'europe is dying'...steyn...
abelard
a depressing but interesting read.....
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-11-08&id=3699
"Item 2: The Baghdad hotel in which Paul Wolfowitz was staying was blown
up. Several people were killed, though the US deputy defence secretary
emerged unscathed. Much of the death and destruction was caused by French
68mm missiles ‘in pristine condition’, according to one US officer who
inspected the rocket tubes and assembly. In other words, they’re not rusty
leftovers Saddam had lying around from the 1980s. The Baathist
dictatorship had acquired these missiles from the French rather more
recently."
regards...
--
web site at www.abelard.org - news and comment service, logic,
politics, ethics, education, etc >650,000 document calls yearly
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
all that is necessary for [] walk quietly and carry
the triumph of evil is that [] a big stick.
good people do nothing [] trust actions not words
only when it's funny -- roger rabbit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
mark oboyle
"abelard" <abe...@abelard.org> wrote in message
news:80plqv0so75747prl...@4ax.com...
Bill Willis
>
> a depressing but interesting read.....
>
> http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-11-08&id=3699
> "Item 2: The Baghdad hotel in which Paul Wolfowitz was staying was blown
> up. Several people were killed, though the US deputy defence secretary
> emerged unscathed. Much of the death and destruction was caused by French
> 68mm missiles ‘in pristine condition’, according to one US officer who
> inspected the rocket tubes and assembly. In other words, they’re not rusty
> leftovers Saddam had lying around from the 1980s. The Baathist
> dictatorship had acquired these missiles from the French rather more
> recently."
I'm sure that you realize that this bit dovetails precisely with the
thread I started yesterday regarding the duplicity of France and Russia.
As to the larger issue in Steyn's column I suppose it is a bit premature
and extreme to predict the *death* of a continent as prosperous as
Europe. Still the trends that he refers to and others that he does not
directly mention such as the declining population of native Europeanss
clearly indicate that Europe is in serious decline vis a vis America and
much of Asia. It is possible that Europe will wake up before it is too
late but I am afraid that it will take an event in Europe that surpasses
9/11 in horror to do the trick.
Europe has been basking in a never never land where its security has
been provided for a half century by America. Those days are over. I am
sorry to say it but I think France and Germany are quite correct is
wanting an European military capability independent of NATO. Too much
has happened and America can no longer be relied on to guarantee Europe
anything. I would want the same thing if I were in France and Germany's
position and further I would seek the resources to accomplish it. I
just hope Europe has the sense to make the necessary investment in its
own security before it is too late. America is not Europe's enemy but
Europe does have enemies. That said, France is seriously flirting with
becoming America's enemy and forcing a choice among other European
countries between America and France.
The notion of a dying and irrelevant Europe is quite a common topic
among American commentators these days. It seems that in all important
areas Europe these days wants what it cannot have. It wants its cake
and wants to eat it at the same time.
Even the notion that Europe is a cultural treasure is increasingly
becoming a hard sell. Europe *was* a repository of Western high culture
but what are they producing these days? My question is not rhetorical.
Bill
Bill Willis
>
> On Fri, 07 Nov 2003 01:47:36 +0100, abelard <abe...@abelard.org>
> suddenly appeared and wrote:
>
> >
> >a depressing but interesting read.....
> >
> >http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-11-08&id=3699
> >"Item 2: The Baghdad hotel in which Paul Wolfowitz was staying was blown
> >up. Several people were killed, though the US deputy defence secretary
> >emerged unscathed. Much of the death and destruction was caused by French
> >68mm missiles ‘in pristine condition’, according to one US officer who
> >inspected the rocket tubes and assembly. In other words, they’re not rusty
> >leftovers Saddam had lying around from the 1980s. The Baathist
> >dictatorship had acquired these missiles from the French rather more
> >recently."
>
> other weaponry and equipment supplied by the US and UK.
> The US is still the largest exporter of arms and weapons.
> No party can claim the high ground on weapons exports.
I agree with you on this point and it is IMV immoral for any nation to
be arming any other nation except in cases where they are allies
fighting a common enemy.
Bill
Mark K
Not to worry, abe.
The Rulers of the World
and their proxies snall overcome.
iamwatchingyou
> As to the larger issue in Steyn's column I suppose it is a bit premature
> and extreme to predict the *death* of a continent as prosperous as
> Europe. Still the trends that he refers to and others that he does not
> directly mention such as the declining population of native Europeanss
> clearly indicate that Europe is in serious decline vis a vis America and
> much of Asia. It is possible that Europe will wake up before it is too
> late but I am afraid that it will take an event in Europe that surpasses
> 9/11 in horror to do the trick.
No tricks dummy.
Europe does not have resources for all of the migrants there.
And Europe is awake very much.
USA is taking lions part of Earth resources. How much it returns back?
Zilch, zero....
Just compare the numbers of refugees taken by Germany and USA!
I would be ashamed!
> Europe has been basking in a never never land where its security has
> been provided for a half century by America. Those days are over. I am
> sorry to say it but I think France and Germany are quite correct is
> wanting an European military capability independent of NATO. Too much
> has happened and America can no longer be relied on to guarantee Europe
> anything. I would want the same thing if I were in France and Germany's
> position and further I would seek the resources to accomplish it. I
> just hope Europe has the sense to make the necessary investment in its
> own security before it is too late. America is not Europe's enemy but
> Europe does have enemies. That said, France is seriously flirting with
> becoming America's enemy and forcing a choice among other European
> countries between America and France.
What the load of crap!
Of course Europe is seen as a very dangerous enemy by USA!
I am not talking about people. I am talking about Administration serving
Gods of money.
History is telling us when Germany got united, together with some other
countries growing up, forming sort of Continental European power, GB biggies
went into panic mode. Since we had The First World War......How it started?
Visit museum in Austria holding original documents who organised and
sponsored assassination of Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo.
Last thing USA based Oligarchy wants is strong Europe....
> The notion of a dying and irrelevant Europe is quite a common topic
> among American commentators these days. It seems that in all important
> areas Europe these days wants what it cannot have. It wants its cake
> and wants to eat it at the same time.
Yes, the game Divide and Conquer is very strong...
> Even the notion that Europe is a cultural treasure is increasingly
> becoming a hard sell. Europe *was* a repository of Western high culture
> but what are they producing these days? My question is not rhetorical.
Dummy, go to Wallmart, check the labels and tell me what is NOT made in
China?
Then chek growing unimployment in USA.
> Bill
get some reading or stop polluting.
jack mehoff
>
>
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-11-08&id=3699
> "Item 2: The Baghdad hotel in which Paul Wolfowitz was staying was blown
> up. Several people were killed, though the US deputy defence secretary
> emerged unscathed. Much of the death and destruction was caused by French
> 68mm missiles 'in pristine condition', according to one US officer who
> inspected the rocket tubes and assembly. In other words, they're not rusty
> leftovers Saddam had lying around from the 1980s. The Baathist
> dictatorship had acquired these missiles from the French rather more
> recently."
>
> regards...
God you people are so desperate to justify your failure, you have resorted
to telling big fat lies. Shame the rest of the world is really laughing at
you. Just admit you are getting fucked up over there. America the land of
Rambo, John Wayne ,Neo , Bruce Willis , Arnold etc getting fucked up by a
rag-tag army. Now we know why you come here trying to make France the
scape-goat. You people are pathetic.
jack mehoff
"Bill Willis" <bwi...@bcpl.net> wrote in message
news:3FAB22...@bcpl.net...
> abelard wrote:
> >
> > a depressing but interesting read.....
> >
> >
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-11-08&id=3699
> > "Item 2: The Baghdad hotel in which Paul Wolfowitz was staying was blown
> > up. Several people were killed, though the US deputy defence secretary
> > emerged unscathed. Much of the death and destruction was caused by
French
> > 68mm missiles 'in pristine condition', according to one US officer who
> > inspected the rocket tubes and assembly. In other words, they're not
rusty
> > leftovers Saddam had lying around from the 1980s. The Baathist
> > dictatorship had acquired these missiles from the French rather more
> > recently."
>
> I'm sure that you realize that this bit dovetails precisely with the
> thread I started yesterday regarding the duplicity of France and Russia.
>
> As to the larger issue in Steyn's column I suppose it is a bit premature
> and extreme to predict the *death* of a continent as prosperous as
> Europe. Still the trends that he refers to and others that he does not
> directly mention such as the declining population of native Europeanss
> clearly indicate that Europe is in serious decline vis a vis America and
> much of Asia.
OK os what you proposing, that they go out and kill all the Niggra's ?
It is possible that Europe will wake up before it is too
> late but I am afraid that it will take an event in Europe that surpasses
> 9/11 in horror to do the trick.
Yes then we have an excuse to kill all the rag-heads and Niggra's hey ?
>
> Europe has been basking in a never never land where its security has
> been provided for a half century by America.
Nope America was saving its own ass.America does nothing for no one unless
there something in it for her.
Those days are over. I am
> sorry to say it but I think France and Germany are quite correct is
> wanting an European military capability independent of NATO.
Yes because as you can see, America is no good at protecting anyone,
including herself.
Too much
> has happened and America can no longer be relied on to guarantee Europe
> anything. I would want the same thing if I were in France and Germany's
> position and further I would seek the resources to accomplish it. I
> just hope Europe has the sense to make the necessary investment in its
> own security before it is too late. America is not Europe's enemy but
> Europe does have enemies.
Namely....?
That said, France is seriously flirting with
> becoming America's enemy and forcing a choice among other European
> countries between America and France.
Yeah like anyone in their right mind would choose America over France. Have
you been asleep the last coupla months? America is the most despised country
in the world.
>
> The notion of a dying and irrelevant Europe is quite a common topic
> among American commentators these days.
Yeah FOX, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and all trhe other right wing nuts.
It seems that in all important
> areas Europe these days wants what it cannot have. It wants its cake
> and wants to eat it at the same time.
Nope thats you guys.
>
> Even the notion that Europe is a cultural treasure is increasingly
> becoming a hard sell.
I suppose when the only culture you motherfuckers have is Mc Donalds and
Disneyland., you may be right.
Europe *was* a repository of Western high culture
> but what are they producing these days? My question is not rhetorical.
More than America ever could.Hey isnt Rush on now ? Shouldnt you be listenin
to him. Oh wait sorry he is still in Rehab.Proceed.
Paris
news:80plqv0so75747prl...@4ax.com...
Why not have a war with France?
It's clearly what you want... Is it because they're the only opposing nation
left with nukes that you think you can beat?
Fucking bully.
--
Paris. Not the City
Steve Glynn
>
>
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003
-11-08&id=3699
> "Item 2: The Baghdad hotel in which Paul Wolfowitz was staying was blown
> up. Several people were killed, though the US deputy defence secretary
> emerged unscathed. Much of the death and destruction was caused by French
> 68mm missiles 'in pristine condition', according to one US officer who
> inspected the rocket tubes and assembly. In other words, they're not rusty
> leftovers Saddam had lying around from the 1980s. The Baathist
> dictatorship had acquired these missiles from the French rather more
> recently."
>
I'm hardly an expert in this kind of ordnance, but how difficult is it to
keep such things 'in pristine condition' -- which you'd need to do, anyway,
if you wanted to be reasonably certain i) that they'd fire at all; and ii)
that they wouldn't blow you up when you tried to fire them? I don't think
they have a shelf life in the way that chemical and biological weapons do.
And, if they were produced recently, how do we know that they were supplied
direct by France rather than via a third party to whom France had quite
legitimately sold them?
Uzi submachine guns are, AIUI, the weapon of choice for many drug dealers in
the USA. While I'm willing to beleive most things about the current
Israeli government, I find it difficult to credit that they're hand in glove
with various South American drug cartels, which the logic of Mr Steyn's
argument would seem to suggest I should conclude.
Steve
Paris
news:3FAB22...@bcpl.net...
If you declare war on 'old europe' you'd better be sure you know what you're
doing....
We aren't the type of people you usually pick on.....
Joe Hutcheon
news:bofoou$1de5vc$1...@ID-139981.news.uni-berlin.de...
>
> "abelard" <abe...@abelard.org> wrote in message
> news:80plqv0so75747prl...@4ax.com...
> >
> > a depressing but interesting read.....
> >
> >
>
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003
> -11-08&id=3699
> > "Item 2: The Baghdad hotel in which Paul Wolfowitz was staying was blown
> > up. Several people were killed, though the US deputy defence secretary
> > emerged unscathed. Much of the death and destruction was caused by
French
> > 68mm missiles 'in pristine condition', according to one US officer who
> > inspected the rocket tubes and assembly. In other words, they're not
rusty
> > leftovers Saddam had lying around from the 1980s. The Baathist
> > dictatorship had acquired these missiles from the French rather more
> > recently."
<snip>
> Uzi submachine guns are, AIUI, the weapon of choice for many drug dealers
in
> the USA. While I'm willing to beleive most things about the current
> Israeli government, I find it difficult to credit that they're hand in
glove
> with various South American drug cartels, which the logic of Mr Steyn's
> argument would seem to suggest I should conclude.
The article's a pile of shite, but the cartoon's quite amusing.
Solon
<YPREUA...@spammotel.com> enlightened the denizens of
uk.politics.misc by writing:
>On Fri, 07 Nov 2003 01:47:36 +0100, abelard <abe...@abelard.org>
>suddenly appeared and wrote:
>>a depressing but interesting read.....
>>http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-11-08&id=3699
>>"Item 2: The Baghdad hotel in which Paul Wolfowitz was staying was blown
>>up. Several people were killed, though the US deputy defence secretary
>>emerged unscathed. Much of the death and destruction was caused by French
>>68mm missiles ‘in pristine condition’, according to one US officer who
>>inspected the rocket tubes and assembly. In other words, they’re not rusty
>>leftovers Saddam had lying around from the 1980s. The Baathist
>>dictatorship had acquired these missiles from the French rather more
>>recently."
>And Palestinians are being killed/tortured daily by attack helis,
>other weaponry and equipment supplied by the US and UK.
>The US is still the largest exporter of arms and weapons.
>No party can claim the high ground on weapons exports.
Certainly helps put the French protests to Iraq's liberation into
perspective though, doesn't it?
--
Solon
Michel
> a depressing but interesting read.....
>
> http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-11-08&id=3699
> "Item 2: The Baghdad hotel in which Paul Wolfowitz was staying was blown
> up. Several people were killed, though the US deputy defence secretary
> emerged unscathed. Much of the death and destruction was caused by French
> 68mm missiles ‘in pristine condition’, according to one US officer who
> inspected the rocket tubes and assembly. In other words, they’re not rusty
> leftovers Saddam had lying around from the 1980s. The Baathist
> dictatorship had acquired these missiles from the French rather more
> recently."
Good, very good! Nice and shiny missiles to kill the Amerikan beast.
Where the missiles come from doesn't matter, as long as they give GI Joe
the kisses he deserves!
Michel
You're right, it is pathetic! But I do love watching Amerika squirms,
impaled on a hot and steamy RPG!
Solon
<steve...@ntlworld.com> enlightened the denizens of uk.politics.misc
by writing:
>
>And, if they were produced recently, how do we know that they were supplied
>direct by France rather than via a third party to whom France had quite
>legitimately sold them?
If London were in ruins, and four skeletal horsemen were riding
through the ruins spreading death, pestilence, famine and war in their
wake, whose voice would be heard pointing out that we couldn't
possibly know for sure that these were the four horsemen of the
apocalypse ... they could be perfectly innocent horsemen who just
happened to turn up at the wrong time? Step forward Steve Glynn.
Of course you are quite right. We cannot know for sure that those new
weapons were recently supplied by France. There would even be a doubt
if they had been found still wrapped and accompanied by a note "to my
old mate Saddam, hope you put these to good use, please put the money
into the usual account, your pal Jacques".
Ones view of this will depend on whether you believe the French
government to be capable of, and likely to, have obtained its very
lucrative (and openly obtained) Iraqi oil concessions together with a
rather more covert weapons contract (which latter contract may have
been part of Saddam's price for granting the former).
I myself have no difficulty in believing the French government capable
of such behavior.
--
Solon
dormouse
news:0nsmqv8n8v02jnjh2...@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 7 Nov 2003 09:33:23 -0000, "Steve Glynn"
> <steve...@ntlworld.com> enlightened the denizens of uk.politics.misc
> by writing:
>
> Ones view of this will depend on whether you believe the French
> government to be capable of, and likely to, have obtained its very
> lucrative (and openly obtained) Iraqi oil concessions together with a
> rather more covert weapons contract (which latter contract may have
> been part of Saddam's price for granting the former).
>
> I myself have no difficulty in believing the French government capable
> of such behavior.
Which in turn touches on a point raised by myself before we started killing
Iraqis, in that why are we bombing Iraq rather than the people who keep the
regime in power - the French and Russians?
--
regards,
dormouse
Michel
>
> Of course you are quite right. We cannot know for sure that those new
> weapons were recently supplied by France. There would even be a doubt
> if they had been found still wrapped and accompanied by a note "to my
> old mate Saddam, hope you put these to good use, please put the money
> into the usual account, your pal Jacques".
A very common US practice, only acceptable when it is the US selling the
weapons to its own favored dictator of the moment. But should someone
else decide to follow suit, then all hell breaks loose, Amerika wraps
itself in its robe of honor and legality, and bitches and moan against
the outrageous miscreant who has dared acting independently, without
permission from the godfather in DC.
> Ones view of this will depend on whether you believe the French
> government to be capable of, and likely to, have obtained its very
> lucrative (and openly obtained) Iraqi oil concessions together with a
> rather more covert weapons contract (which latter contract may have
> been part of Saddam's price for granting the former).
>
> I myself have no difficulty in believing the French government capable
> of such behavior.
Oh, the gall and viciousness of those French. :-)
It's not our precious Golden Boys at State, Pentagon, White House and
CIA who would stoop to such sordid levels of iniquity. We are rectitude
and honor personified, only wanting the best for mankind, bestowing love
and largesse to an unappreciative world. My heart bleeds for poor
misunderstood Amerika! ;-)
Aramis Gunton
<abe...@abelard.org> writes
>a depressing but interesting read.....
Quite so :-
"Europe is dying. As I’ve pointed out here before, it can’t square
rising welfare costs, a collapsed birthrate and a manpower dependent on
the world’s least skilled, least assimilable immigrants. In 20 years’
time, as those Dutch Muslim teenagers are entering the voting booths,
European countries, unlike parts of Nigeria, will not be living under
Sharia, but they will be reaching their accommodations with their
radicalised Islamic compatriots, who like many intolerant types are
expert at exploiting the ‘tolerance’ of pluralist societies."
Appears to be more than a smidgen of deliberation especially in view of
all the "Shut the fuck up or your jailed" 'hate legislation' we now
endure.
'Xenophobia' soon to be a crime I understand. Arachnophobia next maybe?
Is the writing on the wall or will historic European nationalism
re-emerge with a vengeance as a last hope scenario. Have they still the
strength of identity or is the abject horror felt should one
deliberately upset an ethnic eroded completely their desire to ensure
their own continuance.
Are we *all* simply 'Europeans' an amorphous mass capable of ingesting
any and all immigrants however diverse and agenda driven or is the
reality more akin to an actual tacit invasion of diverse nation states
all with palpably different peoples.
