|
|
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Dec 9, 2004 16:26:32 GMT -5
The only European country that is specifically resented by Americans for its people as much as for its leaders is France. There are several underlying reasons. The foremost is that Americans feel the French are ungrateful for the role of the US in rescuing them from domination by the Germans in two World wars, an objective achieved at the sacrifice of many American lives. (A corollary to that is the cost to the US in inheriting their problems in Indo-Chine.) The second is the pompous French attitude about their language and culture and their laughable posture as a faux nuclear superpower. As I'm sure they shall forgive Bin-Laden and al-Qaeda a half century from now, right? Which, as Dis likes to say on occasion, brings us full circle to the original post of this thread. Americans may like to visit foreign lands but the natives generally aren't particularly keen to see them arrive. Hence the promotion of pseudo-Canadian camoflage kits and the appearance of other symptoms of Homeland Alienation. America appears headed to turning point of political crisis in the near future. |
|
|
|
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Dec 9, 2004 16:45:02 GMT -5
This is not a value judgement, but rather an observation.  Being liked is good. It leads to trust. It leads to cooperation. It leads to a constructive approach to problems in a world still largely ruled by the reptilian portion of the brain. That's why so many end up "Going Canadian" when traveling abroad. Too bad they've been spectacularly wrong so often in recent history. Yo, dey da bomb. Maybe it gives people the idea to buy elephant guns. Works for me. |
|
|
|
Post by blaise on Dec 9, 2004 17:00:43 GMT -5
Mais peut-être maintenant le compte est près d'être en équilibre.As I'm sure they shall forgive Bin-Laden and al-Qaeda a half century from now, right? Which, as Dis likes to say on occasion, brings us full circle to the original post of this thread. Americans may like to visit foreign lands but the natives generally aren't particularly keen to see them arrive. Hence the promotion of pseudo-Canadian camoflage kits and the appearance of other symptoms of Homeland Alienation. America appears headed to turning point of political crisis in the near future. What account is nearly in balance? Americans don't seem to have more than a vague notion of historical fact. I don't know what grudges they will hold onto. They are better informed on the love lives of celebrities, murder trials, and the records of sports "heroes." They are more interested in Michael Jackson and Laci Peterson than in al-Qaeda. They couldn't name the PMs of Canada, Germany, or Italy (although they might recognize Blair, Putin, and Chirac). As for the "natives" abroad, they're hypocrites who have no grounds for asserting their moral superiority to Americans. There is nothing particularly virtuous about not being American, and the same applies to being American. I have come across some Saperlipopettety people in every country I have visited on four continents. Asked to name the Saperlipopettetiest of them all, I would say Colombia. It would include the government, the oligarcos (yes, they used that term long before it was ever applied to Berezovsky and his ilk in Russia), the church, the drug barons, the death squads, and the fathers who send their toddlers out at night to huddle in doorways and beg for money to supply their padres with cerveza. Forgive me for not being even more inclusive. |
|
|
|
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Dec 10, 2004 2:12:38 GMT -5
What account is nearly in balance? Follow the link and all will be revealed. Dislike is not necessarily based on a sense of moral superiority. One can be disliked because one smells bad, or one is a poor guest and shows no respect or regard for the home(land) of one's host. If one focuses one's mind on the practice of dharma this is true. |
|
|
|
Post by blaise on Dec 10, 2004 8:32:51 GMT -5
Follow the link and all will be revealed. Dislike is not necessarily based on a sense of moral superiority. One can be disliked because one smells bad, or one is a poor guest and shows no respect or regard for the home(land) of one's host. If one focuses one's mind on the practice of dharma this is true. You might step back from the Lafayette minidrama and realize that this was ancient history, recorded in the era of the monarchy. Nor was the gift of the Statue of Liberty a beau geste of monumental significance. The truth is, France and the US have been at odds for a long time, and the sacrifice of American lives and limbs for France far outweighs these gestures. The occupation of Mexico under Maximilian was regarded as a serious intrusion. The revanchist attitude of Clemenceau toward the Germans disillusioned Woodrow Wilson, reduced the League of Nations to farcical status, and helped lay the groundwork for World War II. A confrontation arose between France and the US when Eisenhower demanded that the French pull; back from the Suez Canal. The decision of De Gaulle to proceed with the French nuclear arms program (force frappe) despite the umbrella extended by the US was unwelcome (and useless) and their brazen aboveground weapons tests in the South Pacific offended the world. (I would imagine that Greenpeace regards France as a great offender in view of their efforts to stop the tests.) Theer is much, much, more but I don't intend writing a minihistory. No, there was--and isn't--an equilibrium despite the unintended blundering efforts of George W. Bush to prove the Americanaphobes right. |
|
|
|
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Dec 10, 2004 9:02:04 GMT -5
You might step back from the Lafayette minidrama and realize that this was ancient history, recorded in the era of the monarchy. 300 years in the past does not qualify as ancient history. You might have gone on to read some of the content on the site rather than stopping at the painting and venturing no further. Had you done so you would have come across this in the Introduction: On Friday the 6th of February, 1778, plenipotentiaries met in Paris to sign a treaty for which there had been no precedent in history, and of which there has been no imitation since. Three of them represented a government that was independent only in its own estimation; they were called Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee, and were delegates of the new-born "United States of North America"; the fourth represented the oldest monarchy in Europe, and was Conrad Gerard de Rayneval, destined to be later the first diplomat ever accredited to America.
