There's not all that much in Part II of John's Intellectual Progress or How I Became a Hawkish Free-Market Libertarian. I said yesterday that I came to Spain in 1987, and Spain was not a capitalist country yet. The best example is Telefónica, which was then the government telecoms monopoly. It cost something like two hundred bucks to get a phone hooked up. There were, of course, no cellphones. They sent you a non-itemized bill every two months and you could either pay it or let your phone get cut off. Overseas calls cost a fortune and there was a phone center, not one of those new card-phone places that cater to immigrants but an old-style Bulgarian Third World place in the Plaza Catalunya where you could go and make a station-to-station call, which cost an arm and a leg but at least you knew you were paying twenty bucks for ten minutes. You could dial direct from pay phones, but you needed a huge pile of change and you risked getting cut off before you got an answer due to some bug in the system.
In 1989 I was living with another American and a Canadian, who were both gay but not a couple, which took me a while to figure out (You mean they're both gay and like, friends and all, but they're not stuffing one another's orifices?), a Dutch guy, his Spanish girlfriend, and two California chicks. The California chicks used the phone we got hooked up so we could deal with job offers and stuff to call their high school friends, against the house rules, and wouldn't admit it, so we all had to pay like seventy extra dollars each one time when we got a huge, of course nonitemized bill. No, it wasn't me calling a phone-sex line, I was getting plenty, thank you, and besides there weren't any phone sex lines then. Not that any of us were aware of, anyway, at least not me. Maybe Don and Tony were calling up Dial-a-Squirt, I don't know, they sure brought home some avant-garde people occasionally, but I don't think so, those guys were legit. A little fruity, but legit. We never had any problems with the avant-garde folks, either, though Don had this big old tube of lube with nonoxynol or whatever that spermicide was called that he'd just leave lying around the place. I'd never seen that stuff before. He used to say he was a virgin because he'd never had coitus with a woman. Anyway, we couldn't prove the chicks had done it and so had to agree to divide the unitemized bill equally. Don just marched into the living room with his undeserved share of the cash we had to pay and just slammed it down on the table while shouting "THIS! IS! THE PRICE! OF ONE LONG PHONE CALL! TO YOUR FUCKING BOYFRIEND! WHO YOU WON'T EVEN FUCK!" It was great. This was still the 80s and some chicks still didn't put out, or at least didn't go all the way, because they had complexes about it. And they certainly wouldn't do that.
I decided right about then that socialism just didn't work, neither the government kind nor the all-for-one-and-one-for-all kind. This decision corresponded, more or less, to the same time I was reading Orwell and then went to Friedman and the Constitution and all sorts of histories.
I also decided that people are all confused about sex and to try not to analyze it too much more, and especially not to take it too seriously. Sex is something people do, and you can't stop them from doing it, so you'd better not try. This tied in with the general libertarian agin' authority streak I've always had. But I decided that authority, in the form of the laws, was there for a reason, just like in every organization you have to have a hierarchy. Now, we all agree to the laws, and if we don't agree with one of them, we can campaign to change it. Don't call me naive--it's happened, from prohibition and back again to women's suffrage to the abolition of slavery to those referendums they keep having in California, all cases where grassroots campaigns caught fire with the people.
Anyway, though, I figured any law must be there for a good reason. Now, we should analyze it and decide if it still does what it's supposed to, guarantee our rights to life, liberty, and property. If the law doesn't do that, it's probably a bad law and we might think about changing it after due debate and process. How does the Kansas sodomy law guarantee life, liberty, or property, for example? All I know about it is it makes me a felon. And fellow Kansan Bob "Mr. Viagra" Dole, too. If you can't giv--oops, never mind. Anyway, being conservative-minded doesn't mean you want to conserve everything, it means you want to conserve the good things. We can try to change the bad things. We just need to be damned careful in how we decide what's bad, and think about questions like basic human rights--individual freedom and our right as a society to decide what's right and what's wrong and how far that goes into people's individual lives. We need to frame questions at the most basic level.
Should the state pay for day care for working parents' children? Well, the right to life doesn't really come in here. Neither does the right to liberty. The right to property--wait, that does come in. The state's gonna pay for that day care with money that belongs to all of us. There are some advantages to and some questions about state day care. Parents with small children will benefit; they'll pay much less for child care. Should we subsidize people to have kids, taking money from the childless to support the fertile? We as a society do need to at least replace our current population. It's certainly true that it's in everybody's economic interest for these working people to spend their valuable time doing the jobs they're trained and educated for and to leave their children in the hands of strangers for nine hours a day. Is parents' ability to leave children safely with strangers something we ought to be spending everyone's money on, though? Why should I pay so somebody can watch your kid? It seems to me that these are more basic, more radical, if you will, questions than "How can we assure that women enjoy job equality with men? Well, since women usually get stuck with the kids, we need to pay for those kids to get taken care of while Mommy works. Mommy thereby benefits. This is good." The question we need to ask is "Do we all benefit?"
In 1992 I came back to Kansas to get a master's degree in linguistics, applied, I must confess. I was there until 1994. Authority was now in the hands of the PC Patrol. Dennis Dailey, Mr. Popular Sex Professor, refused to speculate on the question "What causes homosexuality?" because if we asked that question, then we would use the answer to make gay people be straight. Concerned people, the kind who were into saving the baby seals the year before and wanted us to spend several thousand bucks per capita in order to save the family farm the year after, were passing out condoms all over the place because the Left was pushing the idea that heteros had as much to fear from AIDS as homos. (I'm not saying don't wear a glove. I'm saying that the biggest factor determining whether you're gonna get AIDS is who you're hosing. If that's an IV drug user, a prostitute, or a gay man in a big city, that person has a lot better chance of having the virus and you stand a lot better chance of getting it, since your chance of getting AIDS from someone who doesn't have it is zero.)
The Applied English Center told us ESL teachers that we had to teach our foreign students that there was a word, "lesbigay", which referred to some hypothetical community of lesbs, bis, and gays. I had students from Afghanistan and Mozambique You think I'm going to teach them that shit? They had some "women and minorities" program to get those groups into engineering, tragically dominated by pale penis people. This consisted of workshops to which all high school girls and black and Hispanic boys were invited in order to get them interested in engineering. Great, you'd think, the department is trying to get kids interested in coming to school here, it's selling the university. But white boys were not allowed in, and neither were Asian boys, who seemed to be unfairly engineering-oriented.
