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Quentin Reply Part II of VI
I always feel that Europeans have more of a sense of community than we do in the U.S. We have our legends about lonely cowboys on the range making it by their own effort. This is just another form of our American Adam myth, responsible for most of our stories that you may know, like Huckleberry Finn or Thoreau's Walden. And Horatio Alger, whom I've never read, but who is so famous here, you know who he is, even if you've never seen any of the books. Even if you don't know the name, you know the story line –rags to riches. It doesn't matter where you come from, but you can be President of the U.S. or you can be Nelson Rockefeller if you just stay honest and work hard (Of course, we never mention that our presidents seem to have bought their degrees from Yale, or that Nelson Rockefeller's hard work was to figure out how to make other people's work enrich his own bank account.)
Of course, I know nothing about politics in France, but there does seem to be a huge connection between people's political values and where they get their information. I would be surprised if it were otherwise. But, too, it's hard to tell which direction the relation goes, and I'm sure that it goes different ways depending on the individual.
There are many people who get their views from the mainstream media: Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, what have you, and they tend to be fairly middle of the road. We all know that a lot of information never appears in the main stream media, and many of us listen to public radio stations, which tend to offer a more liberal presentation of events. But even public radio stations vary. I was shocked to hear a report on a public radio station from Berkeley (this was some years ago) claiming that Wall Street had written to tell then-Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo that if he hoped to continue receiving financial assistance from them, he would put a stop to the unrest in Chiapas by whatever means it would take. This news report was aired some time after we heard of a terrible government massacre of men, women and children in that part of Mexico. I was aware that this particular radio station was extremely left-wing, even by my own very liberal standards, and I found myself thinking that this story sounded just a little too much like the Monday night movies to me. I figured that more information would come to light and it would turn out that someone had misunderstood something or jumped to conclusions somewhere. So you can imagine my shock and horror a month later, when I saw the story again, in the San Francisco Chronicle, a very mainstream news source. I learned to pay more attention to my public radio station from Berkeley and to have more respect for their reports.
(Continued: See Quentin Reply Part III of VI)
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Language pair: English; All
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Mark S.
April 17, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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Quentin Reply Part I of VI
Hi Quentin!
Sorry I took so long getting back to you. I can tend to be a terribly chaotic guy. I need to find a better way to prioritize my goals, to make sure the things I want the most happen first. More often, they just get lost in a stack of papers. If they ever get done at all, it has nothing to do with how important they are to me.
Anyway, once again, I am delighted to have you in on our discussions. If you're a friend of Arnaud's, I have no doubt that you'll have many challenging questions and ideas.
I have been to France, as it happens. I was in the Air Force for some years, stationed in Wiesbaden Germany. My fiancée, Jennie, of the time had a father, Butch, who was often in Paris on business, and we met him their a couple of times. The three of us stayed in hotels off the Champs-Elysées, not far from L' arc de Triomphe. Jennie and Butch knew something of Paris—I'd never been before, so they showed me around. I got to see many of the big American tourist attractions: Le Cathédrale de Notre Dame, le musée du louver. Notre Dame was really exciting, of course, but I have never had any experience in my life like being in the Louvre. What an amazing place. I wanted to get a flat down the street and live there and study the museum for a year.
Sadly, that is all I've seen of France, except for the rail journey to Paris and back to Germany those times. I'm embarrassed, really. I could have seen much more of France, and I just didn't take advantage of the opportunity while I had it.
Likewise, I know very little about differences between Americans and French. Clearly, Europeans in general have learned how to deal with problems that Americans still deny. Until the 1960's, Americans were still enjoying the largess from all the territory we stole from the native Americans and from Mexico. We're finally running out of what used to seem like infinite room to grow, infinite resources, and we have to accept the fact that the world is only so big. In Europe you learned that long ago, because you have long since grown enough to bump into each other and get into fights over the limited space you are forced to share.
(Continued: See Quentin Reply Part II of VI)
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Language pair: English; All
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Mark S.
April 17, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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Re:La Revolucion Francesa: I sobre II, translations to English (bilingual msgs)
Hola Arnaud, Tienes toda la razón acerca de los que dejamos atrás al hablar ingles todo el tiempo. No es bien siempre hablar inglés cuando hay gente que no comprende.
