[Fwd: WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY ON FRANCE]

Classic Buckley. Erudite, "tart", conservative rhetoric. Frankly, this is
what has made him the favorite conservative critic among those on the
(American) left since whenever… Why? I think it is because he is the
conservative mirror image of what the intellectual left sees itself
as: smart, informed, accurate, and rhetorically sound. Hell, I like him,
even if this text hardly tracks with (or cares to recognize) anything that
is being said by France or Germany that is inconveinent to the argument,
such as Chirac's recent comments:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030224-423466,00.html

The problem is of course that neither the intellectual left nor right
really understand, or perhaps are afraid to understand, power. (And
now I am exclusivley referring to my homeland, because I am no position
to speak beyond this in terms of politcal analysis- Ich bin ein
Rhizomer… Nettimer nicht…)

Buckley fights the good fight of the sophisticated conservative, but this
kind of conservatism never took root here. The magical electorial formula
that has made the United States a predominantly right wing nation was
discovered by Nixon: the potent, complex semiotics of racial division
hidden behind code words like "heritage" (read: slavery), "family values"
(read: your family 'works' for ours) and "History" (read: the inability of
many in this nation to get over losing a war that ended in 1865.) But
these 'many' have fairly solid electoral control in the United States. This
is how you can have the Bush administration (domestically) arguing
before the supreme court that affirmative action is reverse racism - with
a straight face - and maintain a pretty solid majority of US/Americans
bobbing their heads in agreement. This in spite of the fact that
even "black-sounding names" are significantly discriminated against.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Midwest/01/14/name.bias.ap/index.html

So Buckley is no more dangerous than say, Chomsky. Both are good reads,
but adolecents just don't read this kind of stuff. In fact, much like our
President, they don't read much of anything analytical at all. They are
angry (don't ask me why), they vote, and listen to and read Michael Savage,
(michealsavage.com), a media star and best-selling author whose success
and influence tart William can only dream of. And they are in power.

On Sun, 16 Feb 2003, Vijay Pattisapu wrote:

>
> …hmm…rather tart…
>
> what does rhizome think?
>
> Vijay
>
>
> >> Feb. 14, 2003
> >> The Spoils of Glory
> >> What to do about France and NATO.
> >>
> >> The whole world, it seems, hangs on the future within NATO of the current
> >> dispute. The sense of it, in parts of Europe, is that Germany accidentally
> >> tripped into its present position. For one, there was < there is <
> >> the brooding matter of its military-imperialist past, and the sense
> >> that binds it, as it does Japan, in those postwar loincloths of innocence
> >> that make Machtpolitik something of an impiety, let alone a question
> >> of tanks and missiles and bayonets. There came then the accidental success
> >> of marginal candidate Gerhard Shroeder, who brushed the anti-American
> >> cream off the top of the electoral vat and scored an upset victory. He
> >> and Germany are stuck with it, and will come around on the matter of help
> >> to Turkey only if a formula sufficiently emasculating is contrived.
> >>
> >> The plight of France is brilliantly examined by the Strategic
> >> Forecasting Intelligence unit of Texas. The analyst reminds us of
> >> the basic problem of modern France, which is that it isn't strong enough
> >> to figure dominantly on the international scene by the mere deployment
> >> of its geopolitical or commercial resources. This requires a very heavy
> >> load on its cultural resources. These are formidable, but how many operas
> >> comiques are needed to float out the single French aircraft carrier?
> >> The Charles de Gaulle has scarcely left harbor during its accident-prone
> >> existence. The British sage Paul Johnson, summarizing France's straitened
> >> military, writes that "there is no chance of the French cutting a bella
> >> figura in any hostilities, and so the easy way out for her is to oppose them."
> >>
> >> The aircraft carrier's eponym intuited the problem in 1966, when, as
> >> president of France, he dramatically pulled the French out of the NATO
> >> administration. He did not pull out of NATO < France is still a member of
> >> that alliance, but the authority to deploy French military remains that of
> >> France alone. It is because of that rupture that the NATO administration was
> >> relocated to Brussels, where it sits cheek by jowl with the European Union.
> >> If every one of the NATO powers were to abide by de Gaulle's maxims < never
> >> divest yourself of your own power, but engage in ad hoc alignments to
> >> magnify that power < a stable alliance would be impossible. And the
> >> challenge of Iraq is illustrating an instability we'd have done better
> >> to anticipate more skillfully. What we have now, of course, is the
> >> inexpugnable challenge of taming the Iraqi beast, and the need to absorb a
> >> NATO alliance with room given for the caprice of the two major nations of <
> >> old Europe.
> >>
> >> The parliamentarians are getting great exercise in the libertine theater.
> >> There is the sense of independence not only from the power of the
> >> superpower, but from the restraints that attach to ordered rhetoric. Belgium
> >> wants, no less, to try General Sharon, after he leaves office, as a war
> >> criminal . That is the kind of thing against which cool heads warned when
> >> General Pinochet suddenly found himself a prisoner in London. Donald
> >> Rumsfeld let it fly against Germany that in behaving as it lately has, it is
> >> in the same league as Cuba and Libya. That did it for Germany's defense
> >> minister, Peter Struck, who, taking a firm grip on his pince-nez, fumed
> >> that what Rumsfeld said was "beyond impertinent. . . . It isn't acceptable.
> >> It is out of order. It is even un-American."
> >>
> >> "In recent months," writes Paul Johnson in National Review , the
> >> anti-American pitch "has surpassed itself in its fury at the notion of
> >> 'Texas adolescents' wielding more power than 'European sophisticates.' Mixed
> >> in this bouillabaisse of rage are anti-Semitism, a distrust of popular>
> >> democracy, frustrated socialism, and a smug use of French cultural
> >> superiority."
> >>
> >> What to do? "When the French elites are in such a mood they are beyond the
> >> reach of argument and are best ignored."
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>
>
>
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To me, all such analyses fall to the basic assumption: the US is totally
right, and any opposition to such rightness can only be explained by resort
to a convolution of national stereotypes.
Seeing as the 'crisis', as is, is entirely constructed by the US, and that
most countries around the world oppose naked US browbeating, it is hard to
see that France or Germany are automatically in the wrong. I mean, we could
unconditionally accept the maxim that might is right, and let the US get on
with it. Or we can state our positions and discuss. Surely it is actually a
statement of the power of Germany and France that they arouse such fury.
I do, however, like the suggestion of the US and the UK that we just ignore
inconvenient factors such as vetos in the security council if they
inconvenience us.
As for Paul Johnson being a 'British sage', ho, ho, only to a few crusty old
colonels.
Cheers, Ivan