This black guy whose initials were D.F. got elected student body president on a "let's unite everybody together" platform. Great, you'd think. Then it came out he'd had a job working at the Salvation Army homeless shelter, for which he was paid the minimum wage. He got caught falsifying time sheets, claiming a good many more hours than he'd actually worked. This guy was stealing from the Salvation Army. From the homeless shelter, for Christ's sake. What's lower than stealing from homeless people? He wasn't forced to resign like anybody else would have been after something like that came out. This guy was not fit to hold any position of trust. And the university administration at first tried to sweep this under the rug. Then D.F. punched his girlfriend, causing her to need dental work. She took him to court and he pleaded guilty in Kansas City, Missouri. The shit hit the fan like three days later. The feminists aboutfaced and now wanted D.F.'s scalp. Most of the regular Student Senators, the frat boys who vote to lavishly support all the intramural sports teams and the aggressive bearded grad teaching assistants who always want higher pay and free parking stickers, wanted to get rid of this guy because, like, the KC Star and CNN were picking it up and it was making us look bad, having a woman-beater and thief from the homeless as our president. The Black Student Union wouldn't back down, though, and finally the Student Senate, completely illegally, invented an impeachment procedure, since no one had ever even thought about having to remove a thief and a bully from his position as our president, and removed D.F. from office. Everybody got denounced as racist. D.F.'s successor, the previously elected vice-president, didn't give much of a damn about what people called him, but his mom was Japanese and his dad met her when he was in the Army. Racists, my ass.
I could tell you fifty-eight stories about the idiocy of early 90s political correctness. Here's the best one. I was teaching upper-intermediate writing and we were supposed to have our students keep daily journals in which they could write anything they wanted, but it was suggested they write about their feelings. I figured most of these people probably didn't think their feelings were any of my business, so I added the suggestion that if they had no other ideas, they look at the free daily student newspaper, find a story they were interested in, and write a paragraph giving their opinion.
So the UDK broke what they figured was a big story, that 48% of all students who graduated finished their BA in four years and 38% in five, with the rest in six or more. Or whatever the stats were. But the figure for black students was more like 32% in four and 56% in five, with the rest in six and some 5% in seven. My guess is that a lot of us white students from the KC suburbs, Topeka, and the Kaw Valley went to better schools and were better prepared for college than many of the black students, who came more from KCK and Wichita where the schools aren't as good. So it took them a little longer to graduate, on average. No surprises there. The UDK called racism, of course, and wrote about how blacks were discriminated against somehow.
Anyway, this Taiwanese guy who I had in class--he'd just come over--chose that story to write his daily journal entry about, but he completely missed the point. He wrote about how it was terrible that the black students didn't study harder and work more diligently in order to graduate on time (seems that if you don't pass your classes or drop half of them in Taiwan, it's your own fault), and how he and the other foreign students were always down in the dorm cafeteria studying in the evenings while the black students were partying and carrying on. I seriously thought about what to do and decided to just sort of ignore that entry and let him figure things out for himself, not out of cruelty but of my own incapacity to explain exactly what the hell was going on.
This was the final nail in the coffin. The multiculti-diversity folks had pushed me too far. It was the same smarmy ed-school crap that I'd had to put up with in high school, but then it was authoritarian old-style teachers and church ladies bossing you around. Now it's those damn department secretaries and associate professors and cataloguing dorks in the library who've taken over the universities and mark a hard line which you must follow or be publicly declared antidiversity, culturally arrogant, and Eurocentric. There's still a "they" telling you what to do, and at least the old-style authoritarian teachers were honest about their goals, keeping all of us in line. The new "they" wants us all to get in line, too, because if we don't we're racists. What's worse is that they're convinced of their virtue. The old-style teachers left you alone after you got out of their class, but the new ones try to change your behavior at all times.
So I got out of there as fast as I could, after getting the damn degree, of course, and before getting myself blacklisted. Now I just stay far away from that kind of people. They get on my nerves. My nerves are delicate.
Saturday, March 15, 2003
Thursday, March 13, 2003
Over at EuroPundits Nelson Ascher is turning out the posts; he's got a good one on how a Brazilian saw the Falklands War, so check it out. I've got a new post up called "Fisking 101"; you've got to scroll down to the bottom, for some reason, to read it. So go read it already!
Hitch has another article up on the war and those who oppose it. There's no turning back for this guy. He's committed. He's burned his bridges. I guess we'll have to take him if he wants to join, but I vote we force him to work for the Telegraph as penance. Jonah Goldberg rips into those who suggest that the Administration is in the hands of a cabal of Jewish neoconservatives, and rips into them good. Goldberg's quality was sort of iffy there for a while, but this is a strong piece.
Michael Kinsley put up a piece a couple of days ago that Goldberg attacks, but I haven't seen the strongest argument against Kinsley put forth yet. It is that AIPAC openly states that it is a pro-Israeli lobby and that its intention is to influence policy as much as possible. It obeys the laws. It raises funds. It puts its arguments forward. There's nothing wrong with that. That's what lobbies do. It is completely aboveboard. But Representative Moron or whatever his name is was not referring to AIPAC. If he was he should damn well have been careful enough to say so. He was referring to Jewish leaders, and he qualified it by saying Jewish religious leaders. The idea that Jewish religious leaders should take a position either in favor of or against a war in Iraq is completely ridiculous, since there is no Jewish hierarchy. Jews organize themselves into congregations independently, and each congregation chooses its own rabbi. What does Representative Moron want them to do, get all the rabbis together and take a vote? By the time they all shut up about whether your vote counts if you've accidentally eaten pork that day, the war will have been over for eight months. No, Rep. Moron is clearly referring to the cabal that we all know operates underground, and is begging that cabal to stop using its sinister influence over American foreign policy for Israel's benefit.
I accuse Rep. Moron of anti-Semitism, and I accuse Michael Kinsley of not knowing the difference between a transparent, legitimate political organization that works to achieve its openly stated ends and an alleged group of amorphous "Jewish leaders" who manipulate the United States government.
Michael Kinsley put up a piece a couple of days ago that Goldberg attacks, but I haven't seen the strongest argument against Kinsley put forth yet. It is that AIPAC openly states that it is a pro-Israeli lobby and that its intention is to influence policy as much as possible. It obeys the laws. It raises funds. It puts its arguments forward. There's nothing wrong with that. That's what lobbies do. It is completely aboveboard. But Representative Moron or whatever his name is was not referring to AIPAC. If he was he should damn well have been careful enough to say so. He was referring to Jewish leaders, and he qualified it by saying Jewish religious leaders. The idea that Jewish religious leaders should take a position either in favor of or against a war in Iraq is completely ridiculous, since there is no Jewish hierarchy. Jews organize themselves into congregations independently, and each congregation chooses its own rabbi. What does Representative Moron want them to do, get all the rabbis together and take a vote? By the time they all shut up about whether your vote counts if you've accidentally eaten pork that day, the war will have been over for eight months. No, Rep. Moron is clearly referring to the cabal that we all know operates underground, and is begging that cabal to stop using its sinister influence over American foreign policy for Israel's benefit.