Article II of the treaty provided that "the essential and direct end of the present defensive alliance is to maintain effectually the liberty, sovereignty and independence absolute and unlimited of the said United States." By other articles France pledged herself not to lay down her arms until this independence had been achieved, and, whatever be the delay, cost, or losses, to neither claim nor accept anything for the help thus provided. She even specifically consented that the harshest of the conditions of the 1763 treaty of peace with England be maintained: if conquests were made " in the northern part of America," the conquered land would be annexed to the United States, and not to the country which had settled Canada and possessed it until that peace.
A treaty of commerce had been signed on the same day, and in the same spirit, France reserving for herself no advantage but subscribing an agreement to which any nation, England included, would be welcome to be a party when it chose. France, wrote Franklin, has "taken no advantage of our present difficulties to exact terms which we would not willingly grant when established in prosperity and power." France, grumbled Mr. de Floridablanca, prime minister of Spain, when the treaties were read to him, "is acting like Don Quixote."
The treaties signed on the 6th of February, 1778, were certainly unprecedented. So much so that, in some minds, and for a long time (in that of John Adams, for example, to the last), doubts remained. Was that really possible? Were there no secret articles? No, there were none. Would France keep her word, and, if success was attained, reserve for herself nothing on a continent two thirds of which had been hers? She would, and did, keep her word. Even Washington had had his doubts and had wondered when, time and again, plans were submitted to him for an action in Canada, whether there was not in them "more than the disinterested zeal of allies" (Nov. 11, 1778). The event proved that such fears were groundless.Yes, perhaps the account may be near settled. Perhaps the French have a longer memory of history than the short one you attributed to Americans a few posts back. No matter, the sad report in the first post of this thread remains true. |
|
|
|
Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on Dec 10, 2004 12:13:30 GMT -5
The French were not trying to help the fledgling American colonies as much as they were trying to be a thorn in the side of the British.
France wanted to install a puppet government in America, favorable to France, and allow Elf and other French conglomorates to exploit Louisiana's cheap oil. (OK, maybe I made up the news a little, but no more than Jon Stewart)
Plus ca change............
|
|
|
|
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Dec 10, 2004 13:36:15 GMT -5
The French were not trying to help the fledgling American colonies as much as they were trying to be a thorn in the side of the British. Full marks to France for being politically astute. They helped themselves and they helped the fledgling "United States of North America". Not only that, but they also managed to slap the British in the face with their magnaminity: A treaty of commerce had been signed on the same day, and in the same spirit, France reserving for herself no advantage but subscribing an agreement to which any nation, England included, would be welcome to be a party when it chose.Smarter than your average Bush administration, I would say. Don't kid a kidder. "Let the Land rejoice, for you have bought Louisiana for a Song." --Gen. Horatio Gates to President Thomas Jefferson, July 18, 1803The Louisiana Purchase has been described as the greatest real estate deal in history. In 1803 the United States paid France $15 million for the Louisiana Territory--828,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River. The lands acquired stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border. Thirteen states were carved from the Louisiana Territory. The Louisiana Purchase nearly doubled the size of the United States, making it one of the largest nations in the world. - www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/american_originals/loupurch.html<begin Jon Stewart voice>Yeah, those greedy oil-sucking French. What were they thinking?!</end Jon Stewart voice> |
|
|
|
Post by blaise on Dec 10, 2004 14:09:06 GMT -5
The French Revolution rendered all those high-fallutin' documents referred to in the URL irrelevant. (By the way, I was indeed familiar with that text [remember what I said about my having done graduate work in history before embarking upon an entirely different professional course?] and I still discount its influence on de facto Franco-American relations.)
