Wednesday, March 12, 2003
I Googled that guy Andy Robinson who is currently reporting from New York for the Vanguardia. I was surprised to find he's a Brit, making me think, "Why has the Vanguardia hired a Brit who hates America to be their correspondent from New York?" The answer I came up with, using Ockham's Razor again, is that the Vanguardia wanted a reporter who would only report from there negatively. Robinson, whose ass I am going to fact-check to see if I can nail him plagiarizing anything, is apparently a career stringer who's published a couple of books about grassroots political organization, and based on some of the stuff he writes, he's rather farther to the left than your typical journalist. Or than your typical Marxist, though he claims to be a Keynesian. God only knows why any normal person would actually identify himself as that, but he's got a degree from the LSE, so that should explain it. Here's a link to his "Author" page. Based on what you can see of him in the photo, he looks kind of like Renton in Trainspotting. Note his favorite song. Andy, if you're so bored with it, why don't you go back to your hometown of lovely Liverpool?
Nelson Ascher, our Brazilian agent in Paris, has not one, but three posts at EuroPundits! Check them out right now! Two are right at the top and one is down at the bottom. Don't ask me why.
Mark Hertsgaard is interviewed on the back page of today's Vanguardia. So who's Mark Hertsgaard? He's a San Francisco journalist who has written a lot of enviro-lefty stuff and a Reagan-bashing book, and he's got an new one out called The Eagle's Shadow, about perceptions of America in the world, which I haven't read; the word on the Net is that it's wholesale anti-American crap. It's out in England but hasn't come out in America. Hertsgaard buys into and propagates the Chomskyite media conspiracy theory--it's all controlled by nefarious men for nefarious purposes. I will say one thing for him: he's decent enough to oppose Chinese Communism. The interviewer is Lluís Amiguet and the title is "This war isn't for oil, it's religious." Amiguet is in bold type, Securityguard is in italics, and yours truly is in regular type.
He roams the world to explain to the Americans how they are seen in "The Eagle's Shadow", and now he tells me how we are seen in Washington: irrelevant or annoying. And this comes form the few who see us, because only 14% of Americans has a passport, and the majority will never cross a frontier. Hertsgaard, author of a cited study of Reagan, supplies me with worrying statistics about the decisive influence of Christian extremists in the USA over the destiny of the world. I consult on the Internet the Project for the New American Century of the "new cons" (sic. Does he mean neoconservatives? Neoconservatives are defined as former liberals who moved to the right on foreign policy and defense issues because they are / were strongly anti-Communist, but they're not necessarily free-market purists--many have no problems with a mixed economy, though none could be called social democrats--and they are most emphatically not members of the Christian Right. Many--Perle, Krauthammer, the Kristols, Marty Peretz, Wolfowitz, the Podhoretzes--are of Jewish origin, in fact), signed by Jeb Bush, among others, and I become seriously frightened: Hertsgaard does not exaggerate. Suddenly I discover that the fundamentalists are not only in the Arab countries and, besides, these have nuclear missiles. (If Mr. Amiguet thinks that statement of principles is scary, he's going to have to learn to live with spine-chilling terror for the rest of his days. Top yourself now, Louie! Don't wait till everybody starts doing it!)
The USA is not starting this war to take over Iraqi oil...
Ah, no?
Of course not. Anyone who knows American politics knows that this is a religious war.
Don't scare us.
Fact: Bush owes the Presidency to this 30% of voters who, like himself, call themselves born-again Christians.
No, Bush owes the Presidency to having won the most electoral votes. Not all born-again Christians are Republicans. A disproportionate number of born-again Christians are, uh, black, which Mr. Hertsgaard does not seem to realize. The great majority of American blacks belong to socially conservative Protestant churches. 80-90% of blacks vote Democrat. Also, many born-again Christians are only conservative on social issues; they may well be liberals on international and economic issues. Jimmy Carter is an example.
Born-again Christians are generally perceived by West Coast lefty reporters as being lower-class, whether white or black. They are seen as stupid and ignorant by urban leftists. This fits in very well with Mr. Amiguet's prejudices against Americans in general. Mr. Hertsgaard apparently feels that NPR-listening Americans in San Francisco are sensitive, caring souls who are menaced by the overwhelming Great Unwashed masses who live in uncool places like Oklahoma.
You know, I'm not black, so I really don't know what it's like to feel that someone else is an "Uncle Tom", but my idea of it is that you feel sort of sick because one of your people is abasing himself to curry favor with members of another group. That's sort of how I feel when I hear Left Coast or Far East morality snobs (oh, we're all so good, we want peace and love and solidarity unlike those evil, selfish people who vote Republican, and we've got culture, too, not like those rednecks and ghetto African-Americans, and San Francisco is the most European American city and Manhattan isn't really the United States) kissing European ass about how the rest of us gringos are a bunch of hicks.
By the way, just a comment on the fact that only 14% of Americans has a passport. Americans don't need a passport to go to Canada, Mexico, or most Caribbean countries. You only need a passport to go to Europe. Going to Europe is expensive and is only accessible to people with money. Putting down people who don't have passports is just a little elitist, and if we want to stretch logic to the utmost, we could call it racist, since I bet the percentage of American passport holders in the top 1/10 income bracket is 100% and the percentage of same in the bottom 1/10 income bracket is 0%. Who's most likely to be in the bottom income bracket? It ain't nice white folks from Marin or Westchester County, dude.
What's that?
Christians who have had a moment of epiphany in their lives after a slip and who have been born again into a new life in Christ. They are the most important political force in the country. (Wait, I thought that was the oil companies or the arms companies or the international bankers or the Elders of Zion or the great media conspiracy, not a bunch of Baptist rednecks and Negroes from, like, Alabama.)
Have they all had a vision?
Don't take them as a joke. They are the great American social, ideological, and electoral movement of the end of the century. They were the 30% of the faithful upon whom Reagan constructed his hegemony and they are now those who gave victory to Bush and who support him on his crusade. These voters aren't looking for oil; they think they have a mission in the world.
It's hard to believe there are so many.
According to the last Gallup religious poll, 46% of Americans call themselves "born again Christians" and in many states...99%! Any sociologist knows what that means: 99% declare themselves faithful believers! (My guess is that a lot of people call themselves "born again" without having much idea of what it means more than being a member of a conservative Protestant church. And did he really say that 99% of people in some states are born again Christians? That's flat wrong.)
You're the expert.
I fear I'm being realistic. This evangelical 30% that got Reagan and now Bush elected is the same that destroyed the Clinton presidency over the Lewinsky case, something unheard of in another country without religious fanatics, and it's exactly the same as (the percentage) that now say in the surveys that we have to take Iraq with or without the UN. (Oh, I dunno. That French scandal with Roland Dumas and that woman who wrote the book about being the "whore of the Republic" was a pretty good one, and it will yet put Jacques Chirac's ass in the slammer--he'd be in jail right now for massive fraud and corruption going back to the Seventies if he didn't have immunity from prosecution. Do any Americans think someone ought to have immunity from prosecution just because he's president? I sure hope not.)
I see they're still influential.
Very much. The White House works only for them. (Wasn't it just a week or so ago that David Brooks got extremely angry at those who pointed out the presence of several Jews among Bush's inner circle as an unhealthy sign?) Bush pays much more attention to the Bible than the UN. (I'm a hard-line agnostic and I pay more attention to the Bible than the UN.) And it's not because he's so brilliant: we're describing a well-structured social movement with deep community and social roots that has become the key to any realistic electoral calculus in America. (Good. We're democratic, right? Everybody gets to vote, right? You want us to disqualify Bible-bangers from voting?)
So important?
They're the ones who do the thankless grassroots work, those who take over the school board, the city council, the local authorities, keys to the presidential battle. Besides Bush, who had his own experience of redemption...
He was an alcoholic. And a cokehead. (Does this count as libel?)
After a dark past, he's one of them in his heart. In the White House they pray every day before every meeting.
I suppose it's optional.
Not one adviser misses the prayer...and they're not short! Well, these fundamentalists consider themselves the Chosen people to govern the Earth and they've written The Project for the New American Century, the manifesto of the new American century. (The Project for the New American Century is not a document, it's an organization. Their Statement of Principles is pretty standard let's-make-America-strong talk.)
Which I suppose is not a hymn to equality among peoples.
For them it's the voice of God. it consists of the proclamation by divine mandate of the necessary hegemony of the United States over the Earth. It's clearly connected to the Book of Revelation and its saga, forty million copies, and I know very well what I'm talking about because I was brought up by one of those fundamentalist Christians. (Oh, OK, here's where he's coming from. I firmly believe that most people's political positions are highly unstable, first, and emotionally-based, second. I do not think that most of us get our political opinions from logic or reason, but rather from how we feel. This guy's feelings against fundamentalist Christians are old and deep.)
It all sounds like a cult.
It is. It's inspired by the Bush brothers--though their father is not a fanatic--Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Krisol (sic), Kagan, and a little group of ideologues who are convinced--and when I say convinced I'm not talking about reason, but faith, and I'm serious--that they are called to dominate the world for the good of humanity and divine inspiration. (This is getting extremely weird--I'd say Kierkegaard here is well over the line into paranoia, and I know whereof I speak. Cheney, Kagan, and Rumsfeld are not right-wing Christians, though John Ashcroft is--the only one with any power in the Bush administration. Wolfowitz, Perle, and Kristol are Jewish. And who are the "little group of ideologues"? Name 'em, dude, or this is prima facie a conspiracy theory.)
You're not calming me down.
I'm as terrified as you, and get ready in the European Union, because until now you were irrelevant; from now on, and I just read what Kagan wrote about the European Union for the White House. If you comply with their designs, you will be ignored; if you question them, you will be punished and disactivated and then ignored. (This is another emotional problem for Scotchgard or whatever his name is; this paranoid effluvia he's disgorging comes at least partly from his anger at being less important in real life than he is in his mind. Words that are repeated are key to people's feelings. Trust me on this one.)
And what exactly are they trying to do in Iraq?
Take that first step of the divine mandate for America in the Middle East, and in the middle of that evangelical vision is Israel. (Bingo! Didn't you just know that one was coming?)
Is that also a revelation?
It's sad, but yes, we are in the hands of these visionaries. They placed Israel at the center of their project, because if Israel wins, according to the Book of Revelation, America, the authentic Chosen People, wins.
The far right and the Jews never got along well, even in the USA.
It's a curious tactical alliance, but I'm not denouncing a conspiracy here. (Oh, no, you're not. Please. You just said that there's an alliance of the Christian Right and the Jews that controls the American government in general and American foreign policy in particular.)
I'm just reading you the surveys, which is my job as an analyst. I've been following the strategies of the "new cons" (sic), and today they dictate our foreign policy: Israel is our brother in the Bible, for now.
And do you believe Bush will win a second term this way?
Historically, the economy decides the elections in my country. But in Washington everyone's gone crazy, and journalists and politicians are rivals in putting themselves under the orders of Commander-in-Chief Bush. (Right. Like Daschle and Kennedy and Barney Frank and the Baghdad Three and Maxine Waters and the freakin' New York Times, for example. Not to mention 99% of the entertainment industry.)
A desolate panorama.
Meanwhile, the President's father himself is blaming him for breaking with Europe, and Brezinsky (Brezhinski) says that this breakup is worse than losing Iraq. And did you know all the prestigious retired generals like Scwarzkopf (Schwartzkopf) or the ex-chief of NATO, Wesley Clark, have demonstrated against the invasion? This isn't a war for oil. This is a fundamentalist crusade.