After all the Muslims do have an end game rather more admirable than
simple material acquisition and a slight dip in one's personal debt
burden.
Further our enforced tolerance and demographic realities do appear to
favour their ascendancy.
Drastic solutions or acquiescence to an altered reality most probably
not in our best long term interests?
--
Aramis Gunton
Michel
> Which in turn touches on a point raised by myself before we started killing
> Iraqis, in that why are we bombing Iraq rather than the people who keep the
> regime in power - the French and Russians?
Whilst the French and Russian military would be no match (at least on
paper) for the glorious US Army and related services, they would still
be way too formidable an opponent for GI Joe. So the French and Russians
are safe. Only small, weak and quasi-defenseless countries are a proper
match for Amerikan cowardice: Granada, Panama, Iraq...
Of course, Iraq is proving itself a little less weak than we would have
thought what with sanctions, disarmament, a decade of daily bombings,...
The Iraqis don't need the French to build home-made bombs, keep their
AK-47 clean and firing, aim an RPG, fire a Sa-7,... all these lovely
things that make GI Joe yellow and running for his mom....
Aramis Gunton
<hmode...@hotmail.com> writes
>If you declare war on 'old europe' you'd better be sure you know what
>you're doing.... We aren't the type of people you usually pick on.....
'We' being what '..type of people' though?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/britain/article/0,2763,1035229,00.html
"The numbers of black and Asian people living in England have risen by
more than 40% in 10 years while the white population has remained
static, the 2001 census reveals."
"Africans have recorded the sharpest increase, from 214,000 to 514,000
since 1991"
This is an experience occurring alarmingly throughout Europe. The
concept of a national 'Us' is dying fast.
'Divide And Conquer'
--
Aramis Gunton
Aramis Gunton
<j.hut...@jisc.ac.uk> writes
>The article's a pile of shite
Why exactly?
--
Aramis Gunton
Aramis Gunton
<nob...@nowt.com> writes
>I myself have no difficulty in believing the French government capable
>of such behavior.
Should that not simply read "... believing governments capable of...."?
--
Aramis Gunton
Rainer Haas
> Of course you are quite right. We cannot know for sure that those new
> weapons were recently supplied by France. There would even be a doubt
> if they had been found still wrapped and accompanied by a note "to my
> old mate Saddam, hope you put these to good use, please put the money
> into the usual account, your pal Jacques".
>
> Ones view of this will depend on whether you believe the French
> government to be capable of, and likely to, have obtained its very
> lucrative (and openly obtained) Iraqi oil concessions together with a
> rather more covert weapons contract (which latter contract may have
> been part of Saddam's price for granting the former).
>
> I myself have no difficulty in believing the French government capable
> of such behavior.
Looky here:
http://www.newsreview.com/issues/chico/2003-10-16/News.asp
Whoa, American-made mortar shells found in Iraq. Probably the same type
that was recently lobbed onto the coalition headquarters! That must mean
that Washington was in bed with Saddam, right?
Joe Hutcheon
news:q7VzErHue4q$Ew...@nink.demon.co.uk...
> In message <bofp0r$1dn65u$1...@ID-102840.news.uni-berlin.de>, Joe Hutcheon
> <j.hut...@jisc.ac.uk> writes
> >The article's a pile of shite
>
> Why exactly?
Firstly, because it's drawing vast conclusions from limited evidence.
Secondly, because it lumps all of Europe together, which is just as silly as
lumping all of Asia togther; both continents are very diverse, both contain
pro- and anti- US elements. Thirdly, it making unsupported assertions about
what Europeans think or feel. Do you think anyone regards Tariq Ali as
anything other than a joke? He's been a figure of fun in this country for
the past 30 years or so.
The whole article is full of flabby thinking, leaps in logic, and sweeping
generalisations. It reminds me of that Fukyama bloke and his 'End of
History' wibblings.
Aramis Gunton
<bou...@britwar.co.uk> writes
>Which in turn touches on a point raised by myself before we started
>killing Iraqis, in that why are we bombing Iraq rather than the people
>who keep the regime in power - the French and Russians?
Who are you going to pick on. The 3'-6" skinny bloke or the 2 6'-5"
250Ib mean bastards?
[Ahhhh Imperial!!]
--
Aramis Gunton
Paris
> This is an experience occurring alarmingly throughout Europe. The
> concept of a national 'Us' is dying fast.
>
> 'Divide And Conquer'
<snip>
I agree...
However....
If you read the recent Chomsky piece posted here... He did a little piece
about the attitudes of the EU populace, as opposed to the action of their
governments.
So the US claims that Russia, France and Germany are isolated, and are OLD
europe.
However, in NO COUNTRY polled, did the 'yes to war in iraq' vote poll higher
than 13%.
The US might be good at pushing around countries it KNOWS FOR SURE are not
able to fight back...
And it might be good at bombing countries that can fight back for a few
years, until it's forced to leave..
But if it picks a fight with France.. The 77% of european people may well be
a little more vocal..
France has the Arianne, and Nuclear weapons to put on it.
Its soldiers are first rate, and it's populace are commited to the freedom
of France, and the vision of Europe.
If France is attacked, the Germans will surely become deeply worried, as
will most of europe.
The current rhetorical climate against France is absolutely ludicrous.
Michel
It is indeed! So is the talk of Amerika going to war against France (or
any European country). It's not a matter of France being able to put up
a fight (or not), the very concept of Amerika attacking Europe is, at
this point in time, completely surrealistic, to say the least...
Mark
> inspected the rocket tubes and assembly. In other words, they?re not rusty
> leftovers Saddam had lying around from the 1980s. The Baathist
> dictatorship had acquired these missiles from the French rather more
> recently."
Perhaps the writer could study some logic: even assuming that the
rockets in question were French, that's no reason to believe that they
were sold to Saddam Hussein, rather than donated to the Iraqui freedom
fighters by, say, Iran or some other nation that bought them legally.
Pretty crappy article on the whole, other than the point about Europe
dying. I mean, he's even dumb enough to believe that the 7% GDP growth
claim proves that America isn't in a recession.
Mark
Paris
news:3fab8ff2$0$19525$afc3...@news.easynet.fr...
> It is indeed! So is the talk of Amerika going to war against France (or
> any European country). It's not a matter of France being able to put up
> a fight (or not), the very concept of Amerika attacking Europe is, at
> this point in time, completely surrealistic, to say the least...
Not really....
I try to explain this to my fellow Britons..
America is not a european nation.... It is not our ally, nor is it anyones
ally.
Most Americans would probably be hard pushed to even point europe out on a
map, let alone understand that attacking france is a different
proposition to attacking Iraq.
They are told that France is an isolated nation, populated by cowards...
They believe this to be true.
Until you understand that the US speaks American, not English, you'll be
trapped under the illusion that they are just slightly daffy europeans.
They aren't... They're are America, a foreign country, with foreign ideas.
H. Wake
> >
> > a depressing but interesting read.....
> >
> > "Item 2: The Baghdad hotel in which Paul Wolfowitz was staying was blown
> > up. Several people were killed, though the US deputy defence secretary
> > 68mm missiles ?in pristine condition?, according to one US officer who
> > inspected the rocket tubes and assembly. In other words, they?re not rusty
> > leftovers Saddam had lying around from the 1980s. The Baathist
> > dictatorship had acquired these missiles from the French rather more
> > recently."
>
> thread I started yesterday regarding the duplicity of France and Russia.
>
> As to the larger issue in Steyn's column I suppose it is a bit premature
> and extreme to predict the *death* of a continent as prosperous as
> Europe. Still the trends that he refers to and others that he does not
> directly mention such as the declining population of native Europeanss
> clearly indicate that Europe is in serious decline vis a vis America and
> late but I am afraid that it will take an event in Europe that surpasses
> 9/11 in horror to do the trick.
>
> sorry to say it but I think France and Germany are quite correct is
> has happened and America can no longer be relied on to guarantee Europe
> anything. I would want the same thing if I were in France and Germany's
> position and further I would seek the resources to accomplish it. I
> just hope Europe has the sense to make the necessary investment in its
> own security before it is too late. America is not Europe's enemy but
> becoming America's enemy and forcing a choice among other European
> countries between America and France.
>
> areas Europe these days wants what it cannot have. It wants its cake
> and wants to eat it at the same time.
>
> but what are they producing these days? My question is not rhetorical.
>
It's not just Europe that's dying. It's the whole white Western
world. Looking at the globe makes it clear how small and vulnerable
to invasion Europe is, and I can't see the USA coming to Europe's aid
when European-Americans are in the minority there. The only hope for
white westerners is to turn back the tide of invasion, but whites have
been so emasculated it looks extremely unlikely.
John of Aix
"dormouse" <bou...@britwar.co.uk> a écrit dans le message de news:
bofuls$1e8q6n$1...@ID-163332.news.uni-berlin.de...
> Which in turn touches on a point raised by myself before we started
killing
> Iraqis, in that why are we bombing Iraq rather than the people who
keep the
> regime in power - the French and Russians?
Perhaps because Russia and France really do have weapons of mass
destruction and as the USA only ever attacks second rate countries it
just wouldn't dare.
Matthew Robb
wrote:
>If you declare war on 'old europe' you'd better be sure you know what you're
>doing....
>We aren't the type of people you usually pick on.....
If Old Europe is dying, it's suicide, not murder.
La France qui tombe... Aubury is now trashed for backing a 35 hour
week that even the french recognise only made working people poorer...
the socialists are out, with little prospect of return in the near
future (they even believe they should have been more socialist in
government)
Germany threatens to liberalise, but it's on a knife edge....
cheers
matt
Paris
message news:oh6nqv4kla18utt0k...@4ax.com...
Chirac was tumpted by you lot as the liberator of France from the evils of
socialism....
Now you're telling me that perhaps he's not....
You're numpties, and you're on YOUR way out.... We've all got your
number....
The USE is an inevitability, and the US is a murderous tyrant....... Get it
into your head man...
Michel
> "Michel" <9qea...@sneakemail.com> wrote in message
> news:3fab8ff2$0$19525$afc3...@news.easynet.fr...
>
>
>>It is indeed! So is the talk of Amerika going to war against France (or
>>any European country). It's not a matter of France being able to put up
>>a fight (or not), the very concept of Amerika attacking Europe is, at
>>this point in time, completely surrealistic, to say the least...
>
>
> Not really....
> I try to explain this to my fellow Britons..
> America is not a european nation.... It is not our ally, nor is it anyones
> ally.
That's for sure. Only Amerika matters to Amerika. When you're the
shining fountainhead of all that is good and decent on this earth, and
that your god created in your image has chosen you to lead, nothing and
noone else matters.
>
> Most Americans would probably be hard pushed to even point europe out on a
> map, let alone understand that attacking france is a different
> proposition to attacking Iraq.
> They are told that France is an isolated nation, populated by cowards...
> They believe this to be true.
Yeah, well, you're probably right here as well... :-(
>
> Until you understand that the US speaks American, not English, you'll be
> trapped under the illusion that they are just slightly daffy europeans.
> They aren't... They're are America, a foreign country, with foreign ideas.
Would you say that the attitude of the English people is in opposition
to the servile and slavish attitude towards the US, of a long string of
UK governments?
Paris
> Would you say that the attitude of the English people is in opposition
> to the servile and slavish attitude towards the US, of a long string of
> UK governments?
It's a long and messy thing..
But I believe essentially that the British people don't really understand
what they have become, nor what the US has become, nor what europe actually
is, not what
is really going on in the world...
The US manages to push forward the things it does because the US population
is under a blanket of propaganda.
That same blanket has been placed over the heads of the UK population over
the last decade or so...
abelard
typed:
however, it is a wide caricature that is not receiving calm analysis....
to that i object.....
part of my intention in posting the item was to provoke such
discussion....rather than to leave it in the hands of the assorted
loons who are already crawling over this fred.....
regards....
--
web site at www.abelard.org - news and comment service, logic,
politics, ethics, education, etc >650,000 document calls yearly
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
all that is necessary for [] walk quietly and carry
the triumph of evil is that [] a big stick.
good people do nothing [] trust actions not words
only when it's funny -- roger rabbit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
abelard
typed:
>Dummy, go to Wallmart, check the labels and tell me what is NOT made in
>China?
>Then chek growing unimployment in USA.
the degree to which you wishful loons live in a fool's paradise is quite
incredible...
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20031107.wusjobs1107/BNStory/Business/
"The U.S. economy created 126,000 jobs in October, making good on
economists' hopes that the nation's struggling labour market had finally
turned a corner.
Equally encouraging in Friday's U.S. Department of Labour report was the
fact that September's non-farm payroll gain was revised upward to 125,000
from the original 57,000."
October's unemployment rate fell to 6 per cent from 6.1 per cent the month
before.
abelard
typed:
>"abelard" <abe...@abelard.org> wrote in message
>news:80plqv0so75747prl...@4ax.com...
>>
>> a depressing but interesting read.....
>http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-11-08&id=3699
>> "Item 2: The Baghdad hotel in which Paul Wolfowitz was staying was blown
>> up. Several people were killed, though the US deputy defence secretary
>> emerged unscathed. Much of the death and destruction was caused by French
>> 68mm missiles 'in pristine condition', according to one US officer who
>> inspected the rocket tubes and assembly. In other words, they're not rusty
>> leftovers Saddam had lying around from the 1980s. The Baathist
>> dictatorship had acquired these missiles from the French rather more
>> recently."
>God you people are so desperate to justify your failure, you have resorted
>to telling big fat lies. Shame the rest of the world is really laughing at
>you. Just admit you are getting fucked up over there. America the land of
>Rambo, John Wayne ,Neo , Bruce Willis , Arnold etc getting fucked up by a
>rag-tag army. Now we know why you come here trying to make France the
>scape-goat. You people are pathetic.
what a strange post....
'scape goat' for what exactly?
what have a few film actors to do with anything?
abelard
typed:
>"abelard" <abe...@abelard.org> wrote in message
>news:80plqv0so75747prl...@4ax.com...
>
>Why not have a war with France?
>It's clearly what you want... Is it because they're the only opposing nation
>left with nukes that you think you can beat?
>
>Fucking bully.
you are normally expected to be somewhat off the wall....
your posts to this fred are tipping over into the seriously deranged.....
abelard
typed:
your assumption the gang of thugs who until recently ran irak
are equivalent to the 'people of irak'....or that they were some form
of legitimate government is quite ludicrous....
your hidden assumption that the governments of france and russia are
of comparable legitimacy to the thugs who ran irak is quite beyond
belief....
why on earth would a democratic nation have any great reason to
attach another democratic nation....
you are being carried away by ignorance and paranoia....
abelard
typed:
>
>"abelard" <abe...@abelard.org> wrote in message
>news:80plqv0so75747prl...@4ax.com...
>>
>> a depressing but interesting read.....
>>
>>
>http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003
>-11-08&id=3699
>> "Item 2: The Baghdad hotel in which Paul Wolfowitz was staying was blown
>> up. Several people were killed, though the US deputy defence secretary
>> emerged unscathed. Much of the death and destruction was caused by French
>> 68mm missiles 'in pristine condition', according to one US officer who
>> inspected the rocket tubes and assembly. In other words, they're not rusty
>> leftovers Saddam had lying around from the 1980s. The Baathist
>> dictatorship had acquired these missiles from the French rather more
>> recently."
>>
>
>I'm hardly an expert in this kind of ordnance, but how difficult is it to
>keep such things 'in pristine condition' -- which you'd need to do, anyway,
>if you wanted to be reasonably certain i) that they'd fire at all; and ii)
>that they wouldn't blow you up when you tried to fire them? I don't think
>they have a shelf life in the way that chemical and biological weapons do.
>
>And, if they were produced recently, how do we know that they were supplied
>direct by France rather than via a third party to whom France had quite
>legitimately sold them?
>
>Uzi submachine guns are, AIUI, the weapon of choice for many drug dealers in
>the USA. While I'm willing to beleive most things about the current
>Israeli government, I find it difficult to credit that they're hand in glove
>with various South American drug cartels, which the logic of Mr Steyn's
>argument would seem to suggest I should conclude.
my interest in posting the article was summarised in the fred title....
the snipped i provided (as i usually do provide a snippet) was
to allow readers to decide
1)whether it was worth their time to look further...
2)the snippet was imv interesting of itself....
on the 2nd point....
irak was supposedly under embargo....france was party to that embargo...
they seem to have been generally slack in imposing that embargo....
and a great deal more concerning the french government behaviour
over irak continues to leak out.....
obviously there are back channels for weapon sales....but a nation of
the standing of france would be expected to have strong checks in
place (especially re a un embargoed rogue nation)
at the very least i would like to see more (full) investigation of
this....
maybe via the eu....
regards...
Ian
news:bofogd$brb$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
> It's clearly what you want... Is it because they're the only opposing
nation
> left with nukes that you think you can beat?
>
> Fucking bully.
>
France has about 400 odd SLBM nuclear warheads, even ignoring their air
launched missiles. Each of the 400 submarine warheads averages about 125kt,
about the power of eight hiroshima bombs. It might take a couple of days
but France is perfectly capable of wiping the USA off the face of the earth
in the extremely unlikely scenario of an all out war between France and the
USA.
Bill Willis
Who has ever mentioned the possibility of war between America and
Europe? I have not heard the possibility raised anywhere.
Bill
Bill Willis
>
> On Fri, 7 Nov 2003 09:34:16 -0000, "Paris" <hmode...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >If you declare war on 'old europe' you'd better be sure you know what you're
> >doing....
> >We aren't the type of people you usually pick on.....
>
> If Old Europe is dying, it's suicide, not murder.
Well put.
Bill
Bill Willis
>
> On Fri, 7 Nov 2003 09:33:23 -0000, "Steve Glynn"
> by writing:
>
> >
> >And, if they were produced recently, how do we know that they were supplied
> >direct by France rather than via a third party to whom France had quite
> >legitimately sold them?
>
> through the ruins spreading death, pestilence, famine and war in their
> wake, whose voice would be heard pointing out that we couldn't
> possibly know for sure that these were the four horsemen of the
> apocalypse ... they could be perfectly innocent horsemen who just
> happened to turn up at the wrong time? Step forward Steve Glynn.
>
> Of course you are quite right. We cannot know for sure that those new
> weapons were recently supplied by France. There would even be a doubt
> if they had been found still wrapped and accompanied by a note "to my
> old mate Saddam, hope you put these to good use, please put the money
> into the usual account, your pal Jacques".
>
> Ones view of this will depend on whether you believe the French
> government to be capable of, and likely to, have obtained its very
> lucrative (and openly obtained) Iraqi oil concessions together with a
> rather more covert weapons contract (which latter contract may have
> been part of Saddam's price for granting the former).
>
> I myself have no difficulty in believing the French government capable
> of such behavior.
Nor do I. Not the slightest difficulty.
Bill
Matthew Robb
wrote:
>> La France qui tombe... Aubury is now trashed for backing a 35 hour
>> week that even the french recognise only made working people poorer...
>> the socialists are out, with little prospect of return in the near
>> future (they even believe they should have been more socialist in
>> government)
>>
>> Germany threatens to liberalise, but it's on a knife edge....
