112 Comments

1. WichitaBoy:

Ye gods.

This seems to flatly contradict what Catherine has been telling us.

Some allies.

Oct 12, 2004 - 9:36 am 2. Former CNN Watcher:

I have spent some time there myself and this doesn’t ring true to me. London isn’t like that. I have seen the professional protester class acting like savages in protests for one reason or another, of course. And seen handbills and graffiti from those idiots.

And I have seen heaps of Americans as well as Jews on all sorts of public transport and never have I seen a total stranger jump up and start screaming.

If the tale is indeed true, it may say more about the crowd the author hangs out with (film (sorry, Roger), theatre, “human rights” groups…) which are in Europe are often very extreme about politics and very anti-Semitic.

Oct 12, 2004 - 9:46 am 3. rod:

ok. I read it. My only question: Why are 75%-80% of Jewish Americans going to vote Democratic again? What can be gained by getting politically close to the milieu of this shopkeeper?

I don’t blame the shopkeeper–he’s a hopeless, raving Jew-hater, straight out of 1936–but at least he is honest. The majority of the euro leadership is vastly more sophisticated in its presentation. But, in all honesty, not to different in sentiment.

I would be interested in a dialogue that provided some insight to the EU worldview. Personally, I dislike it as much as Islamofascism, but I understand, as a believer myslef, the call to islam. I do not understand the fetishistic approach and allegiance to the EU.

Oct 12, 2004 - 9:49 am 4. Skookumchuk:

While there is a definite upsurge in anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli sentiment in Britain, there is some speculation on LGF that the account may not be true or may be embellished. I have no idea one way or the other, but it is something to be careful about.

Oct 12, 2004 - 9:51 am 5. rastajenk:

I get the feeling Canada is heading rapidly down that path, too. Media-driven anti-semitism seems to be the order of the day up north.

Oct 12, 2004 - 9:53 am 6. Michael J. Totten:

What a bizarre world we live in.

Britain is the European country that most resembles America. And yet this sort of thing, embellished or not, happens.

My experience two months ago in Arab North Africa, of all places, was exactly opposite.

Oct 12, 2004 - 10:23 am 7. mrp:

I believe her account. Anti-Semitic and anti-American ravings are quite chic and mainstream amongst the British chattering classes (both Left and Right).

Yesterday, I posted an example from the London Sunday Times quoting Clare Short. Osama, Defender of the Oppressed.

The haters overseas and the ABB types here have one thing in common: they just want everything back to the way it was, back to the time when dying and killing and murder overseas was safely walled off on page A6. Back to the time when anthrax and Ricin were never mentioned except as part of some grand world summit that would do away with plagues and poisons forever and ever.

Strange, isn’t it, that the MSM are more than happy to hype up the latest atrocity in Iraq, or a terror bombing in Spain, but 9/11 is relegated to spitball fights between architects and newspaper critics.

9/11 is in the history books, go back to sleep say the Halperins and the Rathers. We’ve dispatched 75% of al Qaeda operatives to prison or Hell, and soon, with our help, John Kerry will make Islamic terrorism a mere nuisance, and then American politics will be safe once more for the New York Times and ABC News. Oh, and how would you like your lotus served?

Oct 12, 2004 - 10:32 am 8. Andrew X:

Well, since you mention Clare Short, it should be mentioned that she actually has a very clear eye and concise analysis of the Iraq war.

If I may quote her….

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/350684.stm

“The truth is this is a war. Wars are vile.

It’s against an evil, monstrous regime that has caused a terrible war and displacement, raping and killing people. Now it is doing it again.

This evil will be reversed. We will succeed, the sooner the better.

But we will do what is necessary. It will be done and we will look after people and get them home.

This is a challenge for our generation. We must do what is right otherwise evil will triumph, Europe will have fascism back in it and all the instabilities that will lead to increasing conflict.

Please be steady everyone. We’ve got to do what is right and we will do it.”

The BBC also writes here, “Ms. Short made comparisons with World War II and suggested the war was being undermined by bleeding heart liberals.”

So she has a spot-on opinion of the Iraq situ….

What’s that? OOPS! She was talking about KOSOVO! When NATO attacked, COMEPLETLY WITHOUT UN AUTHORIZATION! (as the Russians would have non-negotiably vetoed) She was talking about a war against a dictator who threatend… EUROPE and the EU project as a whole!

See? That’s COMPLETELY different! If it’s Europe’s little Tranzi project that is threatened, everyone to the trenches…. (US especially).

Otherwise….. well, we all know the drill.

Thanks for your oh-so-convenient convictions Clare. We’ll be sure to keep them in mind.

Please cut and paste her quotes above. They have come in quite handy for me in idiotarian confrontations.

Oct 12, 2004 - 10:49 am 9. Mike Walsh, MM:

Roger,

Ugh. Made me want to scream. I try to understand it, but largely without success. As to why the vast majority of Jews still vote Democrat, I can only assume it has something to do with inertia. Here’s a question: Do you think that incident can be compared in any way with this:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/487412.html

Oct 12, 2004 - 10:59 am 10. gb_in_ga:

My experiences along these lines were expressed in 2 different ways:

First, when I was in the Army and stationed in Germany during the late ’70’s, I encountered nothing of the sort. I suppose that 30 years was not sufficient time to forget what the Soviets did when overrunning parts of their country in ‘45, and the German people at least recognized that we were the main reason that the Soviets hadn’t gotten around to finishing the job.

After my tour in Germany, I returned to the States, never to leave.

Until the Labor Day just prior to 9-11, that is. And that brings up the second of my experiences along those lines. My wife and I decided to take a week of vacation and get out of the South for a while. We flew up to Cleveland and then did a “Circum-Lake Erie” road tour, heading East to Detroit and crossing into Ontario, driving around the Canadian countryside and returning to the U.S. via Niagra Falls and then on back to Cleveland, to fly back home. All went well until we stayed a couple of nights at this nice little Bed & Breakfast in Kingsport, Ont. Nice place, actually, it was comfortable and the hosts were quite hospitable. We even took a charter fishing trip, the guide was superb. But on our second evening there, while in the common area at the B&B, I found myself in a gathering of Canadians and assorted Euros. And the topic of U.S. bashing came up, no doubt because I was there, polite but assertive. And those people acted JUST LIKE THE ONES IN THAT ARTICLE. The worst of the bunch was this one Belgian guy. Now, I was trying to be polite and not even raise my voice; I mean, come on people, we are supposed to be on vacation here, let’s cut out the vitriol, Ok? How about a rational discussion? But NO! The HateFest just went on and on. Honestly, I’d never encountered anything like it. Not even in the South amongst the “Bubbas”, nothing like it at all. I finally just gave up on them and returned to my room. Breakfast the following morning was, uh, tense is a good term for it. Quite frankly, I was relieved to move on from there.

Oct 12, 2004 - 11:00 am 11. Oyster:

I have never traveled abroad. I suspect that where you go matters more than anything. Yes I believe there is rampant hate for America and Israel in Europe, but I’d be reluctant to say that it’s much different in magnitude than the same vile behavior people here in America display toward the Bush administration. It’s myopic and has become irrational.

I’m shocked at how much history those in parts of Europe have forgotten or refuse to acknowledge, or their conclusion would be different.

It has always befuddled me when people who claim to be anti-war and non-confrontational resort to the same aggressive behavior they condemn to get their point across.

Oct 12, 2004 - 11:03 am 12. gb_in_ga:

Oops! Did I say “Kingsport, Ont”? I should have said “Kingston, Ont”. I’m always getting it mixed up with Kingsport, Tenn, which is close to where my wife grew up…

Oct 12, 2004 - 11:04 am 13. Matt Ward:

This all seems another bourgeosie-bohemian divide.

Bohemians tend to live in cities, which are seen as more of a target of Islamic terrorists, so many of them hate the Americans who are stirring up a hornet’s nest which won’t strike the suburbs or country, but the urban areas.

Bohemians also fancy themselves anti-materialists, different than the money-grubbing middle classes at Wal-Mart and Burger King, who are still epitomized after all these centuries as the Jew.

The crux of the case against Jews is as always: fear (paragraph 1) and envy (paragraph 2).

BTW, I’m not Jewish and haven’t been to the UK since 1988-89, but that account seems far-fetched to me as describing a lot of the English population. I also suspect it has a lot to do with the crowd she keeps.

Oct 12, 2004 - 11:04 am 14. Skookumchuk:

gb_in_ga:

Well, having added my proper little caveat above about embellishing stories and maybe not ringing true and caution and all that, let me say this.

Some three years ago I was involved in a transport study in the Balkans and as part of that took a train from Budapest to Berlin. I shared a compartment with a communications engineer whose company was installing cellphone networks in Eastern Europe. All was well until he began talking about unemployment in Germany. “You know why?” was his rhetorical question. “It is the Jews, they control the European economy.” It became a very small and noisy compartment after that.

Oct 12, 2004 - 11:12 am 15. Skookumchuk:

And I thought “back home, I could ride Amtrak for ten years and never hear a soul say something like that”.

Oct 12, 2004 - 11:14 am 16. thedragonflies:

This is so disturbing that I actually donít believe it. A good friend of mine just got back from a three-week vacation in France. His experience was that the people were extraordinarily nice to him and his wife.

Anti-American demonstrations equating America to Nazi Germany are disturbing to see in the media, but I really take this article with a big grain of salt as to the experience of everyday life amongst everyday people.

Oct 12, 2004 - 11:25 am 17. gb_in_ga:

Oh, BTW — I’m not Jewish and that topic didn’t come up in the incident I cite. But I’m sure that had I in any way hinted anything about it, they would have joyfully added that to their rants.

Rastajenk: I concur. I’ve personally seen it in action. Well, not the anti-semetic part, but the anti-American part. And since they tend to go hand-in-hand, I’d expect that from them based on what I did see.

