The France like to live, and like to play soldier, but the they like it not to be slaughterd for some cause withs not theires, they have been slaughterd for hundreds of years, even afther the revolution they did geth an Emperer, if necesaire they will stand look to the Garde in Waterloo, but its not something for intelligent people.

The best soldiers are the Legion Etrangè, but they the old garde of them wash killed in Diem Bien Fou, mostley German legionairs.

The France soldiers is not the problem, but the Officers where real bad and snoby, and do you want to leth you kill for some given idea, as now in the US with Afganistan, blowing up humans as you have at home, like your loved ones, NO

Gordy, they haven’t won a battle in 300 years

The French historically have the highest percentage of
military wins of any existing nation; perceptions that
they are cowardly or useless in warfare only come from
a few recent incidents.

I’m so happy that France likes us now, for years I’ve been losing sleep and know that we have to have their support if any future conflict to succeed. The other day i was at an arms bazzar and they had a bunch of French Arms for sale. The banner read “Never Fired Only Dropped Once” to show they were virtually new.
Without the French what would the world do??

Hello Sepharad,

You know our Frisian Horse, black middel weight, could work on the land, drawing and fighting horse, nice forms like a lady bit heavy but still nice and elegant in here movements.

For the rest its all an picture of now, its all temporary, if you step back in time, you will see wath the time factor is doing on wath is now reality, every thing is woven in an very differend patern, the germans have the nice saying der Zeitgeist, well I leth you go,

Salutation.

Johannes, I hope they don’t end this thread too soon because so much of what you write is very interesting to me—have many questions and responses to your most recent post. Surprises me that we have so many common linkages and people and interests. Odessa, Rosa Luxembourg, the Marranos and more. Unfortunately it will be hard to get on the computer till early next week; we’ll be trailering husband’s horse down to Texas where mine is waiting, get set up so he and I can work, then will have a schedule again. Everything is chaotic right now, particularly my brain.

Just a quick note, you might enjoy reading T. Corraghsen Boyle’s novel “World’s End”—enlightening re the lives of the Dutch and the Indians through numerous generations of the same family. Not as serious as Vamos’ “A Book of Fathers” but well researched just the same. (Oddly, these are the only multi-generation works of fiction I’ve read; there are very few historical novels and biographies that are more historical than fictional but these two qualify though Boyle’s is best on atmosphere whereas Vamos is great on detail as well.)

Nearly did get to Odessa on our wanderings in Europe as we got lost and ended up in Ukraine—kind of wish we’d scrapped the few remaining days of our too-short trip and just stayed in the Ukraine and gone to Odessa. We have a number of friends here who fled Odessa, all of whom have both wonderful and terrible memories of life there, and find life in San Francisco safer but less textured. Same could be said of a Hungarian linguist friend, who is old enough to have the distinction of having escaped Hungary twice, once fleeing the Nazis and then the Russians. His specialty was the Ob-Ugrian language as it reappeared in certain California Indian languages (Penutian). But he also wrote some excellent treatises on Sythian shamans as well as their burial traditions. For all the complaining I do about Europeans, the ones I actually become friends with seem to be more deeply cultured, at least more aware of their past, than us culturally-still-newborn Americans (which all the more mystifies me when some Europeans in the news seem to waft with one cultural/social fad and then another, picking the good guys and the bad guys of the moment as casually as throwing a dart blindfolded, just as prone to the current philosophical-social fads as the giddiest American political camp follower). Anyhow, have to dive back into the chaos now and will reappear Monday or Tuesday.

That was my impression of N as well, but I wanted to
emphasize that it seems so presumptuous of Obama to
claim to respect him then award himself his blessing. 
I would not make such a presumption of a mentor-figure.

Niebuhr opposed the war in Vietnam.  Since the imperial invasions, occupations, and “nation-building” in Iraq and AfPak have far less justification, my guess is that he would have opposed them as well.  But the evidence is that Mr. O has mined Niebuhr for phraseology rather than philosophy.

Yeah, you can’t just invoke the ghost of Niebuhr to
give his blessing to the war - we don’t know what he
would have thought about it.

E. J. Dionne claims that Mr. O is binding together idealism, so-called, with realism, so-called: “But even more, the speech revived a school of foreign-policy thinking that allied realism with idealism. Obama’s address was suffused with a candor about the imperfections of human nature taught by Reinhold Niebuhr, his favorite theologian….”  This is exactly the same kind of revolting stuff purveyed by Lyndon Johnson about Vietnam—we’re slaughtering them in order to do them good.  It’s quite an old theme in the rhetoric of imperialism: see the White Man’s Burden and the Mission Civilisatrice.  But this time we have Niebuhr icing on the cake.

I want to follow up with a question because I feel
that this dichotomy between ‘pragmatism’ and
‘idealism’ is often a false one, and this annoys me
immensely. 