OK, let's see. This religious conspiracy theory to explain why we're going to attack Iraq is new to me. I've heard the oil conspiracy, the arms manufacturers conspiracy, the arms dealers conspiracy, the international bankers and magnates conspiracy, the Jewish conspiracy, the water conspiracy, the racist genocide conspiracy, and the electoral-reasons conspiracy theories. Gee, isn't it possible that the reasons stated by President Bush for war in Iraq--Saddam is a dangerous monster and has to go as soon as possible, by force if need be--might be the actual reasons? Naw, that'd be too easy. All you have to do is use Ockham's Razor to figure that one out. The way you get into print--or catch your opponent off guard in an argument--is by thinking up something really weird and twisted to accuse that nasty Bush and those icky Republicans of.
He roams the world to explain to the Americans how they are seen in "The Eagle's Shadow", and now he tells me how we are seen in Washington: irrelevant or annoying. And this comes form the few who see us, because only 14% of Americans has a passport, and the majority will never cross a frontier. Hertsgaard, author of a cited study of Reagan, supplies me with worrying statistics about the decisive influence of Christian extremists in the USA over the destiny of the world. I consult on the Internet the Project for the New American Century of the "new cons" (sic. Does he mean neoconservatives? Neoconservatives are defined as former liberals who moved to the right on foreign policy and defense issues because they are / were strongly anti-Communist, but they're not necessarily free-market purists--many have no problems with a mixed economy, though none could be called social democrats--and they are most emphatically not members of the Christian Right. Many--Perle, Krauthammer, the Kristols, Marty Peretz, Wolfowitz, the Podhoretzes--are of Jewish origin, in fact), signed by Jeb Bush, among others, and I become seriously frightened: Hertsgaard does not exaggerate. Suddenly I discover that the fundamentalists are not only in the Arab countries and, besides, these have nuclear missiles. (If Mr. Amiguet thinks that statement of principles is scary, he's going to have to learn to live with spine-chilling terror for the rest of his days. Top yourself now, Louie! Don't wait till everybody starts doing it!)
The USA is not starting this war to take over Iraqi oil...
Ah, no?
Of course not. Anyone who knows American politics knows that this is a religious war.
Don't scare us.
Fact: Bush owes the Presidency to this 30% of voters who, like himself, call themselves born-again Christians.
No, Bush owes the Presidency to having won the most electoral votes. Not all born-again Christians are Republicans. A disproportionate number of born-again Christians are, uh, black, which Mr. Hertsgaard does not seem to realize. The great majority of American blacks belong to socially conservative Protestant churches. 80-90% of blacks vote Democrat. Also, many born-again Christians are only conservative on social issues; they may well be liberals on international and economic issues. Jimmy Carter is an example.
Born-again Christians are generally perceived by West Coast lefty reporters as being lower-class, whether white or black. They are seen as stupid and ignorant by urban leftists. This fits in very well with Mr. Amiguet's prejudices against Americans in general. Mr. Hertsgaard apparently feels that NPR-listening Americans in San Francisco are sensitive, caring souls who are menaced by the overwhelming Great Unwashed masses who live in uncool places like Oklahoma.
You know, I'm not black, so I really don't know what it's like to feel that someone else is an "Uncle Tom", but my idea of it is that you feel sort of sick because one of your people is abasing himself to curry favor with members of another group. That's sort of how I feel when I hear Left Coast or Far East morality snobs (oh, we're all so good, we want peace and love and solidarity unlike those evil, selfish people who vote Republican, and we've got culture, too, not like those rednecks and ghetto African-Americans, and San Francisco is the most European American city and Manhattan isn't really the United States) kissing European ass about how the rest of us gringos are a bunch of hicks.
By the way, just a comment on the fact that only 14% of Americans has a passport. Americans don't need a passport to go to Canada, Mexico, or most Caribbean countries. You only need a passport to go to Europe. Going to Europe is expensive and is only accessible to people with money. Putting down people who don't have passports is just a little elitist, and if we want to stretch logic to the utmost, we could call it racist, since I bet the percentage of American passport holders in the top 1/10 income bracket is 100% and the percentage of same in the bottom 1/10 income bracket is 0%. Who's most likely to be in the bottom income bracket? It ain't nice white folks from Marin or Westchester County, dude.
What's that?
Christians who have had a moment of epiphany in their lives after a slip and who have been born again into a new life in Christ. They are the most important political force in the country. (Wait, I thought that was the oil companies or the arms companies or the international bankers or the Elders of Zion or the great media conspiracy, not a bunch of Baptist rednecks and Negroes from, like, Alabama.)
Have they all had a vision?
Don't take them as a joke. They are the great American social, ideological, and electoral movement of the end of the century. They were the 30% of the faithful upon whom Reagan constructed his hegemony and they are now those who gave victory to Bush and who support him on his crusade. These voters aren't looking for oil; they think they have a mission in the world.
It's hard to believe there are so many.
According to the last Gallup religious poll, 46% of Americans call themselves "born again Christians" and in many states...99%! Any sociologist knows what that means: 99% declare themselves faithful believers! (My guess is that a lot of people call themselves "born again" without having much idea of what it means more than being a member of a conservative Protestant church. And did he really say that 99% of people in some states are born again Christians? That's flat wrong.)
You're the expert.
I fear I'm being realistic. This evangelical 30% that got Reagan and now Bush elected is the same that destroyed the Clinton presidency over the Lewinsky case, something unheard of in another country without religious fanatics, and it's exactly the same as (the percentage) that now say in the surveys that we have to take Iraq with or without the UN. (Oh, I dunno. That French scandal with Roland Dumas and that woman who wrote the book about being the "whore of the Republic" was a pretty good one, and it will yet put Jacques Chirac's ass in the slammer--he'd be in jail right now for massive fraud and corruption going back to the Seventies if he didn't have immunity from prosecution. Do any Americans think someone ought to have immunity from prosecution just because he's president? I sure hope not.)
I see they're still influential.
Very much. The White House works only for them. (Wasn't it just a week or so ago that David Brooks got extremely angry at those who pointed out the presence of several Jews among Bush's inner circle as an unhealthy sign?) Bush pays much more attention to the Bible than the UN. (I'm a hard-line agnostic and I pay more attention to the Bible than the UN.) And it's not because he's so brilliant: we're describing a well-structured social movement with deep community and social roots that has become the key to any realistic electoral calculus in America. (Good. We're democratic, right? Everybody gets to vote, right? You want us to disqualify Bible-bangers from voting?)
So important?
They're the ones who do the thankless grassroots work, those who take over the school board, the city council, the local authorities, keys to the presidential battle. Besides Bush, who had his own experience of redemption...
He was an alcoholic. And a cokehead. (Does this count as libel?)
After a dark past, he's one of them in his heart. In the White House they pray every day before every meeting.
I suppose it's optional.
Not one adviser misses the prayer...and they're not short! Well, these fundamentalists consider themselves the Chosen people to govern the Earth and they've written The Project for the New American Century, the manifesto of the new American century. (The Project for the New American Century is not a document, it's an organization. Their Statement of Principles is pretty standard let's-make-America-strong talk.)
Which I suppose is not a hymn to equality among peoples.
For them it's the voice of God. it consists of the proclamation by divine mandate of the necessary hegemony of the United States over the Earth. It's clearly connected to the Book of Revelation and its saga, forty million copies, and I know very well what I'm talking about because I was brought up by one of those fundamentalist Christians. (Oh, OK, here's where he's coming from. I firmly believe that most people's political positions are highly unstable, first, and emotionally-based, second. I do not think that most of us get our political opinions from logic or reason, but rather from how we feel. This guy's feelings against fundamentalist Christians are old and deep.)
It all sounds like a cult.
It is. It's inspired by the Bush brothers--though their father is not a fanatic--Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Krisol (sic), Kagan, and a little group of ideologues who are convinced--and when I say convinced I'm not talking about reason, but faith, and I'm serious--that they are called to dominate the world for the good of humanity and divine inspiration. (This is getting extremely weird--I'd say Kierkegaard here is well over the line into paranoia, and I know whereof I speak. Cheney, Kagan, and Rumsfeld are not right-wing Christians, though John Ashcroft is--the only one with any power in the Bush administration. Wolfowitz, Perle, and Kristol are Jewish. And who are the "little group of ideologues"? Name 'em, dude, or this is prima facie a conspiracy theory.)
You're not calming me down.
I'm as terrified as you, and get ready in the European Union, because until now you were irrelevant; from now on, and I just read what Kagan wrote about the European Union for the White House. If you comply with their designs, you will be ignored; if you question them, you will be punished and disactivated and then ignored. (This is another emotional problem for Scotchgard or whatever his name is; this paranoid effluvia he's disgorging comes at least partly from his anger at being less important in real life than he is in his mind. Words that are repeated are key to people's feelings. Trust me on this one.)
And what exactly are they trying to do in Iraq?
Take that first step of the divine mandate for America in the Middle East, and in the middle of that evangelical vision is Israel. (Bingo! Didn't you just know that one was coming?)
Is that also a revelation?
It's sad, but yes, we are in the hands of these visionaries. They placed Israel at the center of their project, because if Israel wins, according to the Book of Revelation, America, the authentic Chosen People, wins.
The far right and the Jews never got along well, even in the USA.
It's a curious tactical alliance, but I'm not denouncing a conspiracy here. (Oh, no, you're not. Please. You just said that there's an alliance of the Christian Right and the Jews that controls the American government in general and American foreign policy in particular.)
I'm just reading you the surveys, which is my job as an analyst. I've been following the strategies of the "new cons" (sic), and today they dictate our foreign policy: Israel is our brother in the Bible, for now.
And do you believe Bush will win a second term this way?
Historically, the economy decides the elections in my country. But in Washington everyone's gone crazy, and journalists and politicians are rivals in putting themselves under the orders of Commander-in-Chief Bush. (Right. Like Daschle and Kennedy and Barney Frank and the Baghdad Three and Maxine Waters and the freakin' New York Times, for example. Not to mention 99% of the entertainment industry.)
A desolate panorama.
Meanwhile, the President's father himself is blaming him for breaking with Europe, and Brezinsky (Brezhinski) says that this breakup is worse than losing Iraq. And did you know all the prestigious retired generals like Scwarzkopf (Schwartzkopf) or the ex-chief of NATO, Wesley Clark, have demonstrated against the invasion? This isn't a war for oil. This is a fundamentalist crusade.
OK, let's see. This religious conspiracy theory to explain why we're going to attack Iraq is new to me. I've heard the oil conspiracy, the arms manufacturers conspiracy, the arms dealers conspiracy, the international bankers and magnates conspiracy, the Jewish conspiracy, the water conspiracy, the racist genocide conspiracy, and the electoral-reasons conspiracy theories. Gee, isn't it possible that the reasons stated by President Bush for war in Iraq--Saddam is a dangerous monster and has to go as soon as possible, by force if need be--might be the actual reasons? Naw, that'd be too easy. All you have to do is use Ockham's Razor to figure that one out. The way you get into print--or catch your opponent off guard in an argument--is by thinking up something really weird and twisted to accuse that nasty Bush and those icky Republicans of.
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
Here comes Christopher Hitchens again, blasting religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular in Slate. He's irritated by their antiwar stance and heaps tons of vitriol upon them, reminding me of why I think Christopher Hitchens has a terminal case of Intellectually Arrogant Brit Disease. I find that some English folk of fairly humble origin, or even of the Guardian-reading middle classes, tend to be terribly socially insecure and often try to convince themselves that their university degree and their career achievements make them just as good as anybody, even an aristo (who these people always hate). Then some smug, rich, good-looking know-it-all from Cambridge puts them in their place, but good, and they find out that the Old European side of Britain will only let a person rise so far on merit. This is when they go through their militant Socialist phase, which may last a lifetime but often doesn't; in Hitchens' case, he's still not finished with it. Their militant Socialist phase is often accompanied with a healthy helping of reverse snobbery and an unconvincing working-class accent, along with a conviction that they are somehow culturally and intellectually superior, which makes up for their sometimes conscious and sometimes sublimated knowledge that they are socially inferior.