Al otro lado, el problema es como hablar con la mayoría de la gente, y esto, desafortunadamente, es los que hablan inglés. A mi le parece que no debe ser un asunto de uno o el otro, pero puede ser asunto de ambos/los dos. O aun todos, los 215, tal vez.
Si has repasado los archivos aquí, puede haber notado que varias veces he apegado mensajes escritos en inglés y español, los dos, o he traducido algún mensaje desde una lengua al otra. De esta manera, puedo agregar más a los incluidos, en vez de cambiar un grupo por otro más pequeño.
También, cuando leo un mensaje que me ayuda mucho, tradúzcalo para ayudar otros que no pudo leerlo antes.
Por esta razón, si no te molestes, traduciré tu historia de Francesa al inglés para los que no comprenden el español. Ojalá que otros les gustaría traducirlo en otras lenguas, tal vez como italiano, chino, japonés, francés, alemán, y holandés, o algunos que serán de ayuda para alguien. Este trabajo será práctica muy útil por nosotros, y estará muy acogedor para los otros, ¿no crees?
Hi Arnaud,
I agree with you completely about the number of people we leave behind speaking English all the time. It's not right to always use English when there are members who don't speak English.
On the other hand, we want to be able to speak to the greatest majority of members, and these, unfortunately, are the English speakers. But to me, it doesn't seem to be a question of either/or. I'd like to consider a both/and solution. Or perhaps a solution for all 215, in our case.
If you've been through the archives, you will see that I've put up a few messages in both English and Spanish, like this one. Other times, when I've found a particularly funny joke or a very helpful message, I have translated it so that it will be accessible to more users –as I hope to do, if you don't mind, with your wonderful history of the French Revolution. In this way, I will include English speakers who don't read Spanish. I hope others will be interested in coming and translating it again, into Italian, French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch-any language that might be helpful to another uses. This is helpful, not only to the translator, who gets some useful practice from the materials available here on the site, but also to the speakers of the translator's other language, who will get to read your informative report—don't you think?
Cheers!
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA USA
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Language pair: Spanish; English
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Mark S.
April 17, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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Politics in US and EU V of V
US and EU Politics: V of V
Republicans, oppose Democrats on all of these points. They are more likely to want more freedom to own firearms, while wanting to limit the freedoms of abortion, sexual orientation. The Republican party is catching up to the Democrats, on the issue of supporting racial diversity. I have to admit that the Bush Administration has more minorities on the cabinet than any U.S. President in history. But the Republicans continue to deny that there is any gap between whites and non-whites in the face of overwhelming evidence that the work of affirmative action has hardly begun to complete it's job.
Then Republicans want to crank back spending, make government smaller, and cut back taxes. Of course, they always tend to want to increase spending on defense. It's great for big businesses that make weapons and communications systems. It helps the economy. And a nice fat military-industrial complex is always good for republicans.
Republicans have a huge core of support from fundamentalist protestant groups, and this is reflected in a lot of their positions. Anti-abortion, anti homosexual rights, pro prayer in the schools. Ironically, however, republicans (and conservative protestants) also tend to be very supportive of capital punishment, something that Democrats, despite tending to be highly in favor of abortion rights, tend to find very offensive. It's a fascinating inconsistency on both sides of "the aisle." (On congress, the left and the right are often referred to as "sides of the aisle," since the main aisle through the center of both the house of representatives and the senate tends to form a rough boundary between the republicans and democrats in congress. )
Well, I do go on and on, don't I. Sorry about that. I'm going to cut this up into pieces so that I can post it there for you. I hope you find it interesting.
Of course, I'm very interested in hearing what you have to tell me, along these lines, about your own country. I know something about your own revolution, about Marie Antoinette losing her head over an imprudent comment about cake, the barricades and all. I know something about Napoleon Bonaparte. Terms like Waterloo and Elba have some meaning to me, even if I don't know any details. I know roughly the story of Joan D'arc. I know nothing at all about your current political circumstances or about how you came to them. So I'm basically a tabula raza. Please, tell me some stories. I look forward to hearing them.
Au revoir,
Mark
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Language pair: French; English
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Mark S.