I accuse Rep. Moron of anti-Semitism, and I accuse Michael Kinsley of not knowing the difference between a transparent, legitimate political organization that works to achieve its openly stated ends and an alleged group of amorphous "Jewish leaders" who manipulate the United States government.
Yesterday I posted about how one's political opinions are often based more on emotion that on logic and reason. It's not fair to generalize unless you admit you're part of the generalization. It's at least partially true for me. I remember, for example, when I was in my late teens and early twenties, it was the 1980s, definitely the least cool decade since the 1910s (20s-Fitzgerald, flappers, wealth, sex. 30s-jazz, gangsters, rad politics. 40s-WWII, The Big One. 50s-Elvis, rock´n´roll, the Beats. 60s-hippies, rock, sex. 70s-hedonism, partying, Me Decade. 80s-Huey Lewis and Hall and Oates. Like a really uncool Fifties. With ugly clothes. And AIDS. 90s-let's all get cyber-rich and be BoBos. Hedonism unseen since the 20s. 00s-decadence? Another Seventies?) Now, I'm a nice middle-class suburban guy; my folks are from Texas but we lived in several different suburbs around the United States. The suburbs in the '80s were stifling compared to what you young pups have now.
I mean, in Kansas City in 1984 we didn't have Internet and barely had cable TV. You still watched the Big Three networks because there wasn't much else, ESPN and CNN and MTV and the Braves and Cubs games and HBO, which wasn't worth what little extra it cost. There were two art house cinemas in town, the Tivoli and the Fine Arts. Each had one screen. There were still more porno movie theaters in town--video has killed off the porno movie theater, fortunately, unless you're Pee-Wee Herman--than art houses. It was really cool to sneak into the Old Chelsea, by the way. I never had the guts to try. I bet nobody else did, either. We had VCRs but there weren't too many good movies available on video. Home computers then couldn't do a damned thing. We still used typewriters to type up our term papers. Video games were cool. It was a big deal to be good at, like, Defender. We had Ataris to play extremely rudimentary video games at home.
We actually went to high school football games and dances. We could get beer really easily because back then it was 18 for 3.2 beer in Kansas, and people would swill it by the bucket. We had no moral compunctions about driving around drunk out of our skulls, either. I'm amazed we didn't all get killed or, worse, kill somebody else. It was really hard to get pot, though. That was something that you didn't often get our hands on. None of us smoked cigarettes, anyway, so we didn't really know how to smoke pot--it wasn't cool at all, it was very redneck or greaser, what those cowboys and auto-shop dudes over at West would do. It was cool to dress prep. People actually said, seriously, "I'm not prep because I never wear Polo over Izod." Whatever that was. I never caught on. And those sweaters with the diamonds on them.
Being into Zep and Floyd and the Who was having good musical taste, one cut above the jokers who thought Foreigner and Styx and Journey were kick-ass. "Rock the Casbah" was the absolute most radical thing played on any radio station, and if it didn't get on the radio, we didn't hear about it. The Violent Femmes were terribly avant-garde then. The Police were considered to be the best major band by high-schoolers; real hipsters might get into the Talking Heads. U2 and REM were just coming out. If you'd heard of the Dead Kennedys you were an out-and-out punker. I was kind of an intellectual kid (I was one of the elite fifty or so on the honors track, which they were still allowed to have back then) and I was into Bob Dylan and Van Morrison big-time, which let me put on intellectual airs. It wasn't cool to listen to black music--Michael Jackson didn't break that taboo because he was so obviously a weirdo. I remember when Prince came out with his Purple Rain album, which was considered shocking; he'd already done "Little Red Corvette" and "1999", which broke through to rock radio. I was listening to Purple Rain at a high-school party at some girl's house in 1984 and "Raspberry Beret" came on and I thought it was cool and said so and my friend George told me, quite earnestly, that it wasn't and that I didn't really like it. It didn't become cool to listen to rap until Aerosmith did "Walk This Way" with Run-DMC in 1986, and it didn't really become accepted until the Chili Peppers and the Beastie Boys.
It was fun. I don't regret it. It was really stifling, though. If you were in high school between 1980 and 1984, your teachers were mostly about forty, which means that they had a 1950s attitude. (The sixties didn't get to Kansas until about 1973.) And that was a pain in the ass because the good ones had no problem getting respect, and we had a lot of good ones, but we also had a lot of bad ones who got by with old-style rigid discipline. That's not allowed now. The predominating attitude you were surrounded by, parents and churches and neighbors and teachers (my folks were pretty good; it's some other people's folks who were repressive), chafed. The Religious Right was just beginning to flex its muscles, and they stood for everything--authority pushing people around, especially, and those goddamn phony silly-smiling "Don't y'all jist luuuv Jaysis" overly-made-up real-estate-agent Republican moms at the goddamn church--that just made me want to puke. (All us Dylan-listening intellectuals actually took The Catcher in the Rye seriously. I thought I was cool because we got assigned Catch-22 senior year and I was the only one who figured it out. I still love that book. But I now know that if I got it back when I was 18, then it's not really that deep.)
The other thing about the 80s was the fear of nuclear war. You pups under the age of about 25 don't remember the fear of us all getting killed in a nuclear war that we all had back in the 1980s. They assigned us to read Alas, Babylon, a very bad nuclear war novel, I suppose because it was relevant. That was the time of the uncertainty in the Kremlin between Brezhnev and Gorbachov, and people still thought the Soviet Union was a huge, dangerous power that might take us over or try to or threaten to nuke us or nuke us by accident. There were movies like The Day After and War Games and also Red Dawn, and Time published endless stories about the Salt talks and throwweights and MIRVs. We all had nightmares about getting blown up in a nuclear war. You missed out on that, fortunately. We had nuclear drills in school, once a year. Just like fire drills and tornado drills.