More on that: It seems that the observation that Matt Ward makes has merit. I didn’t get the impression that the Canadians that we met while were at all anti-American. Except at that B&B, and they were from elsewhere: Montreal and Toronto. Urban areas. And from what I could tell, those Euros were of the urban variety, too. Anyway, most of our contact with Canadians were with those from rural parts, and with those from small towns, and they didn’t seem at all rude or obnoxious. I really didn’t notice it in Windsor, either — maybe that’s because it is just across the river from Detroit, where they can see us right up front and personal, and where they can easily pick up our radio and TV broadcasts. I sure didn’t notice it in Niagra (the Canadian side), they seemed happy to take our money.

Oct 12, 2004 - 11:27 am 18. Terrye:

Wichita is right, this does contradict Catherine. But I think it might be true of a certain kind of European/Brit. I think the left has lost its mind and its place in the world both here in the US and abroad.

After 9/11 I went on the BBC message board and this is how I was treated. That was when my politics bagan to change and I moved to the right.

It is also when I abandoned my previous positions on the ICC and the Kyoto Protocol. Before when some conservative said they were both designed to punish America I did not believe them.But after being abused by some really bigoted Eurotrash I began to think: You know maybe they call the left looney for a reason.

So if any Eruopeans happen to come along here today and check out this blog it should be remembered that this kind of behavior made me a Bushie.

Of course, Kerry promises to change all that. They will love us again once we engage the world and cease to be so arrogant and insensitive to our real allies. You know the allies that think we had 9/11 coming. The allies that have no problem with the food for oil scandal or Saddam’s refusal to comply or suicide bombers. The allies that hate Bush and want a president that will be ashamed to be an American and who is not too proud to kiss their arse.

BTW did anyone see the Steyn article the Telegraph pulled? It was kinda rough.

Oct 12, 2004 - 11:27 am 19. thedragonflies:

I hope I’m not just in denial.

Oct 12, 2004 - 11:28 am 20. gb_in_ga:

Skookumchuk:

What a difference 20 or so years make! I notice one other difference: I was there, in West Germany, prior to reunification, you were apparently in what was then East Germany, post reunification. I can’t tell more about your compartment mate, could it be that he wasn’t from the Western part? Well, from what I can tell is going in with the Euros, it may not make that much difference anymore.

One thing that I did notice while I was there was that the neo-Nazis who actually were there were reviled as being nutcases by the general populance, and that the people at that time seemed to be ashamed of what had happened in that war. They seemed genuinely ashamed to have any association with Adolph Hitler, and wanted to put that behind them. It seems that now those sentiments are not nearly so strong.

Oct 12, 2004 - 11:45 am 21. Oscar:

Ultimately, we have to realise that anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism share at least one thing: both are impervious to events. Nothing the victim can do will placate the oppressor. Thus the only thing to do is what many in Israel have done: act for what seems in the best interests of your own survival, not the for the best wishes of your accusers. Fortunately, I have had this basically Jacksonian view towards the world for a long time: I could happily travel behind the iron curtain in the 70’s, chatting with folks and having a wonderful time, but I never put there interests ahead of those of my fellow countrymen. Unfortunately, one party has nominated for President who would rather be loved by those who would carry his coffin, then judged by his peers.

Oct 12, 2004 - 11:47 am 22. thibaud:

The Gould account is fairly representative of those who deal with London and Oxbridge pseudo-sophisticates who have little real experience of either America or the international business world. These folks live in a bubble formed by what they read in the Guardian and what they hear in their own virulently anti-Israel amen corners.

But bashing of the US and Israel by non-literary, non-pseudo-intellectual Brits suggests something else at work.

A charitable explanation for the repeated abuse heaped on the head of this obviously anglophiliac woman by her London neighbors, acquaintances (and even her friends!) is that your average Briton, like your average, no-better-than-he-should-be citizen anywhere, resents being dragged into, as he sees it, someone else’s quarrel. In other words, blame these new “troubles” on the mere existence of that sh*tty little country and its American protector.

The sentiment, if not the logic, is perhaps understandable. A red-headed Irish American encountered a milder, more innocent version of this kind of weary resentment on his travels through Britain in 1980-81 (”what’s in that bag of yours?”). One can sympathize with that era’s Englishmen who were annoyed that “bloody Irish sods” were “bringin’ all their troubles over ‘ere.”

And we of course have long had our Father Coughlins and other “limey”-bashers who preyed on fenianism and a certain kind of pigheaded midwestern isolationism. Today’s jew-bashing and demonizing of “neo-cons” is perhaps only the European version of the Pat Buchanan/midwestern US/isolationist gripe about Israel having an “amen corner” in the White House. Combine that with the British/European media’s ridiculous bleating about how BusHitlerAshcroft have transformed the US into a theocratic police state, and you get paranoia of the sort that greets Ms Gould and many other American expats in London these days.

But there’s another explanation, one suggested by both Mark Steyn, whose Telegraph opinion piece was spiked, and Dr Anthony Daniels, whose opinion piece on Britain’s disgraceful reaction to the Bigley affair was in fact printed: Blair’s Britain is increasingly a morally decadent nation incapable of summoning a proper emotional and intellectual response to this war.

A nation that heaps up teddy bears for the whimpering victim of fascist monsters while heaping scorn on those who would seek to destroy that fascist scourge. No other word for it but decadence.

Oct 12, 2004 - 11:51 am 23. pothos:

Gould writes of her concern in terms of “recent months”! I lived in London in the run-up to the war in Iraq and was not infrequently verbally assaulted on city buses (advice to Yanks – keep your mouths shut on buses or be prepared).

But nothing I experienced in London was as bad as the treatment received from Dubliners in the run-up to the war in Afghanistan, only weeks after 9/11/01. And who knows anything about THAT? (Just keep those US Congress-blessed pork gifts coming, so says the auld sod; c.f. CAGW).

The wonderful “post-9/11 sympathy” is a myth we tell ourslves about Europe (”Old Europe”, excuse me), promulgated by the MSM and repeated ad infinitum even by the likes of O’Reilly and Hannity (useful fools nonetheless). One day a proper history of post-9/11 European attitudes will be known to all, at least for those Americans who don’t frequent the regular and since-9/11-alarming Eurobarometer polls. “Recently” my ass.

For the time being – for this election anyway – just keep repeating the mantra: “sympathy squandered, sympathy squandered…”

Signed, Soured ex-pat, ex-Democrat Yank.

Oct 12, 2004 - 11:55 am 24. gb_in_ga:

Thibaud:

I hate to say it, and I sure wouldn’t wish it on them or anybody else (civilized, that is), but I’m of the impression that the only thing that will shake then out of that decadent mindset that you cite is for them to have their own 9-11. A wake-up call, if you will. They (and the rest of the world) seriously need to get serious about this, and I’m afraid that it will require something catastrophic to do it. Like Bali to the Ausies. Something so horrible that the rank and file rises up and tells the leftist-elitists to shove it.

We needed that and got it 12-7. We needed that and got it 9-11. Why can’t they learn from us?

Oct 12, 2004 - 12:03 pm 25. thibaud:

A good summary of the current moral state of Britain– two opinion pieces on Britain’s disgraceful reaction to the Bigley captivity and beheading:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/10/10/do1002.xml

Our reaction to Mr Bigley’s death is immature, dishonest and decadent

By Dr Anthony Daniels (Filed: 10/10/2004)

It goes without saying that Mr Bigley’s days of agony and terror were such as no human being ought ever to endure. It goes without saying that sympathy is due to his family, especially to his aged mother.

However, what goes without saying ought to go unsaid. The very fact that we so often seem compelled nowadays to spell out the obvious, by means of public gestures and protestations, by breast-beating and generalised mawkishness, suggests that, far from having deep feelings for one another, we live in a world without any genuine feeling. Mawkishness is the tribute that indifference pays to solidarity.

…Thousands of people, in effect, will work themselves up into a state of grief. But it will only count as true or real grief if they express it in public.

Leaving aside the question as to whether maximum public effect is precisely what the killers of Mr Bigley are aiming for, and that therefore each flower laid (other than by his family and friends), and each teddy bear bought, is a triumph and encouragement for them, what does this outpouring of imitation-emotion tell us about ourselves and the condition that we are in?

…What was done to Mr Bigley was not wrong, nor was it even made worse, because he might have been an exceptionally good man; it was wrong because it was barbaric, because no one should be treated in this fashion, and it would have been wrong to do so even if Mr Bigley had been a very bad man.

To dwell on his good qualities in public is therefore not merely beside the point and grossly sentimental, it is morally very wrong: for it is to imply that, had he been (for example) a drunken embezzler, it might have been morally justified to treat him in such a way. He was an innocent man, we were told ad nauseam: if he had been guilty, then, should he have had his head sawn off with a knife by a group of heartless psychopaths?

… What kind of population … would fail to understand that the holder of one of the great offices of state such as Jack Straw’s cannot, or at least ought not to, devote himself to futile gestures of ersatz emotional support for a single grieving family?

What kind of population fails to understand that the policy of the country, whether it be right or wrong, cannot be determined by the fate of one man, however horrible that fate might be? And this is so, irrespective of one’s view of the Iraq war.

The politics of the individual case is the politics of gusts of intense but shallow emotion. It is incompatible with the rational pursuit of long-term interests. There are several words to describe such a politics: immature, dishonest and decadent would do.

Oct 12, 2004 - 12:08 pm 26. thibaud:

And the Mark Steyn column that was spiked– much more raw, perhaps insensitive in places (esp the Billy Connolly comment), but emotionally true, which is much more than can be said of the disgusting and bogus national “grief” for expat Bigley:

http://www.steynonline.com/index2.cfm?edit_id=22

Excerpts:

Had his killers ìjust got on with itî, they would have decapitated Mr Bigley as swiftly as they did his two American confreres. But, sensing that there was political advantage to be gained in distinguishing the British subject from his fellow hostages, they didnít get on with it, and the intervening weeks reflected poorly on both Britain and Mr Bigley.

