Prostitution of the pen and the dark side of the free market

[fpb]

Four years ago, the government of the French Republic took the lead in refusing to support the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. The French, who had taken a very active and successful part in the first Iraq war, simply did not think that an invasion followed by the occupation of an Arab country was a good idea. That was their prerogative (see under "sovereign state").

(My position was that I loathed Saddam Hussein so much that anyone who wanted to drive him out was fine by me. I would even have supported an Iranian invasion. But I would not have started to insult people who disagreed.)

The idiot part of the American right suddenly made France the bout of all their hatred. Someone spotted a market opportunity, as Americans do (the French do that as well, but when the French do it, that's evil!) and prostituted a certain amount of historical knowledge in the search for a quick buck, producing some sort of tract which rewrote history with the claim that "France have always been our enemy, but they have concealed it under a pretence of friendship".

I would dismiss this intellectually contemptible and factually fraudulent thesis in as many words, and not even bother about it, were it not that one of the finest minds in my f-list seems to have been taken in by it. As it is, I want to ask how you imagine you can trace a consistent attitude of hatred, and what is more, of subtly disguised hatred, in a nation that has, since the foundation of the United States, experienced three royalist constitutions, five republican ones, two bonapartist ones, and one fascist tyranny, and completely boxed the compass in terms of attitudes, views, and alliances. This is the kind of things that rabid anti-Semites postulate about Jews - attitudes consistent across the centuries, constant vicious subtlety in carrying them out, hatred fertile in invention but completely barren of reason. The French ought to be proud: they have been promoted to the rank of Chosen People, next to that other target of unreasoning, blind, stupid, despicable hatred. In case anyone had any doubts, I regard Jew-bashing as a stain on the face of mankind.

No doubt the prostitute or prostitutes who set out on this bit of free enterprise got out of it what they wanted - money, admiting letters from ignorami and fanatics, and the odd spot on TV talk shows; rewards that serious historians get rather less often. But as we are still free people here, I want to use my own freedom of expression, rather less despicably than the prostitute or prostitutes concerned: first, by calling whoredom by its proper name; and second, by stating clearly that there shall be no pity here for such views. The historical slag or slags who sold their integrity for popular success will not be treated as anything but filth, and anyone who takes them seriously is warned that I will do what is in my power to restore them to sanity.

Comments

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[fpb.livejournal.com]

She had little good to say of Nigeria - well, you should hear me about Italy once I get going. The point is that, in spite of all the corruption - and even worse, of the Muslim incubus in the north - Nigeria, especially southern Nigeria, has created a lively society with a considerable amount of economic activity. I cannot see it ever reverting to the barbarity of Liberia, unless of course the Muslims start a major civil war.

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I cannot see it ever reverting to the barbarity of Liberia, unless of course the Muslims start a major civil war.

If we lose the War on Terror, that becomes when the Muslims start a major civil war, with the Muslim faction aided from the outside by the Terrorist States.

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Get used to the fact that there is no war to win or to lose. There is a condition that applies across the world, whereas a certain group may at any time sprout violent men for no apparent reason. It is one of the many unpleasant features of human life, or of modern life if you will, like corporate corruption or political incompetence. You cannot put an end to it with any wars, although military campaigns can be one of the many means by which you work to bind, placate, block, or disable this tendency. To think of it in terms of a war is miserably restrictive and sure to fail. Remember the "war on poverty"? The war on terror - or even on Islam - will fail for the same reasons; because just like the poor, the fanatics are always with us. And what is worse, once you formulate the issue in those terms, you encourage your political enemies to point at the inevitable strategic failure of your efforts and conclude that the whole idea of a WoT was a delusion and that there is no problem. We are seeing Nancy Pelosi and some European lefties do so every day of the week. And the point is that the problem is not too small, but too big to be defined as a war. It is a part of life. And we must get used to seeing it as such. The sooner we drop these silly macho and ultimately escapist formulas - "war on crime", "war on poverty", "war on terror", "war on drugs" - the sooner we shall be ready and able to confront crime, poverty, fanaticism and drugs as they really are.