This led me, and many of us, to be scared out of our skins and to prefer appeasement to confrontation. I spent the whole decade of the 80s as an appeaser and a pacifist because I was scared shitless of the Soviet Union. Now, I was aware that the Soviet Union was a very nasty dictatorship, and I had to find some way to rationalize my natural sympathy for the victims of Soviet rule with my fear of the government that oppressed them. You see, I got picked on pretty badly when I was in the ninth grade. I didn't know how to deal with a confrontation. I therefore chickened out disgracefully and became widely despised, and it was a good thing we moved away from that place because it would have gone on, I'm sure of that. Since then, though, I have always identified very strongly with the victim of aggression.
I somehow had to reconcile that sympathy for the victim with my pro-appeasement feelings, which came from fear. I therefore decided that the Soviet Union was not really all that awful. I couldn't stand for it to be a cruel dictatorship that imprisoned and tortured its people, so I made myself believe it wasn't one. An act of self-deception that great carries all kinds of intellectual consequences. If the Soviet Union wasn't so bad, then Marxism couldn't be too bad either. In fact, maybe, it could be right. And if the Soviets aren't so bad and Marxism isn't so false, then the United States, who opposes them, must be bad. It must be the aggressive provoker that molests the Soviets, who just need to defend themselves so they can carry out their revolution. Why hadn't the revolution been successful yet, I asked, and I answered that it was because the bad US and the capitalists and the power brokers were interfering with it because they wanted to keep their big houses and fancy cars and also their power over other countries. Who are these specific power brokers, I should have asked. Name them. But I didn't ask that. It was so easy for me to run and hide inside the sheltering conspiracy theory.
Now, once you assume the United States is bad, all kinds of things follow if your ideas are in any way coherent. Vietnam--a cynical attempt to impose capitalism on the Vietnamese people. Chile--we did it for the phosphate mines, not because we feared that by about '76 Allende would become Fidel II. If we did it at all. Israel--we support them to keep the Arabs down. Cuba--Castro loves his people and gives them health care and schools. Our nuclear weapons--dismantle them, they provoke the Soviets. Besides, really, the US Army exists to keep the American people down. Marcos and Somoza and Batista and Pinochet and the Shah of Iran--evil despots with bloody hands who we propped up in order to keep their peoples enslaved. Kennedy and King--they were killed because they were dangerous to the power structure. (What's the power structure?, I didn't ask myself.)
So how did I get over this? Well, I came to live in Spain in 1987. I'd been a Spanish major in college and my leftist teachers--all Spanish departments in the USA are Latin American hard left--had filled me full of Diego Rivera and Che Guevara and García Lorca and José Martí and Pablo Neruda and the like, which I'd absorbed in a half-baked melange. And I'd read all about the Spanish Civil War and, of course, I was wildly for the Republic in its struggle against fascism. Then I got here and I believed what I read in the newspapers, especially in El País.
But then a few things happened. I started reading George Orwell, not just 1984 and Animal Farm, but his essays, and I was knocked over by his clear and questioning style. I now know that Orwell was full of faults; he claimed to be logical and rational yet was full of absurd prejudices, and much of his journalism, espceially the As I Please columns, is crap. He never got over being convinced that Socialism could work, and, in fact, that it would eventually win out. Orwell died a convinced Marxist. And I think this is what helped me understand something; this guy's a Marxist, so he must be good, I believed. Yet he questions orthodoxy both on the left and on the right (on the left only up to a certain point). He asks critical questions about what people write, and he made me begin to think critically about what I read. It took a while, but I tried to think like Orwell. Eventually, of course, I began to use Orwell's techniques of critical reading. I figured I'd gone through a stage on the way to my thinking black belt (not there yet, don't pretend to be) when I began to read Orwell himself critically and discovered how full of crap he sometimes was.
One of the books I read was Homage to Catalonia, in which Orwell criticizes both the Communists and the Francoists. (He does not criticize the Anarchists or Trotskyists, with whom he served.) I saw that Communism was, unquestionably, bad in Spain. That caused me to read other books, more in depth and more historically correct than Orwell's, on the subject. I came to know a good bit about the Spanish Civil War and I decided that the Left was actually even more mendacious than the Right in Spain, if that's possible. Then all of Marxism came crashing down.
I read several books on economics, including two by Milton Friedman, and realized after a good bit of thought that Adam Smith's original model of the free market is the way economics actually works, whether you like it or not. Marx was as wrong as Lamarck and should be taken no more seriously. Every time one of Marx's theories has been put into practice, it hasn't worked. So I added that to my little bag of intellectual weaponry and started asking this question: "How much do we have to futz around with the free market in order to make policy X work?" every time I read something. I discovered that if the answer was "Not much", then the policy is more or less sound, and if the answer is "A lot", then it probably isn't.
This led me to examine the Constitution closely and think for a while about rights, and I decided that the three basic human rights were life, liberty, and property. Killing people is wrong and you shouldn't do it. Can we say you shouldn't do it ever? If there's a man with a gun in his hand threatening you, do you let him shoot you? I decided that you shoot him first if you can. Therefore the right to life is not absolute. Where does it stop? When you threaten someone else's basic human rights. You can't do that, and if we catch you violating someone else's human rights, we'll make you stop. If you won't stop, we'll use violence. And if we have to kill you, we will.
Who is "we"? Well, "we" is "We the People". That's all of us within the boundaries of our country. I decided that the system of laws which apply to everyone equally is necessary to preserve everyone's rights. You can't kill me, and if you try to, you must be punished. You can't interfere with my freedom, and if you try, you should be punished. (Corollary: Slavery is always, absolutely, wrong, because it's a restriction of freedom. Prison is acceptable because violators of others' rights are punished by the loss of their freedom, and the laws, administered by an independent judiciary, are what determine what is a violation of others' rights and what isn't. How do we decide on the laws? We, or our elected representatives, vote on them. That is why they are legitimate; we have all agreed on them. Can they be changed? Sure, but it's dangerous. Don't do it if you don't have to. Especially don't do it on a whim.) Anyway, you can't take my property, either. And I can't do any of these things to you. We agree to leave disputes between us to be administered peacefully by a judge, and we agree that people who go outside the laws to kill, enslave, or steal must be stopped and if necessary killed or punished.
So how do we stop those people who kill, enslave, or steal? Well, we need a system of social protection, a police force to defend us from those within our society who violate others' rights and a military to defend us from those outside said society who want to violate our rights--we, as a society, have the right to life (to continue existing), to liberty (to make our own decisions), and to property (to do what we want to with our stuff), besides our right as individuals to all of those things. Those forces must act within the laws if our society is to function. They must be under the authority of both the people, as voters, and by the independent judiciary.
This piece is getting way too long. If you guys want me to, I'll keep going tomorrow. If not, I'll stop philosophizing.
