> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Behalf Of Nick Arnett > Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2003 9:14 AM > To: Killer Bs Discussion > Subject: RE: Corrected French history (was RE: Deadlier Than War) > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Behalf Of Andrew Crystall > > ... > > > France has a VERY strong Neo-Nazi majority, especially at present. > > The majority of people in France today are neo-Nazis? I'm starting to > wonder if I've completely lost my mind.
Okay, now I realize what you meant to write. Sorry, had just woken up and should have known. I don't mean to diminish the significance of right-wing extremists in France and hope that nothing I've written suggests that it is not a meaningful political issue. As I wrote earlier, it goes back to the revolution itself, before which anybody who wasn't French and Catholic was terribly discriminated against. There is a fundamental difference between the U.S. and French traditions of democracy. Although they were contemporaneous, with similar goals and values, our country was much more free to embrace the ideals of democracy because we were not shrugging off an aristocracy. There was no U.S. tradition to contend with, in other words. France still retains some aspects of aristocracy that never existed here. For example, here in Silicon Valley, we get a number of French executives whose primary motivation for relocating is that it is almost impossible to be an entrepreneur in France. In the upper circles of power, the position you were born into still matters far more than it ever has in the United States. There's also the matter of French preservation of language and culture. It is a country where it can be illegal to use a foreign word in business. When computers first became widely available, phrases such as "le software" and "le hardware" came into use, but the French authorities stomped out that sort of thing (making me almost illiterate when I try to speak about technical matters in French). That which is not French is resisted, which historically extended to ethnic and religious differences and unfortunately persists today. Nick _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