I just read a collection of Hitchens' pieces from the early '90s. He's a lot of fun to read, all right, but he seems like a real prick as a human being, and his articles are always based on hectoring, ad hominem accusations, innuendo, comparing apples with oranges, making up historical "facts", manipulating statistics, and just generally being arrogant toward everyone. We don't want this guy on our team. I vote we throw him over the side after the war's over and his utility has expired. The Nation and his old pals on the British hard left won't take him back, and he'll be forced to cravenly adopt the politics of his hated social superiors, always happy to co-opt authentic working-class voices. Five years from now he'll be writing for the Telegraph and voting Tory--and not liberal Thatcherite Tory, either, more like Auberon Waugh Tory. Can you say "Paul Johnson", everyone?
I just read a collection of Hitchens' pieces from the early '90s. He's a lot of fun to read, all right, but he seems like a real prick as a human being, and his articles are always based on hectoring, ad hominem accusations, innuendo, comparing apples with oranges, making up historical "facts", manipulating statistics, and just generally being arrogant toward everyone. We don't want this guy on our team. I vote we throw him over the side after the war's over and his utility has expired. The Nation and his old pals on the British hard left won't take him back, and he'll be forced to cravenly adopt the politics of his hated social superiors, always happy to co-opt authentic working-class voices. Five years from now he'll be writing for the Telegraph and voting Tory--and not liberal Thatcherite Tory, either, more like Auberon Waugh Tory. Can you say "Paul Johnson", everyone?
Here's a nice article by Rod Dreher from National Review Online on why he doesn't hate the French. I couldn't agree more. Let me emphasize once again that I like Europe. I like Spain and Catalonia and Barcelona. If I didn't like it here, I'd move. I just think that most European people, who are generally friendly and courteous and generous, are also political idiots. That doesn't make them bad people. It just makes them politically irresponsible.
I mean, Spain has done exactly one politically responsible thing in its history, the transition to democracy between 1975 and 1982. France has done zero politically responsible things in its history. Zero. I guess you could count bailing out of their mostly worthless colonies as sort of responsible, but then look and see what happened in France's former colonies after France left. Morocco and Tunisia are about as good as ex-French colonies get. I suppose setting up the Common Market was also pretty responsible, but what choice did they have? Nasty, Bitchy France-Bashing Comments: the Third Republic rivals Weimar Germany and Popular Front Spain as the Worst Democratic Republic of All Time, and you have to give the crown to the Third Republic because it lasted almost seventy years. And Napoleon III definitely takes the title as Most Tawdry Emperor in history.
I mean, Spain has done exactly one politically responsible thing in its history, the transition to democracy between 1975 and 1982. France has done zero politically responsible things in its history. Zero. I guess you could count bailing out of their mostly worthless colonies as sort of responsible, but then look and see what happened in France's former colonies after France left. Morocco and Tunisia are about as good as ex-French colonies get. I suppose setting up the Common Market was also pretty responsible, but what choice did they have? Nasty, Bitchy France-Bashing Comments: the Third Republic rivals Weimar Germany and Popular Front Spain as the Worst Democratic Republic of All Time, and you have to give the crown to the Third Republic because it lasted almost seventy years. And Napoleon III definitely takes the title as Most Tawdry Emperor in history.
There's a photocopy making the rounds here in Barcelona; it consists of an American flag with what appears to be a 51st star; if you look at it closely, though, the 51st star is in the shape of the map of Spain. It's actually kind of funny, though of course by no means accurate. It made me think, though: what if Spain were the 51st state?
Well, it would be the biggest state by far; California has about 34 million people and Spain has about 40 million. If congressional seats were divided proportionately--California's got 52--Spain would get 66. There would be a new total of 501 seats in Congress, a nice number; there are now 435. 66 seats out of 501 is about 13% of the total. Spain would control the outcome of most Congressional votes. As for Presidential elections, Spain would be the biggest single prize with its 68 electoral votes out of 603, more than 10%. Since Spaniards tend to be more leftist than Americans, most of them would be attracted to the Democrat Party; the Socialists and the Dems would join up together and the PP would probably join the Republicans, moving the Reps toward the left as well. The 2000 election wouldn't have been at all close; Gore would have won in a landslide if Spain had been a state. Spain would be the single biggest source of political power and it might not be too long before a Spaniard got to be President; in addition, they'd move the United States to the left politically, which they'd obviously like to see.
Are there any disadvantages? Spain would probably receive a whole bunch of federal aid, more than they currently get from the UE, because it would be by far the poorest state; per capita income here is about $17,000, while Mississippi's (the poorest state now) is over $20,000 and Connecticut's is above $40,000. Probably not too many of the current laws would have to be changed. Hell, Louisiana's legal system is weird enough; Spain's is probably sensible compared to Louisiana's. Language shouldn't be a problem, since New Mexico is already officially bilingual; there'd be no reason why Spain's four languages couldn't continue being official, though they'd probably have to make English co-official. As for going out and getting into wars, there's no compulsory military service so no one who didn't volunteer would have to go fight. They wouldn't have to adopt the death penalty; there are still 12 or 15 states that don't have it, and it looks like a few states might even go back to illegalizing it.
On the whole, it looks like a pretty good deal for Spain, and the consequences for the United States would be profound. That's why I vote we don't let them in even if they want to join. Which they don't, thank God.
Well, it would be the biggest state by far; California has about 34 million people and Spain has about 40 million. If congressional seats were divided proportionately--California's got 52--Spain would get 66. There would be a new total of 501 seats in Congress, a nice number; there are now 435. 66 seats out of 501 is about 13% of the total. Spain would control the outcome of most Congressional votes. As for Presidential elections, Spain would be the biggest single prize with its 68 electoral votes out of 603, more than 10%. Since Spaniards tend to be more leftist than Americans, most of them would be attracted to the Democrat Party; the Socialists and the Dems would join up together and the PP would probably join the Republicans, moving the Reps toward the left as well. The 2000 election wouldn't have been at all close; Gore would have won in a landslide if Spain had been a state. Spain would be the single biggest source of political power and it might not be too long before a Spaniard got to be President; in addition, they'd move the United States to the left politically, which they'd obviously like to see.
Are there any disadvantages? Spain would probably receive a whole bunch of federal aid, more than they currently get from the UE, because it would be by far the poorest state; per capita income here is about $17,000, while Mississippi's (the poorest state now) is over $20,000 and Connecticut's is above $40,000. Probably not too many of the current laws would have to be changed. Hell, Louisiana's legal system is weird enough; Spain's is probably sensible compared to Louisiana's. Language shouldn't be a problem, since New Mexico is already officially bilingual; there'd be no reason why Spain's four languages couldn't continue being official, though they'd probably have to make English co-official. As for going out and getting into wars, there's no compulsory military service so no one who didn't volunteer would have to go fight. They wouldn't have to adopt the death penalty; there are still 12 or 15 states that don't have it, and it looks like a few states might even go back to illegalizing it.
On the whole, it looks like a pretty good deal for Spain, and the consequences for the United States would be profound. That's why I vote we don't let them in even if they want to join. Which they don't, thank God.
The Vangua kicks off its front page today with the headline "Chirac to veto war no matter what; French president reiterates firm opposition to Iraq ultimatum; Russia announces veto of second resolution; Washington willing to delay deadline to obtain majority; Minister threatens Blair with resignation; Aznar to support USA at any cost." Andrew made a post on EuroPundits a few days ago suggesting that Tony, his Labour Third Way supporters, and the Tories might make common cause if Old Labour abandons Blair. I honestly don't think that enough Labour MPs will desert Tony to make such a thing necessary, but it's within the realm of possibilities. If it does happen, Tony will have to call it a National Unity government and call elections when the war's over and things have calmed down a bit. Since the most probable outcome is an overwhelming Allied victory and the posterior exposure of all Saddam's crimes in detail, Blair would almost certainly be returned with a huge majority.
Wonder if there will be a Canadian backlash against Chrétien and a German backlash against Schröder after those countries' populaces realize that those leaders tried to obstruct the overthrow of an evil dictator with bloody hands? I'll bet there is. Common human decency will win out over knee-jerk anti-Americanism, though expect the idiotarian left to invent charges of Allied atrocities and, later, of not making Baghdad look like Stockholm fast enough. (The Spanish idiotarians are right now up on their high horses over Kabul's still looking like, well, Kabul, though we haven't bailed out and we're spending half a billion dollars all by ourselves--not counting aid from other countries--to help fix the place up. The most telling statistic is that two million Afghan refugees have already returned home. People vote with their feet.)
I can't help but think that Chirac is carrying his opposition to the war on Saddam to the point of being just plain foolish. At this point, he's gone way too far if his goal is merely to express his moral objections to military action (and he doesn't really have any of those. Chirac is, most likely, a sociopath. He has no conscience and no sense of ethics). He must know that he can't stop an Anglo-American attack on Saddam; all he can do is wreck NATO and the UN. Maybe that's his goal, to dismantle the Western alliance in the hope that other European states will side with France rather than the US. If that's what he wanted to do, he's lost badly, since he's only got Germany and Belgium with him. Maybe he wants to blame America for the breakup of these two institutions; there are enough idiotarians who'll believe anything about America that that charge might stick. Maybe it's just pure spite. I would never put that past any French ruler. And maybe he's really frightened about what's going to come out about French dealings with Iraq and with other sundry dictatorships--but that's going to come out no matter what France does. Saddam is going to be Big Loser #1 in the upcoming war, and France is starting to look a lot like Big Loser #2.
Aznar said he would like to see a second resolution passed in the UN, but he doesn't see it as necessary to turn loose the troops. He accused France, Russia, and China of having economic interests in Iraq. He also said, "Only the United States has demonstrated the capacity to protect the rest of the world from the threat of the dictators." The Chileans have siad that they'd like to see Saddam get one last chance and that they'd like to postpone the March 17 deadline, perhaps to March 28. Vicente Fox said he would consult with "a group of notables" and they would decide Mexico's Security Council vote; Fox emphasized that Mexico's decision would not be unilateral or presidential. What this means is that Fox is going to throw Mexico's vote to the gringos at the last moment and try to dump the political responsibilities onto the shoulders of his "group of notables".
Andy Robinson, idiotarian Vangua correspondent in New York, has an interview with Satan himself, NOAM CHOMSKY, today. Noam says, among other things: "The UK resigned itself after World War II to be Washington's junior partner, despite the degree of humiliation or the barbarities it has to commit"; "Turkey has 50 million Kurds"; "Within the American system of propaganda...(in the September 2002 Congressional elections) the Administration had to prevent questions like Enron, Social Security, or unemployment from being campaign issues"; "The Reagan administration told us...that the Russians were going to bomb us from an airbase on Grenada; "The United States wants to use (its power) to guarantee world domination now and forever."; "The objective is to strike fear into the world, and one way to do it is to attack a defenseless country"; "During 25 years the United States has unilaterally blocked a diplomatic resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in opposition to the rest of the world"; "What kind of massacre is (the war) going to be?" Chomsky talks quite a bit about how the US is going to force Turkey into compliance and, of course, how the media is manipulated by some huge conspiracy.