I mean, in Kansas City in 1984 we didn't have Internet and barely had cable TV. You still watched the Big Three networks because there wasn't much else, ESPN and CNN and MTV and the Braves and Cubs games and HBO, which wasn't worth what little extra it cost. There were two art house cinemas in town, the Tivoli and the Fine Arts. Each had one screen. There were still more porno movie theaters in town--video has killed off the porno movie theater, fortunately, unless you're Pee-Wee Herman--than art houses. It was really cool to sneak into the Old Chelsea, by the way. I never had the guts to try. I bet nobody else did, either. We had VCRs but there weren't too many good movies available on video. Home computers then couldn't do a damned thing. We still used typewriters to type up our term papers. Video games were cool. It was a big deal to be good at, like, Defender. We had Ataris to play extremely rudimentary video games at home.
We actually went to high school football games and dances. We could get beer really easily because back then it was 18 for 3.2 beer in Kansas, and people would swill it by the bucket. We had no moral compunctions about driving around drunk out of our skulls, either. I'm amazed we didn't all get killed or, worse, kill somebody else. It was really hard to get pot, though. That was something that you didn't often get our hands on. None of us smoked cigarettes, anyway, so we didn't really know how to smoke pot--it wasn't cool at all, it was very redneck or greaser, what those cowboys and auto-shop dudes over at West would do. It was cool to dress prep. People actually said, seriously, "I'm not prep because I never wear Polo over Izod." Whatever that was. I never caught on. And those sweaters with the diamonds on them.
Being into Zep and Floyd and the Who was having good musical taste, one cut above the jokers who thought Foreigner and Styx and Journey were kick-ass. "Rock the Casbah" was the absolute most radical thing played on any radio station, and if it didn't get on the radio, we didn't hear about it. The Violent Femmes were terribly avant-garde then. The Police were considered to be the best major band by high-schoolers; real hipsters might get into the Talking Heads. U2 and REM were just coming out. If you'd heard of the Dead Kennedys you were an out-and-out punker. I was kind of an intellectual kid (I was one of the elite fifty or so on the honors track, which they were still allowed to have back then) and I was into Bob Dylan and Van Morrison big-time, which let me put on intellectual airs. It wasn't cool to listen to black music--Michael Jackson didn't break that taboo because he was so obviously a weirdo. I remember when Prince came out with his Purple Rain album, which was considered shocking; he'd already done "Little Red Corvette" and "1999", which broke through to rock radio. I was listening to Purple Rain at a high-school party at some girl's house in 1984 and "Raspberry Beret" came on and I thought it was cool and said so and my friend George told me, quite earnestly, that it wasn't and that I didn't really like it. It didn't become cool to listen to rap until Aerosmith did "Walk This Way" with Run-DMC in 1986, and it didn't really become accepted until the Chili Peppers and the Beastie Boys.
It was fun. I don't regret it. It was really stifling, though. If you were in high school between 1980 and 1984, your teachers were mostly about forty, which means that they had a 1950s attitude. (The sixties didn't get to Kansas until about 1973.) And that was a pain in the ass because the good ones had no problem getting respect, and we had a lot of good ones, but we also had a lot of bad ones who got by with old-style rigid discipline. That's not allowed now. The predominating attitude you were surrounded by, parents and churches and neighbors and teachers (my folks were pretty good; it's some other people's folks who were repressive), chafed. The Religious Right was just beginning to flex its muscles, and they stood for everything--authority pushing people around, especially, and those goddamn phony silly-smiling "Don't y'all jist luuuv Jaysis" overly-made-up real-estate-agent Republican moms at the goddamn church--that just made me want to puke. (All us Dylan-listening intellectuals actually took The Catcher in the Rye seriously. I thought I was cool because we got assigned Catch-22 senior year and I was the only one who figured it out. I still love that book. But I now know that if I got it back when I was 18, then it's not really that deep.)
The other thing about the 80s was the fear of nuclear war. You pups under the age of about 25 don't remember the fear of us all getting killed in a nuclear war that we all had back in the 1980s. They assigned us to read Alas, Babylon, a very bad nuclear war novel, I suppose because it was relevant. That was the time of the uncertainty in the Kremlin between Brezhnev and Gorbachov, and people still thought the Soviet Union was a huge, dangerous power that might take us over or try to or threaten to nuke us or nuke us by accident. There were movies like The Day After and War Games and also Red Dawn, and Time published endless stories about the Salt talks and throwweights and MIRVs. We all had nightmares about getting blown up in a nuclear war. You missed out on that, fortunately. We had nuclear drills in school, once a year. Just like fire drills and tornado drills.
This led me, and many of us, to be scared out of our skins and to prefer appeasement to confrontation. I spent the whole decade of the 80s as an appeaser and a pacifist because I was scared shitless of the Soviet Union. Now, I was aware that the Soviet Union was a very nasty dictatorship, and I had to find some way to rationalize my natural sympathy for the victims of Soviet rule with my fear of the government that oppressed them. You see, I got picked on pretty badly when I was in the ninth grade. I didn't know how to deal with a confrontation. I therefore chickened out disgracefully and became widely despised, and it was a good thing we moved away from that place because it would have gone on, I'm sure of that. Since then, though, I have always identified very strongly with the victim of aggression.
I somehow had to reconcile that sympathy for the victim with my pro-appeasement feelings, which came from fear. I therefore decided that the Soviet Union was not really all that awful. I couldn't stand for it to be a cruel dictatorship that imprisoned and tortured its people, so I made myself believe it wasn't one. An act of self-deception that great carries all kinds of intellectual consequences. If the Soviet Union wasn't so bad, then Marxism couldn't be too bad either. In fact, maybe, it could be right. And if the Soviets aren't so bad and Marxism isn't so false, then the United States, who opposes them, must be bad. It must be the aggressive provoker that molests the Soviets, who just need to defend themselves so they can carry out their revolution. Why hadn't the revolution been successful yet, I asked, and I answered that it was because the bad US and the capitalists and the power brokers were interfering with it because they wanted to keep their big houses and fancy cars and also their power over other countries. Who are these specific power brokers, I should have asked. Name them. But I didn't ask that. It was so easy for me to run and hide inside the sheltering conspiracy theory.