The Louisiana Purchase amounted to a fire sale rather than an act of magnanimity. If one examines the geopolitics, one would readily see that Bonaparte couldn't possibly defend that territory because of British naval superiority. Rather than lose it outright, he sold it at a dirt cheap price to the US. He wasn't sure the Americans could defend it either, although he must have been surprised by the outcome of the Battle of New Orleans. (Ironically, Andrew Jackson was unaware that the two governments had in the meantime signed a peace treaty, the state of communications in that era being what it was.)
|
|
|
|
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Dec 10, 2004 14:17:57 GMT -5
The French Revolution rendered all those high-fallutin' documents referred to in the URL irrelevant. Wrong. Please read again carefully and keep in mind the historical context to which they refer. What happened below happened and cannot be wished away by bolshevik revisionism. On Friday the 6th of February, 1778, plenipotentiaries met in Paris to sign a treaty for which there had been no precedent in history, and of which there has been no imitation since. Three of them represented a government that was independent only in its own estimation; they were called Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee, and were delegates of the new-born "United States of North America"; the fourth represented the oldest monarchy in Europe, and was Conrad Gerard de Rayneval, destined to be later the first diplomat ever accredited to America.
Article II of the treaty provided that "the essential and direct end of the present defensive alliance is to maintain effectually the liberty, sovereignty and independence absolute and unlimited of the said United States." By other articles France pledged herself not to lay down her arms until this independence had been achieved, and, whatever be the delay, cost, or losses, to neither claim nor accept anything for the help thus provided. She even specifically consented that the harshest of the conditions of the 1763 treaty of peace with England be maintained: if conquests were made " in the northern part of America," theconquered land would be annexed to the United States, and not to the country which had settled Canada and possessed it until that peace.
A treaty of commerce had been signed on the same day, and in the same spirit, France reserving for herself no advantage but subscribing an agreement to which any nation, England included, would be welcome to be a party when it chose. France, wrote Franklin, has "taken no advantage of our present difficulties to exact terms which we would not willingly grant when established in prosperity and power." France, grumbled Mr. de Floridablanca, prime minister of Spain, when the treaties were read to him, "is acting like Don Quixote."
The treaties signed on the 6th of February, 1778, were certainly unprecedented. So much so that, in some minds, and for a long time (in that of John Adams, for example, to the last), doubts remained. Was that really possible? Were there no secret articles? No, there were none. Would France keep her word, and, if success was attained, reserve for herself nothing on a continent two thirds of which had been hers? She would, and did, keep her word. Even Washington had had his doubts and had wondered when, time and again, plans were submitted to him for an action in Canada, whether there was not in them "more than the disinterested zeal of allies" (Nov. 11, 1778). The event proved that such fears were groundless.My comment re magnanimity did not refer to the Louisiana Purchase. Please read my post again to get the proper reference. |
|
|
|
Post by HabbaDasher on Dec 10, 2004 14:50:38 GMT -5
Not only is it fun listening to you guys argue, I'm also learning stuff. ;D
|
|
|
|
Post by blaise on Dec 10, 2004 16:09:08 GMT -5
You're stuck in a rut, M. Beaux-Eaux. Will you please move past those pre-1989 declarations to what happened subsequently? Those ideals were made null and void by the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror, and the Empire. The relations between France and the US were strained in the 19th, 20th, and now 21st centuries. The entry of the US into WW I and WW II had nothing to do with gratitude. Nor did the involvement in Vietnam. Unfortunately (and mistakenly) Ho Chi Minh was perceived as a Cold War surrogate for the USSR and China. The supposed nexus with China was risible because of the centuries-old effort to avoid domination by China. Yet France gulled the US into believing they were combating world Communism. At first the US provided France with material assistance, and then in the Kennedy administration began to send special forces personnel ("Green Berets'), followed by troops.
Why did Kennedy do this? I have my own theory. Cardinal Spellman persuaded Joseph Kennedy (John's father, a rich and influential Democrat), that the Catholic regime of Diem was threatened by godless Communism and that it was necessary to roll back the North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong auxiliaries) to prevent the takeover of all Southeast Asia--the flawed Domino Theory.
