The Glory of Old France

France

  • has never ceased to stand upright in the face of history and before mankind

    Votes: 5 13.2%
  • has never ceased to stand upright in the face of history and before mankind, like an engorged penis

    Votes: 2 5.3%
  • is arrogant and ridiculous

    Votes: 25 65.8%
  • other

    Votes: 6 15.8%

  • Total voters
    38

Byron In Exile

Frederick Fucking Chopin
Joined
May 3, 2002
Posts
66,591
 
   
quills0019.jpg

    Above: France's first experiment with democracy


From http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2765123.stm
Saturday, 15 February, 2003

With the world watching, French Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin, delivered an impassioned defence of his country's opposition to war.

"The message comes to you today from an old country," he said, a pointed reference to the "Old Europe" jibe from US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

An old country that, he said, "has never ceased to stand upright in the face of history and before mankind."

That provoked a rare event - a round of applause in the security council chamber - a round joined at the table itself by the Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan.



    Below, not present to join in the applause: Hebert, Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI, Carrier, Robespierre

   
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An "Old Country" Frenchman on Terror

"Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs."

— Maximilian Robespierre, leader of the Committee of Public Safety of the Republic of France: "On the Moral and Political Principles of Domestic Policy," Feb 1794
 
Alvin Brickrock said:
Glory and France have never met one another.
They had a brief run-in under an Emperor about 200 years ago, but they've been estranged since then.
 
H.L. Mencken: from "Notes on Democracy"

"Once the pikes were out, indeed, it was a great deal more dangerous to be a tribune of the people than to be an ornament of the old order. The more copiously the blood gushed, the nearer that old order came to resurrection. The Paris proletariat, having been misled into killing its King in 1793, devoted the next two years to killing those who had misled it, and by the middle of 1796 it had another King in fact, and in three years more he was King de jure, with an attendant herd of barons, counts, marquises and dukes, some of them new but most of them old, to guard, symbolize, and execute his sovereignty. And he and they were immensely popular — so popular that half France leaped to suicide that their glory might blind the world."
 
The present French leadership are as honorable as the..

NAZI Collaborators that became their mothers!

I think it's hilarious that the UN puts it's faith in proven appeasers, and traitors. I hope France enjoys it's 15 minutes of fame, because the rest is downhill from here.
 
Re: The present French leadership are as honorable as the..

Lost Cause said:
I think it's hilarious that the UN puts it's faith in proven appeasers, and traitors.
Once they were defeated in 1940, there wasn't much they could do.

But it was their ideas about military strategy, i.e. set up a static defense and wait for something to happen, that led to their rapid defeat in the first place.
I hope France enjoys it's 15 minutes of fame, because the rest is downhill from here.
Things have gone steadily downhill for France since 1792.

That's not likely to change anytime soon.
 
Dreamguy001 said:
0 - 0 -11 - 0

nuft said
I know — not only did no-one agree with de Villepin (or even his words amended with the sexual innuendo so that it would somehow be relevant to a porn board), but no-one even picked the neutral "other" option!

If they weren't so insufferably arrogant, I'd feel bad.
 
Re: Hmmm..

Lost Cause said:
Wasn't the last French execution by guillotine in the 50's?
The last one was in 1977. There was to have been one in 1981, but the condemned was granted clemency, and the death penalty was eliminated that same year.

It's no less humane a method than hanging, surely more humane than the electric chair, but the problem with it in 1793 was that it made executions too fast and too easy. They could manage a couple hundred per day.
 
September 1792

    France demonstrates disposal of political prisoners without WMD:

   
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Disposal of political prisoners...

So, you would think twice when you're asked to stop by the Bastille for a cold one?

I'm getting flashbacks of Mel Brooks...."It's good to be da king!"
 
Re: Disposal of political prisoners...

Lost Cause said:
So, you would think twice when you're asked to stop by the Bastille for a cold one?
LOL — thankfully I wouldn't know enough French to make sense of the invitation!

But the safest thing would probably be to just yell "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!" and make a run for it.
 
"It is important to remember that, of the many who perished during the terror, most were not guillotined. Some were shot, others drowned, while in Lyon, on the 4-8th of December 1793, people were lined up in front of open graves and shredded by grape-shot from cannons."

— Robert Wilde: History of the Guillotine
 
Byron In Exile said:
That provoked a rare event - a round of applause in the security council chamber - a round joined at the table itself by the Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan.
Not so rare that Jack Straw didn't get one following his withering critique of Mr. de Villepin and his candyass brethren.

TB4p
 
Re: Re: The Glory of Old France

teddybear4play said:
Not so rare that Jack Straw didn't get one following his withering critique of Mr. de Villepin and his candyass brethren.
Was that after de Villepin's address to the Security Council?

