A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within, said the American historian Will Durrant about ancient Rome. This self-destruction of values is exactly what is happening in England today.
Yes, I still call the country of my birth England, in spite of the peculiar political correctness that insists that it be called 'the UK' and that we, its denizens, must be 'Britons'. Even though the Welsh are proud to call themselves Welsh, as are the Irish and certainly the Scots, woe betide the Briton who calls himself 'English' -- a much-frowned-upon no-no. I believe that when a country loses so much respect for itself that it can no longer even be identified by its historically correct name, insecurity and lack of respect filter down to its inhabitants.
Recently, I have concluded that London is no longer the 'seat of civilised society' that the world once considered it to be, and is certainly not the safe city I grew up in. A particular incident demonstrated the lack of respect and manners that is but a small example of the horrible, encroaching decay of the country that I love dearly.
My husband Percy and I were at a ball at the Grosvenor House Hotel -- a black-tie event attended by the socalled 'elite' of the city. As Percy held the door open to let me through, a 6ft tall, middle-aged, horse-faced male pushed past me, trod on the hem of my dress and rushed outside to climb into the taxi that the doorman had waiting for us. This was a person who should, or at least looked like he should, have known better. The cause of his behaviour? The awful pervasive disregard that we have for civility today.
Bump accidentally into someone in the street these days and you are soundly cursed. Look at a poor derelict collapsed in a doorway for more than a second and they'll spit at you. Surely everyone has experienced the barely suppressed rage lurking behind the faces of a vast number of car drivers. We've become the 'Whatcha lookin' at?' culture. Why do young people consider it cool to be arrogant, swaggering and rude? Why do so many people in England seem so cynical and self-centred?
I witnessed young, drunken yobs roaming the streets kicking cars, screaming insults, pushing people and even pushchairs out of their way, attacking each other viciously and then turning on the police when they tried to maintain order. The whole scene evoked the image of hordes of inebriated Vikings sacking devastated towns. Even during the day, feral mobs roamed the cities with absolute disregard for anyone else's property or well-being. Traditional virtues of male chivalry and female propriety were very far from view.
After all, a lack of manners and politeness in a society can only be a reflection of what the society thinks of itself. It's frightful how being told that you are no good makes you hate yourself, and hate others. And it's frightful how quickly a whole country of self-loathers can be bred.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/04/2005 08:52 ||
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#1
We've had a certain transition of our own here stateside. Yes I too feel we are evolving into a much hardened and bitter people. Alot of folks feel they are owed something rather than work for the better good.
I remember going up in an elevator with a doctor another woman and her daughter, with the woman degrading the doctor in front of the little girl. I will never forget the little girl looking up learning about behavior while her mom was yelling at the doctor. In hindsight I am truly sorry that I never intervened, I was so shocked by it. People show no respect for one another anymore it seems.
That being said, what can we do about it?
I am very proud to be an American,
I wonder how many folks living here are.
I love my country and what we stand for.
I wonder how many folks living here do.
I love where I live and my neighbors,
I wonder how many folks can say they love their neighbors.
I will never again allow someone to berate someone, everyone deserves to be treated with respect. We need to break the cycle.
I still believe that you need to earn something to appreciate it, not just be handed to you on a plate.
Posted by: Jan ||
08/04/2005 10:59 Comments ||
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#2
spoiled brats usually get what they deserve in the end.
Posted by: bk ||
08/04/2005 11:19 Comments ||
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#3
Why do young people consider it cool to be arrogant, swaggering and rude?
Simply because there is no price exacted for behaving in this manner. If the little turds that act this way were taken down the first time, it's highly unlikely they'd do it again.
Mr. Baverez, though he is un-PC and anti-idiotarian, is part of the MSM, which makes his views even more interesting. His book was successful, and sparked a debate, thus showing some people are aware of a situation increasingly harder to deny... mainstream diagnostic is beginning to catch up with the radical & liberal (tatcherite) one à la Claude Reichmann.