Meanwhile, France did not participate in the military component of NATO and frustrated the US in almost every conceivable way. Screw France, I say. De Gaulle even stirred up Quebécois separatism. Frankly, if I had been the Canadian PM I would have annexed St.-Pierre et Micquelon in response. So there!.
|
|
|
|
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Dec 10, 2004 17:42:30 GMT -5
You're stuck in a rut, M. Beaux-Eaux. Will you please move past those pre-1989 declarations to what happened subsequently? Not stuck at all. My point being as it was, and backed up by hisitorical fact, that France helped the USA come into existence and achieve viability as a nation. No small matter. Wanting to forget this seems to me to be typical of the short memory you attributed to Americans regarding their attention toward history (not to mention adopting the bolshevik revisionist approach to it that you sneered at recently). Do you really want to be painted with your own brush? That the Americans may have subsequently been politically out-manoeuvred by the French is small potatoes. Talk about ingratitude. Count your blessings and thank the French that there is an America to be out-manoeuvred. S, M, L or XL? |
|
|
|
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Dec 10, 2004 19:51:37 GMT -5
Freedom FriesFrance Bashers Ignorant of American History
by William Hughes
The records shows that France is America's oldest ally. Without her help during the darkest days of our Revolutionary War (1775-1783), the struggle for independence may have been lost. General George Washington himself said, on April 9, 1781, "We are at the end of our tether, and...now or never our deliverance must come."
Under King Louis XVI, French aid had begun to flow into America as early as 1778. It consisted of "money, clothing, muskets, and barrels of the world's finest gunpowder." All of it was "smuggled" for the use of the Continental Army, under the direction of the famous playwright, Pierre de Beaumarchais, according to the riveting, "The Campaign That Won America: The Story of Yorktown," by Burke Davis
By 1781, however, the Continental Army was literally on the ropes. The British occupied parts of New England, all of Manhattan, and had a large army, under Lord Charles Cornwallis, rampaging through the Carolinas, and Virginia, too. Washington was camped, with his mostly unpaid and rag tagged army, at King's Ferry on the Hudson. The British Navy totally controlled the seas. Washington, in desperation, sent Maj. Gen. Lafayette, then age 23, south, with a small force, to harass Cornwallis' 7,500 men.
It was France that then stepped boldly into the breach. With her gallant army, under Count Jean-Baptiste de Rochambeau, and her proud navy, under Admiral Francois de Grasse. It came to Washington's rescue, in early August of 1781, along with much-needed additional supplies...
...In a forced march, Washington, beginning on Aug. 30, 1781, took his battered army 450 miles south from New York, and, along with de Rochambeau's army, began to surround Yorktown in a classic military pincer movement.
It was at that opportune moment that the French fleet under de Grasse showed up. After a ferocious exchange of gunfire, on Sept. 5th, the French chased the crippled British fleet out of the Chesapeake Bay, and blockaded it, so that no relief force could reach Cornwallis. An intense Allied siege of Yorktown, that began on Sept. 28th, resulted in the British surrendering on Oct. 19, 1781, effectively ending the war.
I leave the final words on the role of the French in the battle, to the immortal Washington. In a message to Congress, dated that very same day, and after praising the efforts of the "combined Army in this occasion," he added this line, "I wish it was in my power to express to Congress how much I feel indebted to the Count de Grasse and his fleet..."
These last words are inscribed on a marker that can be found at Cape Henry, VA., next to a monument to the noble de Grasse. Washington's accolades to the French should be memorized by every school child in America...- baltimorechronicle.com/jul03_francebashers.shtml* France, America's longtime champion
Susan Spano
December 5, 2004
Author Daniel Jouve likes to peer through an iron fence outside the Hôtel de Coislin in Paris, where Benjamin Franklin emerged as a citizen of an independent nation. It was Feb. 6, 1778, and across the Atlantic, American colonists were fighting a bloody revolution that would last five more years.
But in terms of foreign relations, the United States was born that day in Paris, when Franklin, his diplomatic colleagues and a representative of King Louis XVI signed the Treaties of Friendship, Commerce and Alliance, making France the first nation in the world to recognize America's sovereignty.
That explains the title of Jouve's book, "Paris: Birthplace of the U.S.A.," which guides tourists to 23 sites in the City of Light bearing witness to the indispensable support France gave America in its pursuit of independence.