None of us can know for certain how we would behave in his circumstances, and very few of us will ever face them. But, if I had to choose in advance the very last words Iíd utter in this life, ìTony Blair has not done enough for meî would not be high up on the list….

Paul Bigley can be forgiven his clumsiness: heís a freelancer winging it. But the feelers put out by the Foreign Office to Ken Bigleyís captors are more disturbing: by definition, they confer respectability on the head-hackers and increase the likelihood that Britons and other infidels will be seized and decapitated in the future. The United Kingdom, like the government of the Philippines when it allegedly paid a ransom for the release of its Iraqi hostages, is thus assisting in the mainstreaming of jihad.

By contrast with the Fleet Street-Scouser-Whitehall fiasco of the last three weeks, consider Fabrizio Quattrocchi, murdered in Iraq on April 14th. In the moment before his death, he yanked off his hood and cried defiantly, ìI will show you how an Italian dies!î He ruined the movie for his killers. As a snuff video and recruitment tool, it was all but useless, so much so that the Arabic TV stations declined to show it.

If the FCO wants to issue advice in this area, thatís the way to go: If youíre kidnapped, accept youíre unlikely to survive, say ìIíll show you how an Englishman diesî, and wreck the video.

If they want you to confess youíre a spy, make a little mischief: there are jihadi from Britain, Italy, France, Canada and other western nations all over Iraq ñ so say yes, youíre an MI6 agent, and so are those Muslims from Tipton and Luton who recently joined the al-Qaeda cells in Samarra and Ramadi.

As Churchill recommended in a less timorous Britain: You can always take one with you. If Mr Blair and other government officials were to make that plain, it would be, to use Mr Bigleyís word, ìenoughî. A war cannot be subordinate to the fate of any individual caught up in it.

Oct 12, 2004 - 12:13 pm 27. Terrye:

pothos:

I know that sympathy squandered thing was nonsense. About a week after 9/11 the Guardian ran a piece entitled ” A Bully wiht a Bloody Nose is still a Bully” or something like that.

One thing about it they have done Bush a favor.

Thibauld:

I would hope I would die like the Italian. I, too have found the response of the British public in attacking Blair rather than the madman with the knife at that poor man’s throat is weird. Something is wrong there. At least they did not react like Kos when the America men were killed in Fallujah and say ” Screw ‘em”.

What is with the left? Are they incapable of appropraite behavior?

Oct 12, 2004 - 12:14 pm 28. gb_in_ga:

Matt Ward:

One other thing: While I agree with your observation that it mainly seems associated with the urbanite Bo-Bo’s, I don’t think that the 9-11 terror association holds. Why? Well, my observations all happened just BEFORE 9-11. The terrrorism thing wasn’t happening yet, and yet the Bo-Bo anti-American HateFest was already in full swing.

They were just harping on other things anti-American, in particular the Kyoto thing. 9-11 and the WOT just gave them something else to rant about.

Oct 12, 2004 - 12:17 pm 29. thibaud:

Strange to see such unseemly and morally confused behavior from Mrs. Miniver’s homeland. But then, nobody in Britain still remembers Mrs. Miniver, who was displaced long ago by the archetype of a mawkish, bogus “People’s Princess.”

Thank God for the Aussies.

Oct 12, 2004 - 12:17 pm 30. Occam's Beard:

Roger,

From my experience of living in England for many years (although not recently), I find Gould’s article implausible as being contrary to the run of British character.

Furthermore, her article is more than a little overwrought (e.g., her relief at being able to wear a lapel flag without “fearing for her life” – please). She strikes me as to some extent savoring her victimhood, and therefore as a bit neurotic.

I would dismiss her out of hand but for pothos’s comments above, which are more measured and give me pause for thought, but I would be loath to take Gould’s perspective seriously without further substantiation.

Oct 12, 2004 - 12:19 pm 31. Skookumchuk:

gb_in_ga:

I don’t know where the German guy was from, but the truly vile thing was how normal he seemed until that moment.

Roger:

Great, so now it’s the Wehrmacht.

OK, how many American WW2 war dead are buried in Europe – 90,000 or so?

It shouldn’t be that difficult to find a picturesque spot in the Shenandoah Valley or the Bitterroot Mountains or someplace, right?

Oct 12, 2004 - 12:21 pm 32. thibaud:

Imagine how the jihadists must be interpreting Bigley’s dying words: ìTony Blair has not done enough for meî.

Anyone think the jihadists hearing that whimper are likely to be discouraged and dissuaded from further attacks?

Osama contrasted the “strong horse” and the “weak horse”, and said the muslim population of the world would place its bet on the strong horse. Little did he imagine a whinnying, pitifully cowering old nag.

Oct 12, 2004 - 12:22 pm 33. thibaud:

Occam,

We can proffer anecdotal evidence all day long. But if you’re addressing the larger subject, the more important one of whether the British people are inclined to make valid moral distinctions in this war and act courageously on the basis of those conclusions, then the recent evidence of the national response to the Bigley affair does not inspire much confidence.

I would point out that Mark Steyn’s opinion piece is simple common sense, and even the right-wing Telegraph found this stuff to be too strong for Britain’s exquisite sensitivities.

What kind of a nation is it that can pour out an ocean of tears and heap up hills of teddy bears for a coward like Bigley while demonizing brave Israeli victims of terror?

Oct 12, 2004 - 12:30 pm 34. gb_in_ga:

Occam’s Beard:

I sympathize with your understandable skepicism, being quite the skeptic myself. I assure you that I am not making up the incident I cite, and I am not exagerating when I relate it. I would testify to it in court, under oath. You can take this as the gospel truth, in other words.

It served as a wake-up call for me, and having experienced it first hand I now find similar claims to be not at all far-fetched.

And to think that these were all reasonably well educated and affluent people — not ignorant louts, but seemingly intelligent folks. The sort who I would have assumed would be amenable to reasoned and reasonable discussion. That was NOT the case.

Oct 12, 2004 - 12:38 pm 35. gb_in_ga:

Skookumchuk:

I know of an area in the high mountains along the northern Tenn/N.C. border where there are a bunch of Christmas tree farms that are barely hanging on — it is really picturesque, and there should be any number of those tree farmers who would be willing to sell out and start over somewhere else. You could certainly do worse!

Oct 12, 2004 - 12:47 pm 36. M. Simon:

There are not enough Jews left in Europe for a good sized progrom.

Ergo – they will be sending the Islamics to the ovens.

You know I was talking to my 85 year old mother yesterday (she came to Rockford for my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah) and you know she said to me several times:

“I’m so glad my parents made the boat.”

Even Mohamed Ali whose ancestors were slaves in America said: I’m so glad my ancestors got on the boat. (even at gun point).

Our ancestors left Europe to leave those old fights behind.

Europe is just reverting to form. Neither they nor the Islamics have left tribalism behind. They will be at each others throats soon because they are overmatched by America and Israel.

Before long America and Israel will be alone in the fight for civilization.

So be it.

Oct 12, 2004 - 12:48 pm 37. Alan J.:

Ms Goulds account of her own experiences may accurate; but I would argue that they represent only a tiny minority of British opinion. I’ve traveled to England several times, both on business and vacation, and have never seen anything like she describes. I would say that using her experiences to judge all of England would be just as unfair as saying the opinions found on Democratic Underground represent the opinions of the entire blogosphere. And if she was invited to dinner just to be an object of abuse, then I’d say that she needs to find new friends.

As for our lack of American culture, would that be the culture of freedom of choice that they so despise? Is it the culture of whether or not to wear blue jeans, have a Starbucks coffee, eat at a fast food joint whenever you feel like it, or enjoy a Hollywood movie? If so, then why are these things so popular over there?

Oct 12, 2004 - 12:48 pm 38. gb_in_ga:

M. Simon:

I, for one, still have high hopes for a few others, namely the Aussies.

I fear that the majority of Europe are already write-offs, for the reasons you cite. Some, like that Italian, still give pause for hope, however.

Oct 12, 2004 - 12:55 pm 39. thibaud:

Alan J.,

I would say that using her experiences to judge all of England would be just as unfair as saying the opinions found on Democratic Underground represent the opinions of the entire blogosphere

A fair point, but a good gauge of opinion is the reaction of British citizens to the Bigley beheading.

Imagine that an American captive had whined, just before being slaughtered, that “George Bush has not done enough for me.” Do you think that most Americans– not DUers, not right-of-center blog readers, but the great quiet majority of average, apolitical Americans– would view such words with sympathy or with scorn?

Oct 12, 2004 - 12:57 pm 40. Rick Ballard:

Before getting too jacked up on Londoner’s behavior I suppose one might wear a big BC 04 button around Manhattan for a while. Maybe add a yarmulke if you want a double check. What do you imagine you would hear? London is about as blue as Manhattan. I want to hear tales like this coming from the Cotswolds or the Lake district prior revising my opinion of the Brits in general. I can name at least five rather large cities in the US where wearing a BC 04 button will get you treated worse than than Ms. Gould or the other American lady were treated. Hang around enough dogs and you’re going to pick up some fleas.

Oct 12, 2004 - 1:07 pm 41. Hylas:

The real source of this kind of thing is the fashionable soft-core leftism that you see on NPR or the BBC. Itís not a serious assessment of the complex problems facing the world. Itís merely politics as a fashion accessory. Itís also a badge of class distinction, setting you above the dumb redneck. Knowledge of the correct opinion shows how enlightened and caring and progressive you are makes you a member of group. A few people really believe they are a ìvanguard eliteî that will bring justice to the world, but most are just going along with it to be accepted. I think everyone here knows the type of person Iím talking about. Youíll find a lot of them in college towns and among urban professionals.

Unfortunately, most people are more interested in displaying loyalty to their political tribe than in thinking for themselves. Thinking your own thoughts might cause awkward moments at dinner parties. It might even get you ostracized. Itís better to parrot the proper shibboleths.

Itís a big mistake to argue with this kind of person as if their opinions were rationally derived beliefs about the world. Merciless sardonic derision can work wonders though.

