“Salute the French, Our Loyal Allies”

by S. Jovian Radheshwar for Radheshwar.com

Huntington Beach, California, February 22, 2003

First of all, I’d like to personally apologize to anyone who has actually checked out my website in the last two weeks, in anticipation of a new article that I implied would be posted here once per week. Unfortunately for y’all, and quite fortunately for me, I spent about eleven days in Northern California recently, where I visited college campuses, coached some debates, judged an ungodly number of debates, drove around aimlessly on the coast, and generally had a fantastic time. But the engines of my mind were not shut down during my little vacation from LaLa land, and I remained aware of the news by obsessively tuning in to National Public Radio on a daily basis. I also picked up a newspaper here and there, and even listened to the rantings of the right-wing telemedia on occasion. The predominant theme of the previous week’s news, seemingly due to the now overwhelming Iraq-fatigue we all feel, were the actions and proclamations of that terrible, implacable terrorist nation, France. Indeed, it was quite a nice little distraction from Iraq, especially for those of us who have been following that situation with too much of our attention; kudos to the media and the administration for creating a new enemy to hate.

But hatred of the French has always lingered as a possibility in the backs of our pseudo-brit minds. They talk funny, drink too much wine and relish it like intellectuals and sages, not just for the guarantee of intoxication, and of course, their government provides far too much social welfare for the average man. They don’t fear unemployment, and therefore do not have the same zealous drive to succeed as we pretendo-christians have in America, and this makes them terrorists in dubbya’s Manichean worldview. You’re either with us or you’re against us, right? Isn’t that right, Georgie-Boy? But when the independent observer stands back from the evident so-called French-bashing in the news these days, and analyze this historically tired phenomena in the context of the coming war in Iraq and the nature of the French position on this issue, a different, self-evident logic of demarcation emerges. You see, us liberals have the same view as the French, and the Germans; who simply haven’t been bashed all that bad (forgetting somebody, Rummy?); and the administration’s desire to vehemently denounce their views is all caught up in the identity-political machinations they are currently undertaking to cast us libs as traitors.

“How can we trust those libs, they don’t even think Arabs ought to be deported? They even think that valuing education and community-happiness over the strict priority of making money is a proper way to think. They think that Bush doesn’t “have the ability to think properly” (from Nelson Mandela, two weeks ago). How dare they? Right Mr. Cheney?” a hapless, sycophantic republican staffer muttered as she contemplated how the Mexicans in her neighborhood ought to be removed and taken elsewhere to live.

This small dart aside, there is a real danger in allowing the government to continuously demonize us libs, as there is not very much that distinguishes us from the French and German folk, save for the whole citizenship issue, but hey, don’t forget that the Attorney General, John Ashcroft (assface) is busy making certain that our due process rights are eroded, enabling the deprocessing of our citizenship. First, folks like myself, libs, born Americans, although not on soil, will lose our papers. This is especially the case with me, as I am also (unfortunately for me) physically indistinguishable from a Persian, an Afghani, a Pakistani, an Indian muslim, some Arabs and maybe even some Turks here and there. But enough about me. The next target group could be drug-users, which could include Mr. Bush, but then again, such a target choice would imply moral and philosophical consistency on the part of the administration, and such a suggestion may indicate looniness on the part of the suggester. After that, other libs, other target ethnics, eco-feminists, deep ecologists, technophiles, technophobes, gays, lesbians, etc. Essentially, anyone clever enough to not be a boring-ass wasp with an A.A. (if that) working as a manager of the local bible-thumping book store. I only dream of an America where my passport was an authoritarian device whereby all affronts to my American Patriotism were easily deflected by my possession of the document. So if you’re a dissident, or a free-thinker, or anything else that isn’t so boring as to be totally uncool, you cannot disregard your patriotic duty to salute the French this week, for their principled and realistic position on the war.

For their part, the French have already begun to quietly acquiesce to the US’ will on the matter, and like a reliable and reasonable ally, they have dispatched their major carrier group to the Persian Gulf this week to support our mission in the Middle East. They did so in a gracious manner that didn’t even include a response in any form to the stupid attacks lobbed at them by conservatives in the US all last week. You see, they are not necessarily cowards still losing to the Nazi blitzkrieg in 1939, they are merely more human than our leadership and the American conservative movement, bred on Orange County, fake tits and plenty of capital. They have a principled view of foreign affairs and respect for the international agreements that bind the west together in a remarkable experiment, successful thus far, in preserving and distributing peace and prosperity in the developed world. America’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Kyoto Protocol show this country’s ignorance of the remainder of the world, and that remainder’s far more intricate history. To ignore the nuance of the French position and the obvious evidence of their underlying loyalty is an unsound way to evaluate the positions of world leaders. As for Mr. Schroeder, his people don’t want a war, they are all beautiful lefties out there, and his politics are responsive to his electorate. Is that not an example of democracy in action? Hasn’t Germany come far in the last fifty years? My feeling is that it has. Thanks to Mr. Chirac’s historical and realistic approach and Mr. Schroeder’s approach, we have powerful voices of potential dissent emanating in the global media, and we should salute and encourage the people of France and Germany.