I just translated a few of the greatest hits; if anybody wants me to, I'll translate the whole thing and post it on EuroPundits. It's really just the same old Chomsky crap, though. By the way, Andy Robinson identifies Chomsky as a professor at Harvard University. (He's really at MIT.) I can't promise that the two ridiculous factual errors Chomsky apparently made--the 50 million Kurds in Turkey and the September 2002 congressional elections--aren't really due to Robinson, who besides being an idiotarian isn't very smart or very professional. Oh, by the way, Robinson identifies Chomsky as a "pacifist". Chomsky, however, calls himself a "libertarian anarchist", which is rather a different kettle of fish, and most normal people would classify Chomsky as an anti-American and anti-Semitic far-left Marxist. (Yes, I know Chomsky is of Jewish origin. I also think he's an anti-Semite.)
The Socialists will not mount a no-confidence vote against Aznar if they only have the support of the Communists; the Catalan Nationalists, CiU, have announced that they will not support such a motion.
Here's a nasty stink in the world of the Catalan universities. A Basque anti-ETA professor named Gotzone Mora, who is a member of a well-known group called ¡Basta Ya! (Enough Already!), was refused permission by Joan Tugures, the rector of the University of Barcelona, to speak at the university. Fernando Savater, a philosopher and writer who is also a member of ¡Basta Ya!, spoke several days ago at the UB, where he was booed off the stage and was physically attacked by radical students. Power within the universities is in the hands of extreme Catalanists and leftists; one of the reasons that Mora was prohibited from speaking is that ¡Basta Ya! is considered to be an anti-Catalanist organization. The organization that invited Mora to speak, Professors for Democracy, is unpopular with the university administration because it has challenged university regulations requiring the use of Catalan. Probably the last big stink was about two years ago when at the Rovira i Virgili university in Tarragona, a professor serving as a proctor for the Selectivitat, the equivalent of the SAT, announced that she had copies of the exam in Spanish for those students who preferred Spanish to Catalan. (The Selectivitat is supposed to be provided in Spanish if the student requests it, but it seems that announcing this is not permitted.) The professor was disciplined and another organization close to Professors for Democracy, Catalan Civic Togetherness, sued the university and won.
Meanwhile, the ETA-front newspaper, Egunkaria, which the government has closed down for being, well, a terrorist front organization, is receiving support from the Communists and both Catalan nationalist parties, the centrist Convergence and Union and the leftist Republican Left. They're saying this is a freedom-of-speech issue. That is rich because the Basque terrorists are against anybody's free speech but their own, and they'll kill you if you speak out too loudly against them. The extreme Catalanists won't kill you; they'll just prohibit you from using any language they don't happen to like and shut out inconvienient ideas from being spoken. Free speech my ass. These people care nothing for free speech. And here they call Noam Chomsky a "dissident", lumping him in with Havel and Sakharov, whose boots Chomsky isn't fit to lick. Chomsky is no dissident. I personally saw him speak at the University of Kansas. The linguistics department, where I was a grad student, invited him to speak on linguistics. He agreed (there was a fee, of course) under the condition that he also be ceded the university auditorium to give his anti-American speech on how the government controls the media and there's no free expression in America. Of course, real dissidents are not paid to express their ideas in public. Other so-called dissidents like Angela Davis and Louis Farrakhan have also spoken at KU. The Black Student Union invited Farrakhan and used everybody's student fees to pay for it. Protests went unheeded. Dissidents, my ass.
Wonder if there will be a Canadian backlash against Chrétien and a German backlash against Schröder after those countries' populaces realize that those leaders tried to obstruct the overthrow of an evil dictator with bloody hands? I'll bet there is. Common human decency will win out over knee-jerk anti-Americanism, though expect the idiotarian left to invent charges of Allied atrocities and, later, of not making Baghdad look like Stockholm fast enough. (The Spanish idiotarians are right now up on their high horses over Kabul's still looking like, well, Kabul, though we haven't bailed out and we're spending half a billion dollars all by ourselves--not counting aid from other countries--to help fix the place up. The most telling statistic is that two million Afghan refugees have already returned home. People vote with their feet.)
I can't help but think that Chirac is carrying his opposition to the war on Saddam to the point of being just plain foolish. At this point, he's gone way too far if his goal is merely to express his moral objections to military action (and he doesn't really have any of those. Chirac is, most likely, a sociopath. He has no conscience and no sense of ethics). He must know that he can't stop an Anglo-American attack on Saddam; all he can do is wreck NATO and the UN. Maybe that's his goal, to dismantle the Western alliance in the hope that other European states will side with France rather than the US. If that's what he wanted to do, he's lost badly, since he's only got Germany and Belgium with him. Maybe he wants to blame America for the breakup of these two institutions; there are enough idiotarians who'll believe anything about America that that charge might stick. Maybe it's just pure spite. I would never put that past any French ruler. And maybe he's really frightened about what's going to come out about French dealings with Iraq and with other sundry dictatorships--but that's going to come out no matter what France does. Saddam is going to be Big Loser #1 in the upcoming war, and France is starting to look a lot like Big Loser #2.
Aznar said he would like to see a second resolution passed in the UN, but he doesn't see it as necessary to turn loose the troops. He accused France, Russia, and China of having economic interests in Iraq. He also said, "Only the United States has demonstrated the capacity to protect the rest of the world from the threat of the dictators." The Chileans have siad that they'd like to see Saddam get one last chance and that they'd like to postpone the March 17 deadline, perhaps to March 28. Vicente Fox said he would consult with "a group of notables" and they would decide Mexico's Security Council vote; Fox emphasized that Mexico's decision would not be unilateral or presidential. What this means is that Fox is going to throw Mexico's vote to the gringos at the last moment and try to dump the political responsibilities onto the shoulders of his "group of notables".
Andy Robinson, idiotarian Vangua correspondent in New York, has an interview with Satan himself, NOAM CHOMSKY, today. Noam says, among other things: "The UK resigned itself after World War II to be Washington's junior partner, despite the degree of humiliation or the barbarities it has to commit"; "Turkey has 50 million Kurds"; "Within the American system of propaganda...(in the September 2002 Congressional elections) the Administration had to prevent questions like Enron, Social Security, or unemployment from being campaign issues"; "The Reagan administration told us...that the Russians were going to bomb us from an airbase on Grenada; "The United States wants to use (its power) to guarantee world domination now and forever."; "The objective is to strike fear into the world, and one way to do it is to attack a defenseless country"; "During 25 years the United States has unilaterally blocked a diplomatic resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in opposition to the rest of the world"; "What kind of massacre is (the war) going to be?" Chomsky talks quite a bit about how the US is going to force Turkey into compliance and, of course, how the media is manipulated by some huge conspiracy.
I just translated a few of the greatest hits; if anybody wants me to, I'll translate the whole thing and post it on EuroPundits. It's really just the same old Chomsky crap, though. By the way, Andy Robinson identifies Chomsky as a professor at Harvard University. (He's really at MIT.) I can't promise that the two ridiculous factual errors Chomsky apparently made--the 50 million Kurds in Turkey and the September 2002 congressional elections--aren't really due to Robinson, who besides being an idiotarian isn't very smart or very professional. Oh, by the way, Robinson identifies Chomsky as a "pacifist". Chomsky, however, calls himself a "libertarian anarchist", which is rather a different kettle of fish, and most normal people would classify Chomsky as an anti-American and anti-Semitic far-left Marxist. (Yes, I know Chomsky is of Jewish origin. I also think he's an anti-Semite.)
The Socialists will not mount a no-confidence vote against Aznar if they only have the support of the Communists; the Catalan Nationalists, CiU, have announced that they will not support such a motion.
Here's a nasty stink in the world of the Catalan universities. A Basque anti-ETA professor named Gotzone Mora, who is a member of a well-known group called ¡Basta Ya! (Enough Already!), was refused permission by Joan Tugures, the rector of the University of Barcelona, to speak at the university. Fernando Savater, a philosopher and writer who is also a member of ¡Basta Ya!, spoke several days ago at the UB, where he was booed off the stage and was physically attacked by radical students. Power within the universities is in the hands of extreme Catalanists and leftists; one of the reasons that Mora was prohibited from speaking is that ¡Basta Ya! is considered to be an anti-Catalanist organization. The organization that invited Mora to speak, Professors for Democracy, is unpopular with the university administration because it has challenged university regulations requiring the use of Catalan. Probably the last big stink was about two years ago when at the Rovira i Virgili university in Tarragona, a professor serving as a proctor for the Selectivitat, the equivalent of the SAT, announced that she had copies of the exam in Spanish for those students who preferred Spanish to Catalan. (The Selectivitat is supposed to be provided in Spanish if the student requests it, but it seems that announcing this is not permitted.) The professor was disciplined and another organization close to Professors for Democracy, Catalan Civic Togetherness, sued the university and won.
Meanwhile, the ETA-front newspaper, Egunkaria, which the government has closed down for being, well, a terrorist front organization, is receiving support from the Communists and both Catalan nationalist parties, the centrist Convergence and Union and the leftist Republican Left. They're saying this is a freedom-of-speech issue. That is rich because the Basque terrorists are against anybody's free speech but their own, and they'll kill you if you speak out too loudly against them. The extreme Catalanists won't kill you; they'll just prohibit you from using any language they don't happen to like and shut out inconvienient ideas from being spoken. Free speech my ass. These people care nothing for free speech. And here they call Noam Chomsky a "dissident", lumping him in with Havel and Sakharov, whose boots Chomsky isn't fit to lick. Chomsky is no dissident. I personally saw him speak at the University of Kansas. The linguistics department, where I was a grad student, invited him to speak on linguistics. He agreed (there was a fee, of course) under the condition that he also be ceded the university auditorium to give his anti-American speech on how the government controls the media and there's no free expression in America. Of course, real dissidents are not paid to express their ideas in public. Other so-called dissidents like Angela Davis and Louis Farrakhan have also spoken at KU. The Black Student Union invited Farrakhan and used everybody's student fees to pay for it. Protests went unheeded. Dissidents, my ass.
Monday, March 10, 2003
New Article Up at EuroPundits
I've got an article that I think is pretty good up on EuroPundits, so check it out. You'll have to scroll down to the bottom. This is Post Number Four, so we only need six more to get over Blog Hump One--by the time you've done your tenth post, you've got the hang of it and it becomes easy.
I forgot to mention that the guy from Amiland is on board EuroPundits. This gives us two in Germany, two in Spain (both Barcelona and Madrid!), one in Paris, one in Maine (plus his better half--hey, Sasha, bet I'm the first person to call you that. Feel free to chastise me, but not too painfully), and two at unknown locations.
Could somebody please fix the EuroPundits template? Please, please, please? I've already received a complaint about the large type, so I vote it needs to go. Sorry.
I've got an article that I think is pretty good up on EuroPundits, so check it out. You'll have to scroll down to the bottom. This is Post Number Four, so we only need six more to get over Blog Hump One--by the time you've done your tenth post, you've got the hang of it and it becomes easy.
I forgot to mention that the guy from Amiland is on board EuroPundits. This gives us two in Germany, two in Spain (both Barcelona and Madrid!), one in Paris, one in Maine (plus his better half--hey, Sasha, bet I'm the first person to call you that. Feel free to chastise me, but not too painfully), and two at unknown locations.
Could somebody please fix the EuroPundits template? Please, please, please? I've already received a complaint about the large type, so I vote it needs to go. Sorry.
If you've never seen it, check out Making of America Books. It has over eight thousand nineteenth century books online, ranging from scientific treatises to some joker's sermons. Ninety-five percent of it is dreck that has been long and deservedly forgotten, but five percent are jewels. Just browse around and you're likely to find something of interest.