It short-circuits the whole emotional social/dynamic behind their behavior.

And itís also fun.

Oct 12, 2004 - 1:09 pm 42. thibaud:

What Hylas said. Politics is the pseudo-intellectual’s equivalent of sports.

Oct 12, 2004 - 1:11 pm 43. TedM:

I will throw in my two cents worth.

Just got back from a week in London visiting my son who is there permanently. He wears an American flag lapel pin.

We were walking on Notting Hill Gate, when I (70years Old) was banged into by someone as he passed us. We walked on a few feet and turned around. As usual, I said “sorry” because that is what you do. There stood this Arab glaring at us. He started shouting and came towards us. Words were exchanged between him and my son. This guys parting words, looking at my son’s American flag were “God Bless America, Fuck you, Go Home.” I was a little shook up being accosted like that. My son, who is no coward, ( I had to pull him away from the Arab} told me he gets a lot of that “go home” stuff.

Just another small tale from the streets of London.

Oct 12, 2004 - 1:12 pm 44. Blue State Conservative:

It seems like an exageration to me.

However, I will be in france on vacation on Election Day. I will let you know what happens.

(My wife made me promise not tp wear a tee shirt that says “Kiss my hairy American ass” if Bush wins — though I am convinced Kerry will win).

Oct 12, 2004 - 1:14 pm 45. Occam's Beard:

thibaud,

True, the only firsthand evidence I can adduce is anecdotal, but of course the topic was Gould’s anecdotal evidence, so proferring anecdotes in rebuttal is not entirely inappropriate.

As for the ability of the Brits to draw valid moral distinctions and act courageously, I would submit that they are probably pretty much like us, namely, some can, and some can’t. In the converse situation, how difficult would it be, if one were inclined to do so (say, for journalistic purposes), to find Americans blubbing pathetically while tying those misbegotten and seemingly ubiquitous yellow ribbons around every stationary object?

My point is that both populations almost certainly have normal distributions of opinions, and that those on the fringe – i.e., the most newsworthy – provide an unreliable basis for gauging the views of the society as a whole. For example, a foreigner so inclined could argue that America was on the verge of civil war in the runup to the election because of the examples of politically-motivated intimidation (both real and feared) discussed here and elsewhere. We all know that these are isolated, sporadic outbreaks of minimal wider significance, but with selective and suitably melodramatic recounting they could be made to sound ominous.

The Steyn column is a bit raw for British sensibilities, not for the reasons Americans might think (i.e., its political content), but for ones I find difficult to convey. The piece is graphic in its imagery, brutal in its language, critical of the victim and his family, and would be exquisitely painful for the family to read. For these reasons many Brits would likely find it repellent, even if they agreed with the sentiments expressed in it. It says in direct, unambiguous language things that most Brits would express, if at all, in a more elliptical fashion more reminiscent of the Japanese than the Americans. (PeterUK can offer a (necessarily) more informed opinion on this.)

I’m not criticizing the piece, just pointing out why the editors of the Telegraph may have chosen not to run it.

Oct 12, 2004 - 1:16 pm 46. gb_in_ga:

Rick Ballard:

Ok, didn’t know what it meant so I Googled what the term “Cotswolds” was, and from what I could tell you are talking about a region in England that resembles, to a certain extent, what I had seen in Ontario on my visit. As I observed when there, it wasn’t the people in places like that who seemed to be the obnoxious ones. It was the urban ones, visitors from the larger Canadian metros and the Euros (who I supposed to be urban as well), who were the negative ones.

Yes, I’m sure that you could find any number of cities in the U.S. where you couldn’t sport a “BC ‘04″ button without getting the treatment. Hey, there’s a good sized chunk of Atlanta that is like that. Just not the part I’m in (on purpose, I might add). I just recognize that these sort exist and know where they congregate and am able to avoid them. No point getting into pointless squabbles, they aren’t listening to me, and I’m not to them. No point throwing pearls before swine.

Oct 12, 2004 - 1:19 pm 47. gb_in_ga:

Hylas:

In retrospect, that’s exactly what I should have done. Too bad my predisposition towards Southern Hospitality and Gentility got the better of me.

I’ll know better next time, if there ever is one.

Oct 12, 2004 - 1:25 pm 48. Old Dad:

More anecdotal speculation. I’ve travelled modestly and found that most Europeans like America and Americans, especially our money and our stuff.

Blatant antisemitism is much more common in Europe than in the states. Age old hatreds die very hard.

No reasonable foreign policy can be founded on popularity. I promise you that when and if the proverbial sh*t hits the fan in Old Europe–a couple more Madrids or Beslans, or God forbid worse–that Old Europe will once again love our money and our military might. It’s not important that the Europeans like us or love us or fear us. It’s only important that we maintian the unilateral capability to protect and further our national interest. Old Europe ceded this responsibility and, I dread, they will pay dearly.

Would it be nice to be loved in Paris? I guess. The food’s good.

Oct 12, 2004 - 1:25 pm 49. Adrianne Truett:

What Rick Ballard said, and what TedM said, fits with my personal experience living in and visiting other countries. Incidentally, when I was living in Germany, I found that the former West Germans were much more anti-American (although partly because they found us prudes!) and anti-religion than the former East Germans, and that’s in small-town West Germany (villages near Braunschweig, for those who know) and urban East Germany (Potsdam). The East Germans knew the value of what they had, because they’d been without it. Then again, they also generally agreed that socialism was much less stress-inducing than capitalism

I left England in 1996, and have only been back for visits every year or two, so I have not experienced the same things as Ms. Gould, but I’ve heard enough personal anecdotes from friends who stayed on, that I believe that everything she writes about may very well have happened. If she didn’t write so expressively, it might sound more believable, perhaps? And I can’t say anything about the likelihood of it all happening around her, but no individual incident seems unbelievable to me. No, it wouldn’t be overly likely to happen in the Lake District, but that does seem to be the mood of the cities.

Oct 12, 2004 - 1:28 pm 50. gb_in_ga:

Old Dad:

I wouldn’t know about the food in Paris, but the food is good in New Orleans and that’s a whole lot closer and safer.

Oct 12, 2004 - 1:31 pm 51. Adrianne Truett:

Meant to add: I had a delightful time in Paris this summer. Everyone was welcoming and friendly. Perhaps because my English sounded broken (I’d been speaking largely Tamil for months), or perhaps because of a government campaign I’d heard rumors of, in which they apparently tried to convince Parisians that, whatever they might actually think of the foreigners, their money is useful, so it’s in their best interest to be nice to tourists!

Oct 12, 2004 - 1:32 pm 52. gb_in_ga:

Adrianne:

I was in Aschaffenburg in the ’70’s and didn’t encounter it. But again, that was pre-reunification and over 20 years ago. And Aschaffenburg is on the northern edge of Bavaria, which tends to be quite a bit more conservative and less anti-American than most other parts, as I have heard. I could be wrong about that now; it has, after all, been a while since I was there.

Oct 12, 2004 - 1:35 pm 53. Occam's Beard:

Imagine that an American captive had whined, just before being slaughtered, that “George Bush has not done enough for me.” Do you think that most Americans– not DUers, not right-of-center blog readers, but the great quiet majority of average, apolitical Americans– would view such words with sympathy or with scorn?

Thibaud,

It’s funny, but I was just about to describe the same scenario, but with the opposite conclusion!

Do you really think most Americans, citizens of the land of Oprah, of Dr. Phil, of “closure,” and of yellow ribbons, would evince the intellectual toughness to react with scorn to such bleating?

I’d like to believe that, but find it difficult. (I suspect the collective reaction would be to want to give the victim a hug.) If anything, Americans are more mawkish than Brits, in my experience.

Oct 12, 2004 - 1:36 pm 54. Alan J.:

Thibaud,

What would the average American think if an American captives last words, just before being meekly slaughtered by his terrorist kidnappers were that “George Bush has not done enough for me.”

I think that most other Americans would have sympathy for his family and contempt for his last words. For those are the words of a coward that cringes behind the protection of rough men who stand up and fight for civilization.

If I were killed by terrorists, then instead of a memorial made of flowers and Teddy Bears, I would want a memorial of flowers, shotgun shells and bullets. Flowers to comfort my wife, and bullets as a promise to the terrorists that this is what they have sown and have coming back to them. And I would hope that I went out fighting and took at least one of the $#@!% with me.

Oct 12, 2004 - 1:37 pm 55. gb_in_ga:

Occam’s Beard:

I suppose that it would depend on where you were in America. Back home in Texas? Where we remember the Alamo? Yep, that toughness is most certainly there. Elsewhere in the South? Yep, I’d say they do, too. Elsewhere? I’d say that you’d be right on the Left Coast, and up there in the Northeast. The Midwest? I don’t know.

Oct 12, 2004 - 1:43 pm 56. gb_in_ga:

Alan J.

Yep, that’s about what I would expect, at least from the people that I know. And that’s about what I would want. Suitable mourning, and then a steely resolve.

Oct 12, 2004 - 1:48 pm 57. Occam's Beard:

gb_in_ga,

Thanks for cheering me up – I mean it.

Sometimes I think the whole country has gone soft in the head.

Oct 12, 2004 - 1:51 pm 58. thibaud:

Occam,

I doubt you’re right. Dr Laura’s almost as popular as Dr Phil. Many of Oprah’s watchers are security moms. A much better way to get at this question is to ask whether more Americans support and are comfortable with, or oppose/are uncomfortable with, the values and culture of the military?

By this I mean “honor before death,” the willingness to serve and carry out superiors’ commands, a general willingness to take casualties in order to defeat bullies, etc.

I believe that outside the college towns and the bicoastal left-lib enclaves, this nation retains a strong attachment to these values. Certainly across the south and the west, and probably also in most blue-collar towns in the midwest and northeast.