April 10, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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Politics in US and EU III of V
US and EU Politics: IV of V
Because our country is generally polarized between a right and a left, and because any strong candidate has to win support from both sides, everyone's always trying to fight for a position that looks like the center, which will please everyone.
The Independents argue that neither party has solved the social security problem (true), neither party has dealt with the problem of corporate welfare (true) neither party is addressing our failing education system (mostly true), Neither is dealing with immigration "problems" (a really ugly can of worms, no body can agree on what the problems are or if there is a problem.) No solutions on crime (true) our prison system (true) Everyone argues that the Democrats spend way too much and get nothing done (I have a lot to say about that one), and that Republicans always cut taxes so that we don't have any money to get anything done (I can't argue with that).
I'm not convinced, however, that there is any one other party that could do a better job than the democrats do. When there are Republicans in the White house, I just want to hide in my house for four years and pray nobody notices I'm American. I have to confess, I'm pretty ardently partisan. I just have great trouble finding republicans (and on very rare occasions, I do—always at the far left edge of the Republican Party) whose thinking makes any sense to me. I don't see how we can expect single mothers, for example, to get off of welfare, when a week's child care costs more than they can ever make in a month. It just seems that a great many republicans just don't think about what the decisions they make will mean to real people whose lives are not working, or they just assume that nobody would be poor if they weren't lazy and blow it off as if it weren't their problem.
Well, like I've said, I have a lot of strong feelings about this stuff. Please excuse my lecture. My point is that in my view, the differences between republicans and Democrats are huge. I'm not going to go into details now, because that's a really big long letter by itself. But there has always been a liberal party and a conservative party in the US, even since before the revolutionary war.
They always tended to be fairly divided between the concerns of the Northern, industrial, business concerns, which tended to support a stronger federal government, and the Southern, rural, slave-owning interests. Our first parties were Whigs and Tories, spin offs from their English counterparts, with the Whigs supporting independence, and the Tories trying to find ways to make peace between King George and the Colonies.
Continued: See part V of V
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Language pair: French; English
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Mark S.
April 10, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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Politics in US and EU IV of V
US and EU Politics: IV of V
Because our country is generally polarized between a right and a left, and because any strong candidate has to win support from both sides, everyone's always trying to fight for a position that looks like the center, which will please everyone.
The Independents argue that neither party has solved the social security problem (true), neither party has dealt with the problem of corporate welfare (true) neither party is addressing our failing education system (mostly true), Neither is dealing with immigration "problems" (a really ugly can of worms, no body can agree on what the problems are or if there is a problem.) No solutions on crime (true) our prison system (true) Everyone argues that the Democrats spend way too much and get nothing done (I have a lot to say about that one), and that Republicans always cut taxes so that we don't have any money to get anything done (I can't argue with that).
I'm not convinced, however, that there is any one other party that could do a better job than the democrats do. When there are Republicans in the White house, I just want to hide in my house for four years and pray nobody notices I'm American. I have to confess, I'm pretty ardently partisan. I just have great trouble finding republicans (and on very rare occasions, I do—always at the far left edge of the Republican Party) whose thinking makes any sense to me. I don't see how we can expect single mothers, for example, to get off of welfare, when a week's child care costs more than they can ever make in a month. It just seems that a great many republicans just don't think about what the decisions they make will mean to real people whose lives are not working, or they just assume that nobody would be poor if they weren't lazy and blow it off as if it weren't their problem.
Well, like I've said, I have a lot of strong feelings about this stuff. Please excuse my lecture. My point is that in my view, the differences between republicans and Democrats are huge. I'm not going to go into details now, because that's a really big long letter by itself. But there has always been a liberal party and a conservative party in the US, even since before the revolutionary war.
They always tended to be fairly divided between the concerns of the Northern, industrial, business concerns, which tended to support a stronger federal government, and the Southern, rural, slave-owning interests. Our first parties were Whigs and Tories, spin offs from their English counterparts, with the Whigs supporting independence, and the Tories trying to find ways to make peace between King George and the Colonies.
Continued: See part V of V
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Language pair: French; English
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Mark S.