>
>Chirac was tumpted by you lot as the liberator of France from the evils of
>socialism....
>Now you're telling me that perhaps he's not....
>You're numpties, and you're on YOUR way out.... We've all got your
>number....
>
>The USE is an inevitability,
So was Marxism... bye bye
cheers
matt
Paris
> Who has ever mentioned the possibility of war between America and
> Europe? I have not heard the possibility raised anywhere.
Matt Groening for one.... The Simpsons.... Can't remember the episode.
The US is clearly setting itself on a collision course with 'old europe'....
Which is actually..... 'Europe' if you live anywhere except the US.
Paris
> So was Marxism... bye bye
Well.....
You laughed when they set up the EU and said it'd last a few years
You laughed when they introduced the Euro..
You laughed when they spoke about the RRF
You keep laughing.. And they keep doing........
Paris
news:tROqb.5502$lm1....@wards.force9.net...
> France has about 400 odd SLBM nuclear warheads, even ignoring their air
> launched missiles. Each of the 400 submarine warheads averages about
125kt,
> about the power of eight hiroshima bombs. It might take a couple of days
> but France is perfectly capable of wiping the USA off the face of the
earth
> in the extremely unlikely scenario of an all out war between France and
the
> USA.
Which is EXACTLY why it's being targetted!
However... The US believes it can defeat France because it suspects that
France would not use it's arsenal.
It believes that France when it comes to the crunch, will not assert it's
right to sovreignty.
It thought the same about China.. Till they downed their spy plane and said
'what are you going to do about it you stupid imperialist butchers'?
I suspect that the US has been calling France a bunch of cheese eating
cowards for so long that it actually believes it's own propaganda.
And yet all the evidence suggests that France is more than ready to use it's
military.. And has done many times in the last few decades...
Greg Hennessy
>Michel wrote:
>> It is indeed! So is the talk of Amerika going to war against France (or
>> any European country). It's not a matter of France being able to put up
>> a fight (or not), the very concept of Amerika attacking Europe is, at
>> this point in time, completely surrealistic, to say the least...
>
>Who has ever mentioned the possibility of war between America and
>Europe? I have not heard the possibility raised anywhere.
>
>Bill
Just another Nihilist masturbation fantasy.
greg
--
$ReplyAddress =~ s#\@.*$##; # Delete everything after the '@'
The Following is a true story.....
Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.
Paris
news:n4hnqv4507jk9gv85...@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 07 Nov 2003 10:42:14 -0500, Bill Willis <bwi...@bcpl.net> wrote:
>
> >Michel wrote:
>
> >> It is indeed! So is the talk of Amerika going to war against France (or
> >> any European country). It's not a matter of France being able to put up
> >> a fight (or not), the very concept of Amerika attacking Europe is, at
> >> this point in time, completely surrealistic, to say the least...
> >
> >Who has ever mentioned the possibility of war between America and
> >Europe? I have not heard the possibility raised anywhere.
> >
> >Bill
>
> Just another Nihilist masturbation fantasy.
I think war with France is a US masturbation fantasy.. And we all know it...
My country is only 21 miles away.. the prospect terrifies me...
abelard
typed:
is your tv spying on you as well?
steve
>
> a depressing but interesting read.....
Steyne is a dribbling idiot and history will record him as such - if it can
be bothered remembering him at all.
Europe is chock full of vibrant, diverse democracies unlike the anything the
US has ever known. Americans cannot even BEGIN to comprehend how much more
open and democratic Europe today is compared to the US. I know this from
experience. They don't even have the vocabulary to talk about genuine
democracy.
Europe has countries busting down the door to join.....while the past
territories to join the US were originall conquered 100 years ago by
force...and Puerto Rico STILL doesn't want to be a state.
It isn't Europe that's dying......not by a long way.
--
defenestrate: The act of throwing Windows out the window and replacing it on
your PC with some other operating system.
steve
>
> Pretty crappy article on the whole, other than the point about Europe
> dying. I mean, he's even dumb enough to believe that the 7% GDP growth
> claim proves that America isn't in a recession.
>
> Mark
It's Mark Steyne. JARWD (Just Another Right Wing Dribbler)
I have loads of respect and time for any honest person - Left or Right or
whatever else.
Steyne doesn't qualify.
Alan G
wrote:
>On Fri, 7 Nov 2003 16:43:14 -0000, "Paris" <hmode...@hotmail.com>
>
> typed:
>
>>I think war with France is a US masturbation fantasy.. And we all know it...
>>My country is only 21 miles away.. the prospect terrifies me...
>
>is your tv spying on you as well?
Don't give Blunkett ideas.
James Hammerton
He could have got that one from Mike Corley aeons ago....
James
--
James Hammerton, http://jameshammerton.blogspot.com/
Contributor to http://www.magnacartaplus.org/
Email: Use address displayed at http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~james/address.html
I don't read jamesha...@yahoo.co.uk as it's full of spam.
Michel
> On Fri, 07 Nov 2003 12:58:44 +0100, Michel <9qea...@sneakemail.com>
>
> typed:
>
>
>>dormouse wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Which in turn touches on a point raised by myself before we started killing
>>>Iraqis, in that why are we bombing Iraq rather than the people who keep the
>>>regime in power - the French and Russians?
>>
>>Whilst the French and Russian military would be no match (at least on
>>paper) for the glorious US Army and related services, they would still
>>be way too formidable an opponent for GI Joe. So the French and Russians
>>are safe. Only small, weak and quasi-defenseless countries are a proper
>>match for Amerikan cowardice: Granada, Panama, Iraq...
>>Of course, Iraq is proving itself a little less weak than we would have
>>thought what with sanctions, disarmament, a decade of daily bombings,...
>>The Iraqis don't need the French to build home-made bombs, keep their
>>AK-47 clean and firing, aim an RPG, fire a Sa-7,... all these lovely
>>things that make GI Joe yellow and running for his mom....
>
>
> your assumption the gang of thugs who until recently ran irak
> are equivalent to the 'people of irak'....or that they were some form
> of legitimate government is quite ludicrous....
Where do I say or assume anything of the sort????????????????
> your hidden assumption that the governments of france and russia are
> of comparable legitimacy to the thugs who ran irak is quite beyond
> belief....
I said that????? ;-)
>
> why on earth would a democratic nation have any great reason to
> attach another democratic nation....
We agree here. I responded ad absurdo to the preceding post mentioning
that eventuality. The bit about Amerika attacking weaker foes stands,
though! Plain for all to see...
> you are being carried away by ignorance and paranoia....
You couldn't fathom what carries me away! ;-)
Captain Compassion
>abelard allegedly said:
>
>>
>> a depressing but interesting read.....
>
>Steyne is a dribbling idiot and history will record him as such - if it can
>be bothered remembering him at all.
>
>Europe is chock full of vibrant, diverse democracies unlike the anything the
>US has ever known. Americans cannot even BEGIN to comprehend how much more
>open and democratic Europe today is compared to the US. I know this from
>experience. They don't even have the vocabulary to talk about genuine
>democracy.
>
>Europe has countries busting down the door to join.....while the past
>territories to join the US were originall conquered 100 years ago by
>force...and Puerto Rico STILL doesn't want to be a state.
>
>It isn't Europe that's dying......not by a long way.
>
Jesus man the western europeans aren't even breeding enough to replace
their own populations. Unemployment in many countries is near or above
double digit and the tight monitary control on the Euro has priced
European good out of forign markes such as the US. Taxes and red tape
kill insentive.
Steyne was talking about Old Europe. Not the European countries in the
East and Ireland that have new outlooks and ways of doing business.
>--
>defenestrate: The act of throwing Windows out the window and replacing it on
>your PC with some other operating system.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Madmen reason rightly from the wrong premisis" -- Locke
"In this world, which is so plainly the antechamber of another, there
are no happy men. The true division of humanity is between those who
live in light and those who live in darkness. Our aim must be to
diminish the number of the latter and increase the number of the
former. That is why we demand education and knowledge." -- Victor Hugo
"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other
is wrong, but the middle is always evil." -- Ayn Rand
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate -- William of Occam
Joseph R. Darancette
res0...@NOSPAMverizon.net
_k o s h e r @kosherhotmail.com Hognoxious
> We agree here. I responded ad absurdo to the preceding post mentioning
> that eventuality. The bit about Amerika attacking weaker foes stands,
> though! Plain for all to see...
Whereas France always choose an enemy worthy of their military talents.
Like Greenpeace.
John of Aix
"abelard" <abe...@abelard.org> a écrit dans le message de news:
84dnqv8ddeg0j419s...@4ax.com...
> your assumption the gang of thugs who until recently ran irak
> are equivalent to the 'people of irak'....or that they were
some form
> of legitimate government is quite ludicrous....
An Iraqi friend has just returned from a visit to Iraq after more than
25 years of absence. He left as a political refugee and never liked
Saddam. Now, after what he has seen on the ground, he hates him so we
don't have a pro-Saddam person here like 60 million French people are
according to some who write here.
His opinion on popular feeling as an Iraqi who speaks Arabic, English,
French and Assyrian (his native language) is that while the Iraqis are
glad that Saddam has gone, they are not happy about being an occupied
country, not happy at all, so maybe it isn't 'thugs' as you say, or
not only thugs, but patriotic Iraqis who don't want their country run
by a
foreign power.
John of Aix
"Matthew Robb" <matthew.robb1@delete this phrase.btinternet.com> a
écrit dans le message de news:
> On Fri, 7 Nov 2003 09:34:16 -0000, "Paris" <hmode...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >If you declare war on 'old europe' you'd better be sure you know
what you're
> >doing....
> >We aren't the type of people you usually pick on.....
>
> If Old Europe is dying, it's suicide, not murder.
>
> week that even the french recognise only made working people
poorer...
Not the French people I know guv and I expect that is a far greater
number than you know
> the socialists are out, with little prospect of return in the near
> future (they even believe they should have been more socialist in
> government)
And so they should have. They have little prosepct of return at the
moment as their current head is a boring as a wet weekend but that can
all change, the government is in shit already and looks as if it will
get deeper into it.
>
> Germany threatens to liberalise, but it's on a knife edge....
'threaten to liberalise", what is it liberating and how is that a
threat?
abelard
typed:
>abelard allegedly said:
>
>>
>> a depressing but interesting read.....
>
>Steyne is a dribbling idiot and history will record him as such - if it can
>be bothered remembering him at all.
thank you for your incisive analysis....
>Europe is chock full of vibrant, diverse democracies unlike the anything the
>US has ever known.
translation....you don't know much about usa politics...
but what the hell.....you want to rant....
>Americans cannot even BEGIN to comprehend how much more
>open and democratic Europe today is compared to the US.
in fact you know nothing at all about usa politics....
but that's ok....
let's see what your next empty comment will reveal....
>I know this from
>experience.
now, that is really peally stretching credibility.....
>They don't even have the vocabulary to talk about genuine
>democracy.
not enuf english words eh....
>Europe has countries busting down the door to join.....
you mean all those poor ex socialist paradises?
>while the past
>territories to join the US were originall conquered 100 years ago by
>force...
like wales perhaps....
>and Puerto Rico STILL doesn't want to be a state.
i didn't know a piece of land cared....
>It isn't Europe that's dying......not by a long way.
blah.....
but where's the music and the trumpets?
g'wan...let me guess....you're a lib dem from surbiton
about to quaff a £3 bottle of german plonk.....
where else on this fine earth could such intellect flourish....
Bill Willis
>
> On Thu, 06 Nov 2003 23:42:08 -0500, Bill Willis <bwi...@bcpl.net>
> suddenly appeared and wrote:
>
> >hummingbird wrote:
> >>
> >> On Fri, 07 Nov 2003 01:47:36 +0100, abelard <abe...@abelard.org>
> >> suddenly appeared and wrote:
> >>
> >> >
> >> >a depressing but interesting read.....
> >> >
> >> >"Item 2: The Baghdad hotel in which Paul Wolfowitz was staying was blown
> >> >up. Several people were killed, though the US deputy defence secretary
> >> >emerged unscathed. Much of the death and destruction was caused by French
> >> >inspected the rocket tubes and assembly. In other words, they’re not rusty
> >> >leftovers Saddam had lying around from the 1980s. The Baathist
> >> >dictatorship had acquired these missiles from the French rather more
> >> >recently."
> >>
> >> other weaponry and equipment supplied by the US and UK.
> >> The US is still the largest exporter of arms and weapons.
> >> No party can claim the high ground on weapons exports.
> >
> >I agree with you on this point and it is IMV immoral for any nation to
> >be arming any other nation except in cases where they are allies
> >fighting a common enemy.
>
> So you would disagree with the US arming Israel to the teeth.?
Yes. I think it would be better if the US refranined from providing
arms to anyone.
Bill
jack mehoff
> On Fri, 07 Nov 2003 09:24:33 GMT, "jack mehoff" <jackm...@msn.com>
>
> typed:
>
>
>http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=200
3-11-08&id=3699
> >> "Item 2: The Baghdad hotel in which Paul Wolfowitz was staying was
blown
> >> up. Several people were killed, though the US deputy defence secretary
> >> emerged unscathed. Much of the death and destruction was caused by
French
> >> inspected the rocket tubes and assembly. In other words, they're not
rusty
> >> leftovers Saddam had lying around from the 1980s. The Baathist
> >> dictatorship had acquired these missiles from the French rather more
> >> recently."
>
resorted
> >to telling big fat lies. Shame the rest of the world is really laughing
at
> >you. Just admit you are getting fucked up over there. America the land of
> >Rambo, John Wayne ,Neo , Bruce Willis , Arnold etc getting fucked up by a
> >rag-tag army. Now we know why you come here trying to make France the
> >scape-goat. You people are pathetic.
>
> what a strange post....
> 'scape goat' for what exactly?
`
For your fuckup.
> what have a few film actors to do with anything?
Well your films keep telling us how you guys can save the world. Meantime
all you are doing is fucking it up
Aramis Gunton
<hmode...@hotmail.com> writes
>> Just another Nihilist masturbation fantasy.
>
>I think war with France is a US masturbation fantasy..
Killing 'gooks' and 'ragheads' is facilitated by identifiable
differences of both culture and physiognomy.
Effectively staring oneself in the face requires monumental motivation
and I have difficulty perceiving the French invading and violently
subjugating the Spanish thus instigating USA 'intervention'.
> And we all know it...
"We"?
>My country is only 21 miles away..
Other countries [or is that regions now?] are considerable closer.
Would your rabid American invasion force pursue sneaky 'non-combatants'
into neighbouring Germans and Italy?
>the prospect terrifies me...
Outline a scenario for 'South Park' I feel the producers would go for
it.
>
--
Aramis Gunton
Aramis Gunton
<hmode...@hotmail.com> writes
>The USE is an inevitability
If so how will the implied unity be enhanced by literally millions of
Muslims pouring in form all over the globe?
Do you see this as an acutely serious problem?
--
Aramis Gunton
Michel
Irrelevant.
The point discussed here is Amerika's famed cowardice when choosing
opponents, having at least learn the one lesson in Vietnam: only go for
the weakling, sure to roll over and die from bombardments with planes
and missiles, launched from dozens/hundreds of miles away. When the
target has been flattened, send in GI Joe to claim the rubble and plant
his glorious flag on what's left of City Hall. Fortunately for the
world, the low-life US morons can't even seem to get that "strategy" to
work for them!!! :-)
Michel
>
> blah.....
> but where's the music and the trumpets?
>
> g'wan...let me guess....you're a lib dem from surbiton
> about to quaff a £3 bottle of german plonk.....
>
> where else on this fine earth could such intellect flourish....
Britain comes to mind...!!
jackkincaid
> a depressing but interesting read.....
>
> http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-11-08&id=3699
Steyn's thesis hinges on three things: a pretty unrepresentitive
opinion poll that found 59% of Europeans blame Israel for the lack of
world peace; the Steyn factoid that more Muslim are being born in
Holland this year than non-Muslims; and an article in the Guardian by
Tariq Ali that hysterically backed the guerillas in Iraq isntead of
the Americans (or, unforgiveably, the British).
I haven't seen the questionnaire, so I don't know whether Europeans
were asked whether anyone but Israel is responsible for the lack of
'world peace'. Were 'we' asked how much Hamas, or al-Qaida are to
blame? In Israel istelf I'd say blame falls more or less equally: 49%
on Israel, 51% on the Palestinians.
I've no idea where Steyn gets his statistics from on Dutch birth
rates, but as far as I know Muslims cannot be born, they have to be
made.
As for Ali (and the Guardian's editorial on Iraq generally), he is an
joke, a man proven more or less right by one event in history
(Vietnam) and wrong by everything that's happened in 30 years since.
It's typical that an hysterical Europe-hater like Steyn should tackle
an hysterical America-hater like Ali: they are made for each other.
Steyn obsesively needs to believe Europe is 'dying'. Actually, Europe
(presumably he means the EU) is in pretty good health, and as it
expands the size of its economy vies with America's and will
eventually overtake it. Its population is already on the way to double
that of the USA.
The idea that a culture 3000 years old can 'die', and one 300 years
old, and rooted in the older culture, survive, is ludicrous. When the
USA has a majority hispanic population, Spanish is its first language,
and Islam is the main relition among the African American population,
Europe will be relatively unchanged.
On the other hand, for all his hysteria, Steyn is right IMO to
concentrate on Islam in Europe. Unlike the USA, Europe is
ever-secularising, and the presence of a minority population holding
on to its religious identity is bound to be disruptive. But he's wrong
to imply that it is Islam that encourages anti-American feeling in
France, Germany etc.
Europe includes the UK, of course. Every one of these anti-European
jeremhiads from Canadian would-be Americans like Steyn, and his
employer Conrad Black, are a disguise: having seen their own country
sell out to the USA they expect the UK to follow suit. Britain's place
is midway between Europe and the English-speaking world, the USA and
Canada, Australia, and the rest of the Commonwealth.
John of Aix
"Alan G" <m...@privacy.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
rmsnqv8ad0bimsjo4...@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 07 Nov 2003 18:18:07 +0100, abelard <abe...@abelard.org>
> wrote:
> >On Fri, 7 Nov 2003 16:43:14 -0000, "Paris" <hmode...@hotmail.com>
> >is your tv spying on you as well?
>
> Don't give Blunkett ideas.
Oh don't worry, he doesn't watch much TV.
John of Aix
"Captain Compassion" <res0...@NOSPAMverizon.net> a écrit dans le
message de news: 3fac0180...@news.verizon.net...
> On Sat, 08 Nov 2003 08:46:29 +1300, steve <st...@unowut.org> wrote:
> >It isn't Europe that's dying......not by a long way.
> >
> Jesus man the western europeans aren't even breeding enough to
replace
> their own populations. Unemployment in many countries is near or
above
> double digit and the tight monitary control on the Euro has priced
> European good out of forign markes such as the US. Taxes and red
tape
> kill insentive.
Fortunately it spends a great deal of money on education so that its
people know how to spell 'monetary', 'foreign' and 'incentive'.
> Steyne was talking about Old Europe. Not the European countries in
the
> East and Ireland that have new outlooks and ways of doing business.