Here's a very nice article from National Review Online on the Ramones, the new Ramones tribute album, and the state of music today. A new generation is taking over the Movement--can you imagine Bill Buckley running a positive piece on the Ramones?
The Radical Blogger has a post up at EuroPundits! Check it out! Can somebody on the Axis of EuroPundits figure out how to reduce the size of the type, though?
Vladimir Bukovsky and Yelena Bonner have an open letter to President Bush at FrontPage; they are in favor of wiping out Saddam, but they tear Putin a new one, calling him an oppressive dictator and asking what one could expect from an ex-KGB colonel. They also point out that Putin is going to take advantage of the world's distraction over the Iraq war to crush the Chechens once and for all--and I would add that I would not be surprised in the least. I fear that the US may give Putin a free hand with the Caucasians, figuring they can't stop him anyway, in exchange for an abstention on the Security Council. When all this UN shit started, that was probably the most predictable outcome--I've certainly been predicting it over the last months. We never should have gotten anywhere near the United Nations over either Afghanistan or Iraq, just like Britain didn't bother with the UN over Sierra Leone and France didn't bother with the UN over the Ivory Coast. And we should have taken out Saddam long ago, last fall at the very latest. We should already be on Stage Three, which will consist of subverting Iran, letting North Korea hoist itself with its own petard, and taking out Sudan or whoever else is next in line.
Sunday, March 09, 2003
I was just watching the Simpsons on TV in Spanish. In this episode, Lisa has to babysit Bart and Maggie. She sends Bart to bed, and Bart gives her a Nazi salute and says, "Sieg Heil!" In Spanish, though, it's changed to "Tú mandas". There's a minor difference there. The discrepancy is obviously intentional. Therefore, they made the change either 1) as a question of good taste, which everybody who has watched more than about thirty minutes of Spanish prime time TV knows ain't the reason or 2) because there's some kind of regulation prohibiting using Nazi slogans on the air. This is funny coming from the Spaniards, who are always quick to jump and accuse the Americans of censorship, mostly because they say coño and joder on network TV but we can't say their English equivalents except on cable and in movies and, like, everywhere else.
Pedro Almodóvar is one of those quickest to yell "American censorship". This is because many of his movies have been rated NC-17 (no children under 17). So where's the censorship, Pedro? Nobody's telling you you can't make any kind of movie you want. What we're telling you is that if you want to show explicit scenes of rape, bondage, fetishism, and Victoria Abril masturbating in a bathtub, we're not gonna let the kids in. So what's the problem? America, obviously, has the right to establish an appropriate age for kids to see certain things on screen. Every country has some kind of movie classification board. Spain certainly does. And for all we care, Almodóvar can make a movie consisting entirely of transsexuals dressed up as nuns sticking dildoes up each other's butts. Just don't expect to see it down at the mall multiplex--for reasons of business, not censorship.
No, the problem is that movies rated NC-17 don't make it into the big commercial multiplex movie theaters because they can't tap into the lucrative teenage market, which is where the industry makes and loses its money. Besides, it's not like any American teenagers want to go see a bunch of transvestites camping it up, anyway; they want Scream VII. So Almodóvar movies are usually reduced to playing the art houses, where only adults go, and not many of them. This means Pedro's movies don't make him as rich as he would like them to. So he's very angry at America and accuses us of censoring him.
Interestingly enough, you could say that there's an effective censorship of American films here in Spain. See, there's some kind of law that says movie theaters have to devote a certain percentage of screen time to movies made in Europe. What this means is that the movie theater owner has to spend, say, one day in four not making any money because he has to show a deeply touching portrait of two Victorian-era lesbians in a socially judgmental mining town starring Emma Thompson, Nurse Ratchet, and some guy named either Yves or Giampiero who looks like a junkie which is filmed half in Belgian and half in Swiss. This means that he wants to fill his theater on the days when he can actually show movies people want to see and make some money, so he wants the biggest, splashiest Hollywood movies he can get. What gets left out here are American independent, art-house, and low-budget films. They never show those here except at 5 AM on Sunday morning on TV2. This is why Spaniards think all American movies are for mental retards; all the ones they ever see are, so it's hard to blame them. So, for example, the highly overrated Jim Jarmusch is just as censored in Spain as Big Gay Pedro is in the United States.
Pedro Almodóvar is one of those quickest to yell "American censorship". This is because many of his movies have been rated NC-17 (no children under 17). So where's the censorship, Pedro? Nobody's telling you you can't make any kind of movie you want. What we're telling you is that if you want to show explicit scenes of rape, bondage, fetishism, and Victoria Abril masturbating in a bathtub, we're not gonna let the kids in. So what's the problem? America, obviously, has the right to establish an appropriate age for kids to see certain things on screen. Every country has some kind of movie classification board. Spain certainly does. And for all we care, Almodóvar can make a movie consisting entirely of transsexuals dressed up as nuns sticking dildoes up each other's butts. Just don't expect to see it down at the mall multiplex--for reasons of business, not censorship.
No, the problem is that movies rated NC-17 don't make it into the big commercial multiplex movie theaters because they can't tap into the lucrative teenage market, which is where the industry makes and loses its money. Besides, it's not like any American teenagers want to go see a bunch of transvestites camping it up, anyway; they want Scream VII. So Almodóvar movies are usually reduced to playing the art houses, where only adults go, and not many of them. This means Pedro's movies don't make him as rich as he would like them to. So he's very angry at America and accuses us of censoring him.
Interestingly enough, you could say that there's an effective censorship of American films here in Spain. See, there's some kind of law that says movie theaters have to devote a certain percentage of screen time to movies made in Europe. What this means is that the movie theater owner has to spend, say, one day in four not making any money because he has to show a deeply touching portrait of two Victorian-era lesbians in a socially judgmental mining town starring Emma Thompson, Nurse Ratchet, and some guy named either Yves or Giampiero who looks like a junkie which is filmed half in Belgian and half in Swiss. This means that he wants to fill his theater on the days when he can actually show movies people want to see and make some money, so he wants the biggest, splashiest Hollywood movies he can get. What gets left out here are American independent, art-house, and low-budget films. They never show those here except at 5 AM on Sunday morning on TV2. This is why Spaniards think all American movies are for mental retards; all the ones they ever see are, so it's hard to blame them. So, for example, the highly overrated Jim Jarmusch is just as censored in Spain as Big Gay Pedro is in the United States.
Well, the Vanguardia is offering a whole pile of news today. The headline is "Blair and Aznar certain ultimatum to pass; Bush sends Powell, Rice to Russia, Mexico, Chile to gain support; De Villepin launches lightning tour to gain African 'noes'." Looks like the Chileans might be fairly easy to convince, but the Mexicans won't, because the Mexican government cannot appear to its highly nationalistic citizens to be following gringo orders. It's interesting that the Chilean people and media seem to be a good bit less anti-American than their Spanish equivalents, particularly so since the 1973 coup in Chile is one of the great crimes of the United States according to Spanish America-haters. (The others are, in order, the American military alliance with Spain under Franco's regime, the Spanish-American war, and the embargo on Cuba. You might hear references to Hiroshima and Vietnam. Spaniards normally fail to dig into the two great sins of the American past, though, slavery and the treatment of the Indians. This is possibly because their empire was considerably more brutal than the British and, later, the Americans, regarding these questions.)
The Vangua is floating the rumor that if the Alliance can pull nine votes in the Security Council for a second UN resolution (1411 being the "first"), France won't dare to veto if Russia doesn't. If Russia abstains, expect a price to be paid. That price might be silence while the tanks roll into Chechenia approximately two hours after the full-scale war starts sometime late this month. See, here I am predicting war again after being wrong the last eight times I did so.
Madrid is showing every sign of standing by Washington and London in the current diplomatic crisis, despite the antiwar feelings of much of the citizenry and the demonstrations of 2-15. Aznar said to Der Speigel, "In 1938 hundreds of thousands of people acclaimed Chamberlain in London and Daladier in Paris because they didn't declare war on Hitler." Mr. Aznar may be guilty of simplisme here, but is anybody denying the truth of his words? The guy is under tremendous fire from the Socialists, yet he keeps cool and collected. I am convinced that he is not for turning.
Carlos Nadal in the Vangua, who is usually very reasonable though quite boring, says that the French and Germans are being hypocrites when they call for more inspections because Saddam would never have even let them in again if it weren't for the tremendous Anglo-American buildup; the Americans have 250,000 men in the area and the British 45,000 more. Britain will not be a mere sidekick in the upcoming war.
"Intransigent" seems to be the official word used by the opposition to describe Mr. Aznar's and his People's Party's position on the war; the Catalan Nationalists, CiU, want to "listen to the inspectors" and criticize Aznar's government for being "rigid" and, you guessed it, intransigent. They want many more months of inspections, but haven't mentioned kicking in and paying for the Alliance forces in the region that are the only thing preventing Saddam from throwing all those inspectors out on their keesters tomorrow at dawn. The Socialist leader, Zapatero, wants to "serve peace and a more just international order." Wait a minute--not only is he anti-American on the war, he also wants us to give away all our money to, like, Zambia! Zapatero is a dope. No serious politician can talk so ingenuously. He sounds like a ninth-grader who just got hold of a copy of the Manifesto. Llamazares, the head of the Spanish CP, called Aznar's position "shameful" and announced he would call for a vote of no confidence. Well, they already had one of those last Tuesday. Aznar won with a vote of 184-163 in a secret ballot--all of his deputies and one of the opposition voted in his favor. The joke going around is that the extra "no" vote was ex-Prime Minister Felipe González's, since Felipe showed up for the first time in six months for this vote.
Jordi Barbeta from the Vangua called the speech Zapatero gave in Parliament on the occasion of the no-confidence vote "more appropriate for an old-time university assembly than a Parliamentary session." Enric Juliana has a bug up his butt about the American Enterprise Institute, which he considers to be some secret plot fomenting, like, pro-Americanism. Baltasar Porcel calls Bush "obsessed" and says that the Republicans, not the Democrats start wars; however, Wilson got us into WWI, Roosevelt into WWII, Truman into Korea, and Kennedy and Johnson into Vietnam. All Democrats.
The Vangua is floating the rumor that if the Alliance can pull nine votes in the Security Council for a second UN resolution (1411 being the "first"), France won't dare to veto if Russia doesn't. If Russia abstains, expect a price to be paid. That price might be silence while the tanks roll into Chechenia approximately two hours after the full-scale war starts sometime late this month. See, here I am predicting war again after being wrong the last eight times I did so.
Madrid is showing every sign of standing by Washington and London in the current diplomatic crisis, despite the antiwar feelings of much of the citizenry and the demonstrations of 2-15. Aznar said to Der Speigel, "In 1938 hundreds of thousands of people acclaimed Chamberlain in London and Daladier in Paris because they didn't declare war on Hitler." Mr. Aznar may be guilty of simplisme here, but is anybody denying the truth of his words? The guy is under tremendous fire from the Socialists, yet he keeps cool and collected. I am convinced that he is not for turning.
Carlos Nadal in the Vangua, who is usually very reasonable though quite boring, says that the French and Germans are being hypocrites when they call for more inspections because Saddam would never have even let them in again if it weren't for the tremendous Anglo-American buildup; the Americans have 250,000 men in the area and the British 45,000 more. Britain will not be a mere sidekick in the upcoming war.