By NICOLAS BAVEREZ
PARIS -- This will be the year that the decline of France came home to the French. After the collapse of the giant strikes of 1995, after the civic crash of 2002 that saw the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen get through to the second round of the presidential elections, the failure of the May 29 referendum on the EU constitution and of Paris's bid last month for the 2012 Olympic Games finally tore the last shreds of an illusion and revealed France as the sick man among the world's developed democracies.
The country is in a pre-revolutionary situation. Yet at the same time, considering the weakness of its ruling class, France could find a way to break out of its doldrums. For a change, the French people rather than their overweening State could lead the way in forcing on the country a shock therapy with little risk of political extremisms and social violence.
Traditionally, revolutions happen when a rift develops between the political elite and the people at a time of deep economic and social crisis, when the people feel humiliated and are in despair. The France of 2005 exhibits all these symptoms. The divorce between the people and the ruling classes is clearer by the day, seen not only in the country's politics but in its media and business. The current president of the Republic, Jacques Chirac, is universally laughed at. His opportunism is transparent, as are his many failures, despite which no credible political alternative has emerged on the left.
The economic ailments are also plain to see. Growth is stuck at 1.5% per year while productivity and purchase power rise less than 1% yearly. Public debt is exploding from 58% to 68% of GDP between 2002 and 2007. The nanny-state saddles France with a â¬15 billion annual deficit, on average. Add to that the brain drain and the expatriation of skills and businesses that flee a confiscatory fiscal and social system. France is thus caught between a dwindling productive base and soaring collective costs. No wonder that the country has mass unemployment that has been affecting more than 10% of the population for the last quarter of the century (23.5 % among the youth), 15% of the population living below the poverty level (including 1 million children), a steady decline in social mobility since the 1990's and the state's chronic failure in integrating the growing and restless immigrant population.
In response, France's leaders indulge in demagogy, deny reality and turn others' successes into excuses for their failure to reform. This feeds the nihilism and anger of the French, who are well aware that their nation's losing prestige and influence in a way not seen since the agonizing end of the IVth Republic in 1956-58. So anything is now possible, including political violence, but also the preparation of a radical change at the next presidential election in 2007.
These next two years inevitably will be lost, since a weak president won't be able to reform. We're already seeing the French government and people in a purely defensive posture, focused only on maintaining the status quo. The government is built around Dominique de Villepin, prime minister in name only, and Nicolas Sarkozy, president in the making. Mr. Chirac put them together in the sterile hope that this division would give him more leverage to write his own ticket in two years time.
The more the country sinks into crisis, the less it is capable of coming up with a clear vision for the future. That's especially true with economic policy, which is neither socialist nor liberal but merely schizophrenic and Malthusian. So France rails against unemployment but sanctions the "social model" that causes it; calls for reform of the State yet continues to increase public expenditures (55% of GDP) and the number of civil servants (5 million, or 20% of the working population); signs on to the rules of the EU and euro yet repeatedly breaks them, invoking a French exception, and indulges in protectionism.
For all that, the years to come will be decisive. From difficult, the situation could become catastrophic if -- as happened in 1995 and 2002 -- the 2007 election turns into yet another aborted attempt at modernization. Capital, business and skills will continue to flee, and the pauperization of France will accelerate. A full-blown economic meltdown in France would be a major crisis for the euro zone, as well. But presidential elections in the Vth Republic are intended to be a turning point when the people choose not only a president but a destiny for the nation.
The French have two years now to reconcile themselves to the realities of the 21st century and begin to confront their problems rather than hide from them. It will not be easy, but it will be necessary, to admit that they, and no one else, not "Europe" or globalization, are responsible for the decline of their country. As in 1958, the next election could bring a breakthrough. This modernization will need to be accompanied by an overhaul of institutions and economic and social models. Notions of work need to change, as well as attitudes to Europe. France must re-examine its conflicting and ambiguous relationship with liberty and modernity.