Oct 12, 2004 - 2:01 pm 59. Clio:

I’m a bit disturbed by the suggestion that Ms Gould’s account is either exaggerated or an outright lie. Based on what, I wonder? I mean, I know nothing at all about her or her life, therefore have no basis by which to judge her story, apart from my own experiences in the UK and elsewhere. But we accept the validity of other strangers on a daily basis. So why question her in particular? Because we want to disbelieve it?

My story: I happened to be living in the UK in the mid-80s, as a student. While I was there, Reagan bombed Tripoli, in retaliation for one of Gaddafi’s more outrageous provocations of us. For months thereafter I remember getting near daily insults–though I shrugged them off fairly easily, being a thick-skinned New Yorker. The fact is, whether from the lips of complete strangers or dear friends, it is outrageous to have to endure verbal abuse, but it is something we Americans have suffered FOREVER. Kerry’s election would change nothing.

My own sense from a wide variety of sources close to me is that Europeans have become staggeringly toxic toward Americans just over the past 12 months. Now there appears to be no evil that exists in the world for which we are not individually and collectively responsible. And it is not just the UK–family members have been borderline abused in Germany, Austria, France–you name it.

I believe her. That should be the default position.

Oct 12, 2004 - 2:02 pm 60. Old Dad:

gb_in_ga

Small correction, the food is great in New Orleans, but there is the language barrier;)

You’ve reminded me of a Louisiana story apropos terrorism. Years ago I was consulting with an agricultural chemical company about an ad campaign they were considering. Part of my job was to do focus groups with cotton growers.

My first one happened to be on the Louisiana side of the delta. One of the questions made me extremely nervous, but they were paying me to ask it, and so I did. Believe it or not, I asked a group of 8 Louisiana cotton growers to describe “what kind of animal” they were. The room was deadly silent until one of the growers, in a very thick cajun accent, said: “Son, if you ask that again you’ll end up dead in a swamp with a log chain around your neck.” No one laughed even though I was pretty sure he was kidding, but not sure enough. I never asked it again.

Moral: send the terrorist to Louisiana. The good folks know precisely what to do.

Oct 12, 2004 - 2:07 pm 61. Occam's Beard:

thibaud,

I certainly hope you and gb are correct.

Your comment and gb’s were making me feel better until I saw that major league baseball pulled a t-shirt because of concerns that some “fans [...] didn’t necessarily feel they were comfortable with the T-shirt and the message on it.”

Feel they were comfortable???

Now I’m worried about us going soft in the head again.

Oct 12, 2004 - 2:11 pm 62. thibaud:

Clio,

For months thereafter I remember getting near daily insults–though I shrugged them off fairly easily, being a thick-skinned New Yorker

As a Brit might say, Good on you. About time that all Americans developed such a thick skin. The fact remains that, for years to come, the larger, global war we’re engaged in will be deeply unpopular with large numbers of Europeans of both good and ill will. Our hurt feelings at not being “popular”, or having to endure some unpleasantness on a vacation, are trivial in comparison to the stakes involved in this war. Absolutely trivial.

For what it’s worth, I travel to my company’s Paris HQ occasionally and have never encountered serious abuse or even unpleasantness from either my European colleagues or from the Parisians. If asked about he war I’ll state my views forthrightly without any hesitation or apology.

I take the long view, and agree with Osama on one crucial point: “when asked to choose between a strong horse and a weak horse, people will choose the strong horse.” Best to stick with Strength and Honor, as the Romans used to say.

Oct 12, 2004 - 2:14 pm 63. gb_in_ga:

Old Dad:

I know exactly of what you speak. I’m from Houston, which I consider to be on the western edge of “Greater Cajun-dom” — there were Cajuns, “native” ones, where I grew up. I know all about them. I lived in the Greater New Orleans area — on the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain — for 3 years before moving here to the Atlanta area. I know all about ‘em. And I didn’t really have any big problem with the language or the culture. Well, I guess because I’d been exposed to it from an early age.

And whatever else you have to say about New Orleans, you’ve got to hand it to them about their cooking! Well, we had this little-bitty problem, and that is that my wife is deathly allergic to all forms of seafood (literally, anaphylaxia: fatal if not immediately treated), so that really cut down on our dining possibilities. I mean, they manage to sneak it into just about everything! It’s one big reason we eventually moved.

Oct 12, 2004 - 2:19 pm 64. thibaud:

Occam,

I’m willing to bet that you do not live in the South or West, or within 100 miles of a military base.

I’m not religious, in fact don’t believe in god at all, but I’m deeply grateful that this nation has preserved a strong martial culture and with it an aversion to left-lib cultural self-hate.

That’s reason enough for me to believe our civilization’s triumph is assured. Eurabia’s another story, though. Not clear at all that theirs will.

Oct 12, 2004 - 2:19 pm 65. gb_in_ga:

Occam’s Beard:

Look at it: Red Sox fans were upset. Now, just who are these fans, and where are they from? Boston? I rest my case.

Oct 12, 2004 - 2:23 pm 66. Terrye:

Old Dad:

I also recommend sending them to the hills and hollers of southern Indiana. No more terrorist problem.

Speaking of Louisiana: I talked to a young man from California that spent less than a day in New Orleans. He said he heard the “N” word and was so aghast he left. He had never heard it in his life in CA.

I laughed at him of course.

The point is personal experience can relate a story but it is subjective.

I will say this, if the kind of behavior depicted in this lady’s article is common then someone raised these people badly. I grew up in southern Oklahoma. We would no more have spoken to a visitor like that than sat ourselves on fire. It was a sign of bad bringing up.

I would say if the average Europeans is so bad mannered and so stupid that they dont know any better than to harass an old lady tourist on a bus then they are not worth the effort of messing with.

Oct 12, 2004 - 2:23 pm 67. PeterUK:

Occam’s Beard.

In my opinion,having read the article,Steyn’s metaphor was a bit too strong for Liverpudlian sensibilities.This is probably the wrong comment at the wrong time,

“entire city of Liverpool going into a week of Dianysian emotional masturbation over some deceased prodigal son with no inclination to return whom none of the massed ranks of weeping Scousers from the Lord Mayor down had ever known”.

Anthony Daniels made the same point in the Sunday Telegraph but it was less of a sockfull of diarrhoea round the ear than Steyn.

As for the British becoming emotionally incontinent, this has spread from your country via television and encouraged by the MSM,all life is a now soap “oprah” to elements of the population.

This tragedy was reduced to a macabre game show,”I’m a Hostage,Get met out of Here” by the media in a effort to glean the last drops of emotionalism from the event.But there are some 60 million of us and you would be surprised how many of us are stoical and do not subscribe to the Peoples Princess,let it all hang out philosphy.By the way many of those teddy bears and flowers were left by foreigners.

The Bigley murder was also siezed by the Stop the War Coalition to beat Tony Blair with.

London is probably one of the most racially diverse cities on the planet,I’m amazed anyone can find a Londoner to be insulted by,another point is we British do not talk to each other on public transport.

Oct 12, 2004 - 2:27 pm 68. thibaud:

Occam,

The [Steyn] piece is graphic in its imagery, brutal in its language, critical of the victim and his family, and would be exquisitely painful for the family to read. For these reasons many Brits would likely find it repellent, even if they agreed with the sentiments expressed in it. It says in direct, unambiguous language things that most Brits would express, if at all, in a more elliptical fashion more reminiscent of the Japanese than the Americans.

Not so re the language. The language used by the UK press– not just the tabloids– is far more lurid, punchier, and frankly more violent than that used by our own mealy-mouthed MSM.

But you’re right about the absence of sympathy for the man’s family. The Anthony Daniels piece I linked to was more sanitized but nearly as scathing: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/10/10/do1002.xml

Oct 12, 2004 - 2:32 pm 69. Old Dad:

Terrye:

I’m a Hoosier born and bred, and you’re spot on. Once as a kid I was hiking near Martinsville and stumbled on a shack in the middle of nowhere. The gentleman on the porch was armed and advised me that I was on his property. I apologized and skedaddled. Would he have shot me? Absolutely. Probably with rock salt, but you never know. I’ve still got some scars on my backside from a pig farmer who didn’t appreciate that I was on his place uninvited–never mind why. That salt burnt and stung for quite a while.

I can attest with great certainty that there are still many many places in the United States of America where you can get you *ss whupped if you’d like, places where Anti-Americanism will get you hurt, maybe even killed.

Oct 12, 2004 - 2:36 pm 70. gb_in_ga:

Terrye:

The “N” word in New Orleans:

It was used like back in Houston or here in Atlanta: Respectiable people — whites that is — never use it anymore, it just isn’t done. The lower class yokels use it, but they are the knuckle draggers. The group most likely to use it are the blacks themselves. Go Figure.

Southern Oklahoma:

Although we’d be ashamed to admit it, but that’s close enough to Texas that for all practical purposes you are talking about the same people. There’s a whole lot more in common than not. So, I know exactly what you are talking about, we use the same exact expressions. They do here in ‘Lanta, and they do in Tenn, too: “Didn’t your Mama teach you no manners?”. I know you’ve heard it before. IIRC the Russians have a similar thing, it means “Uncultured”.

Oct 12, 2004 - 2:42 pm 71. thibaud:

What Old Dad said. And thank our lucky stars for the Electoral College that still gives an edge to the martial-culture states of the South and West.

Oct 12, 2004 - 2:42 pm 72. Percy Dovetonsils:

I talked to a young man from California that spent less than a day in New Orleans. He said he heard the “N” word and was so aghast he left. He had never heard it in his life in CA.

Amazing – someone who’s never heard any rap “music.”

I promise you that when and if the proverbial sh*t hits the fan in Old Europe–a couple more Madrids or Beslans, or God forbid worse–that Old Europe will once again love our money and our military might.

Yes, but will we offer to help? I think Americans are still pro-Aussie, and (for now) pro-Brit, but if Old Europe asked for assistance? Many would tell them to go stuff themselves.

Oct 12, 2004 - 2:48 pm 73. gb_in_ga:

Thibaud:

Roger that.