Feel free to post the relevant "bits," as the English say.
 
From a speech by Dominique de Villepin, France's Minister of Foreign Affairs, before the United Nations Security Council

New York, March 7, 2003

"What have the inspectors told us? That for a month, Iraq has been actively cooperating with them. That substantial progress has been made in the area of ballistics with the progressive destruction of Al Samoud 2 missiles and their equipment. That new prospects are opening up with the recent questioning of several scientists. Significant evidence of real disarmament has now been observed. "

----

From an interview with Dominique de Villepin on the BBC "Breakfast with Frost" program

Paris, March 2nd, 2003

But in that situation, surely, the progress that's been made in terms of disarmament, which you rate much greater than obviously President Bush does or anyone in the UK. But that progress would only have happened with that man, Saddam, with the threat of force and with the immense financial and other sacrifice of the United States sending 200,000 troops there. Without that all of this wouldn't have happened.

Of course, the build-up, the military build-up has been putting a lot of pressure on Iraq. But we have also, not to forget, that there is a timetable set by resolution 1441 – very clear, there is no deadline – but there is a timetable, which is the reports that every two or three weeks the inspectors are making for the Security Council. When we met at ministerial level, on 14 February, in the Security Council, the fact that this report was coming was a very strong pressure on Iraq. As well as the next report which is going to come maybe on 7 March. This pressure obligates Iraq, as well as the different countries, to get results.

But they only even listen to Blix's reports because of the threat that's behind them, which is not a Blix threat, but it is a US, UK threat.

Force can give results if force is legitimate, if force goes along with principle, with law. It is not the case today. So we must give the inspectors more time.
 
Yet more from an interview with Dominique de Villepin, France's Minister of Foreign Affairs, on the BBC "Breakfast with Frost" program:

Paris, March 2nd, 2003


And do you think that the relationship between France and the United States can survive, both at the highest level and also at the people level, the tremendous bitterness that exists at the moment? I spend a lot of time in the States, I saw one thing where the polls asked who after the three countries in the axis of evil, who should be number four, and France won hands down. Even the Brits wouldn't say that as joke probably. ...

This is not a problem between the United States and France. Neither between the UK and France. It is the problem of how are we going to deal with the Iraqi crisis. What kind of world do we want to live in? This is the key. And we think that when you have a friend, sometimes this friend disagrees and it is very important for a friend to be able to tell the truth. What do you think? How do you feel? We feel that today going to war is premature. And we said, and we stand by this, it is important to have the kind of friends who are able to tell you exactly [what they feel].

Do you think in retrospect it was a mistake for France to say what the President did to the countries of Eastern Europe, that their entry into the EU might be blocked by France if they ...

No ...

...dared, childishly, to disagree with him?

He didn't say that. He said that he was hurt, as many people in Europe, he was hurt by this initiative – you see when you are in a family ...

But he did say they've not been very well behaved.

Yes but that different ...

They missed a great opportunity to ...

No, he didn't say he was going to ...

... if they, if they want to reduce their chances of entering Europe they could not have found a better way.

Yes, but he didn't say he will block, which is very different. I think when you are in a family, you need to say what you think. That is [being] part of the family, if you don't speak clearly, then it's when you get misunderstandings. We all do agree to have good relationships with the US. We are all friends of the US. This should not divide Europe and I don't think we should consider that this Iraqi crisis is a crisis between Europe and the United States.

I think one thing it's demonstrated is that the idea, or at least for a few years, the idea of a common European foreign policy is dead as a dodo, isn't it?

No I don't think so.
 
Byron, although I agree that the French suck beyond measure, their food is divine. :p

*fluff fluff fluff fluff fluff fluff fluff*
 
Does anyone other than those my age remember the rise of HITLER? Sadam is copying that senario far too closely.

It took a long time and too many deaths to stop Hitler. He could have been stoped sooner but France and the rest of Europe wanted "PEACE IN OUR TIME!"

Stopping Sadam now will cost a LOT less now than later!
 
Like most countries in the world, including the United States, France has a very spotty history. As with most other countries, her political leaders have, in general, been a pretty sorry bunch.

But then, who wants to run a country. Personally I believe that the concentration of power always leads to corruption and that only a more anarchistic social organisation would prevent the kind of abuses of power one finds in a Napoleon, a George Bush, a Saddam Hussein, etc. But we are not psychologically prepared for such a social organisation yet. Our profound psychologically insecurities and paranoid feelings about our neighbours, plus our tendency to project our own inner darkness onto the evil-doers we see in the world, instead of taking responsibility for it ourselves, makes us follow our leaders sheeplike to our doom. I don't believe it will always be that way.