This country is upside down, as were the U.S. and Great Britain in the seventies, with major assets broken to pieces by a clogged political system and a vacuous economic and social model. In the absence of any direct outside threat or pressures linked to military operations, such as the colonial wars of the 1950s, it is up to the French alone to make a decision. Freed from the illusions of French might and finally convinced that their country is in deep crisis and come to accept that a cult of status quo doesn't amount to a strategy but to failure and impotence. The 1960s are over, the French are coming to realize. This country needs to adjust, to move beyond conservatism and fear, and replace disillusion with hope.
Mr. Baverez, an economist, is the author, most recently, of "La France Qui Tombe" (France In Decline), out from Perrin in 2003. This essay was translated from the French by Henri Fezensac.
#1
*snicker*
I don't feel a sense of schundenfreud for the French people and I sincerely hope that they can turn things around. I'm not sure what the word is, cause I don't want anything bad to happen to anyone, but there is overwhelming satisfaction in seeing the self-rightous, pious, preachy, screechy liberals fially begin to grasp, what any person with a shred of common sense and logic should have been able to see a long time ago; that their holier-than-thou lets-just-wish-and-make-it-so beliefs were stupid, failed and harmful. Hey lefty liberals.. You were wrong others were right. Now shut up and go sit in the corner, your status of idiot has been confirmed.
#6
"Growth is stuck at 1.5% per year while productivity and purchase power rise less than 1% yearly"
This is why socialist countries do not survive for long. If you are only required to work 35 hrs a week, exports are down dramatically, and welfare handouts to the un-productive Muslim leeches are up, I would say that you have a major problem on your hands. When French companies do make a profit, heavy government taxes puts the company at risk. Where
's the incentive for growth? Where's the incentive to stick around? Where's the incentive to branch?
California is a perfect example. California is our French state. A vast number of companies are deserting California. Business profits are taxed heavily in California to provide food stamps, welfare checks, medical & dental, and even college education, to the illegals. France has their Muslims and California has their illegals. I am not saying that Muslims and illegals don't work at all. I am saying that the taxes that they pay (if any) doesn't balance the amount that is needed to offset the cost of the social programs that they receive.
Most Americans already have seen this danger coming and that is one of the reasons that the GOP is the majority in the U.S. The GOP promotes small businesses, lower taxes, productivity and, in my opinion the most important item, moral and ethical values. Moral and ethical values are the core of every society. Once you have morals and ethics, everything else necessary, in a successful society, automatically comes in line. This starts with a moral and ethical government. Hence, one of the reasons Bill Clinton is despised. Due Bill Clinton's assertion that oral sex is not adultery, we now have thousands of middle school girls wearing braclets with different colors on them, because Bill Clinton has established that oral sex is not really sex.
This citizens of U.S. already have resisted the dumbing down of this great country. Now, it's time for the capitalist loving, freedom loving and values loving French citizens to stand up like a man and take your country back from the spineless worms in your government. As I have stated above, start with placing men or women with the highest moral and ethical values, not opportunists, in your government and the rest will fall inline. I promise you.
"But presidential elections in the Vth Republic are intended to be a turning point when the people choose not only a president but a destiny for the nation."
#8
I see France sinking deeper and deeper into crisis, much like the Ottoman Empire did in the 1800s, until it dissolves into a Somalia type civil war. I don't see the spark from the people wanting to change things in the next election; I don't see any real move other than to maintain the status quo. The 'Non' vote against the EU was just that, maintain what we got. The bright and energetic people will continue to leave and France will get dimmer and dimmer until its light flickers out.
A teenage fad. They wear stacks of different coloured translucent plastic bracelets on their arms, and supposedly each colour represents a different sexual behaviour they are willing to engage in. Trailing daughter #1 says that if anybody approaches her in that belief, he'll find himself walking away with broken kneecaps. She just thinks the bracelets are pretty.
In the late eighties the USA was impacted by an economic catastrophe called Jimmy Carter. Last time I looked at it, the US economy was in the toilet by the time Reagan was elected.
