It is well and good that this Sarko has taken the prize over the Sego (these nicknames are too cute by half).

Let’s remember, however, that Jacques Chirac, like Sargo, was considered a “man of the right” when he was first elected, and look where he took his country.

The history of French Anti-US feelings is hardly new. I’m not sure if you’ve been able to read, `The American Enemy’, by French professor Philippe Roger, and published in English in 2005. It shows that Fr. anti-Americanism goes back, at least to the eighteenth century.

It will probably last two hundred more years, as well…

thanks
Roundhead

Reminds me of the demographics voting of Germany. The Entire Western half voted for Christian Democrat. While the freaking East, commun[i]st, voted social[i]st. Absolutely amazing.

In reply to Round, I tend to think anti-Ami sentiment is predominantly class based. The rich and the aristocrats can’t stand to see a republic that actually rewards merit and doesn’t look on the downtrodden as a tool and resource to be exploited.

Since they control the air waves and the media and the chatterboxes, we basically hear them all the time. Just as the rest of the world hears from Hollywood 90% compared to words and stories about the United States Marine Corps.

Two US Marines scared off a youth gang of 15 ithugs, who had a man on the ground after they sucker punched him. You think the world might have a more positive view of the US had they kept hearing news of such instead of watching Hollywood crap? And reading American newspapers?

So the rich and powerful have indeed always attempted to destroy our fragile republic. They’re still trying to do it. Because they’re democracies, where the will of the people only means how much money the aristocracy can funnel into buy the votes of the masses. Aristocrats have always tried to keep the slaves and serfs in line. They did it with oppression before, now a days they just use bribes and addictions. But regardless, the French elite just as the American elites like Soros, Baldwin, PillowC, Reid, Gore, and Co live off of the productivity of the working class.

But the fundamental prospect is that the elites cannot protect the working classes, they cannot produce wealth or security or new ideas.

The only elite segment of society that ever did this were Americans. Who had themselves started at a bottom rung. Sure, some people get appointed because of family connections or favors, you can’t change that, but how he will do will then be based upon merit. An aristocracy becomes more decadent as family connections replace merit and nobility. A republic becomes stronger the more population there is, and therefore the more geniuses, competent leaders, and etc are born and realized.

Europe is intensely top heavy, to use a military term. They have too many chiefs, not enough warriors.

Regardless of the individual distinctions and exemptions on the US side of the Atlantic, there was one single thing that British folks that came to the US noticed, even in these times. That The US is not a system based upon class, while the British are. Class? In the 21st century? Indeed.

Sala’s take on the situation was pretty humorous and interesting.

http://burkeanreflections.blogspot.com

I think this gut feeling of La Patrie en Danger! trumped in their minds Sarko’s economic views, which don’t particularly line up with theirs. He supports extension of Brussles’ supernational authority and the EU constitution, which both French and Dutch voters soundly rejected two years ago. Somebody ought to compare the high and unelected Brussles bureaucracy with the parasitic and costly nobility of Versailles, but that’s another subject.

Under Sarko, American French relations may well get rocky, and it could be on the subject of Turkey. For our own reasons, which involve finding a safe stable country through which to run natural gas pipelines from the Caspian region, we have been pressuring the EU to admit Turkey. Understandably, the EU countries are not very keen about giving 70 million+ more muslims free range throughout Europe.

But Europe needs energy too, and may find a way out of that dilemma in getting huggy with Putin. Who’s to say they’re wrong? We may have a early sign here in the unanimous lack of support on the part of EU/NATO for Estonia against Russia’s meddling and threats in the recent riots over the Soviet War statue.

All in all, it’s a very interesting time to be an American.

My analysis is much consonant with yours I believe. It is the situation here in Canada, where faux champions of the working class such as Pierre Trudeau (and now, his two sons) gained / gain power through anti-American, anti-freedom propaganda.

thanks

We in the EU can’t avoid doing business with Russia. But, unlike the Turkish case, there is next to no possibility of forging a true partnership with them for the forseeable future.

If I was dealt your cards, I’d give Russia a try before Turkey. You need Russia’s energy; Russia needs a friend, and a sizable one at that, to support it against its growing neighbors, China and Islam. If Europe’s suave diplomats can get Russia to stop brooding long enough to consider its longterm interests, it will see the advantages.

Besides, Turkey is none to safe a bet at the moment, and even if it was, I’d say the prospects are for the moslims to assimiliate you rather than you them. You can’t even tame the ones you have now.

Perhaps Mr Sarkozy will prove me wrong here. Perhaps not.

If Russia needs a friend in the EU, it’s got a funny way of showing it. Look at what happened in Estonia with that war memorial. From the way the Russians and the ethnic Russians in Estonia reacted, you’d have thought the Estonian govt had decided to melt it down for scrap. In fact they just moved it to another spot and within days it was reconsecrated, if that’s the right word, with full honours, along with the war dead. Now Poland’s spooked about what to do with its own Soviet war memorials, which it was planning to take down. What with ethnic Russians living all over the Baltic, not to mention the Stans and other places, future possibilities for mischief-making by the Kremlin are endless.

It’s true we have a huge job in ‘taming’ Islam, as you put it. And yes, there will be some two-way traffic; to try to pretend otherwise would be as pointless as, say, pretending that you could halt any further Hispanic influence on US culture. But the answer to that is not to give up and try to create a ‘fortress Europe’, which is anyway impractical. Rather, we have to follow the US example and keep working to create a culture capable of assimilating people from all over the world, one based on an idea rather than ethnicity.

To get back to the Russians, the point about them is that - unlike millions of Turks - they’re simply not interested in all this. As long as their country can continue to pump itself up through exploitation of its natural resources, my impression is that the vast majority of its citizens - and I include the political classes - couldn’t care less about liberal democratic values. So where’s the basis for a meaningful alliance with the west?

Common enemies.

How does that square with Putin’s Nashi group, and the habitual intimidation of diplomats from countries in conflict with Russia? It seems to me there is a huge number of young people in Russia who are quite relaxed about using violence and intimidation to further what they see as the national interest.

From a western point of view, there is little difference between such people and Islamic militants; neither group has any interest in liberal democratic values.

As for Turkey, if it can continue to move in the right direction it will prove a far more attractive partner to the EU than Russia in its present state. I dispute that the growth of Islamism in Turkey is somehow pre-ordained by demography. Recent events there have shown that thankfully things are far more complex than that.

neo-neocon…