This distinction between 'old' Europe and ( I suppose) 'new' Europe is
a load of bollocks invented by Rumsfeld. How does Ireland become 'new'
Europe, because it didn't come out against the illegal invasion of
Iraq by the USA. Is the Netherlands, which gave its support, old or
new Europe?
The classification is, as I say, a load of bollocks inveted and used
by people who don't have a clue about Europe.
jackkincaid
> abelard wrote:
>
> As to the larger issue in Steyn's column I suppose it is a bit premature
> and extreme to predict the *death* of a continent as prosperous as
> Europe.
The deathn of Europe has been predicted for centuries. Steyn isn't
being premature, he's out of date.
> Still the trends that he refers to and others that he does not
> directly mention such as the declining population of native Europeanss
> clearly indicate that Europe is in serious decline vis a vis America and
> much of Asia.
The 'decline' of native Europeans is a canard. The French population
is growing, not declining. Eastern Europe's population -soon to join
the EU - is growing too. Italy and the north (Holland etc.) are in
decline. The total population of the EU will soon be around half a
billion; the population of north America (Canada and the USA) will be
300,000 at the same time.
But what exactly are we saying here? Does Europe's future depend on
the white Christian majority remaining at 93%, as it is now? If we're
making the comparison with the USA then America has already lost,
since its white population has dropped to below 70% - below 50% if
Hispanics are not counted as 'white'.
In which case, are we asking that Europe remain a 93% Christian
continent? Unfortunately, that's impossible. Europe is already a
majority secular continent, and secularism is spreading.
Which means we must be talking about Islam, and the difficulty in
persuading the Muslim communities of the west - both the EU's 10
million (2% of total population) and America's 3 million (1%) - to
secularise. If that's the intention, I would point to the successes of
Europe (Rushdie, Hussein, Steyn's bete noir Tariq Ali etc.) as wellas
the failures, and the apparant lack thereof in the USA.
> It is possible that Europe will wake up before it is too
> late but I am afraid that it will take an event in Europe that surpasses
> 9/11 in horror to do the trick.
But let's not *wish* for it, eh Bill?
But as far as the 'inner circle' of the EU is concerned - France,
Belgium, Germany - you may be right. On the other hand, given their
history, do we really want to see a backlash against Muslims form that
part of the world?
>
[snip European security]
I think you've got your wires crossed here. Europe is divided over
security. The inner countries (above) tend to want to quit Nato (at
least for now; really, only the French do) but being unable to build
defence structures to match Nato, are forced to downgrade the threat
of terrorism. You're right to say in the long term this won't work.
A European wide defence structure must include the UK and Russia, but
the UK doesn't want to break up Nato, and neither do any of the other
EU 'periphery' nations - most of which are either Nato members or
former Warsaw Pact nations - and the latter do not trust Russia.
And crucially (and here is where your wires are croseed) the USA does
not want to end Nato either. It is campaigning now to keep Nato
together, and if France quits altogether, it will campaign to keep the
rest in place (France isn't a full member anyway). If Nato ends, the
USA loses its presence in Europe, and US defence is downgraded -
America doesn't want that, and neither does Britain, Holland, Spain,
Turkey, Italy, Denmark, Poland, Hungary etc. etc.
It won't happen, IMO. The French can build their own army with the
Belgians if they like, and Nato may change (it will probably expajnd),
but the alliance won't end.
There's a lot of irritation in US conservative circles with Europe,
and vice versa, in the wake of Iraq, but that'll pass.
> Even the notion that Europe is a cultural treasure is increasingly
> becoming a hard sell. Europe *was* a repository of Western high culture
> but what are they producing these days? My question is not rhetorical.
No, your question is slly. It's one thing for Mark Steyn to disguise
his rage at what he perceives to be European anti-semitism witha lot
of tosh about the death of Europe, it's quite another to disguise the
old colonial cultural cringe with it.
What has Europe done recently? What has America done recently? What
has Hollywood produced, except for babyish trashy comedies and
meaningless FX rubbish like the Matrix? Where is America's new
literature - what happened to the Great American Novel? When was it
replaced by nihilistic navel gazing middle class crap from the likes
of Eggars and Coupland and Eston Ellis (where is America's Monica Ali,
Umberto Eco, JG Ballard, Martin Amis, Alasdair Gray [fill in your own
names]) . What happened to the great tradition of American popular
music - jazz, the blues, folk, great songwriting - that it has
degenerated into the same crappy hip-hop/heavy metal/hip easy
listening dirge, over and over again? I won't even ask about American
classical music. Modern American art? Architecture?
Visit a London art gallery and you'll see almost nothing but European
(or Asian or Arican) art. Go to a club and the latest techno, trip
hop, whatever music will most likley be French, English, Italian,
Russian. Look at the bookshops' Top 100 - you'll find a few
established N American writers, if they've produced this year (Roth,
Mailer), but the bulk will be British Commonwealth (and BTW, many of
the best British writers around are former Muslims - Kureshi, Rushdie,
M Ali etc.), or if it's a literary list, in translation (S American,
Italian, French etc).
From a European perspective, it is *American* culture that is in free
fall (or for some, all western culture). If the same applies on the
other side of the Atlantic it simply tells us the Atlantic is getting
wider, and we understand each other less and less. A situation the
likes of Mark Steyn can only make worse.
abelard
typed:
>
>"abelard" <abe...@abelard.org> wrote in message
>> what a strange post....
>> 'scape goat' for what exactly?
>For your fuckup.
>
>> what have a few film actors to do with anything?
>
>Well your films keep telling us how you guys can save the world. Meantime
>all you are doing is fucking it up
you french are such intellectuals..
abelard
typed:
>abelard <abe...@abelard.org> wrote in message news:<80plqv0so75747prl...@4ax.com>...
>> a depressing but interesting read.....
>>
>> http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-11-08&id=3699
>
>Steyn's thesis hinges on three things: a pretty unrepresentitive
a
>opinion poll that found 59% of Europeans blame Israel for the lack of
>world peace;
>the Steyn factoid that more Muslim are being born in
>Holland this year than non-Muslims; and an article in the Guardian by
>Tariq Ali that hysterically backed the guerillas in Iraq isntead of
>the Americans (or, unforgiveably, the British).
>
>I haven't seen the questionnaire,
b
while you're probably correct....stt. a does not well correlate with b
>so I don't know whether Europeans
>were asked whether anyone but Israel is responsible for the lack of
>'world peace'. Were 'we' asked how much Hamas, or al-Qaida are to
>blame? In Israel istelf I'd say blame falls more or less equally: 49%
>on Israel, 51% on the Palestinians.
>
>I've no idea where Steyn gets his statistics from on Dutch birth
>rates, but as far as I know Muslims cannot be born, they have to be
>made.
>
>As for Ali (and the Guardian's editorial on Iraq generally), he is an
>joke, a man proven more or less right by one event in history
>(Vietnam) and wrong by everything that's happened in 30 years since.
>It's typical that an hysterical Europe-hater like Steyn should tackle
>an hysterical America-hater like Ali: they are made for each other.
nah, steyn has more intelligence (+ a soh because he isn't a socialist)
but there is a certain vicarious pleasure to be taken from your
juxtaposition....
>Steyn obsesively needs to believe Europe is 'dying'. Actually, Europe
>(presumably he means the EU) is in pretty good health, and as it
>expands the size of its economy vies with America's and will
>eventually overtake it.
depends entirely on how you define 'economy'....in terms of production
it is going the other way....
>Its population is already on the way to double
>that of the USA.
overstated on present trends....however long they will last....
there is a pull out in the economist this week that you might find
useful/interesting background (yes, it is rather shallow, but imv
worth a scan)
>The idea that a culture 3000 years old can 'die', and one 300 years
>old, and rooted in the older culture, survive, is ludicrous. When the
>USA has a majority hispanic population, Spanish is its first language,
>and Islam is the main relition among the African American population,
>Europe will be relatively unchanged.
now you are making it 3! ali, stein and jak :-)
>On the other hand, for all his hysteria, Steyn is right IMO to
>concentrate on Islam in Europe. Unlike the USA, Europe is
>ever-secularising, and the presence of a minority population holding
>on to its religious identity is bound to be disruptive. But he's wrong
>to imply that it is Islam that encourages anti-American feeling in
>France, Germany etc.
feelings are for the peasants.....
>Europe includes the UK, of course. Every one of these anti-European
>jeremhiads from Canadian would-be Americans like Steyn, and his
>employer Conrad Black, are a disguise: having seen their own country
>sell out to the USA they expect the UK to follow suit.
g'wan...the world is internationalising.....it's a process....
do you see it stopping...or even slowing down?
>Britain's place
>is midway between Europe and the English-speaking world, the USA and
>Canada, Australia, and the rest of the Commonwealth.
still your last para is fine common sense....
regards.....
Dan
The Muslim woman's in veil focus is her home, the "nest" where her
children are born and reared. She is the "home" maker, the taproot
that sustains the spiritual life of the family, nurturing and training
her children,providing refuge and support to her husband.
In contrast, the bikinied Western Christians/Jew sluts practically
naked in front of millions, she belongs to herself. In
practice,paradoxically,she is public property. She belongs to no one
and everyone. She shops her body to the highest bidder. She is
auctioning herself all of the time.In western Christian/Jew sluts culture,
the cultural measure of a woman's value is her sex appeal
Matthew Robb
wrote:
>> So was Marxism... bye bye
>
>Well.....
>You laughed when they set up the EU and said it'd last a few years
I did no such thing
>You laughed when they introduced the Euro..
No. But I did point out it would be a bad idea for their economy.
Which it has proved to be
>You laughed when they spoke about the RRF
RRF?
>You keep laughing.. And they keep doing........
And such a wild success....
cheers
matt
Matthew Robb
<j.murph...@libertysurf.fr> wrote:
>> >If you declare war on 'old europe' you'd better be sure you know what you're
>> >doing....
>> >We aren't the type of people you usually pick on.....
>>
>> If Old Europe is dying, it's suicide, not murder.
>>
>> La France qui tombe... Aubury is now trashed for backing a 35 hour
>> week that even the french recognise only made working people
>poorer...
>
>Not the French people I know guv and I expect that is a far greater
>number than you know
I'll trust the official statistics, rather than your mates
>> the socialists are out, with little prospect of return in the near
>> future (they even believe they should have been more socialist in
>> government)
>
>And so they should have. They have little prosepct of return at the
>moment as their current head is a boring as a wet weekend but that can
>all change, the government is in shit already and looks as if it will
>get deeper into it.
>> Germany threatens to liberalise, but it's on a knife edge....
>
>'threaten to liberalise", what is it liberating and how is that a
>threat?
Liberalise the economy. It's not a threat, it's a damn fine thing
cheers
matt
Michel
>
> you french are such intellectuals..
Somebody's gotta do it, and it we can't expect that from the Amerikans
or their poodle Brits!! ;-)
Paris
> > >is your tv spying on you as well?
> >
> > Don't give Blunkett ideas.
>
> Oh don't worry, he doesn't watch much TV.
Can't get the remote control off his dog while animal hospital is on!
--
Paris. Not the City
Captain Compassion
Well I don't know about that. As you recall most of eastern Europe has
received a makeover sense the Fall of the Soviet Union. The political,
economic and social structures are fairly new. After years of forced
Communism the New Europe is less willing to accept socialist dogma and
more open to change. If you knew anything about European history then
you know that from time to time out of the bowels of Western Europe
some clown arises and tries to revive the Holy Roman Empire. Hitler
and Napoleon come to mind. These usually end badly. Old Europe is
trying to do it again this time by comittee.
abelard
typed:
>Muslims women vs Christian/Jews sluts.
>
>The Muslim woman's in veil focus is her home, the "nest" where her
>children are born and reared. She is the "home" maker, the taproot
>that sustains the spiritual life of the family, nurturing and training
>her children,providing refuge and support to her husband.
do they lay eggs?
>In contrast, the bikinied Western Christians/Jew sluts practically
>naked in front of millions, she belongs to herself. In
>practice,paradoxically,she is public property. She belongs to no one
>and everyone. She shops her body to the highest bidder. She is
>auctioning herself all of the time.In western Christian/Jew sluts culture,
>the cultural measure of a woman's value is her sex appeal
where do you choose to live?
abelard
typed:
>In message <bogi32$ae3$1...@news6.svr.pol.co.uk>, Paris
><hmode...@hotmail.com> writes
>>> Just another Nihilist masturbation fantasy.
>>
>>I think war with France is a US masturbation fantasy..
>
>Killing 'gooks' and 'ragheads' is facilitated by identifiable
>differences of both culture and physiognomy.
they couldn't have run ww1 without you......
hey....are you a kraut.....
what do you think this pointy hat is tommy....
bang.....
only problem is they hadn't invented decent megaphones then....
>Effectively staring oneself in the face requires monumental motivation
you're not kidding.....first you have to be absolutely beside yourself....
even then you have to turn round....
the energy costs are absolutely inconceivable...
>and I have difficulty perceiving the French invading and violently
>subjugating the Spanish thus instigating USA 'intervention'.
last time around franco was playing with the idea of getting
a piece of france....and it's empire.....
musso wanted a bit as well.....
>> And we all know it...
>
>"We"?
stop teasing him....he's a paid up member of the illuminati.....
well...he's a member of sommat......
or perhaps he's just a member.....
>>My country is only 21 miles away..
>
>Other countries [or is that regions now?] are considerable closer.
yeah....just about stuck together.....
>Would your rabid American invasion force pursue sneaky 'non-combatants'
>into neighbouring Germans and Italy?
nah....they'd come through the tunnel....
>>the prospect terrifies me...
>
>Outline a scenario for 'South Park' I feel the producers would go for
>it.
you are very helpful to the young lad....
i do wish i had the energy and time to fully respond to your very
interesting post.....
slip in a question here and there and i'll have a bash...
i just get overwhelmed when i see hundreds of lines....and the yaks
want feeding or milking.....
it not like shelling peas like paris.....
regards....
kuff (Isaac Adams)
news:eb35fbed.03110...@posting.google.com...
> abelard <abe...@abelard.org> wrote in message
news:<80plqv0so75747prl...@4ax.com>...
> > a depressing but interesting read.....
> >
> >
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-11-08&id=3699
>
> Steyn's thesis hinges on three things: a pretty unrepresentitive
> opinion poll that found 59% of Europeans blame Israel for the lack of
> world peace; the Steyn factoid that more Muslim are being born in
> Holland this year than non-Muslims; and an article in the Guardian by
> Tariq Ali that hysterically backed the guerillas in Iraq isntead of
> the Americans (or, unforgiveably, the British).
>
> I haven't seen the questionnaire, so I don't know whether Europeans
> were asked whether anyone but Israel is responsible for the lack of
> 'world peace'. Were 'we' asked how much Hamas, or al-Qaida are to
> blame? In Israel istelf I'd say blame falls more or less equally: 49%
> on Israel, 51% on the Palestinians.
They were asked to choose from a list of 14 countries and could choose more than
one country.
Israel - 59%
US - 53%
Iran - 53%
North Korea - 53%
Iraq - 52%
Afghanistan - 50%
less than 50%:
Pakistan
Syria
Libya
Saudi Arabia
China
India
Russia
Somalia
Source: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2003/11/05/2003074657
Bill Willis
>
> Bill Willis <bwi...@bcpl.net> wrote in message news:<3FAB22...@bcpl.net>...
> > abelard wrote:
>
> >
> > As to the larger issue in Steyn's column I suppose it is a bit premature
> > and extreme to predict the *death* of a continent as prosperous as
> > Europe.
>
> The deathn of Europe has been predicted for centuries. Steyn isn't
> being premature, he's out of date.
I think you are putting too fine a point on Steyn's rhetoric. Perhaps
if you substituted "decline" for "death" there would be more of a basis
for a debate.
>
> > Still the trends that he refers to and others that he does not
> > directly mention such as the declining population of native Europeanss
> > clearly indicate that Europe is in serious decline vis a vis America and
> > much of Asia.
>
> The 'decline' of native Europeans is a canard. The French population
> is growing, not declining. Eastern Europe's population -soon to join
> the EU - is growing too. Italy and the north (Holland etc.) are in
> decline. The total population of the EU will soon be around half a
> billion; the population of north America (Canada and the USA) will be
> 300,000 at the same time.
Is it a canard? I re post here an article from the Economist that deals
with current population trends vis a vis AMerica and Europe.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Half a billion Americans?
Aug 22nd 2002 | WASHINGTON, DC
rom The Economist print edition
Demographic forces are pulling America and Europe apart. If the trend
goes on, it will fundamentally alter America's position in the world.
FORGET transatlantic rifts about trade, Iraq, Kyoto, or the
International Criminal Court. These have been thoroughly ventilated. One
area of difference has not got the attention it deserves: demography. It
may prove the most important of all.
For 50 years, America and the nations of Western Europe have been lumped
together as rich countries, sharing the same basic demographic features:
stable populations, low and declining fertility, increasing numbers of
old people. For much of that period, this was true. But in the 1980s,
the two sides began to diverge. The effect was muted at first, because
demographic change is slow. But it is also remorseless, and is now
beginning to show up.
America's census in 2000 contained a shock. The population turned out to
be rising faster than anyone had expected when the 1990 census was
taken. There are disputes about exactly why this was (more on that
shortly). What is not in doubt is that a gap is beginning to open with
Europe. America's fertility rate is rising. Europe's is falling.
America's immigration outstrips Europe's and its immigrant population is
reproducing faster than native-born Americans. America's population will
soon be getting younger. Europe's is ageing.
Unless things change substantially, these trends will accelerate over
coming decades, driving the two sides of the Atlantic farther apart. By
2040, and possibly earlier, America will overtake Europe in population
and will come to look remarkably (and, in many ways, worryingly)
different from the Old World.
In 1950, Western Europe was exactly twice as populous as the United
States: 304m against 152m. (This article uses the US Census Bureau's
definition of ?Europe?, which includes all countries that were not
communist during the cold war. The 15 countries that make up the
European Union are a slightly smaller sample: they had a population of
296m in 1950.) Both sides of the Atlantic saw their populations surge
during the baby boom, then grow more slowly until the mid-1980s. Even
now, Europe's population remains more than 100m larger than America's.
In the 1980s, however, something curious began to happen. American
fertility rates?the average number of children a woman can expect to
bear in her lifetime?suddenly began to reverse their decline. Between
1960 and 1985, the American fertility rate had fallen faster than
Europe's, to 1.8, slightly below European levels and far below the
?replacement level? of 2.1 (the rate required to keep the population
steady). By the 1990s American fertility had rebounded, rising back to
just below the 2.1 mark.
Nobody quite knows why. Some of the recovery was the result of the
higher average fertility among immigrants. But not all of it:
fertility rose among native-born whites and blacks as well. Perhaps
the most plausible, if unprovable, explanation is that higher fertility
was the product of the economic boom of the 1990s combined
with what one might call ?social confidence?: America was a good
country to bring more children into.
America is not unique: a few north-European countries, like Norway,
have followed a similar trajectory. But it is highly unusual. Nearly
every country in the world has seen its fertility rate fall recently
and, by and large, the richer the country, the greater the fall.