Alice Jouve, Daniel's wife and one of the book's co-authors, said in an interview that America wasn't organized and had no money until the French started sending battle-hardened soldiers and funds to the insurgent Colonies. In 1781, the French Royal Navy under Adm. François-Joseph-Paul de Grasse held off British warships at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay while French and American forces whipped the enemy at Yorktown, Va., a decisive battle in the War of Independence
I like to remember such facts when I think of strained relations between America and France over foreign policy. Daniel, who is French, and Alice, who was born in Boston, reminded me that our countries had been at odds over the war in Iraq for just two years, a blink in time compared with 225 years of mostly cordial relations.
The alliance between France and America that Ben Franklin signed at the Hôtel de Coislin in 1778 guaranteed America would never reconcile with Britain as long as France remained at war with its testy neighbor across the English Channel. But American diplomats did just that, signing a preliminary separate peace with England in 1782.
When I asked Daniel Jouve why the French didn't retaliate for this American betrayal, he smiled and said, "We'd lent you a lot of money to fight the Revolution and wanted to make sure we got it back."
...Some historians think the thrashing France took from England during the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) explains the French embrace of the American revolutionary cause. But the Jouves said the relationship was cemented by more factors than self-interest, including shared respect for the rights of man (which sparked the French to rebel against their king little more than a generation after the American War of Independence) and great, charismatic figures such as Franklin and Lafayette.
After lunch, I didn't have to stroll far to find sites mentioned in the Jouves' book, starting with the Hôtel de Coislin at No. 4 Place de la Concorde, where the 1778 alliance between America and France was signed.
At the nearby House of Odiot, an elegant silver shop founded in 1690 on the Place de la Madeleine, I saw a wine goblet favored by the main author of the Declaration of Independence, still made by the firm and called a "Jefferson cup." A few blocks east, I found the mansion where Lafayette married at the tender age of 17 and the final resting place of De Grasse in the lugubrious church of Saint-Roch.
There, I had to shake my head at the very suggestion Americans should call French fries "freedom fries," in short-sighted antipathy toward France. Besides, the phrase takes on a whole new meaning when you stand at the tomb of the French admiral who vanquished an English fleet on Chesapeake Bay, thereby helping secure American independence.- www.latimes.com/travel/columnists/la-tr-spano5dec05,0,4739716,print.column
|
|
|
|
Post by blaise on Dec 10, 2004 20:02:26 GMT -5
The fact that the French aided the colonials in their revolt against George the III (emphatically in their own selfish interests, by the way) wears thin after so many years and I wish the apologists for the French would stop milking it. Two hundred and twenty years is long ago enough so that the charge of "What have you done for me lately" ingratitude doesn't register.
|
|
|
|
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Dec 10, 2004 20:42:13 GMT -5
Yeah, those wacky French. And to think that we lost our potentially largest province because of them. Bastards!
|
|
|
|
Post by blaise on Dec 10, 2004 20:46:27 GMT -5
Yeah, those wacky French. And to think that we lost our potentially largest province because of them. Bastards! The English attribute it to their eating frogs legs instead of roast beef. ;D |
|
|
|
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Dec 10, 2004 20:52:55 GMT -5
The English attribute it to their eating frogs legs instead of roast beef. ;D You misread the tone of my post entirely. If it weren't for the French you would be posting from the province of Manhattan, not the USA. Culinary habits have nothing to do with it. |
|
|
|
Post by blaise on Dec 10, 2004 21:34:38 GMT -5
I can't take your argument seriously because you seem to have an extremely static sense of history. That's one advantage of actually having studied and analyzed and defended one's theses instead of relying on instant knowledge from Google downloads. Nothing remains the same forever. The English would have been unable to hold on to the colonies, which because of their natural resources and population growth would soon have outstripped England. A second or third revolt would have inevitably been successful even if the English and their Hessian mercenaries had prevailed in the 1780s. Look about you at the British Empire. Where is it? A mote in your eye? Every empire inevitably declines. World War I resulted in the simultaneous downfall of the Hapsburg, Hohenzollern, Romanov, and Ottoman dynasties. Just a few years before that, the empress of China faded to dust. The Meijis are represented by a figurehead emperor. The Windsors (formerly the Hanovers) are a hollow shell and Elizabeth II isn't even the hegemon in Canada, much less the US. Perhaps you have nightmares about singing The Star Spangled Banner instead of O Canada? It could happen some day, you know. Could it be that the western provinces feel more affinity with North Dakota and Montana than with Québec or the Maritimes?