Now, once you assume the United States is bad, all kinds of things follow if your ideas are in any way coherent. Vietnam--a cynical attempt to impose capitalism on the Vietnamese people. Chile--we did it for the phosphate mines, not because we feared that by about '76 Allende would become Fidel II. If we did it at all. Israel--we support them to keep the Arabs down. Cuba--Castro loves his people and gives them health care and schools. Our nuclear weapons--dismantle them, they provoke the Soviets. Besides, really, the US Army exists to keep the American people down. Marcos and Somoza and Batista and Pinochet and the Shah of Iran--evil despots with bloody hands who we propped up in order to keep their peoples enslaved. Kennedy and King--they were killed because they were dangerous to the power structure. (What's the power structure?, I didn't ask myself.)
So how did I get over this? Well, I came to live in Spain in 1987. I'd been a Spanish major in college and my leftist teachers--all Spanish departments in the USA are Latin American hard left--had filled me full of Diego Rivera and Che Guevara and García Lorca and José Martí and Pablo Neruda and the like, which I'd absorbed in a half-baked melange. And I'd read all about the Spanish Civil War and, of course, I was wildly for the Republic in its struggle against fascism. Then I got here and I believed what I read in the newspapers, especially in El País.
But then a few things happened. I started reading George Orwell, not just 1984 and Animal Farm, but his essays, and I was knocked over by his clear and questioning style. I now know that Orwell was full of faults; he claimed to be logical and rational yet was full of absurd prejudices, and much of his journalism, espceially the As I Please columns, is crap. He never got over being convinced that Socialism could work, and, in fact, that it would eventually win out. Orwell died a convinced Marxist. And I think this is what helped me understand something; this guy's a Marxist, so he must be good, I believed. Yet he questions orthodoxy both on the left and on the right (on the left only up to a certain point). He asks critical questions about what people write, and he made me begin to think critically about what I read. It took a while, but I tried to think like Orwell. Eventually, of course, I began to use Orwell's techniques of critical reading. I figured I'd gone through a stage on the way to my thinking black belt (not there yet, don't pretend to be) when I began to read Orwell himself critically and discovered how full of crap he sometimes was.
One of the books I read was Homage to Catalonia, in which Orwell criticizes both the Communists and the Francoists. (He does not criticize the Anarchists or Trotskyists, with whom he served.) I saw that Communism was, unquestionably, bad in Spain. That caused me to read other books, more in depth and more historically correct than Orwell's, on the subject. I came to know a good bit about the Spanish Civil War and I decided that the Left was actually even more mendacious than the Right in Spain, if that's possible. Then all of Marxism came crashing down.
I read several books on economics, including two by Milton Friedman, and realized after a good bit of thought that Adam Smith's original model of the free market is the way economics actually works, whether you like it or not. Marx was as wrong as Lamarck and should be taken no more seriously. Every time one of Marx's theories has been put into practice, it hasn't worked. So I added that to my little bag of intellectual weaponry and started asking this question: "How much do we have to futz around with the free market in order to make policy X work?" every time I read something. I discovered that if the answer was "Not much", then the policy is more or less sound, and if the answer is "A lot", then it probably isn't.
This led me to examine the Constitution closely and think for a while about rights, and I decided that the three basic human rights were life, liberty, and property. Killing people is wrong and you shouldn't do it. Can we say you shouldn't do it ever? If there's a man with a gun in his hand threatening you, do you let him shoot you? I decided that you shoot him first if you can. Therefore the right to life is not absolute. Where does it stop? When you threaten someone else's basic human rights. You can't do that, and if we catch you violating someone else's human rights, we'll make you stop. If you won't stop, we'll use violence. And if we have to kill you, we will.
Who is "we"? Well, "we" is "We the People". That's all of us within the boundaries of our country. I decided that the system of laws which apply to everyone equally is necessary to preserve everyone's rights. You can't kill me, and if you try to, you must be punished. You can't interfere with my freedom, and if you try, you should be punished. (Corollary: Slavery is always, absolutely, wrong, because it's a restriction of freedom. Prison is acceptable because violators of others' rights are punished by the loss of their freedom, and the laws, administered by an independent judiciary, are what determine what is a violation of others' rights and what isn't. How do we decide on the laws? We, or our elected representatives, vote on them. That is why they are legitimate; we have all agreed on them. Can they be changed? Sure, but it's dangerous. Don't do it if you don't have to. Especially don't do it on a whim.) Anyway, you can't take my property, either. And I can't do any of these things to you. We agree to leave disputes between us to be administered peacefully by a judge, and we agree that people who go outside the laws to kill, enslave, or steal must be stopped and if necessary killed or punished.
So how do we stop those people who kill, enslave, or steal? Well, we need a system of social protection, a police force to defend us from those within our society who violate others' rights and a military to defend us from those outside said society who want to violate our rights--we, as a society, have the right to life (to continue existing), to liberty (to make our own decisions), and to property (to do what we want to with our stuff), besides our right as individuals to all of those things. Those forces must act within the laws if our society is to function. They must be under the authority of both the people, as voters, and by the independent judiciary.
This piece is getting way too long. If you guys want me to, I'll keep going tomorrow. If not, I'll stop philosophizing.
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Cinderella Bloggerfeller has a post up on EuroPundits, so get over there and read it now. We now have enough posts up to get people started coming in and staying a while. I'm going to e-mail InstaPundit and Andrew Sullivan to see if they're interested.
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.
War with Iraq will come. The only question is when. The Anglo-Americans show no signs of backing down as they continue their tremendous force buildup in the Middle East. Rumsfeld and Central Command General Tommy Franks (the guy directly in charge of Iraq/Afghanistan operations) promised maximum effort to avoid civilian casualties. Rummy said directly that only a coup d'etat in Iraq can prevent the war now. Franks added that we're going to use nonlethal weapons to mess up Iraqi communications, and that we can deploy the troops who were to have gone to Turkey within the interior of Iraq (seems like that'd have to be in the Kurdish-controlled region). There is talk of 3000 smart bombs within the first 48 hours. That ought to end the war right there; ground troops can then mop up. Powell said that we have intelligence reports that Saddam is moving some of his WMDs to isolated places near the Syrian froniter and that others are hidden inside trucks parked in Baghdad suburbs. How many more smoking guns does anybody need? France, Germany, and Russia seem to want to see a few more; the French and Russians are threatening a veto, again, if the Alliance introduces another Security Council resolution against Saddam. Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder are going to be remembered as a couple of Keystone Kops Blum and Daladier types, just as we know Anglo-Saxon King Ethelred (who spent most of his reign getting booted around by the Danes) as "The Unready" after a thousand years.
Lessee. In history we've got Ivan the Terrible, Vlad the Impaler, Pedro the Cruel, Bloody Mary, Juana the Mad, and Carlos the Bewitched. How about we call these guys Gerhard the Thick-Headed, Jacques the Crooked, and Vladimir the Spy? Gorbachev is already "Mikhail the Useless" and I vote that Ceaucescu be dubbed "Nicolae the Depraved". Who's got one for Saddam?