April 10, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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Politics in US and EU III of V
US and EU Politics: III of V
Because our country is generally polarized between a right and a left, and because any strong candidate has to win support from both sides, everyone's always trying to fight for a position that looks like the center, which will please everyone.
The Independents argue that neither party has solved the social security problem (true), neither party has dealt with the problem of corporate welfare (true) neither party is addressing our failing education system (mostly true), Neither is dealing with immigration "problems" (a really ugly can of worms, no body can agree on what the problems are or if there is a problem.) No solutions on crime (true) our prison system (true) Everyone argues that the Democrats spend way too much and get nothing done (I have a lot to say about that one), and that Republicans always cut taxes so that we don't have any money to get anything done (I can't argue with that).
I'm not convinced, however, that there is any one other party that could do a better job than the democrats do. When there are Republicans in the White house, I just want to hide in my house for four years and pray nobody notices I'm American. I have to confess, I'm pretty ardently partisan. I just have great trouble finding republicans (and on very rare occasions, I do—always at the far left edge of the Republican Party) whose thinking makes any sense to me. I don't see how we can expect single mothers, for example, to get off of welfare, when a week's child care costs more than they can ever make in a month. It just seems that a great many republicans just don't think about what the decisions they make will mean to real people whose lives are not working, or they just assume that nobody would be poor if they weren't lazy and blow it off as if it weren't their problem.
Well, like I've said, I have a lot of strong feelings about this stuff. Please excuse my lecture. My point is that in my view, the differences between republicans and Democrats are huge. I'm not going to go into details now, because that's a really big long letter by itself. But there has always been a liberal party and a conservative party in the US, even since before the revolutionary war.
They always tended to be fairly divided between the concerns of the Northern, industrial, business concerns, which tended to support a stronger federal government, and the Southern, rural, slave-owning interests. Our first parties were Whigs and Tories, spin offs from their English counterparts, with the Whigs supporting independence, and the Tories trying to find ways to make peace between King George and the Colonies.
Continued: See part IV of V
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Language pair: French; English
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Mark S.
April 10, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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Politics in US and EU III of V
US and EU Politics: III of V
Because our country is generally polarized between a right and a left, and because any strong candidate has to win support from both sides, everyone's always trying to fight for a position that looks like the center, which will please everyone.
The Independents argue that neither party has solved the social security problem (true), neither party has dealt with the problem of corporate welfare (true) neither party is addressing our failing education system (mostly true), Neither is dealing with immigration "problems" (a really ugly can of worms, no body can agree on what the problems are or if there is a problem.) No solutions on crime (true) our prison system (true) Everyone argues that the Democrats spend way too much and get nothing done (I have a lot to say about that one), and that Republicans always cut taxes so that we don't have any money to get anything done (I can't argue with that).
I'm not convinced, however, that there is any one other party that could do a better job than the democrats do. When there are Republicans in the White house, I just want to hide in my house for four years and pray nobody notices I'm American. I have to confess, I'm pretty ardently partisan. I just have great trouble finding republicans (and on very rare occasions, I do—always at the far left edge of the Republican Party) whose thinking makes any sense to me. I don't see how we can expect single mothers, for example, to get off of welfare, when a week's child care costs more than they can ever make in a month. It just seems that a great many republicans just don't think about what the decisions they make will mean to real people whose lives are not working, or they just assume that nobody would be poor if they weren't lazy and blow it off as if it weren't their problem.
Well, like I've said, I have a lot of strong feelings about this stuff. Please excuse my lecture. My point is that in my view, the differences between republicans and Democrats are huge. I'm not going to go into details now, because that's a really big long letter by itself. But there has always been a liberal party and a conservative party in the US, even since before the revolutionary war.
They always tended to be fairly divided between the concerns of the Northern, industrial, business concerns, which tended to support a stronger federal government, and the Southern, rural, slave-owning interests. Our first parties were Whigs and Tories, spin offs from their English counterparts, with the Whigs supporting independence, and the Tories trying to find ways to make peace between King George and the Colonies.
Continued: See part IV of V
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Language pair: French; English
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Mark S.