> From: "Vijay Pattisapu" <[email protected]>

> …hmm…rather tart…
>
> what does rhizome think?
>
> Vijay
>
>
>>> Feb. 14, 2003
>>> The Spoils of Glory
>>> What to do about France and NATO.
>>>

>>> The plight of France is brilliantly examined by the Strategic
>>> Forecasting Intelligence unit of Texas. The analyst reminds us of
>>> the basic problem of modern France, which is that it isn't strong enough
>>> to figure dominantly on the international scene by the mere deployment
>>> of its geopolitical or commercial resources. This requires a very heavy
>>> load on its cultural resources. These are formidable, but how many operas
>>> comiques are needed to float out the single French aircraft carrier?
>>> The Charles de Gaulle has scarcely left harbor during its accident-prone
>>> existence. The British sage Paul Johnson, summarizing France's straitened
>>> military, writes that "there is no chance of the French cutting a bella
>>> figura in any hostilities, and so the easy way out for her is to oppose
>>> them."
>>>
>>> The aircraft carrier's eponym intuited the problem in 1966, when, as
>>> president of France, he dramatically pulled the French out of the NATO
>>> administration. He did not pull out of NATO < France is still a member of
>>> that alliance, but the authority to deploy French military remains that of
>>> France alone. It is because of that rupture that the NATO administration was
>>> relocated to Brussels, where it sits cheek by jowl with the European Union.
>>> If every one of the NATO powers were to abide by de Gaulle's maxims < never
>>> divest yourself of your own power, but engage in ad hoc alignments to
>>> magnify that power < a stable alliance would be impossible. And the
>>> challenge of Iraq is illustrating an instability we'd have done better
>>> to anticipate more skillfully. What we have now, of course, is the
>>> inexpugnable challenge of taming the Iraqi beast, and the need to absorb a
>>> NATO alliance with room given for the caprice of the two major nations of <
>>> old Europe.
>>>
>>> The parliamentarians are getting great exercise in the libertine theater.
>>> There is the sense of independence not only from the power of the
>>> superpower, but from the restraints that attach to ordered rhetoric. Belgium
>>> wants, no less, to try General Sharon, after he leaves office, as a war
>>> criminal . That is the kind of thing against which cool heads warned when
>>> General Pinochet suddenly found himself a prisoner in London. Donald
>>> Rumsfeld let it fly against Germany that in behaving as it lately has, it is
>>> in the same league as Cuba and Libya. That did it for Germany's defense
>>> minister, Peter Struck, who, taking a firm grip on his pince-nez, fumed
>>> that what Rumsfeld said was "beyond impertinent. . . . It isn't acceptable.
>>> It is out of order. It is even un-American."
>>>
>>> "In recent months," writes Paul Johnson in National Review , the
>>> anti-American pitch "has surpassed itself in its fury at the notion of
>>> 'Texas adolescents' wielding more power than 'European sophisticates.' Mixed
>>> in this bouillabaisse of rage are anti-Semitism, a distrust of popular>
>>> democracy, frustrated socialism, and a smug use of French cultural
>>> superiority."
>>>
>>> What to do? "When the French elites are in such a mood they are beyond the
>>> reach of argument and are best ignored."
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
>
>
> ————————————————————
> Get Your Free and Private Junglist E-mail from Junglist.com
> Register Online Here -> http://www.junglist.com
>
>
> ———————————————————————
> Express yourself with a super cool email address from BigMailBox.com.
> Hundreds of choices. It's free!
> http://www.bigmailbox.com
> ———————————————————————
> + ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>