Was Gandhi a ‘pragmatist’ or an ‘idealist’? 

He had high ideals that many thought impossible to
realise.  Al kinds of powerful interests were against
him; not least the world’s greatest empire.  He went
out and moved mountains.  He was fearless, true to
himself, AND ‘pragmatic’ - he was (like Obama) a
trained lawyer and he worked diligently and
intelligently.  Everyone could see that he was more
than talk: he spoke eloquently from the heart about
humankind’s highest aspirations; he was obviously
quite serious and not a crazy person.  Therefore,
people believed in him and turned his will into
reality, realising that it was what they wanted, too. 

Gandhi was not perfect, but by my reckoning Obama
doesn’t even nearly measure up, so Europeans like
myself are right to be sceptical of his grandiose
talk.

The Europeans are happy with Obama’s “policies?”  You mean, they’re happy with what he “says” about his policies.  That’s all we have here in the USA, talk, talk and more talk.  Why, I suppose because changing talk into action is the true test of a president, and of his special genius at “making things happen.”  Clinton had that genius, which is how he achieved those 22,000,000 jobs, compared to the 1,500,000 Bush can claim.

What has he actually done to demonstrate that this is
anything more than talk? 

Robert McNamara was an extremely intelligent,
eloquent man with intimidatingly well researched and
thought-out ideals.  He could engage in ethical
debate and win people over.  He was not a trivial
person.  He thought deeply about what is best for
human beings. 

And committed mass-murder to serve the status-quo. 

I am not convinced that the president is so limited
by shadowy forces that he cannot enact his will.  I
think that presidential candidates come from a
limited pool of those who will not rock the boat. 
Obama has a philosophy of ‘pragmatism’ which suits
the status-quo just fine.

Bonjour Sepharad,

Its Tuyl Uilenspiegel ” mirror of the owl ” and Tuyl is an prenom who is stil excisting.

Constantinopel and with it Byzantium where sold by the Western Christians from Rome to the Islam, the East Christians where always the strongest, but on the moment they needed help the Venisians came not to help but to kill and take all their richesness,and destroyd everything, and than it wash very easy pour Mechmet to take Constantinopel, and make slaves of all citizen of Byzantium, an real horreble histoire is that of an ville on the coast of the blacksea, Trabizon highly culturel beautyfulle people the blood wash streaming in the street when the soldiers of Mechmet where ready more as 50 000 dead cut to peaces, the whole history of that region is an black hole for humans, the Byzantine did the same to people who did not like to live under the Byzantine laws, well as I sayd an black hole for humanety, their where more of this holes think an Rome or the Spainise Katholics in south America, where in 100 year 50 million people where gone.

One of the earlyest tales to by reed is that of the Tocharians ” by J.P.Mallory and Victor H.Mair ” the Tarim Mummies, than lots of books about the Indo-Europeên Chaman, and ways of living the Aryans, nothing to do with the Nazi’s, most of the horsriding people from east Europe are the latest incoming tribes, most came from the Scytes, and their ancestrals where known in the sage of Troye, they where fighters on white horses, its a pity all wars, somany where mixt up or gone for ever, and with them their cultures.

I had an old uncle as we say who wash marryd with an Indian whoman from the Cheyenne tribe, an other in about end of 1700 lived with an Indian whoman north of the Hudson river.

You know the places in Europe who where very interesting for the humans to live to gether from all races and religions, where Odessa, Istanboul not so easy, and Venise all around 1850 to 1930, real beautyful storys to by found, you know that the Latest Goths where living near Odessa and that you could here speaking their Gothic language just till 1800.

Yes its very interesting our mutualle history, and its still growing.

Have you heard about Rosa Luxembourg, this Jewish Communst lady from Germany, see wash very nice and inteligent, my mother has knowen here persenel in Berlin but they have murdered here, my mother wash an scholar and an communist, in that time their wash not so much left if you wash a scholar and social thinking, I mean to choose from or Nazi or the People.

I had an aunt who came from Spain, Toledo she wash an Marraan, she wash wed with an uncle of me, nice lady could not stand Jewes, we never have know why.

Europe history is a big mix, of real every thing, people, religions, but every body will live his live and with that his way of thinking, so their is no place for oppressing religions, or even politics, their will come big changes in the coming years, the hole between politic governers and the public the citizen is growing bigger and bigger, its as if they need no citizen, its they all the time, and one hype afther the other, they create an unliveble athmosphere from fear.

Well salutation, its nice to write with you.

