) A lot of people (myself included) in the US spend a lot of time being annoyed by the stupidity, bias, and shallowness of their media. They realise that the media are not at all representative of America.

3) Those same people (myself included) then judge Europeans by their media.

4) Even with the above points, it is important to realise that people’s opinions are heavily affected by the media.

So I guess the main point is that the media suck, no matter your continent. They are unrepresentative and generally awful. It’s generally a mistake judging other countries’ inhabitants by their media, regardless of where you are.

Sep 15, 2004 - 3:44 pm 25. Solomon:

This person left the following comment on my blog:

That’s simply not true. A hoax. A fake. Name it the way you want, but, please, rectify your post. You can confirm this contacting the newspaper “El PaÔøΩs” at +34 91 353 7900. Thank you.

Can anyone confirm that this is really from the paper, and not just an email hoax? I’ll email Franco as well, of course.

Sep 16, 2004 - 6:13 am 26. Franco Aleman (Barcelona, Spain):

It certainly doesn’t look like it’s a hoax, something that even El Pais is not saying anymore; they did early this morning, but I wrote this new entry showing that it is not. Now El Pais are saying that they will release a statement, and that they don’t “confirm nor deny”

How sweet, they sound like CBS!

So, as we say in Spanish, that commenter of yours, Solomon, is “m√°s papista que el Papa”.

Sep 16, 2004 - 9:08 am 27. michel:

For all of you thinking about Franco Aleman as a wonderful person, I feel the need to warn you: he’s only manipulating you. Yeah, it’s true that was a real advertisement in El Pais. It was an ad sent by EMAIL, not even in the media. Obviously, they made a mistake by letting it go through, and being sent. But El Pais has already apologized. Oh, Franco didn’t say that here, did he?

Franco Aleman has mistranslated the message ON PURPOSE. “Un dÌa da para mucho” does NOT mean “You can do a lot in one day”. It means that a lot can happen in one day. THAT’S ALL. Anything else, is Franco’s personal and rightish interpretation.

And it’s true. A lot changed on 11S. Yeah, it is be insensitive to use those images, but it’s not a joke, and it’s not about being happy that it happened. It’s all about information, which is what El Pais has been offering for decades. In fact, it was the first democratic newspaper in Spain.

So, dear Franco, please, don’t insult our intelligence by saying that you are sad about releasing this, but it was what you have to do. You’re not a hero, you’re a manipulator. But I guess that since most people in Spain don’t make a big deal abut this, you had to search for support abroad. Oh, well, I find it pretty sad, but it’s your life. Just try to not to say lies, it’s not nice.

Oh, and people here DON’T feel bad about El Pais, mostly because we’re intelligent enough to see the difference between the person that makes an advert and sends it via email, and a whole newspaper, the biggest and most important in a Country.

And of course, I do think you’re all making a huge deal out of nothing. For God’s shake, it’s a stupid advert in an email!! If it had been 11M instead 11S, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. If you’re really cancelling a vacation because of it, considering you live in a country where children can own guns, maybe you need consider your priorities…

Sep 17, 2004 - 8:34 am 28. Franco Aleman (Barcelona, Spain):

Michel,

Fortunately, your comments speaks for itself. And before writing this, I’d advise you to read roger’s post today.

You were too quick, eh?

Sep 17, 2004 - 12:16 pm 29. michel:

Franco, if your best point is that I read today’s post, and that “your comments speaks for itself” (it’s actuallt spelt “your comments speak for themselves”, honey) it’s obvious who’s on teh right side.

And for those who are not Franco, his only argumentation is that he did translate it properly. I encourage you to ask ANY spanish person you know how that sentence is translated. And then, judge him yourselves.

And then, maybe you should wonder what impulsed Franco to spread this stupid advert over the foreign net, with the effort of (mis)translating it… And you’ll come to my conclussion: he doesn’t find support here, because thankfully we have more important things to worry about, so he searches for it elsewhere. Pretty sad, if you ask me. And I bet you all have more important things to worry about.

That said, for those of you who think that El Pais has apologized because the whole country is scared that we won’t sell more wine (lol) to the US, or that no more US citizens come to sightseeing… PLEEZE!! Wake up! They apologized because the ad was tactless. Kudos for them. Stop thinking you’re the center of the universe. That can’t be good for anyone’s mental health.

Sep 18, 2004 - 4:46 am

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