| Submit your comments on this article |
| Fifth Column |
| Rall Watch: Why do they hate us? |
| 2004-01-21 |
Why do they hate us? And where do they get their hatred from?Isn’t this a bit tired by now? But not for Ted Rall. Rall just attended an exhibition of paintings by French schoolchildren: Panel after grisly panel depicted the United States, George Bush and those ubiquitous symbols of American commercial culture--McDonald’s and Coke--as murderous, predatory and gleefully vicious. Obese Uncle Sams chopping up Iraqi children with a knife, their blood gushing across construction paper.Funny how there were no such exhibitions while Saddam was gassing, maiming and torturing his own people. But, oooooooh --- Coke, McDonalds --- the humanity! Rall was split between pleasure and pain: We don’t take issue with most of the cartoons’ messages. They see Bush as a vicious, thoughtless warmonger with fascist tendencies, Americans as arrogant brutes who don’t give a passing thought to the innocent people who die at the hands of their government and rapacious corporations as hegemonic steamrollers that crush cultural distinctiveness and independence in their ceaseless quest for the almighty dollar. They can’t believe that we feel more entitled to use military force than Luxembourg or Monaco.Indeed. It’s troubling to see how children even in Western countries are now being fed the same kind of anti-US propaganda that suidide bombers in the Arab world are. But Rall doesn’t worry about that. The more people (or kids) in his Bush-bashing party the better. |
| Posted by:Vivek |
| #9 crazyfool - My experience of the English spoken by mainland chinese and these are the university educated ones is that its pretty awful. Most of them have had no exposure to native English speakers at all. This will change but it will take a few years. OTOH educated Indians all speak good English. |
| Posted by: Phil B 2004-1-21 11:24:46 PM |
| #8 Phil, I heard someplace a couple of years ago that there are more Chinese (in China) who speak English as a 2nd language then there are Americans/Canadians (in North America) who speak it as a primary language. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-1-21 9:33:17 PM |
| #7 I would suggest that there is a long term decline in teaching and learning French as the language is in decline. It is almost universal phenomena that when two people meet and do not have the same native language in common, then they speak English. In our globalizing world there is a network effect at work that will result in English as the universal language and American English as the primary variant. This is inevitable and will happen much sooner than most people realize. I have already seen pronounced changes in the 10 short years the Internet has been generally available Given a choice between learning French and improving English. The latter is clearly a better choice for around 95% of the world's population. |
| Posted by: Phil B 2004-1-21 8:10:39 PM |
| #6 Brain vomit like this is the reason why no one should give a rats ass what that F*tard Rall has to say. His anti-Americanism (or dementia)is well documented. Screw him. |
| Posted by: JerseyMike 2004-1-21 8:04:16 PM |
| #5 Not a psychotic episode, but one similar to what happens to David Banner when he gets mad. Also, not even viewing anything Rall has touched keeps the chance that hits on his material could be counted as an "readers" and somehow prolong his employment. As for grade schools no longer teaching French -- yeah, right. If it happened, it's probably because the district would rather spend the money on jocks and toys than on a language teacher. Second place would be that no one really cares anymore. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-1-21 7:52:21 PM |
| #4 I'm guessing the reason the kids "hate us" is because they are ignorant schoolchildren (this is almost redundant) who've---well, let's let Ted explain it: Children get their politics from their parents and teachers, who form their impressions from the media. Right. Anti-American media, anti-American kids. Ted, of course, instantly jumps to the conclusion that the European media has been reporting reality while American media has been reporting fantasy. Frankly, I'm surprised Ted's surprised. If the kids were raised on a strict diet of Ted Rall columns, this is exactly the sort of conclusion they'd come to. Ted tells us that four American "artists" (all from newspapers, so presumably that means they're editorial cartoonists)---all of them anti-war---were invited to the town's annual cartoon art festival. So this wasn't just an exhibition of children's art, it was an exhibition of political cartoons. In an anti-American country (don't even try to deny it), it's not surprising that the cartoons would be anti-American. Pro-Americanism will not win the prize. Ted also tells us that some American high schools got into such an anti-French snit that they stopped teaching French. That, I hadn't heard (and don't believe). But remember: French-bashing bad, American-bashing entirely understandable. This is for Robert Crawford and others who fear a psychotic episode if they are exposed to another Ted Rall column. Tips always welcome. |
| Posted by: Angie Schultz 2004-1-21 7:45:24 PM |
| #3 So will Rall take a step back and reconsider the anti-American tripe he's built his career on? Of course not. He can't see how his crap is connected to what he saw on display. BTW -- after Rall's attack on Petty Officer Neil Roberts (who fell from a helicopter, was captured by al'Qaeda and then murdered), I vowed I'd never look at anything he ever had a part in creating. Does Rall bother to find out why this message was so popular among the school kids? Was it a requirement, or was the showing selective in what was exhibited? Does he bother to take the time to wonder about a country (France) that apparently teaches its kids to hate Americans? |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-1-21 7:27:47 PM |
| #2 Actually, I'm kinda curious to see Luxembourg or Monaco use military force. |
| Posted by: BH 2004-1-21 7:13:22 PM |
| #1 Just let the kid's know they will never taste Mars the Dessert planet. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-1-21 6:48:55 PM |