Johannes, I hope you don’t think I hate Europeans; it’s just that sometimes the constant criticism wears my patience thin. But I definitely think you are onto something in that Europeans by heritage are fighters and if necessary will do anything necessary to prevail rather than be eaten. (It’s also worth noting that the majority of Americans are of European heritage. My husband is a French/Dutch/Cherokee with a soupcon of English; my people were Romanian Jews who became Zionists and lived, and German Jews who trusted their host country and died, and one German Catholic who was a shipbuilder with his six brothers and built a ship then sailed to America to avoid the Kaiser’s endless wars but unfortunately arrived just in time for America’s civil war. My brother has the sword from the Yankee ancestor, I have the one from the one who fought for the Confederacy.) So Americans are not so different in bloodlines than Europeans, though we have mingled our European blood with that of Native Americans and Africa’s and the Arab world and the Orient.)

History is sometimes a bit frightening, but I like it anyway—whether written by historians or literary people, who often have a more real grasp on what is going on in their society. Recently have been reading Eastern European history with which I’m less familiar. I started with Attila the Hun, born on the plains south of Buda/Pesht, and expect him to take me as far as Rome. The next book is a novel by the Hungarian Milos Vamos, “The Book of Fathers”, which explores 12 generations of a Hungarian family and the worlds they inhabited and reacted to. One thing struck me about the Hungarian people and their culture when we were there briefly: they seemed wilder, less convention-bound than other Eastern Europeans, and this shows up in the statuary and art. Instead of solid kings sitting on solid horses as in Western Europe, you see statues of a cavalier on foot barely hanging on to his rearing horse ... hunting multiple sculptures of men and their prey (sometimes with Tyl Eulenspiegel sitting to the side looking wise). People in restaurants are friendly, a musician playing a strange instrument (cilandon) with paddles and sounding like a piano, is happy to talk about it, and in small towns like Bujac you see people fetching their groceries in horse-drawn carts. The highway signs have symbols of horses drawing a cart as well as bicyclists. Also if people don’t feel like talking to you they just don’t, or turn their backs. (Many Israelis are like this.) To me, this level of honesty is a good thing. Sometimes I think we Westerners have polited ourselves out of any semblance of real communication.

Sorry to digress. I think you are right that people of European heritage will do what it takes to survive. Am waiting for my husband to finish a book (“War Before Civilization”) so I can read it. The author is an anthropologist who says it is not true that primitive warfare was rare, harmless and unimportant. In truth, he contends, prehistoric warfare was more deadly, more frequent and more ruthless than modern war. I don’t know whether Europe would be better off as a Roman sort of Reich. The Romans were inspired killers who built excellent roads and acqueducts, but lost the human touch early on and eventually lost themselves. If Valens had waited for his Western Empire cousin to join him against the barbarians, Istanbul might still be Constantinople. But he wanted the glory of winning alone so lost everything.

One thing Obama seems to grasp is the need to think as much as necessary before acting. Whether this alone will save us is yet to be seen.

Sjalome, Sepharad

President Obama is treading a mine field. No matter where he steps there is a right-wing nutjob ready to explode on him. The racial animus toward our first non-white president is a spark ready to set to blaze anything he endorses. Even among his own caucus there are those determined to undermine him (Nelson, Lieberman, Landrew, etc.).

For the first time in memory the former vice-president is publicly and continually criticizing the sitting president. The right-wing media is distorting everything he says and does and fabricating outright lies in opposition to his every move. I have never seen our nation more polarized… which is sadly ironic when the president has made so many overtures in an attempt to bring us together as a nation.

The opposition, as hateful and slanderous as they are, has mounted a brilliant offensive. They started by labeling him everything from Socialist to Marxist to Racist and have settled on simply calling him a liar. No matter the facts, if President Obama says it, they claim it is a lie.

When our president acknowledged that we have made mistakes in the past, the right-wing labeled him an apologist. When he moved quickly to stop the hemoraging in the economy, he was painted as a dictator bent on taking over the private sector. When he took time to seriously evaluate where we are and what we are doing in Af-Pak, they called it dithering. This political sniping is doing nothing but degrading our discourse and harming our country.

In the end, it boils down to a bunch of sore losers shouting insults. They are living in denial of the election and like spoiled brats are throwing fits because they didn’t get their way.

Toà Sepharad,

You have sayd it all.

As Always the citizen in Europe are the one who pay the drinks, The Dutch and the France and the Eiris have voted NO, against Europe, the Englisch as always play the non Europeêns, its a big mess.

When Hitler had won the war, Europe had to be an new Roman reich, who knows.

But Europe is an persiflage from something big and strong, we know to well all our critical writers, animalfarm etc. but we have eaten and maby now its our time to be eaten.

But one thing is sure, the Europeêns have an heritage in their blood, that how bigger their problems the harder they fight, and on the end they have the bigger brains, and if necessary they are not afraid to be real onhuman, and kill the lot.

And maby its not even onhuman, it could be just very human, if you know your history.

Sjalome Johannes.