Lessee. In history we've got Ivan the Terrible, Vlad the Impaler, Pedro the Cruel, Bloody Mary, Juana the Mad, and Carlos the Bewitched. How about we call these guys Gerhard the Thick-Headed, Jacques the Crooked, and Vladimir the Spy? Gorbachev is already "Mikhail the Useless" and I vote that Ceaucescu be dubbed "Nicolae the Depraved". Who's got one for Saddam?
EuroPundits has two posts up, an imaginary BBC report on the consequences of the Labour backbenchers' revolt against Tony Blair on the war by Andrew Castel-Dodge and a post about why Aznar has nothing to fear from the Socialists by, uh, me. Sign up if you'd like to join by e-mailing me at crankyyanqui@yahoo.com; the more the better. If you've never written a complete piece before, give it a try and send it in. The only rules are that it's got to have something to do with Europe, it's got to be at least sort of in-depth, it's got to be somewhere between 4-5 paragraph newspaper-column length and 2-page magazine-article length, and we're trying to go for professional style--we're amateurs, of course, and aren't looking for anything like perfection. We'll print anything that's a real attempt at saying something about Europe, so don't be shy.
Wednesday, March 05, 2003
Major Blogging News!
A sinister, self-nominated cabal of Eurobloggers has just unilaterally launched EuroPundits, a new group blog specializing in intolerant, biased, and judgmental in-depth opinion articles with some connection to Europe. So far, the list of conspirators includes Jesús Gil of Ibidem, Cinderella Bloggerfeller, Andrew Castel-Dodge, The Radical Blogger, Nelson Ascher, Eamonn from Rainy Day, and yours truly. Other prospective plotters are encouraged to sign up by e-mailing me at crankyyanqui@yahoo.com. We'd like everyone to contribute, say, two pieces a month. That shouldn't be too onerous. Join the Vast Antieuroidiotarian Conspiracy!
A sinister, self-nominated cabal of Eurobloggers has just unilaterally launched EuroPundits, a new group blog specializing in intolerant, biased, and judgmental in-depth opinion articles with some connection to Europe. So far, the list of conspirators includes Jesús Gil of Ibidem, Cinderella Bloggerfeller, Andrew Castel-Dodge, The Radical Blogger, Nelson Ascher, Eamonn from Rainy Day, and yours truly. Other prospective plotters are encouraged to sign up by e-mailing me at crankyyanqui@yahoo.com. We'd like everyone to contribute, say, two pieces a month. That shouldn't be too onerous. Join the Vast Antieuroidiotarian Conspiracy!
James Taranto links to this story from USA Today on anti-American unpleasantness in Europe. It does happen, though it's not incredibly common. It's a good idea not to talk about politics or about the United States in general with Spaniards unless you're ready for an argument; don't bring up either subject yourself, ever. It's not too common, though, for people to be out-and-out rude if you're well-behaved and friendly. If someone starts in, just say, "I respect everyone's opinion, and I'm willing to listen to yours, but I'd prefer to talk about something else." Most Europeans are basically good folks like you and me and this will bring your interlocutor to his senses and make him realize that he shouldn't take out his frustrations on some innocent tourist. Then talk about how nice Barcelona is or whatever.
Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, has a thought-provoking piece in the New Yorker about why the CIA and FBI might not have been as incompetent as some thought they were after 9-11. He says it's a good idea that the two agencies should compete and should use different styles and methods of investigation. Check it out.
Monday, March 03, 2003
The Vangua leads off today with the story about Iraq destroying some weapons of mass destruction. Yeah, right. Somebody remind me of when the last time Saddam Hussein told the truth, because I can't think of it.
The Turks can join in or stay out as far as I'm concerned. I imagine the government wouldn't mind allowing the deployment of American troops, but public opinion there is solidly against it and the state is weak enough in Turkey that I can see the government being concerned. On the other hand, the way to prove a state is strong is to act decisively; Turkey's staying out would show weakness. The votes in the Turkish parliament were very close--the last one was 264 in favor of US deployment in Turkey, 250 against, and 19 abstentions. They only needed a switch of three votes to approve the deployment, so I'll bet a vote is tried again and this time it'll be approved.
The Vanguardia's man in Peking, Rafael Poch, who is also their man in Moscow and parrots the Moscow government line, claims that the Japanese are going to go nuclear. There is an American proposal to bring Japan and South Korea under an American missile-defense scheme, and the Japanese are receptive because they are scared as hell of North Korea. Poch claims, of course, that the fear of North Korean nukes is being fomented by Washington and that the missile defense system would really be anti-Chinese, not anti-North Korean. Says Poch, "North Korea would not be a nuclear problem if that country, instead of being included in the 'axis of evil' and as an objective of preventative nuclear attacks by Washington, received guarantees of security and normalization of relations, as was agreed in the 1994 pact."
Jesus Christ. This guy is pro-North Korean.
Anyway, Poch does some scare propaganda, saying that Japan could have hundreds of nukes within six months and that the Americans are behind it all, in addition to the evil missile defense system. What should amaze you is that the Vanguardia is the BEST newspaper in Spain. Can you imagine how horrible the others are? This is why nearly all Catalans are political idiots of one sort or another. Now, they're wonderful people, friendly folks, generous to a fault. But, politically, these people have no common sense whatsoever, with about eight exceptions.
Rafael Ramos in London says that the Observer is reporting that the Americans are spying on the Security Council members and that this is a huge scandal. The Observer got this information from MI6. First, I certainly hope we are spying on all of them, even on our pals in London, because I guarantee you they're spying on us. Nothing wrong with a little espionage between friends. Second, getting caught doing so is very unprofessional. Third, if I were MI6, I would hunt down Mr. Loudmouth with a Pal on the Observer and terminate his employment. With extreme prejudice. Fourth, Ramos reports that Washington is "in full war fever". That's interesting, since he's based in London. This is the guy who, in a piece about how much he loved baseball, identified Don Mattingly as the Yankees' pitcher. For you Brits, this would be like calling David Beckham Man U's goalkeeper while saying you were a huge football fan. He's also the guy who said that in the US you had to go out with a girl ten times before you could get her in bed. All I want to know is how he can be so sure.
Chirac was received by a massive crowd in Algiers on a state visit. Now that's something to be proud of.