"America?, says Hania Zlotnik of the United Nations Population
Division, "is the world's great demographic outlier."
Meanwhile, Europe's fertility continues to fall. Having been just below
1.9 in the mid-1980s, the rate is now less than and it is projected to
continue declining for at least another ten years. In some countries
(Spain, Italy and Greece) the fertility rate has fallen to between 1.1
and 1.3.
It is fair to say that these numbers probably exaggerate the long-term
demographic difference between the two sides. Remember that between
1970 and 1985 American fertility rates were slightly lower than
Europe's. What seems to have happened then was not that Americans were
having fewer children overall, but that a generation of women was
postponing motherhood. That depressed America's birth rate in 1970-85,
shifted a surge of births by half a generation, and produced an
unusually high rate in the 1990s. That same population shift is
happening in parts of Europe now, especially in those Mediterranean
countries with the lowest fertility rates.
There too, many women are merely postponing child-bearing. Later, after
about 2010, when they have their children, Europe's fertility rate will
nudge back up (see chart 1).
But what is striking about the American rate is not that it rose and
fell, but that it rose so much?to within a whisker of the
replacement level. And what is striking about the European rate is
that it fell so far, to a much lower level than America's. That is
also a reason for thinking it may not recover as strongly as
America's did.
The UN reckons that the differences in fertility between America
and Europe will continue over the next few decades. America's
high rate is expected to remain relatively stable. Europe's should
recover a bit?but it will not close the gap. The result of these
differences, already evident in the census of 2000, will then
become starker.
Absolute numbers America's population should have been 275m in 2000. At
least, that is what the central projection of the 1990 census predicted.
The 2000 census showed it was actually 281m, higher even than the ?high
series? projection from 1990. Some of this may have been caused by
things other than population change: improvements in counting, for
instance. But not all. The new census showed that immigration was higher
than expected, and that the birth rate of native-born Americans was up
too.
Those higher fertility rates will have a bigger impact as time goes on.
By 2040, using the new census's "middle series" projection, America's
population will overtake Europe's. This forecast has already proved too
low. On the "high-series projection", the crossing point occurs before
2030 (see chart 2). Admittedly, this projection is based on high
assumptions about fertility rates?over 2.5 in 2025-50. But if this
proves correct, Europe's population in 2050 would be 360m and falling,
America's would be over 550m and rising. Half a billion people: in other
words, America would be twice the size it is now. Europe would be
smaller. Obviously, straight-line projections over 50 years need to be
taken with plenty of salt. All the same, the numbers are startling.
European commissioners are fond of boasting that the European
Union (EU) is the largest market in the world. They claim an equal
status with the United States in trade negotiations as a result.
Some also think that, because of this parity, the euro will one day
become an international reserve currency to rival the dollar.
But assume, for a minute, that Americans remain, as they are now, about
one-third richer per head than Europeans. The high-series projection
implies that America's economy in 2050 would still be more than twice
the size of Europe's?and something like that preponderance would
still be there even if you assume that by then much of Central and
Eastern Europe will have joined the EU. The balance of global economic
power would be tilted in fundamental ways. With 400m-550m rich
consumers, the American market would surely be even more important to
foreign companies than it is today. And if so, American business
practices?however they emerge from the current malaise?could become yet
more dominant.
And still they come
Part of the rise in the population has been driven by higher fertility.
The rest comes from immigration. In the past decade, America has taken
in over 11m immigrants. That compares with 6m in the 1970s and 7m in the
1980s. The real number of new immigrants may be even higher, since these
figures may not account for all the estimated 8m-9m people who have
slipped illegally into the country. Some may return home. Others may be
thrown out. But those that remain contribute to the growing population
both directly and indirectly (that is, through their children). The
fertility rate for non-hispanic whites is just over 1.8, for blacks 2.1.
For Latinos, it is nearly 3.0?higher than in many developing countries.
From the point of view of the overall population, therefore, higher
immigration counts twice over.
That is a reason why America's total population will continue to rise,
though perhaps not as much as the highest estimates suggest. Many of the
new migrants come from Mexico. If Mexico's own demographic pattern, with
fast-falling fertility, is anything to go by, the fertility rate for
American Latinos is also bound to fall, though it will still be quite
high. Europe has had an immigration boom as well, of course. Indeed, in
1985-95, there were slightly more immigrants going into Europe than into
America (though since Europe's population is larger, America's rate was
higher). But more recently, the European numbers have fallen
presumably reflecting increased barriers to entry and overall, since
1950, Europe has taken in far fewer people. Most demographers forecast
that immigration will be much lower in Europe than in America during
the next few decades (see chart 3).
The difference in immigration not only increases America's
population compared with Europe's, it also makes it look
increasingly different. Compare the different shapes of chart 4,
which maps the age distribution of America's whites, on the left,
and other groups, on the right. Whites form a pear shape: they
are preponderant among adults. This is also the shape of Europe's
population. Blacks and browns form a pyramid: children account for
most of the population. Even now, in the parts of America with the
highest immigration, such as Los Angeles and Houston, Latinos
account for half of all children under 14. This is the characteristic
shape of developing countries. As the bulge of Latinos enters peak
child-bearing age in a decade or two, the Latino share of America's
population will soar.
That could have an impact both on economics and on geopolitics. The
economic impact is clear enough. Kenneth Prewitt, the former head of the
US Census Bureau, argues that "in the struggle to find workers to
support growing economies, nations that are hospitable to immigrants
will have an advantage.? Immigrants go where there are friends and
family to welcome them and help them get jobs. Where will they find a
more hospitable welcome Europe or America?
The geopolitical impact is fuzzier, but still powerful. At the moment,
America's political connections and shared values with Europe are still
strong, albeit fraying. But over time, America's ties of family and
culture will multiply and strengthen with the main sources of its
immigration?Latin America chiefly, but also East and South Asia. As this
happens, it is probable that it will also pull American attention
further away from Europe.
The young world and the old
Higher fertility rates and immigration produce not only a larger
population but a society that is younger, more mixed ethnically
and, on balance, more dynamic. The simplest expression of this is
median age (by definition, half of the population is older than the
median age, and half younger). According to Bill Frey, a
demographer at the University of Michigan, the median age in
America in 2050 will be 36.2. In Europe it will be 52.7. That is a
stunning difference, accounted for almost entirely by the dramatic
ageing of the European population. At the moment, the median
age is 35.5 in America and 37.7 in Europe. In other words, the
difference in the median age is likely to rise from two to 17 years
by 2050.
Behind this change lie demographic patterns with big policy
implications. The percentage of children in the population is falling
as populations age. But in America it is falling more slowly than
elsewhere. In 1985, America and Europe had more or less the same
proportion of the population under 14 years of age: around 20%.
By 2020, the proportion of children in Europe will have slumped to
13.7%. In America it will still be 18.6%?not only higher than in
Europe but higher than in China and Japan, as well.
From a fiscal point of view, more children are not necessarily a
blessing: their education is a burden on the public finances.
Because America has relatively more children than Europe, its
dependency ratio?, or the number of children and elderly people
for each working-age person, does not stay low. It is slightly
higher than in Europe now?51% against 47%?and will stay just
above European levels as the ratio rises in both places until about
2035 (see top panel of chart 5). But note the difference: a higher
proportion of Europe's ?dependency costs? comes from the old.
The number of people over 65 will be equivalent to 60% of the
working-age population in Europe in 2050, compared with only 40%
in America. There, most of the overall burden will come from the
cost of educating children (chart 5, bottom panel).
You see the significance after 2035. In America, the dependency ratio
will start to fall as the bulge of children turns into a bulge of
adults. But in Europe there will be no such change, and the ratio will
continue to rise. This is where the implications for public policy
become large.
Both Europe and America face fiscal problems in providing pensions and
health care as their baby-boomers retire. On some estimates, by 2050,
government debt could be equivalent to almost 100% of national income in
America, 150% in the EU as a whole, and over 250% in Germany and France.
So while the burden is growing on both sides of the Atlantic, it is much
heavier in Europe.
That is a problem in its own right, and a source of another long-term
difficulty in the transatlantic relationship. Since the end of the cold
war, Europe and America have made different calculations about where to
spend public money. America has put more into defence; Europe has spent
more on social programmes.
The result is a familiar military imbalance. America spends about twice
as much on defence as the entire European Union ($295 billion in 2000,
or 3% of GDP, compared with the EU's $153 billion), thus maintaining its
preponderant military might. Europeans intermittently promise to spend
more in order to narrow the military gap, recognising the dangers to
the NATO alliance if they fail to pull their weight, but population
trends will sap their determination.
If Europeans are unwilling to spend what is needed to be full
military partners of America now, when 65-year-olds amount to
30% of the working-age population, they will be even less likely to
do more in 2050, when the proportion of old people will have
doubled. In short, the long-term logic of demography seems likely
to entrench America's power and to widen existing transatlantic
rifts.
Perhaps none of this is altogether surprising. The contrast
between youthful, exuberant, multi-coloured America and ageing,
decrepit, inward-looking Europe goes back almost to the foundation of
the United States. But demography is making this picture even more true,
with long-term consequences for America's economic and military might
and quite possibly for the focus of its foreign
policy.
Demography in
America and Europe
Aug 22nd 2002
-------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> But what exactly are we saying here? Does Europe's future depend on
> the white Christian majority remaining at 93%, as it is now? If we're
> making the comparison with the USA then America has already lost,
> since its white population has dropped to below 70% - below 50% if
> Hispanics are not counted as 'white'.
I don;t think anyone but you has suggested any such thing. How do you
say America has "lost" by its white population dropping? America still
seems to be producing quite well. Indeed even better than when it had a
higher proportion of whites vs. non whites.
Perhaps the gist of what you are suggesting is in the way Europe and
America assimilate its (white and non white, Christian and non
Christian) immigrants. It is my view that the US does a much better job
over a vastly shorter time period that does Europe.
> In which case, are we asking that Europe remain a 93% Christian
> continent? Unfortunately, that's impossible. Europe is already a
> majority secular continent, and secularism is spreading.
That isn't at all the point.
>
> Which means we must be talking about Islam, and the difficulty in
> persuading the Muslim communities of the west - both the EU's 10
> million (2% of total population) and America's 3 million (1%) - to
> secularise. If that's the intention, I would point to the successes of
> Europe (Rushdie, Hussein, Steyn's bete noir Tariq Ali etc.) as wellas
> the failures, and the apparant lack thereof in the USA.
>
> > It is possible that Europe will wake up before it is too
> > late but I am afraid that it will take an event in Europe that surpasses
> > 9/11 in horror to do the trick.
>
> But let's not *wish* for it, eh Bill?
Certainly I do not wish any horror to befall anybody.
>
> But as far as the 'inner circle' of the EU is concerned - France,
> Belgium, Germany - you may be right. On the other hand, given their
> history, do we really want to see a backlash against Muslims form that
> part of the world?
Certainly I do not "wish" it to happen. What a silly suggestion. I
"wish" the opposite but I don't always get my wishes - do you?
> >
> [snip European security]
>
> I think you've got your wires crossed here. Europe is divided over
> security. The inner countries (above) tend to want to quit Nato (at
> least for now; really, only the French do) but being unable to build
> defence structures to match Nato, are forced to downgrade the threat
> of terrorism. You're right to say in the long term this won't work.
I agree with this bit. How have I got my wires crosssed?
>
> A European wide defence structure must include the UK and Russia, but
> the UK doesn't want to break up Nato, and neither do any of the other
> EU 'periphery' nations - most of which are either Nato members or
> former Warsaw Pact nations - and the latter do not trust Russia.
>
> And crucially (and here is where your wires are croseed) the USA does
> not want to end Nato either. It is campaigning now to keep Nato
> together, and if France quits altogether, it will campaign to keep the
> rest in place (France isn't a full member anyway). If Nato ends, the
> USA loses its presence in Europe, and US defence is downgraded -
> America doesn't want that, and neither does Britain, Holland, Spain,
> Turkey, Italy, Denmark, Poland, Hungary etc. etc.
I don't think I have suggested otherwise. America is opposed to Europe
allocating precious defense Euros (which it believes Europe spends far
too little) on defense that is apart from NATO. America does still
support NATO. I wonder though how long this support will continue given
what is an apparent parting of the ways between America and Europe. We
have less and less in common with each other and at some point our ties
are going to vanish altogether. Unless of course current trends
(population and otherwise) reverse themselves. Such a reversal is
always possible but I think unlikely.
>
> It won't happen, IMO. The French can build their own army with the
> Belgians if they like, and Nato may change (it will probably expajnd),
> but the alliance won't end.
Whether Europe succeeds or fails regarding its independent defense
capability is ultimately a matter of little importance for America.
America will react to whatever Europe does but I think you need to look
at long term trends to get a feel for the future of Europe and the
future of America and then you can speculate on the future of
transatlantic ties. Nobody (not even Steyn) is suggesting that Europe
is going to disappear. It is just a matter of Europe's relative future
importance in the world. Europe seems to be in decline and their seems
to be nothing on hand to stem the decline. European growth and
influence appears to have peaked and is poised for decline. America is
still growing, Asia is growing even faster. All of this is significant
and will determine the relative importance and how relationships are
formed in coming decades of the 21st century.
Maybe America's future will eventually be a primarily Hispanic country.
Does this mean that it will then resemble more a present day Latin
American country? I see no reason why this should be. It will still be
a society that has largely adopted US culture and adheres to a US
system. If that changes then of course the country itself will not be
the same. But why should it change?
>
> There's a lot of irritation in US conservative circles with Europe,
> and vice versa, in the wake of Iraq, but that'll pass.
Of course the issue of Iraq will pass. But if it is true that Europe is
declining in importance vis a vis America and the rest of the world that
will not pass unnoticed and Europe will no longer play as prominent a
role in America's thinking as in the past. I believe that process is
already well underway and will likely accelerate in the years ahead.
>
> > Even the notion that Europe is a cultural treasure is increasingly
> > becoming a hard sell. Europe *was* a repository of Western high culture
> > but what are they producing these days? My question is not rhetorical.
>
> No, your question is slly. It's one thing for Mark Steyn to disguise
> his rage at what he perceives to be European anti-semitism witha lot
> of tosh about the death of Europe, it's quite another to disguise the
> old colonial cultural cringe with it.
I don't think Steyn raised this point, I did. I am not claiming that
America has replaced Europe as a font of high culture. I know otherwise
but it is observable (as you observe yourself below) that Europe has
stopped being a cultural center. It's treasures are largely treasures
of the past. What is culturally important these days is generally
speaking not coming from Europe.
>
> What has Europe done recently? What has America done recently? What
> has Hollywood produced, except for babyish trashy comedies and
> meaningless FX rubbish like the Matrix? Where is America's new
> literature - what happened to the Great American Novel? When was it
> replaced by nihilistic navel gazing middle class crap from the likes
> of Eggars and Coupland and Eston Ellis (where is America's Monica Ali,
> Umberto Eco, JG Ballard, Martin Amis, Alasdair Gray [fill in your own
> names]) . What happened to the great tradition of American popular
> music - jazz, the blues, folk, great songwriting - that it has
> degenerated into the same crappy hip-hop/heavy metal/hip easy
> listening dirge, over and over again? I won't even ask about American
> classical music. Modern American art? Architecture?
>
> Visit a London art gallery and you'll see almost nothing but European
> (or Asian or Arican) art. Go to a club and the latest techno, trip
> hop, whatever music will most likley be French, English, Italian,
> Russian. Look at the bookshops' Top 100 - you'll find a few
> established N American writers, if they've produced this year (Roth,
> Mailer), but the bulk will be British Commonwealth (and BTW, many of
> the best British writers around are former Muslims - Kureshi, Rushdie,
> M Ali etc.), or if it's a literary list, in translation (S American,
> Italian, French etc).
>
> From a European perspective, it is *American* culture that is in free
> fall (or for some, all western culture).
This may be so but from a European perspective I believe this has always
been so. Europe never looked to America as a cultural treasure chest.
What I am suggesting is that from an American perspective we *did* tend
to look to Europe for inspiration for our high culture. This is no
longer so. I tend to agree with you that much of both of our culture is
somewhat debased but to the extent that America produces higher culture
it no longer looks to Europe for its inspiration.
If the same applies on the
> other side of the Atlantic it simply tells us the Atlantic is getting
> wider, and we understand each other less and less. A situation the
> likes of Mark Steyn can only make worse.
Don't kill the messenger. If we wish to understand each other better
than we must begin to understand where we misunderstand. Steyn is only
telling us how he sees it. Now you tell us how he misunderstands.
Bill
Bill Willis
>
> abelard <abe...@abelard.org> wrote in message news:<80plqv0so75747prl...@4ax.com>...
>
> old, and rooted in the older culture, survive, is ludicrous.
As stated in my other post to you I think you should try and substitute
Steyn's *dying* with *declining*. Europe isn't going to disappear but
has it had its best days already.
When the
> USA has a majority hispanic population, Spanish is its first language,
> and Islam is the main relition among the African American population,
> Europe will be relatively unchanged.
Why would any of that necessarily spell trouble for America given the
longstanding American tendancy to Americanize and assimilate newcomers.
Foreigners in Europe tend to remain foreign forever. You say Europe
will be unchanged? Are you unaware of the changing demographics for
Europe? Read carefully the Economist article I posted to you in the
other message in this thread.
>
> On the other hand, for all his hysteria, Steyn is right IMO to
> concentrate on Islam in Europe. Unlike the USA, Europe is
> ever-secularising, and the presence of a minority population holding
> on to its religious identity is bound to be disruptive.
Christian Europe may be secularizing but Islam is not. Islam is
undergoing a fundamentalist phase and that phase may well last a century
or longer. How long will Europe be able to contain a highly religious
and constantly increasing Islamic population living side by side with a
declining Christian population.? A population who will vote and elect
their own representatives. Do you see Muslims living in France starting
to identify with primarily with French culture or will they still
consider themselves primarily Muslims living in a foreign land (albeit
with certain political rights in that land).
But he's wrong
> to imply that it is Islam that encourages anti-American feeling in
> France, Germany etc.
>
> Europe includes the UK, of course. Every one of these anti-European
> jeremhiads from Canadian would-be Americans like Steyn, and his
> employer Conrad Black, are a disguise: having seen their own country
> sell out to the USA they expect the UK to follow suit. Britain's place
> is midway between Europe and the English-speaking world, the USA and
> Canada, Australia, and the rest of the Commonwealth.
Is that what you really think this is about? Do you think America feels
a need for Britain to join up with the US? As a matter of fact while I
personally might welcome Britain into the United States if that were on
the agenda, I seriously doubt that the country as a whole would permit
it.
Certainly Britain is geographically a part of Europe. Equally certain
is that Britain is culturally and politically much closer to the USA
then continental Europe and this has always been the case even during
the periods when our respective countries were at war with each other.
This is unchangeable just as certainly as it is unchangeable that
Britain is geographically a part of Europe.
Bill
jackkincaid
>
> They were asked to choose from a list of 14 countries and could choose more
> than one country.
>
> Israel - 59%
> US - 53%
> Iran - 53%
> North Korea - 53%
> Iraq - 52%
> Afghanistan - 50%
OK. Who was asked?