Oct 12, 2004 - 2:49 pm 74. gb_in_ga:

Percy Dovetonsils:

“I think Americans are still pro-Aussie, and (for now) pro-Brit, but if Old Europe asked for assistance? Many would tell them to go stuff themselves.”

I can’t speak for everyone here, of course, but that’s my sentiment exactly.

And I served in the Army over there in Germany (old Europe) for 2 1/2 years. Before things really went downhill. Now? I’d say “Tuff, you spit in our eye, go fight your own war.”

Oct 12, 2004 - 2:53 pm 75. thibaud:

Before I offered assistance to the Euros I’d refer them to the Israelis.

“These folks have a first-rate military, they’re closer to you, and they can teach you a few things about honor and self-defense…”

Oct 12, 2004 - 2:59 pm 76. Terrye:

Old Dad:

I know Martinsville well. Indpls has just about eaten it.

But there are still plenty of red necks. Not a place to be taking pictures of school houses if you like even kinda Arab.

Oct 12, 2004 - 2:59 pm 77. Terrye:

gb:

My folks were born in Konowa, Oklahoma. Today I have relatives from OKC to Dallas, Texas.

And it is hard to tell the difference until it comes to football.

And then look out.

Oct 12, 2004 - 3:02 pm 78. Pat Curley:

I suspect the anti-semitism and anti-Americanism is mostly leftism operating from the old “oppressor/oppressed” model, with the Palestinians in the role of the oppressed. The US is hated because the success of our unrestrained capitalism is placing pressure on the statist model of the Europeans.

I absolutely find the article believable. One thing that has not been touched on much here is that Ms Gould’s experience is not the one of every American in London; she is after all Jewish and her name is recognizable as such to those who care about such things. Plus she apparently hangs around with the artsy crowd which in Europe is even more fashionably left than the US.

Oct 12, 2004 - 3:14 pm 79. Occam's Beard:

Clio,

I’m a bit disturbed by the suggestion that Ms Gould’s account is either exaggerated or an outright lie. Based on what, I wonder? I mean, I know nothing at all about her or her life, therefore have no basis by which to judge her story, apart from my own experiences in the UK and elsewhere. But we accept the validity of other strangers on a daily basis. So why question her in particular? Because we want to disbelieve it?

I thought I’d made the basis of my own scepticism, at least, clear.

The language of the article is overwrought (e.g., the “fearing for her life” bit), and exudes more than a whiff of victimhood/paranoia. It conveys a sense of Gould as an outsider facing an array of hostile insiders united in their opposition to her. The article provides no balance, no mention of anyone who does not share in the collective antagonism towards her. Not a single person she knows supports her? Hmmm.

She supplements anecdotes of anti-Semitic comments with gratuitous allusions to anti-Semitism when none apparently took place (e.g., the third paragraph: “resembled a verbal assault by a brownshirt against a hapless Jewish pedestrian in 1933″ ñ whoa! Where did THAT come from? Her anecdote has nothing to do with Jews, but she apparently decided to throw that in for good measure.)

Furthermore, we have only her characterization of events, which is heavily larded with conclusory evaluations of others’ behavior (examples: “abuse,” “attacked,” “abject fear and loathing;” “abusive tirade;” “tirade,” “verbal assault,” “screamed;” “lambasted, intimidated and mocked”, another gratuitous attribution of anti-Semitism: “Now I know what the Jews felt like in pre-war Germany.í”; “red-faced screeching”; “ugly, strident and deeply uncivil crowd,” “fury,” “rage,” “snarled”). Intemperate? Just a tad.

Perhaps the most telling sentence is this, from the sixth paragraph:

(Remember what it was like being surrounded in the school playground at recess by all the bullies?)

(No, actually, I don’t. That never happened to me. But never mind.) This quote alone, which bespeaks victimhood writ large, makes me suspect she is in need of some serious couch time. Either she did have that happen, in which case she apparently still has issues arising from it, or it didn’t happen outside of her own mind, in which case she definitely needs couch time.

Moreover, on a personal note, her tale of woe does not square well with my experience in the UK.

So, scepticism would seem to be in order. Did some such incidents occur? Probably. Has she exaggerated them? Probably. Has she exaggerated them beyond all recognition? Possibly. Did she have a hand in generating some of them? Wouldn’t surprise me.

BTW, I certainly do not “accept the validity of other strangers on a daily basis,” but rather weigh their opinions against other available information to determine their plausibility. It’s a perspective I recommend.

Oct 12, 2004 - 3:14 pm 80. gb_in_ga:

Terrye:

Yep. Well, on the football thing, we (my family, that is) would have more in common than you would think. Aggies, all but me and I’m in by family. Hence, we share a common hatred for the t-sippers.

Oct 12, 2004 - 3:23 pm 81. gb_in_ga:

Roger:

Just some observations about the Spanish/Wermacht article:

First, you have to admit that, for good or evil, the Wermacht played an important role in the development of Modern Day Spain. Just look at the Spanish Civil War in ‘36-’39. Just how big of a role did the Wermacht play in that? Big.

Next, just who won that war, and who supported them? The nationalists of Gen. Franco. Socialists. And who are in power there now? Socialists.

I’m not at all surprised, in other words.

Oct 12, 2004 - 3:46 pm 82. Blue State Conservative:

About the whole Wehrmacht thing — I am married to the daughter of a Wehrmacht soldier. There comes a time for reconciliation. And in Spain, that is a big issue, given the divide due to teh Civil War.

As long as the guy was not a war criminal or anything (and he apparently is only a Blue Division veteran), let it rest.

Oct 12, 2004 - 4:00 pm 83. Eric Deamer:

Re: The veracity of the article by Carolyn Gould

I’ve never been to London, so I have no real-life experience to measure it against, but I share some of “Occam’s Beard”’s misgivings based on the tone of the piece itself. I don’t want to “blame the victim” here but we all know that some people are just magnets for controversy. From her writing style, she seemed to be a really high-strung, emotional, nervous lady who I could see getting into a lot of confrontations. She also seemed to have a really pronounced sense of herself as being a victim, as “Occam’s Beard” pointed out, and to have rather overwrought internal reactions to things. Besides that, as other have pointed out she’s a playwright who seems to hang in left-wing circles, which are the main locus of anti-Semitism/anti-Americanism these days. And the lady on the bus? Whatever the content of what she was saying, she was what we call “a crazy person”. They exist in large numbers in all major cities. You just try your best to avoid eye contact.

Anyway, the larger point that anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism are on the rise in Europe and the UK is pretty much inarguable and has been well-documented in many, many accounts which were measured then this one, including the Nidra Poller piece which was linked here and created a big discussion with the author herself. In that case I found everything she said completely credible.

I’ve worn pro-Bush and anti-Kerry stuff in Manhattan and nothing’s ever happened to me. I do have friends that have had people say nasty things to them though, and I probably wouldn’t wear anything like that in say, the East Village.

Re: the “spiked” Steyn piece

I’m not saying a lot of people are talking like this, but I kind of get the idea that some are thinking of this piece not being run as some kind of “chill wind of censorhsip” thing. I think we need to be careful not to be like the left who complains whenever something or the other isn’t published, and acts as if it is somehow related to censorship. The publishers of the Telegraph obviously have the right not to publish one of Steyn’s columns and from the language on his website it seems like they went back-and-forth on a lot of drafts and really tried to publish it. It seems likely that their objection was not to the thesis of the column, i.e. that the reaction of the British public, media, and government to the Bigley kidnapping and murder revealed weaknesses that will only make other Britons in the Middle East less safe, but to his appearing to cast aspersions at the Bigley, his family, and his hometown. Any newspaper, right or left, is going to want to avoid that appearance. They’ve never spiked anything he’s written before, even though he’s routinely called “anti-Muslim” and so forth, so I’m hardly going to call them members of the PC censorship squad just because they didn’t publish this one column. (Again, I’m not really saying that anyone was. I’m tired and hungry here. Please take it easy on me.)

Cheers,

Eric

Oct 12, 2004 - 5:44 pm 84. legion:

I think Ms. Gould described exactly what happened to her in London. I’ve heard too many similar stories by friends and acquaintances, including close family members.

The English have ingested something very foul, and need to get it out of their system. If yanks happen to suffer a bit in the process, that’s just how it happens, sometimes.

Oct 12, 2004 - 6:11 pm 85. PeterUK:

As I have said before,London is an incredibly large and diverse city with a population of nearly eight million,I’m a native and I wouldn’t like to try to put a nationality to people I meet there.Many Foreign English speakers have an American accents,many,especially,Scandinavians and Gemans have impeccable upper middle class English accents.

At times it seems like half the Anglospere is there on holiday.

Just as I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint regional American accents,I bet a pound to a penny that you can’t recognise most of ours,and just to complicate matters remember it was an Arab that told TedM to “Go home”.

So when someone says they were verbally assaulted by someone English,were they English or just speaking English.

By the way Thibaud the Brits are not doing too shabby a job in Basra.

Oct 12, 2004 - 6:41 pm 86. Skookumchuk:

PeterUK:

Yes, indeed. Love the bicycles.

Oct 12, 2004 - 7:49 pm 87. Skookumchuk:

PeterUK:

The bicycles that your guys are riding around on in Basra, I mean. Must be a fairly peaceful place now.

Oct 12, 2004 - 8:00 pm 88. rod:

I posted earlier today in the early afternoon, EST.

Like many, I was alternately stunned, nauseated and angered by the essay. It confirms everything Mark Steyn has said about…..everything.

Reflecting back on the piece, I confess to some serious doubts now. Not Dan Rather document level, but color me a skeptic.

London is one of the more crowded, busy cities in the Western hemisphere. Do you see a shopkeeper standing there in the middle of the day howling Goebbels like anti-semitism at a customer? all the while, implying that he was going to beat the crap out of a woman (!) for even mentioning the word “Israel?”

Pardon me, but if this happened–and I am willing to grant that it did–there are reams more details that want knowing. SHopkeepers name, address and nationality to start–who is she protecting?