"Intransigent" seems to be the official word used by the opposition to describe Mr. Aznar's and his People's Party's position on the war; the Catalan Nationalists, CiU, want to "listen to the inspectors" and criticize Aznar's government for being "rigid" and, you guessed it, intransigent. They want many more months of inspections, but haven't mentioned kicking in and paying for the Alliance forces in the region that are the only thing preventing Saddam from throwing all those inspectors out on their keesters tomorrow at dawn. The Socialist leader, Zapatero, wants to "serve peace and a more just international order." Wait a minute--not only is he anti-American on the war, he also wants us to give away all our money to, like, Zambia! Zapatero is a dope. No serious politician can talk so ingenuously. He sounds like a ninth-grader who just got hold of a copy of the Manifesto. Llamazares, the head of the Spanish CP, called Aznar's position "shameful" and announced he would call for a vote of no confidence. Well, they already had one of those last Tuesday. Aznar won with a vote of 184-163 in a secret ballot--all of his deputies and one of the opposition voted in his favor. The joke going around is that the extra "no" vote was ex-Prime Minister Felipe González's, since Felipe showed up for the first time in six months for this vote.
Jordi Barbeta from the Vangua called the speech Zapatero gave in Parliament on the occasion of the no-confidence vote "more appropriate for an old-time university assembly than a Parliamentary session." Enric Juliana has a bug up his butt about the American Enterprise Institute, which he considers to be some secret plot fomenting, like, pro-Americanism. Baltasar Porcel calls Bush "obsessed" and says that the Republicans, not the Democrats start wars; however, Wilson got us into WWI, Roosevelt into WWII, Truman into Korea, and Kennedy and Johnson into Vietnam. All Democrats.
Friday, March 07, 2003
Here's more sociocultural information about Spain from an old GeoCities website I came across, with my comments within parentheses.
Conversation: Welcome topics of conversation in Spain
your home country (Not so good if you're American; perhaps your home state or city would be a good topic.)
travel
sports, especially soccer
politics (if you know what you're talking about) (I would avoid politics if possible. I would also avoid sex and religion.)
Topics to Avoid:
Bullfighting is a revered art form here. Consequently, it will be in your best interests to refrain from airing any criticisms about this practice. (Oh come on. Still, I'd avoid the subject simply because Spaniards are likely to take your bringing it up rather as an American takes being informed, say, that his fellow citizens are a bunch of fat ignorant gun nuts.)
Also avoid discussing religion and war. (Duh.)
Try not place too much of an emphasis on your professional experience and business success during conversation. In this culture, the quality of your character is the measure of respect. (Also don't say anything that might be interpreted as bragging. That's never good, but then you already know that being a sensible person. One Spanish stereotype of Americans is that they're braggarts. Prove them wrong by not being one.)
Avoid making personal inquiries, especially during first introductions. ("Are you married?" and "Do you live near here? and the like are just fine. "So how's your mistress?" might be considered a little forward.
Let's Make a Deal!: What you should know before negotiating in Spain
Personal contacts are essential for business success in Spain. Select your Spanish representatives with tremendous care: once you've made your selections, it can be extremely difficult to switch to other people. (I don't think that's true, but be careful because it's hard to fire people, by law. You need a good reason to do it and will likely have to pay the firee an indemnity.)
Bring business cards with one side printed in English and the other in Spanish. Present your card with the Spanish side facing the recipient. (Nice but hardly obligatory.)
You should be aware of the importance hierarchy and position play in Spanish business culture. For example, it would be frowned upon if you spent a great deal of time and attention on someone who is of lesser rank than you. It will be in your best interests to focus chiefly on those who would be considered your "equals." (I think they're overdoing this. Just be nice and courteous to everyone.)
Spanish business culture is extremely hierarchical, and only bosses, popularly known as el jefe or el padron, have the authority to make decisions. Generally, subordinates are required to follow orders, obey authority, and solve any problems before they surface. (Yeah, this is unfortunately true of many Spanish small businesses. Larger corporations are much more American-style.)
Be sure to take plenty of literature about your company to distribute. It will also be an asset to bring samples of your products and/or demonstrations of your service. (Duh.)
Most Spaniards will seek the support and approval of family, friends, and colleagues before acting on their own. There seems to be an underlying belief here that a person is not a part of society unless he or she is recognized as part of a group, neighbourhood, town or business organization. Consequently, there tends to be a resistance to the "outsider." Visitors to the country are expected to overcome their "outsider" status by ingratiating themselves into a group of some kind. (I'm not sure you have to join a group; I certainly haven't and I'm perfectly happy. It can't hurt as a means of integrating yourself within the society, though. Spaniards do seem to pay a great deal of attention to the approval and opinion of others.)
Rather than expecting Spaniards to conform to your way of doing things, you should make the effort to emulate their behaviour; this is one effective way of gaining the acceptance of your Spanish counterparts. When you make the effort to adapt to their ways, this demonstrates your respect for their culture, and also tells others that you are flexible. (Duh.)
Do not expect to discuss business at the start of any meeting. (True; there'll be a little small talk. Let the other guy decide when to start talking business.)
During a first meeting, Spaniards will want to become acquainted with you before proceeding with business, so be accommodating and answer any questions about your background and family life. (This is more true of small companies.)
Remain warm and personal during the negotiations, yet retain your dignity, courtesy, and diplomacy. The Spanish participants may initially seem restrained and indirect, but this is normal until your relationship has been established. (And isn't this true everywhere?)
Although Spaniards are receptive to new information and ideas, you may find that they don't change their minds easily. (Again, this is true of everyone. It can be tough to get a Spaniard off his high horse in a political discussion, but you can expect courteous behavior from Spaniards you deal with on business matters.)
Feelings are generally the source of truth in Spanish business culture. Consequently, it's important that you work at developing an excellent rapport with your Spanish counterparts. If they have a favourable impression of you, and believe that you can be trusted, the likelihood of your success increases. (Yeah, this really is true in Spanish culture in general. If they like you you can get away with anything, and if they don't like you you're screwed.)
Spaniards rarely use objective facts or empirical evidence to prove a point. (Unfortunately true. Spaniards are not great on logic and reason.)
Faith in the ideologies of the Church or nationalism can also be important influences in decision-making. (Religion, I doubt it. Most people aren't so unprofessional to let nationalism get in the way of making money.)
Spaniards generally expect the people with whom they negotiate to have the authority to make the final decision. (True; you're likely negotiate with someone of a higher rank than you. Decisions are made higher up the scale in Spain than America.)
Even if your Spanish counterparts seem friendly and encouraging, they may not be forthcoming with information they consider valuable. (True. Everyone wants to maintain his little empire.)
If you are interrupted while talking, do not interpret this behaviour as an insult or a cause for concern. More often than not, the Spanish participants' interruptions indicate genuine, animated interest in the discussion. (True.)
Honour and personal pride mean everything in this culture, and must not be insulted. (Oh, come on. Nobody anywhere likes being insulted. Don't insult people is a pretty good rule to live by.)
The Spanish give advice to one another and to visitors freely, but you shouldn't take offense at this. (And you will get sick of it pretty damn quick. Especially Spanish old ladies don't have enough with managing their own lives; they've got to manage yours, too, as well as everyone else's.)
As in many Asian countries, you must do everything you can to prevent yourself and others from "losing face", that is, losing control of emotions or suffering criticism/embarrassment of any kind in the presence of others. (True. They don't like that one bit.)
Ensure that your presentation is comprehensible. During a meeting or presentation, you will have to take the initiative to discern if your audience understands you. Since "losing face" is viewed so negatively in this culture, people will not admit in front of others that they are having difficulties. (Right. They won't tell you they don't understand. You need to speak slowly and clearly, and repeat important points.)
Spaniards often feel a need to be careful about what they say and how they say it. In any but the most private moments with trusted family and friends, speaking "the truth"--if it is unpleasant--is approached with extreme care. (They can be overly diplomatic at times.)
Particularly when dealing with outsiders, Spaniards will often insist that everything is in perfect order, even when this is not the case. This is a "face-saving" measure to appear competent and in control. You may have to pay close attention during conversations with your Spanish contacts, to discern the sincerity of what is being said. (True. Everything's always just fine, no pasa nada, sin novedad.)
Because of the reluctance among Spaniards to reveal bad news, it may be important to have a network of independent, disinterested contacts that can verify or interpret what you are being told in your business dealings. Spaniards who have worked or been educated in the West may be valuable contacts for this purpose, since they are more likely to be sympathetic to your desire to know the truth. (It is better if you have a trusted source to consult with, but that's true everywhere. Another thing is that several of these Spanish cultural attitudes mentioned here are known to all Spaniards who read business books, and they do their best to avoid behaving in these "old-fashioned" ways. A young business school grad is going to behave in ways more or less like yours. It's the old guy who runs his own small business who's likely to be quirky.)
It's important that you stay involved with your Spanish counterparts, helping to implement what has been agreed to. This must be done with sensitivity toward the pride that Spaniards feel in being able to handle things independently. So, never be intrusive, but always be available; express an interest in learning about their ways, while providing them with the resources and information they need to reach their objectives. (Tell 'em what to do or nothing will get done, but don't be too obvious about it.)
Although relatively few Spanish women are in management positions, businesswomen traveling to Spain will be treated with respect. Dressing and behaving in a professional manner remains essential at all times. (True. For you. Some Spanish women in business sure look trashy. Don't do that yourself.)
It is important for female business travelers to understand that machismo is very important to Spanish men, and they often feel the need to be in control of all situations. (Much more true of old guys than younger guys, though you'll be surprised at how retrograde many Spanish men are.
Spanish men are usually willing to accept a lunch or dinner invitation from a businesswoman. As in most countries, the person that extends the invitation pays the bill. (True.)
Decision-making can be slow and tedious: various levels of hierarchy will be consulted and all aspects of your proposal will be analyzed in painstaking detail. (True. Decisions will be kicked upstairs.)
Power is intrinsic to Spanish business culture; only the highest individual in authority makes the final decision. Therefore, understand that you will often be dealing with intermediaries. Maintaining an agreeable relationship with these intermediaries, however, is still crucial to your success. (Duh.)
In Spain, the use of the familiar tú and the formal Usted methods of address are different from their usage in Latin America. For example, Spaniards always speak to domestic servants in the formal Usted manner. They feel this confers dignity and shows respect for the servant as a person. Also, the informal tú is more likely to be used by colleagues in a Spanish office than in a Latin American office. Sometimes employees even speak to their bosses using the informal tú. (General rule: use tú with equals, usted with people in authority or older people. Use usted if there's an exchange between you and a service person, a taxi driver or bartender.)
Conversation: Welcome topics of conversation in Spain
your home country (Not so good if you're American; perhaps your home state or city would be a good topic.)
travel
sports, especially soccer
politics (if you know what you're talking about) (I would avoid politics if possible. I would also avoid sex and religion.)
Topics to Avoid:
Bullfighting is a revered art form here. Consequently, it will be in your best interests to refrain from airing any criticisms about this practice. (Oh come on. Still, I'd avoid the subject simply because Spaniards are likely to take your bringing it up rather as an American takes being informed, say, that his fellow citizens are a bunch of fat ignorant gun nuts.)
Also avoid discussing religion and war. (Duh.)
Try not place too much of an emphasis on your professional experience and business success during conversation. In this culture, the quality of your character is the measure of respect. (Also don't say anything that might be interpreted as bragging. That's never good, but then you already know that being a sensible person. One Spanish stereotype of Americans is that they're braggarts. Prove them wrong by not being one.)
Avoid making personal inquiries, especially during first introductions. ("Are you married?" and "Do you live near here? and the like are just fine. "So how's your mistress?" might be considered a little forward.