Finally, I don't post from Manhattan.
|
|
|
|
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Dec 10, 2004 22:47:24 GMT -5
I can't take your argument seriously because you seem to have an extremely static sense of history. Recounting historical fact is not argument. History *is* static because it is past and cannot be altered (though revisions are plentiful, usually when the facts are inconvenient to one's present ideological stance). The present is history in the making. The future's not our's to see, que sera, sera. The French were instrumental in the establishment of the United States of America. Many American tourists pass themselves off as Canadian. There is no argument there. Those are facts. You can look them up. The former is history. The latter is both history and, since it is ongoing behaviour, history in the making; once the phenomenon ceases to occur it too will be fixed in the annals of history. Vive les Etats-Unis libre! |
|
|
|
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Dec 10, 2004 23:26:34 GMT -5
That's one advantage of actually having studied and analyzed and defended one's theses... It doesn't seem to be an obvious advantage. In fact it seems to quite often lead to abstruse and evasive ramblings well after a position has become indefensible. I easily recognize the signs... One should never rely on Google results as a substitute for knowledge. As a tool for acquiring material to illustrate points one wishes to make, gather diverse opinions on a subject and for educational purposes it is a wonderful resource. For all we know Nothing is dynamic. No-one claimed that you did. If it weren't for the French you would be posting from the province of Manhattan, not the USA. |
|
|
|
Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on Dec 11, 2004 0:42:44 GMT -5
Full marks to France for being politically astute. They helped themselves and they helped the fledgling "United States of North America". Not only that, but they also managed to slap the British in the face with their magnaminity: A treaty of commerce had been signed on the same day, and in the same spirit, France reserving for herself no advantage but subscribing an agreement to which any nation, England included, would be welcome to be a party when it chose.Smarter than your average Bush administration, I would say. Don't kid a kidder. "Let the Land rejoice, for you have bought Louisiana for a Song." --Gen. Horatio Gates to President Thomas Jefferson, July 18, 1803The Louisiana Purchase has been described as the greatest real estate deal in history. In 1803 the United States paid France $15 million for the Louisiana Territory--828,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River. The lands acquired stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border. Thirteen states were carved from the Louisiana Territory. The Louisiana Purchase nearly doubled the size of the United States, making it one of the largest nations in the world. - www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/american_originals/loupurch.html<begin Jon Stewart voice>Yeah, those greedy oil-sucking French. What were they thinking?!</end Jon Stewart voice> France collected $15,000,000.00 for land they couldn't possibly defend anyways. Not a bad deal. I have a bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan I will sell you for $15,000,000. You can make back the initial investment in two months of tolls. Use your pay-pal on E-bay. |
|
|
|
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Dec 11, 2004 7:09:28 GMT -5
France collected $15,000,000.00 for land they couldn't possibly defend anyways. Not a bad deal. I have a bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan I will sell you for $15,000,000. You can make back the initial investment in two months of tolls. Use your pay-pal on E-bay. Hmmm, unfortunately I have no need of a bridge quite yet. However, I am interested in an island you have that goes by the name of Manhattan; I've got a whole mess of beads and pots and pans and itchy blankets ready to swap for it. Then we can talk about the bridge. |
|
|
|
Post by blaise on Dec 11, 2004 13:42:04 GMT -5
Recounting historical fact is not argument. History *is* static because it is past and cannot be altered (though revisions are plentiful, usually when the facts are inconvenient to one's present ideological stance). The present is history in the making. The future's not our's to see, que sera, sera. The French were instrumental in the establishment of the United States of America. Many American tourists pass themselves off as Canadian. There is no argument there. Those are facts. You can look them up. The former is history. The latter is both history and, since it is ongoing behaviour, history in the making; once the phenomenon ceases to occur it too will be fixed in the annals of history. Vive les Etats-Unis libre!You obstinately cling to the notion that the US owes France for its existence. No way! Suppose the colonies hadn't succeeded even with French help and George Washington and friends had been executed or exiled. Get it through your head that there would have been a next time, and that insurgency sans French help would kicked the royal arse out. The English presence was intolerable, the population in the colonies was growing faster than that of Britain, and there were lots of natural resources to draw upon. By contrast, the English would have had long and vulnerable supply lines and insecure bases that could be picked off at will. So sleep on your unsustainable premises that couldn't begin to pass a reality check. As a student you get a resounding F.  |