>
> less than 50%:
How much less than 50%? 1% less? 2% less?
> Pakistan
> Syria
> Libya
> Saudi Arabia
> China
> India
> Russia
> Somalia
Here are my approximate scores:
Afghanistan (under Taliban) 90%
Saudi Arabia 80%
Iran 75%
N Korea 70%
Irag (under Saddam) 60%
Syria 60%
Pakistan 60%
India 45%
Israel 45%
France 30%
USA 30%
According to Steyn the UK score for Israel was the average (60%). The
anti-Israel score in France/BeNeLux was much higher, which means there
must be a lot of Europeans out there who don't blame Israel for the
lack of peace in the world, to bring the average down.
There was a terrorist bombing in Saudi yesterday. The terrorists were
Muslims, and probably Saudis. All the terrorism we've seen around the
world in 2 years has come from Islamists. They are funded by Saudis
and other oil-rich Arabians and other Muslims. It may be
uncomfortable, but it's a fact.
To blame anyone else for the lack of world peace is grotesque - they
do the killing, they are to blame. A lot of Europeans obviously need
educating. It's just a shame that the USA doesn't have the political
leadership to do the educating. It's even more of a shame that
Britain, which does, isn't doing so.
jackkincaid
Bill Willis <bwi...@bcpl.net> wrote in message news:<3FADAD...@bcpl.net>...
> jackkincaid wrote:
>
> As stated in my other post to you I think you should try and substitute
> Steyn's *dying* with *declining*. Europe isn't going to disappear but
> has it had its best days already.
Well, arguably, European culture dominated the world in two periods:
roughly 500BC-500AD and 1300-1900. Nobody knows if it will happen
again, but since in both cases the domination wasn't particularly
planned, I don't think it matters.
More to the point, I don't perceive American culture as significantly
different from European culture. I don't think most Europeans do
either (when they're not feeling upset about a temporary US president,
and think about it properly). I suppose some Americans may find this
attitude irritating, but if they thought about it they would agree
(and got over their upset feelings about a temporary French president
and think about it properly too). But of course, as a Briton that's
easy for me to say.
If Europeans have learned anything in 2,000 years it is that it's a
mistake to believe your own press - don't believe you dominate world
culture while you're doing the dominating, because it never lasts and
your arrogance and failure will be remembered long after your
achievements.
This goes double for the US now because compared to Europe in the two
periods I mentioned its domination of world culture appears
superficial and tenuous (and I don't mean only to Europeans), and
almost entirely dependent on a material success all but impossible
where the majority of the world's population actually lives.
>
> When the
> > USA has a majority hispanic population, Spanish is its first language,
> > and Islam is the main relition among the African American population,
> > Europe will be relatively unchanged.
>
> Why would any of that necessarily spell trouble for America given the
> longstanding American tendancy to Americanize and assimilate newcomers.
I didn't say it would spell trouble, did I? It spells change.
> Foreigners in Europe tend to remain foreign forever. You say Europe
> will be unchanged? Are you unaware of the changing demographics for
> Europe? Read carefully the Economist article I posted to you in the
> other message in this thread.
I think the idea that foreigners in Europe remain foreign forever is a
misconception, and a peculiarly American one. In my experience, for
instance, racism - specifically anti-black racism - is far more deep
rooted in the USA than in Europe (which has, after all, had quite a
different experience with non-white people, for good or bad, for much
longer).
All countries of the world have experienced immigration. Europe's
great waves of immigration happened a long time ago; America's within
recorded memory. It is easier for us to look to America for an example
of how to manage it, and to a large extent we do.
It's easier, but not necessarily ideal. The USA will cease to be a
WASP-dominated society long before Europe will; if Europe does too, it
will cope as well as America will (and hopefully, will learn from
America's successes and failures, as it is doing now).
I'm not a racist so I'm not sure why this matters, or what point
you're making (I think I've seen the Economist's democgraphic
predictions; I've seen a dozen others over the years too, coming to
very different conclusions). Unless it's about Islam, or religion
generally I can't see a problem taht isn't common to all the western
world. And religion is a different issue.
It's interesting though, Bill. You and I have had this argument
several times already, and you know I won't agree with you, not least
because I don't trust you (I think you want to believe that Europe
will 'fail', though I don't know why; naturally, as a patriot, you
want the USA to 'succeed'). I've seen this argument many, many times
now, from the likes of Steyn and countless other American
conservatives, and I've never understood its inconsistency.
If it's their belief that America (let's say all of it, since Steyn is
Canadian) is a model for the integration of immigrants, and if they
believe that Europe must follow its example (for democratic reasons as
much as demographic), then surely they must applaud most of the
changes taking place in European society over the last 40 years (as
all good liberals, in the old sense, do). If American-style
immigration is the answer, then (they should believe) Europe has
learned from America, and they should be happy.
But they're not happy. Of course they're not happy that Europeans
don't always agree with majority American opinion, but that has always
been the case. No, they appear not to be happy that Europe is changing
- changing in precisely the way America has changed since its civil
war. Yet, presumably, they believe those changes are necessary (and by
and large, I'd agree). Doesn't make sense.
It *could* be because (as you imply above) Europeans aren't doing it
'properly' - because it remains an exclusive society - but that would
be absurd. The idea that American conservatives like Steyn can hold up
the American experience of racial conflict and its 'resolution' as a
model for Europeans - a model of which most of the time they are
highly critical - is laughable. Racism exists the world over, but
given the much lower proportion of ethnic minorities in western Europe
(the east has been free for 10 years; give them a chance) compared to
the USA, the number of their members in political office, in public
life of all kinds, is remarkable. The reason the racists on this
newsgroup complain about the visibility of ethnic minorities in
Britain is because they are achieving far more than their 7% or so of
the population would lead you to expect.
As Blair said, there is no Afro-Caribbean success story in the UK
equivalent to that of Colin Powell (mentioned by him, I guess, because
as Jamaicans, Powell's parents would more usually have been expected
to emigrate to Britain). neverthless, with an Afro-Carib population
far smaller than that of the USA's proportionately (2% against, what?
20%?), there are two black members of the UK cabinet, and one more
about to join (of 21: 1/7th). There are a few British Asian members of
government too (I think we've passed the 100th anniversary of the
first Indian MP), and 150 years after Britain's first Jewish PM
(obliged to convert to Christianity, D'Israeli was widely assumed to
be Jewish anyway) we may be about to get our second. Our first
non-white PM will probably be Indian, my guess is within the next 25
years. We've already had a female PM.
Can the USA say as much? Given the wide discrepency between non-WASP
populations, you would expect the US to have elected its first black
president a generation ago at least. And other European countries -
France, Holland, Sweden - have governments of similar complexion to
Britain's. London, Paris, Amsterdam, even Rome and Madrid these days,
are as 'multicultural' as New York or Chicago, but in the former cases
at least without the deabillitating ghettoisation by race you find in
the US.
I shouldn't be so quick to criticise Europe's racial politics if I
were American. There are enormous problems, but Europe is hardly alone
in that.
>
> >
> > On the other hand, for all his hysteria, Steyn is right IMO to
> > concentrate on Islam in Europe. Unlike the USA, Europe is
> > ever-secularising, and the presence of a minority population holding
> > on to its religious identity is bound to be disruptive.
>
> Christian Europe may be secularizing but Islam is not.
Ah, Islam. Yes, it does always seem to come back to Islam , doesn't
it?
This is Steyn's thesis. He has no opinion on black French senators or
Indian parliamentarians in Britain; his concern is the rise of Islamic
fundamentalism, and the affect he thinks it has on European opinion,
especially of Israel and Europe's Jewish population. Fair enough.
> Islam is
> undergoing a fundamentalist phase and that phase may well last a century
> or longer. How long will Europe be able to contain a highly religious
> and constantly increasing Islamic population living side by side with a
> declining Christian population.? A population who will vote and elect
> their own representatives. Do you see Muslims living in France starting
> to identify with primarily with French culture or will they still
> consider themselves primarily Muslims living in a foreign land (albeit
> with certain political rights in that land).
These are good questions, yes, and I would much, much prefer that
Europe's critics in the USA would stick to it, instead of widening
their attack to perceived European 'snootiness', cultural 'decline'
and French fries.
I agree Islam is the burning issue of the 21st century. The first
thing to say is it is a burning issue for all of us; the USA has no
business walking away from Europe, condemning it as 'doomed' because
it will be the first part of the democratic world to tackle it. Europe
is on the frontline in our new cold war - as it was last time around,
and the time before that - but just as Nazism would eventually have
infected America had the US not come to Europe's aid when it did,
Islamism will too. There are 10 million nominal Muslims in the EU,
which has a population of around 500 million. There are 3 million
nominal Muslims in north America, with an overall population of 300
million. 2% against 1%. There is a minority of 'radical' Muslims in
the USA with a single mission: convert black America, which they
intend to do first through the prisons. Without wanting to introduce
racial paranoia into this, they may be justified in thinking they have
more scope for success than they would in Europe.
It's interesting you mention Christianity, and its decline in Europe.
Do you really think that an insistence on the Christian history and
character of the west is the answer to Islamism? I don't: the answer
is secularism. Believe me, the Islamists' target is the poor,
uneducated, superstitious underclass, not just in the west but
everywhere. They know their job of conversion is far, far easier with
people who already believe in the unbelievable - it's relatively easy
to convert a Christian fundamentalist to Islam; it's well nigh
impossible to convert an atheist. If the USA insists on hardline
Christianism as a bulwark against Islamism it will blow up in its face
- especially if Christianity in the US becomes associated with
conservative politics, which it increasingly has.
And if I were Jewish (or Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist), the last thing I
should want is the Christianisation of the western world.
No, the answer lies in secularisation. How it is achieved I'm not
sure, but bear this in mind: three of the most well-known and
applauded British writers of the last 15 years or so are Salman
Rushdie, Hanif Kureshi and Monica Ali. All born to Muslim families,
all secularised (Rushdie notoriously). Of England's three
international sports teams the most articulate, and judged solely by
what he says in public, most patriotic, captain was the former English
cricket captain, Nasser Hussein, who is a Muslim (and who I think
supported both the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq). Europeans are
well used to Muslim sports stars - the best footballer in the world is
a key French player - and Muslim, or former Muslim, authors,
politicians, actors and the like.
The 'Muslim world' is not a monolith; there is no single Muslim
opinion. As much as possible we must encourage secularisation, which
means we must be clear and confident in stating what Islam is, what
the Quran is, what the history of Islam amounts to, just as we have
been for Christianity. I agree that if Islam retains its political
aspect it must eventually threaten democracy, and might one day drag
Europe into civil war, but I'm confident that our beliefs, in
democracy, freedom, secularism and equality, will defeat political
Islam.
But I could be wrong.
>
> Is that what you really think this is about? Do you think America feels
> a need for Britain to join up with the US?
No. But I think there is a political struggle going on - quite
seperate to the Islam issue - about the future of the EU. Gaullist
France wants to create a United States of Europe, on the USA model
(which the French invented apparantly. You didn't know, right?), which
can be at least a regional superpower.
It's a pipedream IMO, and an old one at that, but even in the attempt,
a Franco-German led USE would present an economic challenge to the US,
and naturally American politicians have an interest in the UK not
taking part. There's another military angle too, in that the US and UK
share intelligence (most of the US's listening posts in the Atlantic,
Indian and Pacific Oceans, for instance, are leased from Britain) and
have an integrated army. if the UK joins an EU military structure the
US may wory that some of that intelligence will be shared with France,
which - quite rightly IMO - the US doesn't trust (and vice versa). It
won't happen, obviously, but there are concerns, I think.
> As a matter of fact while I
> personally might welcome Britain into the United States if that were on
> the agenda, I seriously doubt that the country as a whole would permit
> it.
No, and it's not in the UK's interests to join either a USA or USE.
Britain's position is midway between America and Europe and in the
Commonwealth, the English-speaking first and third worlds, and where
possible, as an honest broker between India and Pakistan, Israel and
the Palestinians, and so on, if invited.
>
> Certainly Britain is geographically a part of Europe. Equally certain
> is that Britain is culturally and politically much closer to the USA
> then continental Europe and this has always been the case even during
> the periods when our respective countries were at war with each other.
> This is unchangeable just as certainly as it is unchangeable that
> Britain is geographically a part of Europe.
Sure. In terms of geography, history, social politics 'deep' cultural
understanding and political rivalry, Britain is with Europe. In terms
of economy, modern cultural understanding and rivalry - and defence
and military matters, and understanding of what matters in the world -
Britain is with the rest of the English speaking world, including the
USA, with whom there is a 'special' understanding on the latter issue
(albeit one to which Australia will increasingly be party, IMO).
What the British political establishment wants is a single democratic
world, in which America and Europe are equally culturally strong, with
a powerful European economy, but with the last word on military
matters and defence being in English. If Britain had the muscle,
obviously it would prefer that last word to be spoken in London; since
it hasn't, Washington is the best second choice. When there are
disputes between the different poles of this new world order, London,
sitting on the world's meridian, equidistant from both, is sitting
pretty. Britain doesn't want the USA to wash its hands of Europe now
any more than it did in 1940 or 1915; neither does it want Europe to
wash its hands of the USA. But I think it knows it is ideally placed
to be arbiter between them.
John of Aix
"Matthew Robb" <matthew.robb1@delete this phrase.btinternet.com> a
écrit dans le message de news:
> On Fri, 7 Nov 2003 23:41:31 +0100, "John of Aix"
> <j.murph...@libertysurf.fr> wrote:
>
> >> >If you declare war on 'old europe' you'd better be sure you know
what you're
> >> >doing....
> >> >We aren't the type of people you usually pick on.....
> >>
> >> If Old Europe is dying, it's suicide, not murder.
> >>
> >> La France qui tombe... Aubury is now trashed for backing a 35
hour
> >> week that even the french recognise only made working people
> >poorer...
> >
> >Not the French people I know guv and I expect that is a far greater
> >number than you know
>
> I'll trust the official statistics, rather than your mates
Please furnish them then, I live in France and have never heard
anything of the sort.
John of Aix
"Captain Compassion" <res0...@NOSPAMverizon.net> a écrit dans le
OK, a valid point
If you knew anything about European history then
> you know that from time to time out of the bowels of Western Europe
> some clown arises and tries to revive the Holy Roman Empire. Hitler
> and Napoleon come to mind.
Give me another one. I don't think you can. I could conclude on your
reperesentative sample of two that as a few US presidents have been
assassinated, US people assasinate their presidents. Bit of a shortcut
don't you think?
jackkincaid
Bill Willis <bwi...@bcpl.net> wrote in message news:<3FAD59...@bcpl.net>...
> jackkincaid wrote:
> >
[snip]
> >
> > The 'decline' of native Europeans is a canard.
>
> Is it a canard?
If it walks like a canard, quacks like a canard ... etc.
> I re post here an article from the Economist that deals
> with current population trends vis a vis AMerica and Europe.
Yup, I have read this before.
The basic conclusion is that Europe (meaning EU in a few years time,
plus Efta - west and central, not east Europe) has a population of
roughly 500 million. North America has apopulation of roughly 300
million. Land area is roughly the same.
European birth rates overall are static, which means there won't be a
great rise in population. America's birthrate, especially among
Hispanics, is rising fast. Which means in 50 years or so north America
and west/central Europe will have roughly the same populations, in
roughly the same land areas, with a similar dcultural distribution (if
you convert 'hispanic' to 'latin' - America's Mexicano, Cuban and
Puerto Rican for Europe's Spanish, Portugese, Italian and Romanian).
More or less, that is. Europe will always have a larger Arabic and
Turkish population than America; America will always have a larger
African population. Europe will be more Slavic; America will be more
Chinese and Vietnamese; both will have equivalent Indian populations -
and when you start analysing it at this level you realise how
pointless it all is.
And while we can be pretty sure American birth rates will continue to
rise, we don't know for sure that Europe's won't too (or fall further:
France is reporting a rise; Italy is reporting another drop), or taht
America will experience a drop later on. Of course we know we must
persuade Italian girls to have more sex, but I've been working on that
for years so I refuse to feel guilty. And we also have east
Europe/Eurasia totake into account - that great half empty hinterland
of Ukrainians, Georgians and 150 million Russians, and all of Siberia
to play with, which eventually/presumably will want to join the EU
(though by then, just maybe, the entire northern hemisphere could be a
genuine free trade, free movement, single defence policy, single bill
of rights area...).
>
> Perhaps the gist of what you are suggesting is in the way Europe and
> America assimilate its (white and non white, Christian and non
> Christian) immigrants. It is my view that the US does a much better job
> over a vastly shorter time period that does Europe.
My view is the reverse. It is Europe that has had the shorter time
period (50 years against 500), and it is Europe that is producing the
better results, relative to populations.
But we won't agree on this, it depends on definitions of 'better' and
is all in the eye of the beholder anyway (neither of us is black, and
we should have to ask elsewhere whether the confederate flag still
flying in the American south is 'preferable' to the rise of the Front
Nationale in the French south). I've attempted to answer further in my
other post, but I don't think either of us are the best people to
debate the issue anyway.
>
[snip]
>
> America is opposed to Europe
> allocating precious defense Euros (which it believes Europe spends far
> too little) on defense that is apart from NATO.
Yes, I agree with that too, although it wouldn't be fair to criticise
Britain of this (fourth biggest defence capability of the democracies,
I think), and ironically, neither would it be fair to criticise France
(second biggest, I think, although it depends how they are measured).
But for the rest, yes - although it can't be beyond the imagination of
American commentators to understand why central Europeans may have had
a bellyfull of war, are sickened to the soul by it, and why they might
- wrongly, IMO, but then it's easy for me to say, and easier still for
you - resent the US (to a lesser extent, UK) reminding them of their
responsibilities.
> America does still
> support NATO. I wonder though how long this support will continue given
> what is an apparent parting of the ways between America and Europe.
I can't see it. There is a desire among the mitteleuropeans (France,
Belgium, sometimes Germany, occasionally northern Italy) to shuck off
the Americans. They are an influential bloc in Europe, but in a
minority even in the EU (or will be soon). The periphery nations don't
want to break up Nato - and since France is not a full member, Germany
is constitutionally unable to commit troops to war, and Belgium is
roughly the same size of Massachussetts (sp?), I don't think it's a
big issue anywy.
> We
> have less and less in common with each other and at some point our ties
> are going to vanish altogether. Unless of course current trends
> (population and otherwise) reverse themselves. Such a reversal is
> always possible but I think unlikely.
I don't think population has anything to do with it, except inasmuch
as a greater latinisation and Catholicisation of the USA, if that's
what's happening, will serve to bring american culture closer to
Europe's, not further away.
IMO the divisions between America and Europe are lesser now than they
were 50 years ago, not greater. What *has* changed is that, while
there has always been a certain cultural dismissiveness toward America
from some Europeans, the old cultural cringe of America toward Europe
is being replaced, in some quarters, by resentment and dislike. I
don't think there's anything rational about any of this.
It may strike Americans that they don't 'need' Europe. But they never
did - the historical and cultural links will remain because history
cannot change and the world is becoming more and more integrated every
day (more Europeans take holidays in America than ever before, and
vice versa; more American TV programmes are available, and as far as
Britain is concerned, vice versa too).