I will not mention the military and diplomatic debacles: Iran, the hostage crisis (who were crucial in the development of Islamism) and that at a time where the US military was being reequipped with weapons like the F14, F15, F16 and M1 Abrams all immensely superior to their Soviet counterparts the Soviets were gaining ground during all of the Carter presidency (Angola, Mozambique, the perceived military imbalance in Europe who led to appeasement in European countries)
#11
Yup, JFM. We had our troubles in the US, serious ones that were mostly self-inflicted, and are still fighting the remaining battles against the entrenched PC insurgents here.
Posted by: reads history ||
08/04/2005 10:51 Comments ||
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#12
aside from that, economically we weren't doing so bad and still had pretty solid growth
Huh???
I remember 18% mortgage rates, serious un/under-employment and wage & price controls.
They were real, they hurt and it was NOT obvious that they were going to get better on their own.
Serious misreading of the history on that claim.
Posted by: reads history ||
08/04/2005 10:54 Comments ||
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#13
By the end of Jimmy Carter presidency it really looked like the US would lose the cold war.
#14
True, guys.
Sorry, I forgot about Carter.
(LOL--it's not like I want to remember him!)
But comparatively speaking, the US still wasn't in that bad of a shape economically even in the late '70's as France is now.
This country's had explosive growth since WWII and we've never looked back.
#18
Guys, I know the 70's had their bad moments, but you have to look at it in comparison to France; our standard of living, average amount of disposable income and rate of economic growth and productivity were still way ahead of France and certainly the USSR.
Monsieur Baverez is not correct to compare 21st Century France to America of the 1970's;
For us, it is a matter of getting a great President like Reagan in there after the disaster of Carter, but for the French, the problems go much deeper.
Bavarez is hoping that it will be that simple for France, hence his cite of Sarkovsky, the new Great White Hope of the 5th Republic.
Sarko, Dominique and Chirac all went to the same school for bureaucrats and policy wonks.
When it comes to government effecting economic and political change in France, plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose(The more things change, the more they stay the same.)
That being said, I'd loved to see the French pull out of this slump.
I've lived in France and found the French charming, when they aren't being arrogant (LOL).
The cure for their problems would be a Conservative like President Reagan or President Bush.
But believe it or not, Jacques Chirac is considered a "Conservative" in France.
It's almost impossible for the leaders of these EU countries to convince their citizens that to lower taxes and improve business growth, they'll have to cut social welfare programs like "free health care."
Or that they need to be able to work more than 35 hours a week.
The British refused to adopt the EU 35-hour work week, because they like the extra income.
Even though they've been so awful to us, I hate to see France in decline, but c'est la vie.
And then there's those banlieu(suburbs) full of angry Arab/Muslim young boys/men...
#19
Maybe the Soviet giant was crumbing, but it was Reagan who took a wrecking ball to the structure. Look how badly North Korea and Cuba are doing, and yet they're still around regardless.
You are wrong about Sarkozy (Hungarian ie not Slavic name so no vski in it). Unlike Chirac and Villepin he wasn't a product of the ENA (French school for high ranking bureaucrats) and unlike them he didn't make a carreer as a bureaucrat but in the private sector (sort of, he was a lawyer).
#22
Time for another Paris Commune to sort it all out. Oh, and reserve a spot on the Place de Concorde for the 'ruling class' that got them into this mess again.
#23
But comparatively speaking, the US still wasn't in that bad of a shape economically even in the late '70's as France is now. Agreed! France's economic performance has deteriated sharply in the last 10 years (relative to USA/UK/Oz).
#24
For them to have any hope at all, they've got to run the Muzzies out NOW and make it perfectly plain that they won't be coming back. That includes the French-born ones. Just think of it as Algeria in 1962 all over again, except in reverse. It would not be that hard for France since they could easily bribe the generally corrupt governments of the Maghreb to accept them.