There was an enormous demonstration in Valencia yesterday in favor of the government's proposed water plan, which would send water from the Ebro River south to the dry regions of Valencia, Murcia, and part of Andalusia. I don't see what's wrong with it, since I'm satisfied that it would not do any significant environmental damage. Some 600,000 people came out into the streets from all over southern Spain. Now, there have also been big demonstrations, especially in Aragon, against the water plan, and there were, of course, recent big anti-American demos. The Vanguardia raised not a peep about the demonstrators' political motives in these cases, though all of the demonstrations were organized by the Socialists and other leftist groups.
But in this one, which was organized by José María Aznar's PP, the subheadline is "The financial support of the administrations controlled by the PP gave fruit, and the demonstration in favor of the water plan was supported by dozens of thousands of people." Naah, the Vanguardia isn't biased at all in its news reporting. See, Barcelona and Valencia have a rivalry. Valencia is the second-largest Catalan-speaking city, but instead of showing allegiance to Barcelona and Catalanism, it's thrown in its lot with Madrid and Spain--Valencia basically has the choice of which orbit they want to be in, and they've chosen Madrid's orbit. Valencia goes so far in its desire to be non-Catalan that everybody calls the local language valenciano and a good few deny that it's related to Catalan (that is, of course, linguistically nuts, but they love taking the piss out of the Catalans by saying that). The ultra-Catalan Vanguardia just can't stand any of this.
The main focus of the story was not on what the demonstrators were saying, and there are no impassioned articles in the news section saying that the voice of the people must be listened to, as there have been for the demos "against" the oil spill (I thought we were all against oil spills, but the Socialists and the Galician independentistas are accusing the PP of being responsible for this one, which is so far from being true that it is an out-and-out "Big Lie"), against the water plan, and against America. In fact, the Valencian Socialist Party described the demonstration, consisting of some 600,000 people from all over southeastern Spain in support of a government water project, as "intolerable". Nice to know they're impartial in their support of the right to freedom of expression and public assembly.
The Turks can join in or stay out as far as I'm concerned. I imagine the government wouldn't mind allowing the deployment of American troops, but public opinion there is solidly against it and the state is weak enough in Turkey that I can see the government being concerned. On the other hand, the way to prove a state is strong is to act decisively; Turkey's staying out would show weakness. The votes in the Turkish parliament were very close--the last one was 264 in favor of US deployment in Turkey, 250 against, and 19 abstentions. They only needed a switch of three votes to approve the deployment, so I'll bet a vote is tried again and this time it'll be approved.
The Vanguardia's man in Peking, Rafael Poch, who is also their man in Moscow and parrots the Moscow government line, claims that the Japanese are going to go nuclear. There is an American proposal to bring Japan and South Korea under an American missile-defense scheme, and the Japanese are receptive because they are scared as hell of North Korea. Poch claims, of course, that the fear of North Korean nukes is being fomented by Washington and that the missile defense system would really be anti-Chinese, not anti-North Korean. Says Poch, "North Korea would not be a nuclear problem if that country, instead of being included in the 'axis of evil' and as an objective of preventative nuclear attacks by Washington, received guarantees of security and normalization of relations, as was agreed in the 1994 pact."
Jesus Christ. This guy is pro-North Korean.
Anyway, Poch does some scare propaganda, saying that Japan could have hundreds of nukes within six months and that the Americans are behind it all, in addition to the evil missile defense system. What should amaze you is that the Vanguardia is the BEST newspaper in Spain. Can you imagine how horrible the others are? This is why nearly all Catalans are political idiots of one sort or another. Now, they're wonderful people, friendly folks, generous to a fault. But, politically, these people have no common sense whatsoever, with about eight exceptions.
Rafael Ramos in London says that the Observer is reporting that the Americans are spying on the Security Council members and that this is a huge scandal. The Observer got this information from MI6. First, I certainly hope we are spying on all of them, even on our pals in London, because I guarantee you they're spying on us. Nothing wrong with a little espionage between friends. Second, getting caught doing so is very unprofessional. Third, if I were MI6, I would hunt down Mr. Loudmouth with a Pal on the Observer and terminate his employment. With extreme prejudice. Fourth, Ramos reports that Washington is "in full war fever". That's interesting, since he's based in London. This is the guy who, in a piece about how much he loved baseball, identified Don Mattingly as the Yankees' pitcher. For you Brits, this would be like calling David Beckham Man U's goalkeeper while saying you were a huge football fan. He's also the guy who said that in the US you had to go out with a girl ten times before you could get her in bed. All I want to know is how he can be so sure.
Chirac was received by a massive crowd in Algiers on a state visit. Now that's something to be proud of.
There was an enormous demonstration in Valencia yesterday in favor of the government's proposed water plan, which would send water from the Ebro River south to the dry regions of Valencia, Murcia, and part of Andalusia. I don't see what's wrong with it, since I'm satisfied that it would not do any significant environmental damage. Some 600,000 people came out into the streets from all over southern Spain. Now, there have also been big demonstrations, especially in Aragon, against the water plan, and there were, of course, recent big anti-American demos. The Vanguardia raised not a peep about the demonstrators' political motives in these cases, though all of the demonstrations were organized by the Socialists and other leftist groups.
But in this one, which was organized by José María Aznar's PP, the subheadline is "The financial support of the administrations controlled by the PP gave fruit, and the demonstration in favor of the water plan was supported by dozens of thousands of people." Naah, the Vanguardia isn't biased at all in its news reporting. See, Barcelona and Valencia have a rivalry. Valencia is the second-largest Catalan-speaking city, but instead of showing allegiance to Barcelona and Catalanism, it's thrown in its lot with Madrid and Spain--Valencia basically has the choice of which orbit they want to be in, and they've chosen Madrid's orbit. Valencia goes so far in its desire to be non-Catalan that everybody calls the local language valenciano and a good few deny that it's related to Catalan (that is, of course, linguistically nuts, but they love taking the piss out of the Catalans by saying that). The ultra-Catalan Vanguardia just can't stand any of this.
The main focus of the story was not on what the demonstrators were saying, and there are no impassioned articles in the news section saying that the voice of the people must be listened to, as there have been for the demos "against" the oil spill (I thought we were all against oil spills, but the Socialists and the Galician independentistas are accusing the PP of being responsible for this one, which is so far from being true that it is an out-and-out "Big Lie"), against the water plan, and against America. In fact, the Valencian Socialist Party described the demonstration, consisting of some 600,000 people from all over southeastern Spain in support of a government water project, as "intolerable". Nice to know they're impartial in their support of the right to freedom of expression and public assembly.
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