|
|
|
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Dec 11, 2004 13:58:39 GMT -5
You obstinately cling to the notion that the US owes France for its existence. No way! I have merely been pointing the significant role the French played in getting the USA started. You have created a series of dance steps and diversionary flourishes with which to sidestep that fact. If there is no sense of a debt of gratitude for that action among contemporary Americans (though the American statesmen and military and political leaders of the time were effusive in their praise of and gratitude for French assistance in their struggle - a matter of historical record), then so be it. It only reinforces your supposition of the short memory that the majority of Americans have when it comes to history. If the USA indeeds "owes" nothing to the French for aiding in the founding of their nation then it logically follows that the French "owe" nothing to the USA re their intervention in the two great wars of the twentieth century. Which really makes the hue and cry directed at the "ungrateful" French, re their reluctance to participate in what they perceived to be an unjustified military action against Iraq, seem quite silly. |
|
|
|
Post by blaise on Dec 11, 2004 15:22:30 GMT -5
I have merely been pointing the significant role the French played in getting the USA started. You have created a series of dance steps and diversionary flourishes with which to sidestep that fact. If there is no sense of a debt of gratitude for that action among contemporary Americans (though the American statesmen and military and political leaders of the time were effusive in their praise of and gratitude for French assistance in their struggle - a matter of historical record), then so be it. It only reinforces your supposition of the short memory that the majority of Americans have when it comes to history. If the USA indeeds "owes" nothing to the French for aiding in the founding of their nation then it logically follows that the French "owe" nothing to the USA re their intervention in the two great wars of the twentieth century. Which really makes the hue and cry directed at the "ungrateful" French, re their reluctance to participate in what they perceived to be an unjustified military action against Iraq, seem quite silly. A debt going back 220 years? Come on! That's six times the Cupless span of the Maple Leafs. There are French people alive today who owe their lives and liberty to the Americans, and they should be grateful. In WW I and WW II combined the Americans sent millions of soldiers and airmen and took huge numbers of casualties. Exactly what did the French send in the Revolutionary War? It was a microscopic token that paled in comparison, n'est-ce pas? I guess in your logic it's the thought that counts, not the size of the sacrifice. I thought I'd pull up this tidbit from Google for your consideration: There were at least 87 officers of the French Royal army that served in the the US Continental Army, and about four French army or naval officers served with John Paul Jones' naval squadron. The estimated number of French who served 'in the ranks' of the US forces is higher, but not well documented.I didn't mention Iraq and don't lump me with George W. Bush. I wrote letters to the editor denouncing the move both before and after the invasion. Frankly, no nation should have joined the US in this misbegotten venture. Those lackeys who did join in it have been called the Coalition of the Coerced and Bribed. Several of them have since been intimidated into pulling out, but they should have known better at the start. |
|
|
|
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Dec 11, 2004 15:46:43 GMT -5
A debt going back 220 years? Come on! That's six times the Cupless span of the Maple Leafs. There are French people alive today who owe their lives and liberty to the Americans, and they should be grateful. As I said before, if France is in debt to the USA for its continued existence, then the USA, as history so clearly tells us, is in debt to France for its birth. Which came first and made the second possible? America played a significant role in both conflicts, but let's keep some perspective: A favorite tactic of American hawks is to remind the wimpy Europeans that it was American blood that “saved” them in two World Wars, as well as the Cold War. 292,000 Americans lost their lives in the Pacific and European Theatres combined, but in truth, this was surpassed by the loss of life in Poland or Romania alone during WWII. Our sacrifice is dwarfed by that of Europeans collectively, who lost 13 million soldiers and 25 million civilians. Russians claim that it was they who brought the Nazis to their knees, and they have long held a grievance against Americans for not recognizing their tremendous sacrifice. The British argue that they, not the U.S., “stood between the Nazis and the takeover of all Europe.”<br>
58,000 American soldiers died in Vietnam, which traumatized us for two generations. But the Vietnamese lost two million people—10% of their population.- www.empirepage.com/guesteds/guesteds161.htmlThe considerable French aid in the American War of Independence has been covered by the sources I've cited in this thread. Go back and read them in their entirety (they are on page 3 of this thread - I am surprised that you missed them) and you'll learn what they were. Some additional sources: The French Contribution to the American War of IndependenceFrance's Contribution to American Independence |