Posted by: mac ||
08/04/2005 20:23 Comments ||
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#25
A lot of France's problem is that their elite hasn't been backflushed in a long time. In America, when that happens, things get changed. In France, they play musical chairs with the same people in different jobs. They have a government custom designed for Le Grand Charles and it's not clear it works for mere mortals. Looks like maybe it's time for Republic VI. Some day they'll get it right.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/04/2005 21:45 Comments ||
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by Mark Goldblatt, National Review Heavily EFL'd & emphasis added. In the middle of an article on the Jane Fonda Veggie-Tails Magic Bus Tour, the author makes a point about Iraq that I've not seen anywhere else:
Suppose, therefore, itâs late 2002, and youâre the president of the United States.
Three thousand civilians have been murdered in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania by Islamic terrorists, and youâve responded by toppling the government in Afghanistan which hosted the terroristsâ sponsor, Osama bin Laden. But along the way, youâve inadvertently, though unavoidably, sent a perilous message to the rest of the world. Since the end of World War II, Americaâs national security has largely rested on the belief that an outright attack on the United States would be answered by unspeakable retaliation. That belief, youâve now demonstrated, was false. Osama called our collective bluff. He hit us in a horrific way, and you didnât lash out. You investigated, determined who was behind the attack . . . and even once you knew it was Osama, and that he was operating out of Afghanistan, you didnât incinerate Kabul. Rather, you only demanded that the Taliban hand him over "dead or alive." In doing so, you provided our international enemies with an easy-to-follow formula for waging war against the United States: Just work your mayhem through non-state surrogates and, after the next 9/11, if America again connects the dots, hand over a few corpses to satisfy Washingtonâs demand for justice.
All right, youâre the president. The Taliban is gone, but so too is the great measure of Americaâs deterrence. Meanwhile, Islamic terrorism remains a very real threat. As you survey the festering political landscape of the Muslim world, you must now ask yourself which dictatorial thug is most likely to capitalize on that formula for waging war against the United States?
Saddam Hussein in Iraq is a strong candidate. He also happens to be in violation of United Nations Resolution #687, the ceasefire agreement that ended the first Gulf War in 1991, which allowed him to remain in power on the condition that he provide full and accurate disclosure of all long-range missiles and WMDs â so that U.N. inspectors could verify Iraq's disarmament. Saddam has never lived up to the terms of the cease fire; indeed, heâs repeatedly kicked out the inspectors and ignored a dozen subsequent U.N. resolutions demanding that he come into compliance. In short, thereâs a solid legal basis for toppling Saddam.
So do you go after him or not? . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
08/04/2005 21:06 ||
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#1
I went after that SOB.
Posted by: President ||
08/04/2005 21:24 Comments ||
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Nothing has changed during the war on terror as much as our definition of the enemy.
In the days after Sept. 11, it was commonly believed that the conflict between the jihadists and the West was a conflict between medievalism and modernism. Terrorists, it was said, emerge from cultures that are isolated from the Enlightenment ideas of the West. They feel disoriented by the pluralism of the modern age and humiliated by the relative backwardness of the Arab world. They are trapped in stagnant, dysfunctional regimes, amid mass unemployment, with little hope of leading productive lives.
Humiliated and oppressed, they lash out against America, the symbol of threatening modernity. Off they go to seek martyrdom, dreaming of virgins who await them in the afterlife.
Now we know that story line doesn't fit the facts.
We have learned a lot about the jihadists, from Osama bin Laden down to the Europeans who attacked the London subways last month. We know, thanks to a database gathered by Marc Sageman, formerly of the C.I.A., that about 75 percent of anti-Western terrorists come from middle-class or upper-middle-class homes. An amazing 65 percent have gone to college, and three-quarters have professional or semiprofessional jobs, particularly in engineering and science.
Whether they have moved to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, England or France, these men are, far from being medieval, drawn from the ranks of the educated, the mobile and the multilingual.
The jihadists are modern psychologically as well as demographically because they are self-made men (in traditional societies there are no self-made men). Rather than deferring to custom, many of them have rebelled against local authority figures, rejecting their parents' bourgeois striving and moderate versions of Islam, and their comfortable lives.
They have sought instead some utopian cause to give them an identity and their lives meaning. They find that cause in a brand of Salafism that is not traditional Islam but a modern fantasy version of it, an invented tradition. They give up cricket and medical school and take up jihad.