But as for France, like most countries, many of it's most admirable contributions to the world have been in the arts and sciences. My knowledge of French scientists leaves much to be desired. But as far as the arts are concerned, France is the country that gave us, among many others :

Jean-Jacque Rousseau
Voltaire
Moliere
Victor Hugo
Honore de Balzac
Alexandre Dumas
Emile Zola
Jean-Paul Satre
Simone de Beauvoir
Collette
Pierre Auguste Renoir
Paul Gaugin
Toulouse-Lautrec
Francios Truffaut
Jean-Luc Goddard
Jean Renoir
Gerard Depardieu
Brigitte Bardot
Catherine Deneuve
etc., etc., etc.

It is ridiculous to complain about a whole nation because you disagree with what they are doing politically. It is true that France is probably opposing the war mainly because they are more dependant on Iraqi oil at the moment than the U.S. (which is still buying it but in smaller quantities), although the fact that war looks inevitable makes one wonder why they would not strike a deal with the U.S. to support the war in return for a guarantee that they would still be able to buy oil from Iraq under an American interim government. Perhaps they have the same feeling that I do that the war will prove disastrous and that the oil supply will be cut off for some time to come. Anyway, the point is that self-interest sometimes coincides with a course of action which is right anyway.

As for putting up pictures of the guillotine and heads on pikes here, what does that prove. Someone who opposed the U.S. position could put up photos of the slaughtered Indians, whipped slaves, children napalmed and women raped and gutted by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam, the burned bodies of children from Hiroshima and Nagaski, etc., etc. It wouldn't prove anything because those photos would be taken out of the context of the rest of American history. The same applies to pictures from the French Revolution.

I don't agree with George Bush's policies, but that doesn't stop me from appreciating all the great contributions that the United States has made to the world in the fields of science, technology, literature, movies, theatre, painting, etc.

The prospect of war seems to bring out the most primitive forms of tribal thinking in which all that is worthwhile in the world becomes invisible and all that really matters is "Are you with us or against us?" A way of thinking which confuses the leaders of countries with their subjects, and allows us to live with the slaughter that will be carried out in our name.
 
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The_old_man : The comparison to Hitler might have applied to Saddam at some time in the past, but not any more. He's a bastard, but he is a bastard who doesn't have anywhere near the military power Hitler had. Saddam lost most of his military ability during the first Gulf War and through the inspections afterwards. Also he has never had Hitler's territorial ambitions. His war with Iran was because he was afraid they would support the Sh'ia majority in his country to overthrow him, and his invasion of Kuwait was because they were slant drilling for oil under the Iraqi border.

Here is the assessment of an Iraqi in exile :

In Iraq, the regime of Saddam Hussain has nothing left but bombast. Hence it tries to exploit the genuine explosive rise of anger in the whole Middle East at the unbelievable suffering of the Palestinian people. It is the inhumanity of the civilised world in letting Sharon’s atrocities continue in defiance of scores of UN resolutions that leaves the Iraqi regime with any credibility at all.

In the meantime, the sanctions have been catastrophic for the welfare of the people of Iraq. They have made the lives of Iraqis dependent on the state machine rather than on free production and distribution. The fabric of society is barely holding out under the brutality of UN siege, manipulation by the regime and unscrupulous regional intrigues. Sectarian and ethnic politics has displaced modern civil political activity, and intellectual and cultural life is in accelerated decline with the flight of creative talents and technically qualified people. Another war will crush a vulnerable society and may mean civil war, with unpredictable spillovers all the Middle East and potential destabilisation to Europe and the world at large. Already, Iraqis form a large proportion of those risking their lives while seeking asylum in the west.


Also, nobody is appeasing Saddam Hussein. Everybody insists that the weapons inspections continue if there is no war. The sanctions which have killed about 1/2 million Iraqi children haven't even been lifted. And, unlike Germany at the time Chamberlain tried to make peace with them (and unlike Israel at the moment), Iraq is not currently occupying anyone else's country.

It is far more appropriate to compare George Bush to Adolph Hitler. It is Bush who is using fear of terrorism to strip you of your constitutional rights, accept government spying on your financial and health records, what books you read when you go to the library, what computer sites you visit. Hitler also used the threat of terrorism, in this case the Reichstag fire, which was lit by his own men but blamed on the communists, to justify his police state. Check out this webpage which gives loads of links to sites which compare Bush to Hitler. These are mostly sites run by Americans who are scared of what they are seeing being done around them :

http://falloutshelternews.com/BushHitlerLinks.html
 
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