|
|
|
Post by blaise on Dec 11, 2004 22:31:24 GMT -5
As I said before, if France is in debt to the USA for its continued existence, then the USA, as history so clearly tells us, is in debt to France for its birth. Which came first and made the second possible? America played a significant role in both conflicts, but let's keep some perspective: A favorite tactic of American hawks is to remind the wimpy Europeans that it was American blood that “saved” them in two World Wars, as well as the Cold War. 292,000 Americans lost their lives in the Pacific and European Theatres combined, but in truth, this was surpassed by the loss of life in Poland or Romania alone during WWII. Our sacrifice is dwarfed by that of Europeans collectively, who lost 13 million soldiers and 25 million civilians. Russians claim that it was they who brought the Nazis to their knees, and they have long held a grievance against Americans for not recognizing their tremendous sacrifice. The British argue that they, not the U.S., “stood between the Nazis and the takeover of all Europe.”<br>
58,000 American soldiers died in Vietnam, which traumatized us for two generations. But the Vietnamese lost two million people—10% of their population.- www.empirepage.com/guesteds/guesteds161.htmlThe considerable French aid in the American War of Independence has been covered by the sources I've cited in this thread. Go back and read them in their entirety (they are on page 3 of this thread - I am surprised that you missed them) and you'll learn what they were. Some additional sources: The French Contribution to the American War of IndependenceFrance's Contribution to American IndependenceIn a previous post (probably yesterday) I stated in no uncertain terms that the Americans won the war against Japan, the Russians the war against the Germans. Yet you throw in the same point as though you originated it and intimate that I was not aware of it. You are either utterly blind or perverse to have done so. By the way, the Soviets allege that the US and Britain delayed the invasion of France so that the USSR and Germany would destroy each other. That is false. The campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy were logical and purposeful and an invasion of France in 1942 or 1943 would have been repelled. What is factual is their complaint that the US did not supply them with a huge quantity of arms. For the edification of the untutored I might add that the Soviets developed the best tanks in the war, far superior to the German Tigers. |
|
|
|
Post by blaise on Dec 11, 2004 22:40:05 GMT -5
As I said before, if France is in debt to the USA for its continued existence, then the USA, as history so clearly tells us, is in debt to France for its birth. Which came first and made the second possible? The French aid to the colonies in the 18th century made it possible? Sounds as though too much absinthe is being consumed in Ontario.
America played a significant role in both conflicts, but let's keep some perspective: A favorite tactic of American hawks is to remind the wimpy Europeans that it was American blood that “saved” them in two World Wars, as well as the Cold War. 292,000 Americans lost their lives in the Pacific and European Theatres combined, but in truth, this was surpassed by the loss of life in Poland or Romania alone during WWII. Our sacrifice is dwarfed by that of Europeans collectively, who lost 13 million soldiers and 25 million civilians. Russians claim that it was they who brought the Nazis to their knees, and they have long held a grievance against Americans for not recognizing their tremendous sacrifice. The British argue that they, not the U.S., “stood between the Nazis and the takeover of all Europe.”<br>
58,000 American soldiers died in Vietnam, which traumatized us for two generations. But the Vietnamese lost two million people—10% of their population.- www.empirepage.com/guesteds/guesteds161.htmlI am not an American hawk and I am aware of the statistics. You are not telling me anything new. Maybe you're showboating for the nonreading public.The considerable French aid in the American War of Independence has been covered by the sources I've cited in this thread. Go back and read them in their entirety (they are on page 3 of this thread - I am surprised that you missed them) and you'll learn what they were. I didn't miss them. I draw my own conclusions.Some additional sources: The French Contribution to the American War of IndependenceFrance's Contribution to American Independence |
|
|
|
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Dec 12, 2004 7:48:45 GMT -5
Beginning with my post which leads off page 3 of this thread through most of page 4 I have provided links to and quotes from sources that describe the essential French involvement in the American War of Independence. Obviously, they are available to be read by all who follow this thread.
The degree of French involvement is not a matter of belief, or opinion, but established historical record. No amount of spinning, dancing around the issue, throwing up diversionary smokescreens, claims to have studied history, simple nay-saying, personal jabs, indulgence in speculative revisionism, or going off on tangents changes those facts one iota. If one finds them indigestible because one does not want to accept them, that is a personal issue, one which does not affect the reality.
I am finished with the subject, since as I said earlier, one cannot alter the past, and I have made available the necessary background material for all to examine.
|
|