April 10, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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Politics in US and EU II of V
US and EU Politics: II of V
The problem was, Gore and Bush were within a few percentage points of one another in the polls. There was really no telling which way the election was going to go –as the world discovered with all that noise we had about Florida. We had no idea how crazy it would get, but it was obviously going to be a tight race. With the election as close as it was, voting for Nader would amount to a vote for Bush, because it would take a vote away from Gore. I really didn't know what I was going to do, even as I was walking into the polling site. But I finally voted for Gore, and I have never regretted the choice. I would have lost a lot of sleep over Bush's election if I'd voted for Nader.
Now I want to be very clear about what I mean by this, because there are a whole lot of sour grapes democrats in denial about the problems the party needs to deal with these days—the lack of leadership, of strength, of currency with the concerns of voters—that are the cause of the eight years of nightmare we are presently enjoying. Such democrats vilify Nader for being "'a spoiler"' by stealing "'Gore's " (or "Kerry's") votes. The brutal truth is that there is no such thing as a vote that belongs to a candidate. Votes belong to voters, not to candidates. In a free republic, citizens award their votes to the candidate who best convinces them that his political agenda will serve the needs of the country. I get a little emotional about this, because I'm really getting sick of democrats who blame Nader for Bush's electoral victories. It is not Nader's job to get out of the Democrats' way. It is the Democratic Party's job to develop a strategy for dealing with Nader. They failed to do that, and now the whole country is paying the price. People who think Nader "spoiled"' the elections need to go back to civics class get a refresher on democracy. It's not about locking out people who say thing's you don't like. It's about listening to them and taking a risk that you might learn something new and important about the country's needs.
We don't have enough of that under our two party system, and I guess I get a little crazy about hearing from people who want to make the problem even worse by trying to shout down what little diversity of discourse we still have.
As to your question of the differences between the Democrats and the Republicans, it's a pretty interesting question, and you'll see a lot of different answers from different people. Of course, the independents make a big deal about how alike the big two are. Naturally, it's to their advantage to convince us that the only meaningful change would be to bring in an independent party candidate, and it's not an empty argument.
Continued: See part III of V
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Language pair: French; English
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Mark S.
April 10, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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Politics in US and EU II of V
US and EU Politics: II of V
The problem was, Gore and Bush were within a few percentage points of one another in the polls. There was really no telling which way the election was going to go –as the world discovered with all that noise we had about Florida. We had no idea how crazy it would get, but it was obviously going to be a tight race. With the election as close as it was, voting for Nader would amount to a vote for Bush, because it would take a vote away from Gore. I really didn't know what I was going to do, even as I was walking into the polling site. But I finally voted for Gore, and I have never regretted the choice. I would have lost a lot of sleep over Bush's election if I'd voted for Nader.
Now I want to be very clear about what I mean by this, because there are a whole lot of sour grapes democrats in denial about the problems the party needs to deal with these days—the lack of leadership, of strength, of currency with the concerns of voters—that are the cause of the eight years of nightmare we are presently enjoying. Such democrats vilify Nader for being "'a spoiler"' by stealing "'Gore's " (or "Kerry's") votes. The brutal truth is that there is no such thing as a vote that belongs to a candidate. Votes belong to voters, not to candidates. In a free republic, citizens award their votes to the candidate who best convinces them that his political agenda will serve the needs of the country. I get a little emotional about this, because I'm really getting sick of democrats who blame Nader for Bush's electoral victories. It is not Nader's job to get out of the Democrats' way. It is the Democratic Party's job to develop a strategy for dealing with Nader. They failed to do that, and now the whole country is paying the price. People who think Nader "spoiled"' the elections need to go back to civics class get a refresher on democracy. It's not about locking out people who say thing's you don't like. It's about listening to them and taking a risk that you might learn something new and important about the country's needs.
We don't have enough of that under our two party system, and I guess I get a little crazy about hearing from people who want to make the problem even worse by trying to shout down what little diversity of discourse we still have.
As to your question of the differences between the Democrats and the Republicans, it's a pretty interesting question, and you'll see a lot of different answers from different people. Of course, the independents make a big deal about how alike the big two are. Naturally, it's to their advantage to convince us that the only meaningful change would be to bring in an independent party candidate, and it's not an empty argument.
Continued: See part III of V
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Language pair: French; English
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Mark S.
April 10, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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