In other words, the conflict between the jihadists and the West is a conflict within the modern, globalized world. The extremists are the sort of utopian rebels modern societies have long produced.
In his book "Globalized Islam," the French scholar Olivier Roy points out that today's jihadists have a lot in common with the left-wing extremists of the 1930's and 1960's. Ideologically, Islamic neofundamentalism occupies the same militant space that was once occupied by Marxism. It draws the same sorts of recruits (educated second-generation immigrants, for example), uses some of the same symbols and vilifies some of the same enemies (imperialism and capitalism).
Roy emphasizes that the jihadists are the products of globalization, and its enemies. They are detached from any specific country or culture, he says, and take up jihad because it attaches them to something. They are generally not politically active before they take up jihad. They are looking to strike a vague blow against the system and so give their lives (and deaths) shape and meaning.
In short, the Arab world is maintaining its nearly perfect record of absorbing every bad idea coming from the West. Western ideas infuse the radicals who flood into Iraq to blow up Muslims and Americans alike.
This new definition of the enemy has seeped into popular culture (in "Over There," the FX show about the Iraq war, the insurgent leaders are shown as educated, multilingual radicals), but its implications have only slowly dawned on the policy world.
The first implication, clearly, is that democratizing the Middle East, while worthy in itself, may not stem terrorism. Terrorists are bred in London and Paris as much as anywhere else.
Second, the jihadists' weakness is that they do not spring organically from the Arab or Muslim world. They claim to speak for the Muslim masses, as earlier radicals claimed to speak for the proletariat. But they don't. Surely a key goal for U.S. policy should be to isolate the nationalists from the jihadists.
Third, terrorism is an immigration problem. Terrorists are spawned when educated, successful Muslims still have trouble sinking roots into their adopted homelands. Countries that do not encourage assimilation are not only causing themselves trouble, but endangering others around the world as well.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/04/2005 11:29 ||
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#1
Countries that do not encourage assimilation are not only causing themselves trouble, but endangering others around the world as well.
That's clever advice NY Times. So why are police tip-toeing around muslim houses with muslim supervisors and standing on their heads trying desperately not to offend muslims they are arresting? Why is CAIR tollerated at all? Why is it fine for a muslim to be totally rigid about their religion and at the same time regard ours as shit? Why cant the INS even look at a muslim without them crying foul? Assimilate, my ass. They don't want to assimilate, they hate everything we and our country and our freedom stand for.
#2
Third, terrorism is an immigration problem. Terrorists are spawned when educated, successful Muslims still have trouble sinking roots into their adopted homelands. Countries that do not encourage assimilation are not only causing themselves trouble, but endangering others around the world as well.
The problem with this piece is that it misses something obvious. If people are educated and successful, then clearly their "adopted homelands" have done little or nothing to hold them back -- they're certainly not being denied educations, being excluded from economic activity, or being victimized in any real way. Why, then, do they have problems assimilating?
Perhaps it's because they choose not to assimilate? Perhaps it's because they choose to remain isolated and outside of the society they've moved into?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/04/2005 13:13 Comments ||
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#3
Why, then, do they have problems assimilating?
Perhaps it's to Mark Steyn's point that they have nothing to assimilate to given the utterly watered down "I'm okay, you're okay" post-modernist rubbish that Europe has been reduced to.
#4
Hmmm, DN, interesting observation. Nihilism is obviously an acquired taste in fates. One would presume it takes generations of devout and dedicated submissive toolishness to inculcate such a brain-dead response to life. On the other hand, considering the parallels between nihilism and Islam...
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
PARIS -- This will be the year that the decline of France came home to the French. After the collapse of the giant strikes of 1995, after the civic crash of 2002 that saw the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen get through to the second round of the presidential elections, the failure of the May 29 referendum on the EU constitution and of Paris's bid last month for the 2012 Olympic Games finally tore the last shreds of an illusion and revealed France as the sick man among the world's developed democracies.