If she is calling out a nation that has stood by us at considerable political risk, and that is what she is doing, then she has to move from the apocryphal to the factual on the hop.

I understand that she works in narrative for a living, but as a reporter, after Dan Rather’s escapade, and as an AMerican, with so much on the line, we need to hear from her on this. If she is truthful, she’ll give it up. If She’s a neocon rigoberta menchu, she’s made us look like asses.

I know many here have empathy for her–I do too–but ask yourself this: if this was an essay that slurred the AMerican political identity, that cast us all as Jim Crow war-like thugs…wouldn’t we want some detail to back it up?

Oct 12, 2004 - 8:07 pm 89. unkraut:

For what its worth, I’ve lived and worked in Germany (former East) for over 10 years and have worked and travelled extensively on the Continent and throughout the UK and have never seen anything remotely like the situations that Ms. Gould describes. I have long since stopped believing that Americans are routinely treated badly by Europeans.

My wife and I just returned from a week in Italy and were cordially received everywhere, despite our obvious “Americanness”. The French as well have always been pleasant to deal with.

Many people here ask me about “what America is like”; they seem honestly interested in comparing reality to what they see and read in their media. I am proud of the USA and a great fan of GWB and leave the questioners in no doubt of this. Sometimes my interlocutors express opinions contrary to mine, but I never hear abuse.

As an aside, my German accent and grammar are bad enough that nobody mistakes me for a native European.

Oct 13, 2004 - 12:31 am 90. CoventryKid:

gb_in_ga:

You said “… who won that war, and who supported them? The nationalists of Gen. Franco. Socialists.”

That is completely back to front. The Socialist Party is politically descended from the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War, i.e. the antiFranco side.

I’m no fan of either Falangist Wehrmacht veterans or the Spanish Socialists, but if these old enemies want some form of symbolic reconciliation, I’d incline to give them a pass on this.

Oct 13, 2004 - 3:05 am 91. gb_in_ga:

ConventryKid:

I’ll go do some more digging — I was working off of my seemingly fuzzy memory. One thing that did strike me was that it was one of those conflicts where I’d say that it was too bad that both sides couldn’t lose.

Oct 13, 2004 - 4:32 am 92. gb_in_ga:

CoventryKid:

I stand corrected. I found that Franco was a Fascist. My Bad. I had always understood that war was between the Nazi Backed faction and the Communists. Oh, well. Anyway, I’ve always maintained that it is just too bad that both sides couldn’t lose, and that observation still stands. Both ideologies were (and still are) repugnant.

Oct 13, 2004 - 7:57 am 93. jerry:

gb:

Actually Franco was not a Fascist. He had no politics what so ever. If anything, he was a classic reactionary in the form of a 19th century Caudillo. He ruled with the support of the Phalange. He was not big fan of Hitler and the Nazis and although he expressed some anti-Semitic views he authorized an underground railway like operation to rescue Jews from France. He steadfastly refused to cooperate with Hitler’s war effort and by 1942 had denied the German’s transits rights through Spain. In comparison the Swedes did not stop cooperating with the German Military until after the Ardennes Offensive failed. The Azul Division was formed as much to get the young firebrands out of Spain then it was to cozy up to Hitler.

Oct 13, 2004 - 8:10 am 94. mrp:

I’m sure that most people in Europe are very nice and polite. And I’m sure that all those stories about American students being warned to replace the American flag(s) on their clothing and backpacks with Canadian maple leaf regalia are just made-up tripe.

But then I read accounts from Americans, former and otherwise, that lend credence to Ms. Gould’s observations. Take, for instance, a column by Janet Daley written 14 months after 9/11:

Excerpt:

Who could possibly find it anything other than morally grotesque to bait and taunt people who have just suffered the worst terrorist attack in history – the mass murder of what at the outset was thought might be about 10,000 innocent civilians?

Well, quite a few people as it turned out. Within 48 hours of the attack, a special edition of the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme, Question Time, featured an audience of baiters and tormentors who shrieked incoherent accusations at the former American ambassador, Philip Lader, and slow hand-clapped him when he tried to speak.

I also found, via Google, another Carol Gould op-ed piece, consistent with the original post, and, perhaps, more instructive.

Excerpt:

In the same week, the Jewish writer and scholar Melanie Phillips has also written an important piece of journalism, this appearing in The Jewish Chronicle of 14 December. Phillips, who had been on the panel of the BBCÔøΩs ÔøΩQuestion TimeÔøΩ the week before, had been hissed and booed when she dared talk in an even-handed manner about Israel. (This same programme was at the centre of a controversy on 13 September, when the former Us Ambassador Philip Lader had been a guest, and still reeling from the Pentagon and World Trade centre attacks, had come under a barrage of hateful heckling from a frighteningly hostile studio audience. It is said Lader burst into tears after the show, and the BBC had to apologise to him and to the hundreds of viewers who had ÔøΩphoned in after their complaint was upheld by the Broadcasting Standards Authority.)

Phillips reports in her article that the chilling laughter from the studio audience when she referred to Israel as a democracy was matched only by the face of a woman ÔøΩcontorted with what can only be described as hatredÔøΩ when Phillips had tried to refute the womanÔøΩs accusations about Sharon and BushÔøΩs war crimes in the name of Israeli and American terror.

Oct 13, 2004 - 8:15 am 95. gb_in_ga:

Jerry:

That’s not the impression I got from this:

“His ideology came from fascism and it was the ideology of a man with culture and a limited economic training with political ideas rooted in his experience in military life. Thus the Army guaranteed the order and the authority. Enemy of the masons and communism, monarchical without faith and republican without conviction, he had a non-liberal and centralist idea of the State.

”

Excerpted from the following bio:

http://www.ferrol-concello.es/eng/cometoferrol/discoverus/celebrities/franco.html

While he may not have cooperated with the Nazis (who were socialists, after all — National Socialists) during WWII, and it is well known about the presence of various underground networks that helped people escape the Nazis which operated in and through Spain, I’d say that, at least from what I gleaned here, that he was a Fascist nonetheless. I get the impression that the Nazi/Fascist defeat in WWII moderated that Fascism in the post-war years. Fortunes of war and all, you know.

Oct 13, 2004 - 9:15 am 96. Buddy Larsen:

The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

by Sam Harris

Addresses these things, and makes some of it slightly less inexplicable. America IS the last, best hope of mankind.

Oct 13, 2004 - 10:00 am 97. Occam's Beard:

I also found, via Google, another Carol Gould op-ed piece, consistent with the original post, and, perhaps, more instructive.

More instructive? Or more diagnostic?

Come on, guys. Some of us have just had our own Mary Mapes moment, and flunked badly.

We don’t have any fonts to look at here, but look at her language. How much more clear could it possibly be that she’s, shall we say, a little on high-strung side?

(Let’s look again at the usage: “hissed and booed;” “barrage of hateful heckling;” “frighteningly hostile;” “Lader burst into tears” [an former ambassador came unglued after some heckling?? Good God!]; “chilling laughter;” “face [...] contorted with [...] hatred”)

OK, I’ll be the bad cop and spell it out. She’s obviously a neurotic in the Sylvia Plath mold, with an over-active imagination and an fevered fantasy life that revolves around her victimization as an American, a Jew, and an individual.

I think she needs help, and soon. In the meantime, anyone taking her perspective at face value could be charitably described as ill-advised.

Oct 13, 2004 - 10:39 am 98. Pat Curley:

Occam’s Beard, have you watched the Question Time episode in question? I have not seen that episode, but I have seen the infamous September 13, 2001 episode, and after watching that I have very little doubt that what Gould describes could have happened.

Oct 13, 2004 - 10:52 am 99. Occam's Beard:

Pat,

I haven’t seen it, but that doesn’t really matter, because it doesn’t bear on my point.

My point was not that Gould’s account was or was not accurate, or the events could or could not have happened. Rather, it was that Gould’s account of events – without more – warranted profound scepticism, because she has issues that clearly shape her views to an extraordinary degree.

She’s manifestly strongly predisposed to viewing herself as a victim. I don’t think anyone could argue with that. So we have to lean into the wind a bit regarding anecdotes in she appears as a victim and discount such anecdotes to some extent. (Which is not to say they can’t be true, but that her say-so isn’t sufficient to carry the point.)

Now if, given her predispositions, she said that everyone she met in London strongly supported her, the US, and Israel, THAT I would take seriously.

Let’s put the point into a less emotive context. Suppose Michael Moore (spit) said the Government was trying to get him. Who would believe him, without any evidence? Now if Moore said the Government had just saved his life by foiling an Islamofascist plot against him, that I would take at face value.

Oct 13, 2004 - 11:16 am 100. mrp:

Occam’s Beard:

Come on, guys. Some of us have just had our own Mary Mapes moment, and flunked badly.

…

OK, I’ll be the bad cop and spell it out. She’s obviously a neurotic in the Sylvia Plath mold, with an over-active imagination and an fevered fantasy life that revolves around her victimization as an American, a Jew, and an individual.

For another perspective, let’s take a look at a column written by Anne Applebaum for the September 16, 2001 edition of the London Sunday Telegraph:

Excerpt:

There are a few of these enemies in Britain too, but they enjoy a disproportionate amount of media space. The BBC edition of Question Time on Thursday night featured one of the most sustained attacks on America that anyone has seen on British television in a long time. The former US ambassador to Britain, Phil Lader, seemed near tears as he was asked questions about the “millions and millions of people around the world despising the American nation”. This to a man who, as an adviser to Morgan Stanley, the World Trade Centre-based bank, had just lost many colleagues in the disaster. The hostile audience was (in the words of one of the many who complained to the BBC about the programme) full of “anti-American fanatics”, among them a large number of ordinary, apparently well-educated non-fundamentalist British Muslims.

(emphasis added)

I’ve been reading Anne Applebaum’s work for a long time. She seems pretty steady to me. Ms. Applebaum is a member of the Washington Post’s editorial board, and she’s contributed work to several British publications. If one is interested, one can read her C.V. here.