Let's Make a Deal!: What you should know before negotiating in Spain
Personal contacts are essential for business success in Spain. Select your Spanish representatives with tremendous care: once you've made your selections, it can be extremely difficult to switch to other people. (I don't think that's true, but be careful because it's hard to fire people, by law. You need a good reason to do it and will likely have to pay the firee an indemnity.)
Bring business cards with one side printed in English and the other in Spanish. Present your card with the Spanish side facing the recipient. (Nice but hardly obligatory.)
You should be aware of the importance hierarchy and position play in Spanish business culture. For example, it would be frowned upon if you spent a great deal of time and attention on someone who is of lesser rank than you. It will be in your best interests to focus chiefly on those who would be considered your "equals." (I think they're overdoing this. Just be nice and courteous to everyone.)
Spanish business culture is extremely hierarchical, and only bosses, popularly known as el jefe or el padron, have the authority to make decisions. Generally, subordinates are required to follow orders, obey authority, and solve any problems before they surface. (Yeah, this is unfortunately true of many Spanish small businesses. Larger corporations are much more American-style.)
Be sure to take plenty of literature about your company to distribute. It will also be an asset to bring samples of your products and/or demonstrations of your service. (Duh.)
Most Spaniards will seek the support and approval of family, friends, and colleagues before acting on their own. There seems to be an underlying belief here that a person is not a part of society unless he or she is recognized as part of a group, neighbourhood, town or business organization. Consequently, there tends to be a resistance to the "outsider." Visitors to the country are expected to overcome their "outsider" status by ingratiating themselves into a group of some kind. (I'm not sure you have to join a group; I certainly haven't and I'm perfectly happy. It can't hurt as a means of integrating yourself within the society, though. Spaniards do seem to pay a great deal of attention to the approval and opinion of others.)
Rather than expecting Spaniards to conform to your way of doing things, you should make the effort to emulate their behaviour; this is one effective way of gaining the acceptance of your Spanish counterparts. When you make the effort to adapt to their ways, this demonstrates your respect for their culture, and also tells others that you are flexible. (Duh.)
Do not expect to discuss business at the start of any meeting. (True; there'll be a little small talk. Let the other guy decide when to start talking business.)
During a first meeting, Spaniards will want to become acquainted with you before proceeding with business, so be accommodating and answer any questions about your background and family life. (This is more true of small companies.)
Remain warm and personal during the negotiations, yet retain your dignity, courtesy, and diplomacy. The Spanish participants may initially seem restrained and indirect, but this is normal until your relationship has been established. (And isn't this true everywhere?)
Although Spaniards are receptive to new information and ideas, you may find that they don't change their minds easily. (Again, this is true of everyone. It can be tough to get a Spaniard off his high horse in a political discussion, but you can expect courteous behavior from Spaniards you deal with on business matters.)
Feelings are generally the source of truth in Spanish business culture. Consequently, it's important that you work at developing an excellent rapport with your Spanish counterparts. If they have a favourable impression of you, and believe that you can be trusted, the likelihood of your success increases. (Yeah, this really is true in Spanish culture in general. If they like you you can get away with anything, and if they don't like you you're screwed.)
Spaniards rarely use objective facts or empirical evidence to prove a point. (Unfortunately true. Spaniards are not great on logic and reason.)
Faith in the ideologies of the Church or nationalism can also be important influences in decision-making. (Religion, I doubt it. Most people aren't so unprofessional to let nationalism get in the way of making money.)
Spaniards generally expect the people with whom they negotiate to have the authority to make the final decision. (True; you're likely negotiate with someone of a higher rank than you. Decisions are made higher up the scale in Spain than America.)
Even if your Spanish counterparts seem friendly and encouraging, they may not be forthcoming with information they consider valuable. (True. Everyone wants to maintain his little empire.)
If you are interrupted while talking, do not interpret this behaviour as an insult or a cause for concern. More often than not, the Spanish participants' interruptions indicate genuine, animated interest in the discussion. (True.)
Honour and personal pride mean everything in this culture, and must not be insulted. (Oh, come on. Nobody anywhere likes being insulted. Don't insult people is a pretty good rule to live by.)
The Spanish give advice to one another and to visitors freely, but you shouldn't take offense at this. (And you will get sick of it pretty damn quick. Especially Spanish old ladies don't have enough with managing their own lives; they've got to manage yours, too, as well as everyone else's.)
As in many Asian countries, you must do everything you can to prevent yourself and others from "losing face", that is, losing control of emotions or suffering criticism/embarrassment of any kind in the presence of others. (True. They don't like that one bit.)
Ensure that your presentation is comprehensible. During a meeting or presentation, you will have to take the initiative to discern if your audience understands you. Since "losing face" is viewed so negatively in this culture, people will not admit in front of others that they are having difficulties. (Right. They won't tell you they don't understand. You need to speak slowly and clearly, and repeat important points.)
Spaniards often feel a need to be careful about what they say and how they say it. In any but the most private moments with trusted family and friends, speaking "the truth"--if it is unpleasant--is approached with extreme care. (They can be overly diplomatic at times.)
Particularly when dealing with outsiders, Spaniards will often insist that everything is in perfect order, even when this is not the case. This is a "face-saving" measure to appear competent and in control. You may have to pay close attention during conversations with your Spanish contacts, to discern the sincerity of what is being said. (True. Everything's always just fine, no pasa nada, sin novedad.)
Because of the reluctance among Spaniards to reveal bad news, it may be important to have a network of independent, disinterested contacts that can verify or interpret what you are being told in your business dealings. Spaniards who have worked or been educated in the West may be valuable contacts for this purpose, since they are more likely to be sympathetic to your desire to know the truth. (It is better if you have a trusted source to consult with, but that's true everywhere. Another thing is that several of these Spanish cultural attitudes mentioned here are known to all Spaniards who read business books, and they do their best to avoid behaving in these "old-fashioned" ways. A young business school grad is going to behave in ways more or less like yours. It's the old guy who runs his own small business who's likely to be quirky.)
It's important that you stay involved with your Spanish counterparts, helping to implement what has been agreed to. This must be done with sensitivity toward the pride that Spaniards feel in being able to handle things independently. So, never be intrusive, but always be available; express an interest in learning about their ways, while providing them with the resources and information they need to reach their objectives. (Tell 'em what to do or nothing will get done, but don't be too obvious about it.)
Although relatively few Spanish women are in management positions, businesswomen traveling to Spain will be treated with respect. Dressing and behaving in a professional manner remains essential at all times. (True. For you. Some Spanish women in business sure look trashy. Don't do that yourself.)
It is important for female business travelers to understand that machismo is very important to Spanish men, and they often feel the need to be in control of all situations. (Much more true of old guys than younger guys, though you'll be surprised at how retrograde many Spanish men are.
Spanish men are usually willing to accept a lunch or dinner invitation from a businesswoman. As in most countries, the person that extends the invitation pays the bill. (True.)
Decision-making can be slow and tedious: various levels of hierarchy will be consulted and all aspects of your proposal will be analyzed in painstaking detail. (True. Decisions will be kicked upstairs.)
Power is intrinsic to Spanish business culture; only the highest individual in authority makes the final decision. Therefore, understand that you will often be dealing with intermediaries. Maintaining an agreeable relationship with these intermediaries, however, is still crucial to your success. (Duh.)
In Spain, the use of the familiar tú and the formal Usted methods of address are different from their usage in Latin America. For example, Spaniards always speak to domestic servants in the formal Usted manner. They feel this confers dignity and shows respect for the servant as a person. Also, the informal tú is more likely to be used by colleagues in a Spanish office than in a Latin American office. Sometimes employees even speak to their bosses using the informal tú. (General rule: use tú with equals, usted with people in authority or older people. Use usted if there's an exchange between you and a service person, a taxi driver or bartender.)
Well, President Bush says we're "in the last stages of diplomacy". The war's on. The only question is when it starts. Blix and ElBaredei are going to give another report in which they detail Iraq's further non-compliance. Powell is leaning on the undecided Third Worlders on the Security Council. Tony Blair made some noises about a second resolution that would give the Iraqis an ultimatum, with a specific deadline, for total disarmament. I suppose he's playing to the gallery because that ain't gonna happen. Meanwhile, the Vanguardia says that Bush wants the war so that he can get reelected. Wait, I thought it was the water...oh, no, that was Porcel's theory. The Vangua is also saying that Bush has painted himself into a corner diplomatically. Well, that's what we get for trying to negotiate with the intransigent Europeans. Before we went along with the beginning of this inspection crap, we should have realized that it was inevitably going to end up like this. By the way, the Vangua is printing a Robert Fisk article every day now, and today they've gone for the twofer with a Naomi Klein op-ed. And this is the best newspaper in Spain.
Idiot Catalan Socialist Pasqual Maragall put his foot in it the other day. Seems that a few days ago the Government arrested a bunch of "journalists" and closed down a Basque-language newspaper on the ground that the paper was an ETA front. The leading arrestee, when he got out, claimed to have been tortured by the police, and Maragall came out and said he believed what this guy was saying. That is, he called the Spanish police a gang of torturers. This did not go over too well with anyone except the far-left frootloops Maragall's been hanging out with lately.
Spain got seven billion dollars in 2001 from what they call in EU gobbeldygook "structural funds". Translation: free money from Brussels. No wonder Spaniards like the European Union. It's given us large quantities of money, and these EU funds have done a lot to improve Spain's infrastructure and public services. Spain gets almost one-third of EU structural funds as of now. But, of course, when the Eastern Europeans join the EU, Spain won't be poorer than average and so a beneficiary of structural funds anymore. The Slovaks and Hungarians are going to get it all.
Idiot Catalan Socialist Pasqual Maragall put his foot in it the other day. Seems that a few days ago the Government arrested a bunch of "journalists" and closed down a Basque-language newspaper on the ground that the paper was an ETA front. The leading arrestee, when he got out, claimed to have been tortured by the police, and Maragall came out and said he believed what this guy was saying. That is, he called the Spanish police a gang of torturers. This did not go over too well with anyone except the far-left frootloops Maragall's been hanging out with lately.
Spain got seven billion dollars in 2001 from what they call in EU gobbeldygook "structural funds". Translation: free money from Brussels. No wonder Spaniards like the European Union. It's given us large quantities of money, and these EU funds have done a lot to improve Spain's infrastructure and public services. Spain gets almost one-third of EU structural funds as of now. But, of course, when the Eastern Europeans join the EU, Spain won't be poorer than average and so a beneficiary of structural funds anymore. The Slovaks and Hungarians are going to get it all.
Several bloggers have linked to this article from the New Yorker by Simon Schama (author of several damned good books; I highly recommend Citizens, on the French Revolution) on the history of anti-Americanism. It's fascinating and everyone ought to read it, especially since the conclusion of the piece--there's a tie-in with the war on Saddam-- is that Americans somehow deserve anti-Americanism. Now, Schama's text is by no means rabidly America-bashing, he's no Noam Chomsky, but his last section is, to say the least, critical. Now, criticism is good, and this is about the sharpest criticism you're likely to see. It ought to be a good source of challenges for some of us hawks' arguments. I don't think Schama's criticism is too hard to successfully contradict, but it's an excellent mental exercise. And the historically informative five-sixths of the article are typically excellent Schama.
I found an old GeoCities website with a list of "correct social behavior" in Spanish culture. It's not incredibly accurate, so I thought I'd reprint it and add my own comments. The first thing I'd like to make clear is that things are really not all that different from America. If you come to Spain and behave politely and in a friendly manner, but in the way that's natural for you, you aren't going to have too many problems. Most Spaniards outside heavily touristed areas are generally pretty tolerant and understanding with foreigners. If you're there on business, understand that your Spanish colleague is going to have learned all kinds of stuff about American business culture and won't be offended at anything you do as long as you're straight with him. Also, your Spanish colleague will most likely know rather better English than you do Spanish, and so you're likely to talk in English.