No, the alleged estrangement between America and Europe is a political
rhetorical device for US home consumption: Europe signifies for some
Americans degeneracy, appeasement, aristocracy, antisemitism. There is
a degree of truth in this - there always is - but it tells us more
about American political debate (and the survival of its puritan
instinct) than Europe. When Europeans caricature Americans as
unthinking bible-bashing gunslingers they do the same: both sides are
continuing a rhetorical tradition that was noticed by Charles Dickens
150 years ago. It's a lot of old wank.
We're stuck with each other; America can't hide its head in the sand
any more than France can.
>
> Whether Europe succeeds or fails regarding its independent defense
> capability is ultimately a matter of little importance for America.
> America will react to whatever Europe does but I think you need to look
> at long term trends to get a feel for the future of Europe and the
> future of America and then you can speculate on the future of
> transatlantic ties. Nobody (not even Steyn) is suggesting that Europe
> is going to disappear. It is just a matter of Europe's relative future
> importance in the world. Europe seems to be in decline and their seems
> to be nothing on hand to stem the decline. European growth and
> influence appears to have peaked and is poised for decline. America is
> still growing, Asia is growing even faster. All of this is significant
> and will determine the relative importance and how relationships are
> formed in coming decades of the 21st century.
Sixty years ago Europe was a bombsite. Now it is as wealthy as
America, one of the fastest economic expansions in history. Yes, it
probably won't expand as quickly in the near future, and America
probably will - but so what? In the long term - when east Europe opens
up - the situation may change again. So what if it does?
I don't believe all this crap about European decline - I live here, I
look around, I can see the wealth. I know the ingenuity of the people.
I have no idea whether Europe will ever build a military structure to
match the USA's, but for all that military spending probably needs to
rise, I doubt it would be necessary to go that far. I'm sure there
will be differences between the two societies, but I'm happy with
that, and I think most Europeans are too.
I think we can leave the prophecies of doom and the insistence that
we're all engaged in some great cultural 'race' to who knows where to
the Jeremiahs.
>
> Maybe America's future will eventually be a primarily Hispanic country.
> Does this mean that it will then resemble more a present day Latin
> American country? I see no reason why this should be.
Well, it will be more *like* a latin American country - more Spanish,
more Catholic. But I certainly don't think it *matters*.
> It will still be
> a society that has largely adopted US culture and adheres to a US
> system. If that changes then of course the country itself will not be
> the same. But why should it change?
Because without change society stagnates - what Steyn is presumably,
and if so wrongly, saying has happened to Europe. What has happened in
the middle east.
If America loses some of its former Anglo-Saxon protestant and puritan
character that won't be a bad thing - it might stop it from perceiving
itself to be in some kind of weird competition with Europe, for a
start.
>
>
> if it is true that Europe is
> declining in importance vis a vis America and the rest of the world that
> will not pass unnoticed and Europe will no longer play as prominent a
> role in America's thinking as in the past. I believe that process is
> already well underway and will likely accelerate in the years ahead.
What does 'decline in importance' mean? How 'important' do you think
Europe is?
You appear to think Europe has an importance that Europeans themselves
don't perceive. Europeans are just people, ordinary folk getting omn
with their own lives, Bill. They aren't in a race - they're not trying
to leave their mark on the world, or build a new Babylon, or whatever.
I suppose history tells us that Europe has contributed greatly to the
develipment of civilisation; that may continue or happen again, or it
might not. America may change enormously, so that any contribution it
makes in the future can no longer be seen as a continuation of what
Europe did before, or it may not. Only historians in the far future
can tell us that.
I'm all in favour of patriotism but I think you can take
identification with nation too far;. If you perceive America to be in
competition with europe, I'm sorry, but I don't, and I don't think
Europeans do. Not interested, old chap. If you want to leave your mark
on society I suggest you have kids - and if you want to be really
patriotic, I guess you'd better make them Hispanic.
Calm down, mate. There isn't a competition on here. If you think there
is, better ask yourself why.
> >
>
> I am not claiming that
> America has replaced Europe as a font of high culture. I know otherwise
> but it is observable (as you observe yourself below) that Europe has
> stopped being a cultural center. It's treasures are largely treasures
> of the past. What is culturally important these days is generally
> speaking not coming from Europe.
We are more and more interested in the culture of places outside the
west, yes. But the cultural contribution of Europe and America is
growing and changing all the time - it just has to compete with that
of China, Africa, India, and so on for our attention. And of course,
culture is becoming more and more intermixed.
If you're saying, America is less and less interseted in European
culture, and perceives it to be stuck in the past, then that would put
your previous remarks into an understandable context.
That would be America's problem, of course - if this disinterest
applies to everything outside the USA you need to ask yourself *why*
you aren't interested in other people; if it only applies to Europe,
you need to ask yourself whether some anti-European prejudice is
intefering with your ability to judge what is an ever burgeoning and
(take it from me) often an interesting culture.
My guess about all this is that America *likes* to think of Europe in
a certain way - Englishmen in bowlers, Frenchmen in stripey shirts,
Italian romantics, Russian cossacks etc. - Shakespeare in love, les
Miserables, Rasputin, Dracula - a sort of pre-modern European culture,
which to be fair European tourist bureaux play on (and is matched, I
suppose, by European cliches about America being the wild west, or
else the Chicago of the roaring 20s). I suppsoe all that is safe,
unthreatening ... romantic, even, but it's all tosh.
The boring truth is American and European culture is more and more
alike. Put a 'shock' art exhibition on in London and it kicks up a
fuss in New York, Madrid, Berlin, Sydney - even Tokyo. Not always the
same fuss (which is interesting - in the exhibition I have in mind,
the NYC mayor didn't like the anti-Christian theme; in London, it was
the references to child murder. We all have our different
preoccupations), but it's in the cracks that you have to look for the
profound cultural differences.
We sometimes listen to the same music, very different music at other
times. We watch champions league football, you watch gridiron (thoutgh
the US is in the FIFA top ten). You will read authors that Europeans
have never heard of (and Europeans will read authors unheard of in the
next country), and vice versa.
You will perceive European culture as frozen, unchanging, therefore in
decline - but you'll still think Anthony Hopkins is a good actor
because of his accent (that old sucker punch gets 'em every time).
Europeans will think American culture is trashy and superficial - but
then put it to them that the most trashy and superficial US TV shows
are actually European remakes and they'll start talking about American
puritanism.
All that's changed, IMO, is an increase in urgency in the US to
beleiev, and make others believe, taht Eiurope is in decline, which is
related to a political need to make enemies. American 'liberals' say,
Sweden (or whoever) has a health system free for everyone, why can't
we? So American conservatives must keep demonstrate Europe's essential
malignity.
It's the same old shite we've heard for 200 years. Ain't no big thing.
>
> Europe never looked to America as a cultural treasure chest.
Not true. Dr Seus? Say no more.
Nah, I'm kidding. American culture reinvogarted the western world in
the 20th century - jazz, blues, Hollywood, the reportage novel
(Hemingway etc.) - this is fantastic stuff. America invented an
archetype for (white) men and women - something lonely, romantic,
noirish, like Bogey and Bacall in To Have and Have Not, or John Wayne
walking away at the end of the Searchers; something you hear in the
songs of Sinatra and the horn playing of early Miles, or the blues
guitar of John Lee Hooker (best summed up by British-educated
all-American Raymond Chandler, in his phrase 'Down these mean streets
a man must walk, a man who is unafraid and ... I forget the rest, but
it was fantastic) - but it was also something totally modern, which,
take it from me, my grandparents and parents' generation found
immensely attractive, and which in their different ways (French
Nouvelle Vague, British R&B), Europeans took on, altered and sold back
to America.
> What I am suggesting is that from an American perspective we *did* tend
> to look to Europe for inspiration for our high culture. This is no
> longer so. I tend to agree with you that much of both of our culture is
> somewhat debased but to the extent that America produces higher culture
> it no longer looks to Europe for its inspiration.
I think you'll find Henry James was a tad ahead of you on that one,
Bill. America doesn't look to Europe for high culture because there IS
no high culture - either here or in America ... ah, but now maybe I
understand what you're getting at. There is no high culture, and high
culture is associated with Europe, therefore Europe is in decline,
right?
I see. But it doesn't work that way. There is no high culture because
we don't need there to be - we've done it, and having done it we move
on. The importance of high art was undermined by impressionism,
expressionism, cubism, abstract art, pop art (all European, BTW, all
enthusiastically taken up, sometimes improved upon, in America). The
grand narrative novels of Dickens, Twain, Melville and Tolstoy were
undermined by the 'impressionism' of James, Conrad, the modernism of
Joyce, Woolf, the post-modernism of Nabokov ... and so on. Nabokov,
BTW, was a Russian French American. Joyce was an Irish French Italian.
Salman Rushdie (magic realism) is an Indian British American.
The European high style couldn't last because it required *innocence*
- the fact taht oit was undermined is a sign of cultural good health,
not decline, because it shows thatw e are *thinking*, inventing,
changing, moving on. All that's happened isthe high style has been
replaced by a million voices and styles froma ll over the world. It's
a kind of cultural democratisation, of which America is an integral -
but not the only - part.
I think if you feel sorry for the loss of old Europe, and presumably,
the security and continuity it implies, you shouldn't. It's our loss
as much as yours, and we all killed it so we could start again. That's
how culture works (as longa s somebody doesn't tell you that THIS
book, this way of life, this set of beliefs is final, superior,
eternal. then you're fucked).
>
> Don't kill the messenger. If we wish to understand each other better
> than we must begin to understand where we misunderstand.
True.
> Steyn is only telling us how he sees it. Now you tell us how he
> misunderstands.
Steyn has issues, I don't trust him (he tried to get a TV job in
London, and was sacked. He's resentful IMO). He lives in seclusion in
a cabin in the New England forests. I think he's confused, and
slightly mad. I don't trust Michael Moore, his Canadian opposite twin,
either.
I don't like Europeans thinking America is going insane, and I don't
like Americans thinking Europe is going to hell. These are both
Britain's jobs.
Captain Compassion
<j.murph...@libertysurf.fr> wrote:
Frederick II, Charlemagne (he started the revival), Kaiser Wilhelm II,
Louis XIV.
Matthew Robb
<j.murph...@libertysurf.fr> wrote:
>> >Not the French people I know guv and I expect that is a far greater
>> >number than you know
>>
>> I'll trust the official statistics, rather than your mates
>
>Please furnish them then, I live in France and have never heard
>anything of the sort.
If you subscribe to the Economist, you can find this stuff easily
enough on their site.
Otherwise, the Guardian offers this
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian_jobs_and_money/story/0,3605,1060245,00.html
and L'Hebdo of Lausanne apparently has an article by Michel Audetat on
this stuff (quoted in "The Week") in the UK
Reuters offers this
http://in.news.yahoo.com/031003/137/286dq.html
As for the figures; 10% unemployment, low growth and low wage growth
are absolutely what every half-decent economist predicted from the 35
hour week. And is exactly what is observed
cheers
matt
Aramis Gunton
<abe...@abelard.org> writes
>>>> Just another Nihilist masturbation fantasy.
>>>
>>>I think war with France is a US masturbation fantasy..
>>
>>Killing 'gooks' and 'ragheads' is facilitated by identifiable
>>differences of both culture and physiognomy.
>
>they couldn't have run ww1 without you......
Different concept of normalcy in them tha days as well you know!
>hey....are you a kraut.....
I wish!
>what do you think this pointy hat is tommy....
>bang.....
Se above. Head attire falls short of a difference worth killing for
nowadays... unfortunately!
>
>only problem is they hadn't invented decent megaphones then....
True but they had greater voice projection abilities before the advent
of the mobile.
>
>
>>Effectively staring oneself in the face requires monumental motivation
>
>you're not kidding.....
Hey! I NEVER kid!
>first you have to be absolutely beside yourself....
My most wondrous astral adventures relied totally on such an occurrence.
>
> even then you have to turn round....
Don't bring PC into this. There is the ever present threat of libel.
> the energy costs are absolutely inconceivable...
Burn human body fat. It is a seemingly inexhaustible supply of ready
fuel.
>
>>and I have difficulty perceiving the French invading and violently
>>subjugating the Spanish thus instigating USA 'intervention'.
>
>last time around franco was playing with the idea of getting
> a piece of france....and it's empire.....
>musso wanted a bit as well.....
That was before the 'Sun'
>
>>> And we all know it...
>>
>>"We"?
>
>stop teasing him....he's a paid up member of the illuminati.....
>well...he's a member of sommat......
>or perhaps he's just a member.....
G*d you are such a tease [Where is my foreskin??]
>
>>>My country is only 21 miles away..
>>
>>Other countries [or is that regions now?] are considerable closer.
>
>yeah....just about stuck together.....
Yet thankfully light years apart despite the intention to solidify under
a banner of rice paper.
>
>>Would your rabid American invasion force pursue sneaky 'non-combatants'
>>into neighbouring Germans and Italy?
>
>nah....they'd come through the tunnel....
I'd block it with the bodies of a thousand marinated Pakis!
>
>>>the prospect terrifies me...
>>
>>Outline a scenario for 'South Park' I feel the producers would go for
>>it.
>
>you are very helpful to the young lad....
I try I really do.
>
>i do wish i had the energy and time to fully respond to your very
> interesting post.....
Which one, they are all worthy of merit?
> slip in a question here and there and i'll have a bash...
Are you English?
> i just get overwhelmed when i see hundreds of lines....
Stop typing at line 12 then.
>and the yaks
> want feeding or milking.....
Different ends different expectations.
>
>
>it not like shelling peas like paris.....
Lost me there Abe. Mind you I do drink a hell of a lot.
>
>regards....
Aye!
--
Aramis Gunton
Bill Willis
>
> Even LONGER answer, Bill. YOU can do it.
It ain't over till the fat lady sings.
Not pointless at all.
First you seem to be suggesting IMV too much significance in shifting
ethnic composition for America. This has been a constant in American
history for over a 150 years. The new arrivalsre will be assimilated
and will have an influence on the dominant American culture but it is
always the new arrivals who do most of the changeing here. This is not
so in many other places. In many places new arrivals remain foreign and
apart from the host culture generation after generation.
Second raw numbers are important. An expanding population results in a
bigger market. Bigger markets result in all sorts of goodies. The best
R&D, the best universities, the best of the best in all areas of
endeavor. This primacy buys all sorts of things for a society. The
best defense, the ability to pick and choose the best (leading edge)
parts of industry and technology leaving the rest for lesser societies.
Above all it buys an ability to project not only power but even more
importantly influence. European nations were supreme in the world
without question throughout the XIX century. The XXthe century meant
that Europe had to share its primacy with North America. As the XXIst
century progresses one sees the potential with a declining European
population the potential not only for Europe to give up any parity at
all with America but being surpassed by many others as well. Asia and
eventually even possibly Latin America if the decline is severe enough.
This is dire stuff for Europe. You are right that we will only know for
sure way in the future if all this comes to pass. We personally will
probably never know for sure. But the Economist article is pointing out
some trends that ought to be a matter of concern to Europeans. What
exactly Europeans can do about these trends is problematic. Unless you
can dispute the factual basis for the Economist article you should not
dismiss the possible implications.
>
> And while we can be pretty sure American birth rates will continue to
> rise, we don't know for sure that Europe's won't too (or fall further:
> France is reporting a rise; Italy is reporting another drop), or taht
> America will experience a drop later on. Of course we know we must
> persuade Italian girls to have more sex, but I've been working on that
> for years so I refuse to feel guilty. And we also have east
> Europe/Eurasia totake into account - that great half empty hinterland
> of Ukrainians, Georgians and 150 million Russians, and all of Siberia
> to play with, which eventually/presumably will want to join the EU
> (though by then, just maybe, the entire northern hemisphere could be a
> genuine free trade, free movement, single defence policy, single bill
> of rights area...).
If your point in all this is that we don't have a crystal ball of course
I agree. Certainly there are going to be surprises and reverses of
trend along the way. But we can only speculate today based on what we
know today.
>
> >
> > Perhaps the gist of what you are suggesting is in the way Europe and
> > America assimilate its (white and non white, Christian and non
> > Christian) immigrants. It is my view that the US does a much better job
> > over a vastly shorter time period that does Europe.
>
> My view is the reverse. It is Europe that has had the shorter time
> period (50 years against 500), and it is Europe that is producing the
> better results, relative to populations.
If you mean by shorter time, a shorter time that Europe has been on the
receiving end of immigration that is true but America has *always* been
a multicultural multi ethnic society. The ambition of new arrivals to
America is to assimilate in the shortest possible time and the ambition
of long established residents here is to assure that the new arrivals
adopt their new country and become Americanized. I don't see a similar
process happening in Europe but you may have a point that give it
another 50 years or so this might begin to occur.
>
> But we won't agree on this, it depends on definitions of 'better' and
> is all in the eye of the beholder anyway (neither of us is black, and
> we should have to ask elsewhere whether the confederate flag still
> flying in the American south is 'preferable' to the rise of the Front
> Nationale in the French south). I've attempted to answer further in my
> other post, but I don't think either of us are the best people to
> debate the issue anyway.
I'm not addressing it in those terms either. Certainly there are
Americans at the bottom of the pecking order who feel they are getting a
raw deal. This has always been the case and for good reason. Still
very very few of these people expect to get a better deal elsewhere. But
most importantly, they and their children live their lives in the
context of American culture. They are savy to it and do not isolate
themselves and are not isolated. Even an American ghetto or slum is an
*American* slum not a Pakistani slum that happens to be in Britain or a
Algerian slum that happens to be in France. I guess what I;m trying to
suggest to you is that in America both the haves and have nots know the
way in and out of the slums and in and out of the middle class. There
is substantial mobility.
> >
> [snip]
> But for the rest, yes - although it can't be beyond the imagination of
> American commentators to understand why central Europeans may have had
> a bellyfull of war, are sickened to the soul by it,
It is easy to understand. But what of it. Do you imagine that
Americans relish war. We don't. Nor do we want to be drawn into
European affairs.
and why they might
> - wrongly, IMO, but then it's easy for me to say, and easier still for
> you - resent the US (to a lesser extent, UK) reminding them of their
> responsibilities.
SO what is your point? Should we therefore just hold our tongue?
Europe (not the UK) may be facing a crisis it barely realizes at the
moment. I'm not sure Europe realizes how soured the American public is
in general regarding Europe. We are not inclined at the moment to come
to Europes side if trouble develops. Forces outside of Europe and the
US will in due course notice this developpment and may try to take
advantage of it. Is Europe prepared? I think not.
>
> > America does still
> > support NATO. I wonder though how long this support will continue given
> > what is an apparent parting of the ways between America and Europe.
>
> I can't see it. There is a desire among the mitteleuropeans (France,
> Belgium, sometimes Germany, occasionally northern Italy) to shuck off
> the Americans. They are an influential bloc in Europe, but in a
> minority even in the EU (or will be soon). The periphery nations don't
> want to break up Nato - and since France is not a full member, Germany
> is constitutionally unable to commit troops to war, and Belgium is
> roughly the same size of Massachussetts (sp?), I don't think it's a
> big issue anywy.