Excerpt:

Over the years, her writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the International Herald Tribune, Foreign Affairs, the Boston Globe, The Independent, The Guardian, Commentaire, Suddeutsche Zeitung, Newsweek, the New Criterion, the Weekly Standard, the New Republic, the New York Review of Books, The National Review, The New Statesman, The Times Literary Supplement and the Literary Review, among others. She has appeared as a guest and as a presenter on many radio and television programs, among them BBC’s Newsnight, the Today Progamme, the Week in Westminster, as well as CNN, MSNBC, CBS and Sky News.

Does Anne Applebaum need psychiatric help, too, Dr. Occam’s Beard?

Oct 13, 2004 - 11:35 am 101. Occam's Beard:

Sigh.

mrp,

My point remains: Gould’s characterization, on its own, deserves scepticism.

I thought I’d made clear that I was not addressing the nature of the incidents, but rather questioning the reliability of Gould’s characterization of them.

Unpleasant events happen here too. Someone so inclined – for whatever reason – could extrapolate from, say, the Wellstone funeral, to draw ominous conclusions about the general tenor of American culture.

Similarly, commentators on the Democratic Underground site may actually have valid points about some things, but only a fool would take their views at face value without corroboration.

Oct 13, 2004 - 12:17 pm 102. gb_in_ga:

Occam’s Beard:

“Let’s put the point into a less emotive context. Suppose Michael Moore (spit) said the Government was trying to get him. Who would believe him, without any evidence? Now if Moore said the Government had just saved his life by foiling an Islamofascist plot against him, that I would take at face value.”

Well, you might take him at face value. Me? Well, let’s just say that I’d be surprised, and then my next thought would be something along the lines of: “Hmm — this doesn’t sound at all like him, what’s the catch? Methinks I smelleth a rat!”. You see, I wouldn’t trust him if he swore on a whole stack of bibles that down was down and up was up. I’d still smell a rat. No, I immediately discount EVERYTHING he says. He’s a proven liar, he has zero credibility with me. As far as I’m concerned, anything he says is either blatent falsehood or if by some chance true someone else who is reliable would have to confirm it to me.

Oct 13, 2004 - 12:27 pm 103. gb_in_ga:

Occam’s Beard:

“Similarly, commentators on the Democratic Underground site may actually have valid points about some things, but only a fool would take their views at face value without corroboration.”

Ah, you get my point. The source must be considered, and untrustworthy sources must be unconditionally discounted.

Oct 13, 2004 - 12:29 pm 104. Occam's Beard:

gb,

Fair enough. A rhetorical oversight on my part, which should instead have said “might take at face value,” the idea being greater credibility attaching to an admission against interest.

The point is moot anyway, because if Michael Moore said something even potentially believable I’d drop dead on the spot.

Oct 13, 2004 - 12:36 pm 105. gb_in_ga:

Occam’s Razor:

I understand. It’s just that in the case of MM, with his history of blatently twisting things to his advantage, I’d even doubt something that he said that sounded like an admission against interest — I’d still wonder if there were some underlying angle to it. I’d still smell a rat.

And if he actually DID honestly make an admission against interest, I’d probably hit the floor before you did! Or not, I’m pretty tall…

Oct 13, 2004 - 12:49 pm 106. thibaud:

Occam,

You seem determined to ignore several points raised by Carol Gould that are obvious to anyone like myself with long acquaintance of London and Britons generally. I’ve been doing business there since 1996, and traveling there on and off since 1980; I have family living in Notting Hill and visit them occasionally. My acquaintances are bankers for the most part and include both Brits, Americans, Germans, French and Russians living there.

Though the reported experiences of Gould, Anne Applebaum, Irwin Seltzer (Weekly Standard–lives in London), David Adesnik (oxblog.blogspot.com–Rhodes Scholar) and many others are of course anecdotal, one senses two clear trends among the upper-middle London and Oxbridge class:

1) the demonization of Israel and with it, the Bush administration’s middle east policies;

2) an increasing tendency to argue that America is “mad” and in the control of wild-eyed theocrats who have suspended all civil liberties and are no different from the Taliban.

Go to an upscale London dinner party and I guarantee you that both of these themes will surface at least once in the course of the evening, and be taken seriously by all those present. Usually there will be more than one Brit who becomes utterly livid on the subject, in ways that Marget Drabble described in her infamous Daily Telegraph screed from a year and a half ago:

“My anti-Americanism has become almost uncontrollable. It has possessed me, like a disease. It rises up in my throat like acid reflux, that fashionable American sickness. I now loathe the United States and what it has done to Iraq and the rest of the helpless world…. what struck home hardest was the subsequent image, of a row of American warplanes, with grinning cartoon faces painted on their noses. Cartoon faces, with big sharp teeth. It is grotesque. It is hideous. This great and powerful nation bombs foreign cities and the people in those cities from Disneyland cartoon planes out of comic strips. This is simply not possible. And yet, there they were.”

Note btw how asinine this woman’s fury actually is: she’s fulminating about the tiger’s mouth that’s painted on the nose of many warplanes, which are designed to, er, frighten and kill the enemy in, um, wartime. This is a good example of the extreme silliness of much of this fury.

Non-Americans such as Salman Rushdie have also remarked on this bizarre transformation. British writers find ways to make money off of it: John Le Carre made of it a ludicrously paranoid novel, and the West End is full of hysterically, unintentionally farcical anti-American plays right now (David Hare’s Stuff Happen is the most ridiculous of these).

So go ahead, analyze Ms Gould all you like, and ignore the mountain of evidence that backs up my two main contentions (above) if it makes you feel better. But you really should get out a bit more. Or at least start reading a wider range of authors. As for me I’ll go with my own observations and those of Applebaum, Rushdie, Seltzer, Le Carre, Hare, Drabble et al.

Oct 13, 2004 - 12:54 pm 107. gb_in_ga:

Thibaud:

Personally, I’d have been skeptical, too. Except that I have seen Canadians and some assorted Euros doing the same thing. If I hadn’t seen it with my own 2 eyes and heard it with my own 2 ears, in person, I’d be skeptical, too. But I have seen and heard it myself. So I am not at all skeptical. Any more, that is.

Oct 13, 2004 - 1:18 pm 108. jerry:

gp:

Our political vocabulary defines Fascism as anything that opposes Marxist based socialism. Socialism is good and Fascism is its evil opposite. But that is not what Fascism is. Fascism orginates in the writings of the French [who else] political theorist Georges Sorel. Fascism is non-Marxiam socialism. As Mussolini put it ìnothing outside state, everything within the state, all of the state.î He called it Totalitarianism. Unlike socialism, which defines itself by “collective” ownership, Fascism is indifferent to economic organization. Fascism does not need to nationalize property because it nationalizes the people instead. Franco was a brutal dictator but he was not a totalitarian. He allowed a sphere of personal behavior as long as it did not challenge his authority. Franco was a classic reactionary while Fascism is as revolutionary as any communist movement. Do not confuse authoritarianism with totalitarianism. They are two different approaches to governance. You can get along in an authoritarian state as long as you don’t challenge the maximum leader. In a totalitarian order you must pay positive homage to the state or face severe sanctions

Oct 13, 2004 - 1:28 pm 109. Ray:

After this thread started, late last night, I sent an e-mail to my son, who has just returned from a two week vaca in England. He was born in Peterborough in 1957, and moved to the U.S. when he was fifteen. He has returned to England dozens of times. He is proud to be an American citizen, and has the ability to turn his accent on and off, at will. When he visits England, he wears USA t-shirts and invites conversation.

I sent him Gould’s article and he responded with shock. He said that in the entire two weeks, constantly identified as an American, wearing USA t-shirts, he had no experiences like Gould describes. He acknowledged that England still had it’s share of crazies, however he didn’t include anti-Americanism in the list of crazies.

This leads me to believe that Gould may have experienced a version of the old English class system bias against Americans that exists in the Cambridge/Oxford set, which has a requirement for bias in order to recieve an invitation. Infamous spies like Burgess are alumni of these organizations, and they are apparently in good health. Perhaps we should include them in the crazies list.

Not to worry, England is a friend of America, and unlike Germany and France, I think it shall remain one.

Oct 13, 2004 - 1:34 pm 110. gb_in_ga:

Jerry:

Fascism, as defined by the epitome of Fascists, Mussolini:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/mussolini-fascism.html

In other words, I’m well aware of what Fascism REALLY means. I am not that concerned at all about what “Popular Political Vocabluary of Today” says about it, since that vocabluary tends to change with the wind.

As far as pigeon-holing what Franco’s politics actually were, I think I’ll let that Spanish historian I cited above be authoritative. It is his country, he would be much more knowledgable than I would. He says “Fascist”. I’ll take his word on it. But, from what I can tell, he wasn’t that committed to it. From what I can tell, he actually was a Fascist, but not that pure of one, who mellowed even more post-WWII in light of international political reality. Hence, his cooperation with the U.S. even though he remained a dictator. I’d say that he was more pragmatic about it than ideological.

Oct 13, 2004 - 2:28 pm 111. Buddy Larsen:

Nobody dislikes MY people. Who’s ever heard an anti-Scandanavian remark? Of course, reminding no sinner of the Old Testament God, why should anyone bother?

Oct 13, 2004 - 2:42 pm 112. Thomas Hazlewood:

Some here question the authoress’ veracity and emotionalism. I can see why they might do so, yes.

After all, civilized countries would never be peopled by folks that might castigate an entire race or creed or religion, particularly not a European country. Krystalnacht is probably just a brandname on vases, neh? And Sobibor is probably some hefty dark beer. Holocaust is a fantastic graphics display seen at Disneyland. (hmm, or was that holocast?)

Easy to understand why one might suspect rank emotion as the cause for such an article…unless, of course, everything she says is true.

Oct 13, 2004 - 2:59 pm

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