My comments are within parentheses.
First Name or Title?: Respectfully addressing others in Spain
First names are acceptable for only close friends, children, and teenagers. (First names are now universal in casual conversation.)
When addressing others, follow Spanish business protocol by using the formal usted mode of address unless invited to use the more informal tú. (True for business and older people. Otherwise use tú unless you hear the Spaniard call you usted.)
When addressing each other, men who are university graduates, businessmen or other professionals often use the courtesy title Don to confer respect. (Yeah, if they're eighty-two years old.)
It is important to address individuals by any titles they may have, followed by their surnames. For example, teachers prefer the title Profesor, and engineers are referred to as Ingeniero. (No. That's Latin America. Here everyone is Señor.)
Whenever you can, address people using their professional titles followed by their surnames. (No.) Professional titles are usually not used, however, when addressing Spanish executives. Basic titles of courtesy (followed by a surname) are always appropriate: Mr. = Señor; Mrs. = Señora; Miss = Señorita.
Public Behavior: Acceptable public conduct in Spain
A wide range of gestures regularly accompany conversation. Don't hesitate to ask if you're having difficulty understanding these gestures, especially since the meanings often vary from region to region. (You ought to be able to figure most of them out.)
Spainiards get a sense of identity from their particular region rather than the country as a whole. (NO! This is ONLY true in Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Galicia.)
Be sensitive to regional differences; making misinformed comments about a Spaniard's region of origin is considered a grave insult (i.e, mistaking a Catalan for a Basque). (What would piss a Catalan off is being mistaken for a Madrileño. Seriously, avoid making misinformed comments about anything, of course. Don't worry about this. they'll understand, though you might get a lecture on how Catalans are different or something like that.)
Handshakes are a standard part of Spanish business protocol. (Yep.)
First-time introductions with Spaniards should be made in a formal manner. Extend a brief but firm handshake, while maintaining eye contact during the meeting. A "Buenos dias," "Buenas tardes," or "Buenas noches" should accompany your greeting. (Just like anywhere else.)
Women sometimes lightly embrace, then touch cheeks while lightly kissing the air. You may also observe a professional woman greeting a Spanish man who is a particularly close colleague in this way. (Women ALWAYS do the kiss-kiss thing with one another, and they generally do it with men, too. Don't make the first move but don't be surprised if you are subjected to the kiss-kiss routine.)
In the company of friends, it's common in for men to hug or pat each other on the back, in addition to a handshake. (Again, don't be surprised if this happens, but don't do it yourself.)
Spaniards may not only stand uncomfortably close, but also pat your arm or shoulder when conversing with you. If you encounter these gestures, moving away will only cause offense. (True.)
One common gesture is snapping the hands downward to emphasize a point. (True, though it's one hand, not both.)
The North American "O.K." symbol (i.e. making a circle of the first finger and thumb) is considered vulgar. (No, that's not true here. That's Brazil where it's rude.)
Spain is a highly religious country (not anymore), and many people will be offended if they hear you take the Lord's name in vain. It's also a good policy to refrain from swearing in the presence of others. (Of course you shouldn't swear, but nobody's going to be offended by an "Oh, my God!" or the like. And don't be surprised if your Spanish colleague starts swearing. Spaniards swear like sergeants.)
When summoning a person, turn your palm down, then wave your fingers or entire hand. (You don't have to do that, they understand the equivalent American gesture just fine. If you see some guy flopping his wrist around, though, it doesn't mean that he's exaggeratedly effeminate.)
If you are in a long lineup, don't be surprised if someone tries to cut in front of you. (When you come to the end of a line, say "¿Quién es el último?" Someone will respond. You are now behind that person and have rights to your place in line.)
Be aware that while Spanish men can be very charming around women, their approaches may be too forward for some people's tastes. For example, when they see an attractive woman walking down the street, they may whistle at her to signal their approval. (If they're construction workers. Respectable people don't do that.)
Before getting into a taxi, be sure to negotiate the fare. (Wrong. The great majority of cabbies are legit, and fares are metered.)
When a public restroom is needed, men should look for a door marked Caballeros, while women should look for a door marked Señoras. In smaller towns, rooms marked "W.C." (for "water closet") are bathrooms used by both men and women. (They often have symbols.)
Business Dress: Guidelines for business dress in Spain
Spaniards are extremely conscious of dress and will perceive your appearance as an indication of your social standing and relative success. (True, in business, and surprisingly true in everyday life.)
Keep in mind that Spaniards typically dress more conservatively than Americans and frequently wear designer clothes. (True.)
Stick with quality, conservative clothing in subdued colours. Name brands will be noticed. (True.)
Dressing con elegancia means that men should wear dark suits and ties, preferably with starched white shirts. Suit jackets should be kept on at all times, unless your Spanish counterpart invites you to do otherwise. (The shirt doesn't have to be starched white. It should be appropriate for business wear in the US.)
Women should dress with elegance and style. The best clothing options for female business travelers include designer suits or business dresses made of high-quality fabrics. (True. Don't be surprised if you see Spanish women wearing sexy clothes that would be inappropriate for business in the US, though. I wouldn't do that myself if I were you.)
Pantsuits for women haven't gained a lot of acceptance here, but wearing "dressy" pants in the evening is fine. (True.)
Shorts are unacceptable in public. (In business, of course; no longer in everyday life, at least if they're conservative khaki or navy Bermudas)
My comments are within parentheses.
First Name or Title?: Respectfully addressing others in Spain
First names are acceptable for only close friends, children, and teenagers. (First names are now universal in casual conversation.)
When addressing others, follow Spanish business protocol by using the formal usted mode of address unless invited to use the more informal tú. (True for business and older people. Otherwise use tú unless you hear the Spaniard call you usted.)
When addressing each other, men who are university graduates, businessmen or other professionals often use the courtesy title Don to confer respect. (Yeah, if they're eighty-two years old.)
It is important to address individuals by any titles they may have, followed by their surnames. For example, teachers prefer the title Profesor, and engineers are referred to as Ingeniero. (No. That's Latin America. Here everyone is Señor.)
Whenever you can, address people using their professional titles followed by their surnames. (No.) Professional titles are usually not used, however, when addressing Spanish executives. Basic titles of courtesy (followed by a surname) are always appropriate: Mr. = Señor; Mrs. = Señora; Miss = Señorita.
Public Behavior: Acceptable public conduct in Spain
A wide range of gestures regularly accompany conversation. Don't hesitate to ask if you're having difficulty understanding these gestures, especially since the meanings often vary from region to region. (You ought to be able to figure most of them out.)
Spainiards get a sense of identity from their particular region rather than the country as a whole. (NO! This is ONLY true in Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Galicia.)
Be sensitive to regional differences; making misinformed comments about a Spaniard's region of origin is considered a grave insult (i.e, mistaking a Catalan for a Basque). (What would piss a Catalan off is being mistaken for a Madrileño. Seriously, avoid making misinformed comments about anything, of course. Don't worry about this. they'll understand, though you might get a lecture on how Catalans are different or something like that.)
Handshakes are a standard part of Spanish business protocol. (Yep.)
First-time introductions with Spaniards should be made in a formal manner. Extend a brief but firm handshake, while maintaining eye contact during the meeting. A "Buenos dias," "Buenas tardes," or "Buenas noches" should accompany your greeting. (Just like anywhere else.)
Women sometimes lightly embrace, then touch cheeks while lightly kissing the air. You may also observe a professional woman greeting a Spanish man who is a particularly close colleague in this way. (Women ALWAYS do the kiss-kiss thing with one another, and they generally do it with men, too. Don't make the first move but don't be surprised if you are subjected to the kiss-kiss routine.)
In the company of friends, it's common in for men to hug or pat each other on the back, in addition to a handshake. (Again, don't be surprised if this happens, but don't do it yourself.)
Spaniards may not only stand uncomfortably close, but also pat your arm or shoulder when conversing with you. If you encounter these gestures, moving away will only cause offense. (True.)
One common gesture is snapping the hands downward to emphasize a point. (True, though it's one hand, not both.)
The North American "O.K." symbol (i.e. making a circle of the first finger and thumb) is considered vulgar. (No, that's not true here. That's Brazil where it's rude.)
Spain is a highly religious country (not anymore), and many people will be offended if they hear you take the Lord's name in vain. It's also a good policy to refrain from swearing in the presence of others. (Of course you shouldn't swear, but nobody's going to be offended by an "Oh, my God!" or the like. And don't be surprised if your Spanish colleague starts swearing. Spaniards swear like sergeants.)
When summoning a person, turn your palm down, then wave your fingers or entire hand. (You don't have to do that, they understand the equivalent American gesture just fine. If you see some guy flopping his wrist around, though, it doesn't mean that he's exaggeratedly effeminate.)
If you are in a long lineup, don't be surprised if someone tries to cut in front of you. (When you come to the end of a line, say "¿Quién es el último?" Someone will respond. You are now behind that person and have rights to your place in line.)
Be aware that while Spanish men can be very charming around women, their approaches may be too forward for some people's tastes. For example, when they see an attractive woman walking down the street, they may whistle at her to signal their approval. (If they're construction workers. Respectable people don't do that.)
Before getting into a taxi, be sure to negotiate the fare. (Wrong. The great majority of cabbies are legit, and fares are metered.)
When a public restroom is needed, men should look for a door marked Caballeros, while women should look for a door marked Señoras. In smaller towns, rooms marked "W.C." (for "water closet") are bathrooms used by both men and women. (They often have symbols.)
Business Dress: Guidelines for business dress in Spain
Spaniards are extremely conscious of dress and will perceive your appearance as an indication of your social standing and relative success. (True, in business, and surprisingly true in everyday life.)
Keep in mind that Spaniards typically dress more conservatively than Americans and frequently wear designer clothes. (True.)
Stick with quality, conservative clothing in subdued colours. Name brands will be noticed. (True.)
Dressing con elegancia means that men should wear dark suits and ties, preferably with starched white shirts. Suit jackets should be kept on at all times, unless your Spanish counterpart invites you to do otherwise. (The shirt doesn't have to be starched white. It should be appropriate for business wear in the US.)
Women should dress with elegance and style. The best clothing options for female business travelers include designer suits or business dresses made of high-quality fabrics. (True. Don't be surprised if you see Spanish women wearing sexy clothes that would be inappropriate for business in the US, though. I wouldn't do that myself if I were you.)
Pantsuits for women haven't gained a lot of acceptance here, but wearing "dressy" pants in the evening is fine. (True.)
Shorts are unacceptable in public. (In business, of course; no longer in everyday life, at least if they're conservative khaki or navy Bermudas)
Thursday, March 06, 2003
James Taranto has a nice piece in OpinionJournal that lays out the case for war in Iraq in language that even a Frenchman can understand. He's not saying anything new, but what he's doing is resuming all the convincing arguments we have in favor of taking a piece out of Saddam. And they are awfully convincing. OpinionJournal also has a bit by some guy named William Shakespeare with some quotes from, like, Chirac and Sean Penn and Donald Rumsfeld. It's hard to understand because it's written kind of weird and has lots of big words. I don't know why they printed it. Fred Barnes from the Weekly Standard has another back-to-basics on the Iraq war article, giving the top ten peacenik arguments and explaining why they're dumb. The Onion explains why all us expats really live in Europe.
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