>
You misunderstand. I was not thinking about Europe's continued support
for NATO, I was wondering how much longer American support for NATO will
last. I think it is highly problematic.
> > We
> > have less and less in common with each other and at some point our ties
> > are going to vanish altogether. Unless of course current trends
> > (population and otherwise) reverse themselves. Such a reversal is
> > always possible but I think unlikely.
>
> I don't think population has anything to do with it,
Unless Europe possesses some other great advantage to counter population
it has everything to do with it. If Europe is vastly more educated or
technologically skilled or militarily powerful than America than there
can be some compensation for declining population. But Europe has none
of these advantages over America.
except inasmuch
> as a greater latinisation and Catholicisation of the USA, if that's
> what's happening, will serve to bring american culture closer to
> Europe's, not further away.
Purely superficial. Whether America is mainly Protestant or Catholic,
Anglo Saxon or Hispanic, Black or White it will be America. It will
inherit America's past and its system of government, its constitution,
and American culture which is distinct from European culture. Future
America will undoubtedly be ethnically different from what it is today.
This has been a constant in American history.
>
> IMO the divisions between America and Europe are lesser now than they
> were 50 years ago, not greater.
What do you mean by divisions? I am talking about influence, the degree
of importance one side places on the other. Europe is gradually but
steadily becoming less and less important from an American perspective.
This isn't the same thing as hostility. I think on the other hand
America is becoming ever more important from a European perspective and
this isn't the same thing as friendship or partnership.
What *has* changed is that, while
> there has always been a certain cultural dismissiveness toward America
> from some Europeans, the old cultural cringe of America toward Europe
> is being replaced, in some quarters, by resentment and dislike. I
> don't think there's anything rational about any of this.
This may be true but it is beside the point. We are talking about two
separate phenomenon.
>
> It may strike Americans that they don't 'need' Europe. But they never
> did -
Au contraire. America was highly dependent on Europe for much of its
history. Would you say that China or Japan don't need America today?
Who are they going to sell their products to? Europe was America's
market. Europe was where our culture came from. We modelled ourselves
on European standards. It is only in the 20th century that the shift
occurred and the parent became the child.
the historical and cultural links will remain because history
> cannot change and the world is becoming more and more integrated every
> day (more Europeans take holidays in America than ever before, and
> vice versa; more American TV programmes are available, and as far as
> Britain is concerned, vice versa too).
Yes, Yes. I'm sure that is all largely true. That doesn't mean we
couldn't sit by and watch Europe gradually turn into a third world
tourist destination or worse. It doesn't even mean that at some point
Europe and America could become bitter enemies. Afterall countries with
even more similar cultures have gone to war with great regularity.
>
> No, the alleged estrangement between America and Europe is a political
> rhetorical device for US home consumption:
Why? Who could possibly benefit? What's in it for anyone?
Europe signifies for some
> Americans degeneracy,
That has always been the case. Most immigrants from Europe came to
America because they were dissatisfied for whatever reason with Europe.
They wanted to get away from Europe and they did so at great personal
cost. Traditional American mytholgy sees Europe as old, tired and
somewhat degenerate. The recent democratization of Western Europe has
helped to lessen this vague impression of Europe but it still lingers.
When an American says something is very European, often as not it
implies a vague kind of depravity if not outright degeneracy.
appeasement,
But of course. Although to be fair America has done its fair share of
appeasing.
aristocracy,
Naturally, Especially the vestiges that remain in Britain.
antisemitism.
Without a doubt. And for good reason don't you think. After all the
concentration camps weren't an illusion.
There is
> a degree of truth in this - there always is - but it tells us more
> about American political debate (and the survival of its puritan
> instinct) than Europe. When Europeans caricature Americans as
> unthinking bible-bashing gunslingers they do the same: both sides are
> continuing a rhetorical tradition that was noticed by Charles Dickens
> 150 years ago. It's a lot of old wank.
Not entirely old wank. But then again this is something different from
the issue of a declining or dying Europe vis a vis a growing America.
>
> We're stuck with each other; America can't hide its head in the sand
> any more than France can.
We are not equally stuck with each other. America has enormously more
freedom of action than Europe. We are far more able to tell Europe to
go to hell than vice a versa. Europe was able to oppose American plans
for Iraq but were not able to stop them. If the situation were reversed
and it was Europe that wanted to invade another country against American
wishes, America could and would stop them.
>
> >
> > Whether Europe succeeds or fails regarding its independent defense
> > capability is ultimately a matter of little importance for America.
> > America will react to whatever Europe does but I think you need to look
> > at long term trends to get a feel for the future of Europe and the
> > future of America and then you can speculate on the future of
> > transatlantic ties. Nobody (not even Steyn) is suggesting that Europe
> > is going to disappear. It is just a matter of Europe's relative future
> > importance in the world. Europe seems to be in decline and their seems
> > to be nothing on hand to stem the decline. European growth and
> > influence appears to have peaked and is poised for decline. America is
> > still growing, Asia is growing even faster. All of this is significant
> > and will determine the relative importance and how relationships are
> > formed in coming decades of the 21st century.
>
> Sixty years ago Europe was a bombsite. Now it is as wealthy as
> America, one of the fastest economic expansions in history.
Yes and a good part of that progress happened as a result of American
generosity to Europe and America freeing Europe from the responsibility
of its own defense. This last part may prove to have not been a favor.
Yes, it
> probably won't expand as quickly in the near future, and America
> probably will - but so what?
So everything!! America will become ever more powerful and influential
vis a vis Europe. That is what Steyn (and I) mean when we suggest that
Europe may be dying or at least in decline.
In the long term - when east Europe opens
> up - the situation may change again. So what if it does?
So quite a bit! There is indeed a potential for some sustained rapid
growth in Eastern Europe. This growth should compensate for a time
other negative factors concerning European growth. I wouldn't bank too
much on this potential though.
>
> I don't believe all this crap about European decline - I live here, I
> look around, I can see the wealth. I know the ingenuity of the people.
I'm sure that is how it seems at the moment. But unless you believe
that something is afoot that will reverse current growth trends you must
conclude that todays happy state is not likely to last indefinitely. I
suppose it is possible that Europe might stagnate at today's level and
you could say well hey that ain't so bad and who cares if the rest of
the world bypasses us. But things don't usually stay the same, they
either get better or worse.
> I have no idea whether Europe will ever build a military structure to
> match the USA's, but for all that military spending probably needs to
> rise, I doubt it would be necessary to go that far.
I doubt that Europe is capable of matching the US military capability.
I am near certain that even if it is capable it won't.
But Europe exists in an illusion a time warp that things will remain
forever as they are. Europeans think it is unthinkable that there will
ever be an intra European war. Why? Europeans I believe think (even
though they are loathe to say so outloud) that if ever Europe is
attacked from the outside America will save them. Why? None of this
should be taken for granted.
I'm sure there
> will be differences between the two societies, but I'm happy with
> that, and I think most Europeans are too.
I'm happy too. I'm glad that there is a Europe and I'm glad that there
is an America. But I'm not discussing cultural differences except in
response to some of your comments. The thrust of all this is whether or
not Europe is losing ground (influence) relative to the rest of the
world and especially relative to America. That is what the Steyn
article is about. It's not about who has the best TV or novelist.
>
> I think we can leave the prophecies of doom and the insistence that
> we're all engaged in some great cultural 'race' to who knows where to
> the Jeremiahs.
Doom does overstate the situation. And we are not talking about any
kind of cultural race.
> >
> > Maybe America's future will eventually be a primarily Hispanic country.
> > Does this mean that it will then resemble more a present day Latin
> > American country? I see no reason why this should be.
>
> Well, it will be more *like* a latin American country - more Spanish,
> more Catholic. But I certainly don't think it *matters*.
>
> > It will still be
> > a society that has largely adopted US culture and adheres to a US
> > system. If that changes then of course the country itself will not be
> > the same. But why should it change?
>
> Because without change society stagnates
Of course American culture changes (gradually) all the time. But the
American system has persevered with hardly any change for more than two
centuries.
- what Steyn is presumably,
> and if so wrongly, saying has happened to Europe. What has happened in
> the middle east.
Perhaps but if so in a very different way. The Middle East (except for
Israel) is truly an example of degeneracy and stagnation. Enormous
wealth has been squandered by the various local despots. Meanwhile the
population has soared and is growing at alarming levels. Of course the
West has been complicit is much of this degeneracy and we are now paying
a heavy price for our benign neglect of the injustice throughout that
region. They are paying an even higher price.
I don't imagine that even a worse case scenario for Europe at the moment
remotely resembles it declining to the depths of the Middle East.
>
> If America loses some of its former Anglo-Saxon protestant and puritan
> character that won't be a bad thing - it might stop it from perceiving
> itself to be in some kind of weird competition with Europe, for a
> start.
I don't think America sees itself in competition with Europe. I think
America is very confident that they have long since won any such
competition.
> >
> >
> > if it is true that Europe is
> > declining in importance vis a vis America and the rest of the world that
> > will not pass unnoticed and Europe will no longer play as prominent a
> > role in America's thinking as in the past. I believe that process is
> > already well underway and will likely accelerate in the years ahead.
>
> What does 'decline in importance' mean? How 'important' do you think
> Europe is?
Europe is still very important. It is no longer from America's
perspective of primary importance or even first among equals but it is
of at least equal importance among several other equally important
regions.
>
> You appear to think Europe has an importance that Europeans themselves
> don't perceive. Europeans are just people, ordinary folk getting omn
> with their own lives, Bill. They aren't in a race - they're not trying
> to leave their mark on the world, or build a new Babylon, or whatever.
The ordinary folk aren't what I or Steyn are considering. Nations,
civilizations are either on the rise or are in decline. There are no
other choices available.
>
> I'm all in favour of patriotism but I think you can take
> identification with nation too far;. If you perceive America to be in
> competition with europe, I'm sorry, but I don't, and I don't think
> Europeans do. Not interested, old chap. If you want to leave your mark
> on society I suggest you have kids - and if you want to be really
> patriotic, I guess you'd better make them Hispanic.
>
> Calm down, mate. There isn't a competition on here. If you think there
> is, better ask yourself why.
:-), I'm not wound up but I think you are. If Europe is content to be
in decline then that is certainly fine with me. I surely don't see
Europe as competition for America and I really do wish Europe the best.
You seem to think I have some animosity towards Europe and that isn't
the case.
> We are more and more interested in the culture of places outside the
> west, yes. But the cultural contribution of Europe and America is
> growing and changing all the time - it just has to compete with that
> of China, Africa, India, and so on for our attention. And of course,
> culture is becoming more and more intermixed.
I don't see the West being overly fascinated by non Western culture but
I do see a dearth of new Western high culture. Perhaps I am too close
to notice and things you mention like jazz etc. will someday be rightly
regarded as the epitome of high culture. Time will tell.
>
> If you're saying, America is less and less interseted in European
> culture, and perceives it to be stuck in the past, then that would put
> your previous remarks into an understandable context.
That isn't exactly what I'm saying. What I;m saying is that Europe
isn't coming up with the goods any longer therefore America has ceased
looking towards Europe for its inspiration.
>
> That would be America's problem, of course - if this disinterest
> applies to everything outside the USA you need to ask yourself *why*
See above. That isn't what I'm saying at all.
> you aren't interested in other people; if it only applies to Europe,
> you need to ask yourself whether some anti-European prejudice is
> intefering with your ability to judge what is an ever burgeoning and
> (take it from me) often an interesting culture.
You are insisting that I am underating Europe. I am not. I am well
aware that Europe is a vital part of the world today and the very center
of past Western high culture and learning. Still, the center has long
since shifted westward and the trend is continuing. Europeans are
highly educated and intersting people. Don't be so defensive.
>
> My guess about all this is that America *likes* to think of Europe in
> a certain way - Englishmen in bowlers, Frenchmen in stripey shirts,
> Italian romantics, Russian cossacks etc. - Shakespeare in love, les
> Miserables, Rasputin, Dracula - a sort of pre-modern European culture,
> which to be fair European tourist bureaux play on (and is matched, I
> suppose, by European cliches about America being the wild west, or
> else the Chicago of the roaring 20s). I suppsoe all that is safe,
> unthreatening ... romantic, even, but it's all tosh.
If you think that then you think tosh. Give Americans some credit. We
are really more sophisticated than that.
> All that's changed, IMO, is an increase in urgency in the US to
> beleiev, and make others believe, taht Eiurope is in decline, which is
> related to a political need to make enemies.
This is pure nonsense. There is never a "need" to make enemies. You
seem to be exhibiting a kind of paranoia. Also you are beginning to
ramble. Try to stick to the points contained in the Steyn article or
the fat lady will never sing.
American 'liberals' say,
> Sweden (or whoever) has a health system free for everyone, why can't
> we? So American conservatives must keep demonstrate Europe's essential
> malignity.
>
> Nah, I'm kidding. American culture reinvogarted the western world in
> the 20th century - jazz, blues, Hollywood, the reportage novel
> (Hemingway etc.) - this is fantastic stuff. America invented an
> archetype for (white) men and women - something lonely, romantic,
> noirish, like Bogey and Bacall in To Have and Have Not, or John Wayne
> walking away at the end of the Searchers; something you hear in the
> songs of Sinatra and the horn playing of early Miles, or the blues
> guitar of John Lee Hooker (best summed up by British-educated
> all-American Raymond Chandler, in his phrase 'Down these mean streets
> a man must walk, a man who is unafraid and ... I forget the rest, but
> it was fantastic) - but it was also something totally modern, which,
> take it from me, my grandparents and parents' generation found
> immensely attractive, and which in their different ways (French
> Nouvelle Vague, British R&B), Europeans took on, altered and sold back
> to America.
All this speaks of modern culture. Some of it someday might aspire to
high culture. America unquestionably is in the vanguard of modern
(popular) culture but it is not the sole contributor.
>
> > What I am suggesting is that from an American perspective we *did* tend
> > to look to Europe for inspiration for our high culture. This is no
> > longer so. I tend to agree with you that much of both of our culture is
> > somewhat debased but to the extent that America produces higher culture
> > it no longer looks to Europe for its inspiration.
>
> I think you'll find Henry James was a tad ahead of you on that one,
> Bill. America doesn't look to Europe for high culture because there IS
> no high culture - either here or in America ...
Sure there is and I think there used to be a lot more of it especially
in Europe.
ah, but now maybe I
> understand what you're getting at. There is no high culture, and high
> culture is associated with Europe, therefore Europe is in decline,
> right?
One of the smaller manisfestations of Europe's decline. I say there is
less (not zero) high culture. The culture of the moment is mainly
modern and popular (geared to the masses). Some of it no doubt is very
very good and will eventually be seen to be high culture.
>
> I see. But it doesn't work that way. There is no high culture because
> we don't need there to be - we've done it, and having done it we move
> on.
This is pure idiocy.
The importance of high art was undermined by impressionism,
> expressionism, cubism, abstract art, pop art (all European, BTW, all
> enthusiastically taken up, sometimes improved upon, in America). The
> grand narrative novels of Dickens, Twain, Melville and Tolstoy were
> undermined by the 'impressionism' of James, Conrad, the modernism of
> Joyce, Woolf, the post-modernism of Nabokov ... and so on. Nabokov,
> BTW, was a Russian French American. Joyce was an Irish French Italian.
> Salman Rushdie (magic realism) is an Indian British American.
Some hold Joyce to be second only to Shakespeare but that's another
matter and you need to receive a specialized education merely to
undertand what he is about. But I digress and disagree with your
appraisal of trends in Western high culture. In any case it is not
central to Steyn's thesis.
>
> The European high style couldn't last because it required *innocence*
Whatever do you mean by that?
> - the fact taht oit was undermined is a sign of cultural good health,
> not decline, because it shows thatw e are *thinking*, inventing,
> changing, moving on. All that's happened isthe high style has been
> replaced by a million voices and styles froma ll over the world. It's
> a kind of cultural democratisation, of which America is an integral -
> but not the only - part.
>
> I think if you feel sorry for the loss of old Europe, and presumably,
> the security and continuity it implies, you shouldn't. It's our loss
> as much as yours, and we all killed it so we could start again. That's
> how culture works (as longa s somebody doesn't tell you that THIS
> book, this way of life, this set of beliefs is final, superior,
> eternal. then you're fucked).
Whatever, you are beginning to lose me.
Bill
John of Aix
> As for the figures; 10% unemployment, low growth and low wage growth
> are absolutely what every half-decent economist predicted from the
35
> hour week. And is exactly what is observed
The 35 hour week has been around for several years now, under the
previous socialist government ( which introduced it) unemployment was
diminishing as several hundred thousand jobs were created because of
it. Growth was also higher. The change is not due to that but due to
the incompetence of the Raffarin government.
John of Aix
"Captain Compassion" <res0...@NOSPAMverizon.net> a écrit dans le
> >If you knew anything about European history then
> >> you know that from time to time out of the bowels of Western
Europe
> >> some clown arises and tries to revive the Holy Roman Empire.
Hitler
> >> and Napoleon come to mind.
> >
> >Give me another one. I don't think you can. I could conclude on
your
> >reperesentative sample of two that as a few US presidents have been
> >assassinated, US people assasinate their presidents. Bit of a
shortcut
> >don't you think?
> >
> Frederick II, Charlemagne (he started the revival), Kaiser Wilhelm
II,
> Louis XIV.
Well Charlemagne is considered a Good Thing as he united warring
mini-states into nations and in fact 'invented' the Holy Roman Empire
so couldn't really revive it. Frederic II (of Prussia I suppose you
mean) just undertook a bit of local warring which has always been
pretty common but never set out to conquer Europe, the same goes for
Louis XIV and Kaiser Wilhelm. Only Napoleon and Hitler can be said to
have had pan-European desires.
Greg Hennessy
this phrase.btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>
>Otherwise, the Guardian offers this
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian_jobs_and_money/story/0,3605,1060245,00.html
>
"Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande argues that with unemployment
currently running at 9.6%, legislation to encourage job creation is needed
now more than ever.
"
Only an ignorant statist would suggest that the route to job creation is
via even *more* stupid interference in the market.
greg
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Matthew Robb
<j.murph...@libertysurf.fr> wrote:
>> As for the figures; 10% unemployment, low growth and low wage growth
>> are absolutely what every half-decent economist predicted from the
>35
>> hour week. And is exactly what is observed
>
>The 35 hour week has been around for several years now, under the
>previous socialist government ( which introduced it) unemployment was
>diminishing as several hundred thousand jobs were created because of
>it.
In the short term, I understand around 200k (hardly 'several hundred
thousand') jobs were created to fill the time now left. But, as 'any
fule kno', all that happened was that the jobs that were left became
less economic, and so wages have been under pressure.
>Growth was also higher.
Higher than what?
>The change is not due to that but due to
>the incompetence of the Raffarin government.
Care to be more specific?
cheers
matt
Paris
message news:f5kpqvsfvuj4ceeth...@4ax.com...
> RRF?
Rapid Reaction Force (fledgeling European Military)
> >You keep laughing.. And they keep doing........
> And such a wild success....
From tiny acorns...