Letters to the Editor
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Reality check!!
In France and in America there is a set of people that chooses to demonize the other nation. Yet, as some others have pointed out, France and America have lots in common. Unlike the Germans, the French have glummed on to the box stores, to McDonalds, to technology and sorry to say, maybe not for public viewing but I have seen many a fat French Pierre six packs. Just go out of Paris and my god, even red necks.
Yes, the ideas for the American revolution come from the French Enlightenment thinkers, even though their revolution took place after, it was all about the ideas. Look at how much time the founding fathers spent in France, and just check out who bought the US debt to fund the Revolution: The French.
Just as there are knee jerk anti Frenchies in America, there is a plethora of "anti Americanization" French. The truth is that we are all dupes of the global markets and corporations. As they gorge themselves, we sit around and quibble over old and dead cultural differences--when we should be coming together to face the major challenge: How do you retain your freedoms, the standard of living, the social safety net, the public infrastracture in a time where capitalism/global markets, make the decisions. A time when nation states are becomig irrelevant. How do you retain this, oh first world nations, when you have to share the pie with the rest of the world, and your corporations have no national identity anymore.
Sorry Bill, but just go to Europe and it's not just Bush they hate, they hate everything American. It has reached irrational levels. Of course Bush put a big bull's eye right on our foreheads. America has become for many Europeans a code word for all the damage caused by global markets and global culture. Actually, I find the anti American sentiment rather shrill, facile and moronic .
I split my time between the US and Europe. It's remarkable how everything bad in their nations is blamed on America, when their capitalists are just as guilty as ours. This kind of destraction, keeps people from seeing who the real culprits are. My comment to them is why keep blaming Coca Cola and McDonalds alone when Red Bull is from sweet little Austria, and Ikea and H&M are from socialist Sweden.
PS, drive around France and every few hundreds of miles you see a Nuclear Power plant, are we willing to be independent by using Nuclear Power? So lets stop demonizing and idealizing each other and lets get real, we the first world countries are facing a challenge: How do we keep our middle classes? How do we keep our life styles? How do we go into the future? Guess what, they don't have the leaders that can figure it out and neither do we. All politicians pander to get votes while the global markets drain the nations.