E. J. Dionne’s final paragraph states, “Every
realist understands the importance of execution.”
As April 15th grows closer I’m still waiting on
President Obama to execute his pre-election pledge
to eliminate income tax on social security benefits
for those us making less than $50,000 annually.
I’m a realist in this matter and STILL WAITING!

I find it interesting that Europeans are waiting, critically and superciliously, for this American President to singlehandedly bring an ideal world into existence. I would ask Europeans and the British (am not sure they see themselves as “European”) what great strides they have made in the last 200 years to correct the appalling mess their colonial empires left in Africa, the Middle East and beyond. Basically, they had their fun, made their money, then fell apart and pulled out leaving a fractured, failing world. WWI’s Versailles Treaty pretty much led to WWII, which left Europe weakened and without American aid who knows where they’d be now? Expecting Obama to solve the problems of the Middle East and everywhere else the Euros wrought havoc and hatred is ridiculous. The ignorance reflected in the first post—Eileen Dorret’s of London—is both appalling and bigoted but not atypical. How would these countries like it if Americans demanded that the retrogressive monarchs still in existence in some European countries along with statemsen such as Berlusconi, Sarkozy, post-Blair Brown etc. fix the world in dsix months or less or be pilloried for it? (As for Israel, the living standard of the Israeli Arabs are far above those of the Arab masses living in other countries.)
America and Israel are not perfect—goodness knows I find much to carp about and challenge in their governments, and do—but in their histories have never even come close to surpassing the brutality of European history and its cynical aristocrats or the general dysfunctionality of large swaths of Arab society. We are a nation of immigrants for very good reasons. 

That said, I love English and European museums, cultures, languages, literature, cities and countrysides. Most of the people I’ve met there—at least the lower middle and middle classes—have been bright, charming and civilized though often condescending with not much to be condescending about. (Eastern Europeans are more natural and realistic, less cookie-cutter personally and politically too.) I don’t know what it is. Maybe the Old World is hoping that the New World will pull everyone back from the abyss, but Obama is merely a highly intelligent, relatively well-meaning American President and he can’t do it alone (even if he wanted to: he IS a politician).  Also many Americans are tiring of having to do most of the heavy lifting in and out of the U.N. and getting nothing for their efforts but criticism while the worst human rights abusers sit calmly and judgmentally on the sidelines.

Yes, Obama is so popular in Europe that he has to be surrounded by a small army of paramilitary forces and the police have to arrest thousands of protesters.

See Naomi Klien’s article on this same site for a slightly different view of Obama’s reception in Europe.

Mr. Dionne might see more of the world if he didn’t have his head shoved so far up Obama’s ............

Allying ‘idealogy’ and ‘realism’ is nothing new.

In fact, almost every brutal, nasty, warloving leader who murders thousands upon thousands in pointless wars always tries to wrap up that brutal slaughter in the cover of some great ‘idealism’ that is supposed to make the slaughter all worthwhile.

Obama is no different.

Young men have always been led to kill and be killed by sheltered politicians spouting lofty sounding rhetoric that lacks true substance.  Others like the author of this detestable article simply parrot the establishment to reinforce the evil.  Yes, let us all carry on with this holy Christian tradition and send our young men suffer and make the ultimate glorious sacrifice on the MIC cross.  And let us all feel good about the death and destruction when our silk tongued leader again speaks in lofty terms of the “sacrifice” of the deceived young dead later.  History repeats itself yet again.  But lofty empty words do not change the fact that this is institutionalized murder.

This man Dionne is a creature of The Washington Post, one of the strutting drum majors of American violence abroad the domestic Big Rip-Off.  He is no more reliable or honorable a human being than Obama himself.

Make sure to compare Obama’s actions and see how much “moral balance” you find there.  Look beyond the headlines.

For starters, take Afghanistan-Pakistan - a just war?  Is that “a realism rooted in values”?

Then move on to Bagram, where prisoners are held without habeas corpus rights and in violation of the Geneva Convention.  Is that “a realism rooted in values”?

Is “looking forward and not backwards”, a failure to uphold those who tortured in our country, “a realism rooted in values”? 

The failure to hold these torturers accountable is not in accordance with Obama’s sworn oath to defend the Constitution and our Treaties.  Is the violation of our Constitution “a realism rooted in values”?

If so, what values are those?

American mythology dies hard.

I imagine European elites are as pleased by Mr. O’s style as shills like E. J. Dionne.  I don’t know what good this is supposed to do the rest of us, however.

Hubert Vedrine is a wise men, one of the best politicians France has on the moment, for the moment he is planning and waything for the good time to make his move, but in this he is speaking for him self, lots of people did wanted Obama to take the new way, but for the moment we are sceptic, but still hopefull, but the burden he has to conquer is strong and is to be found in his own country, the big millitairy money machine, its the drake with the seven heads, we will see.

Here in the UK I/we never had any pretentions that Obama would be any kind of great saviour.
I only saw a play of the people. Without starting a race debate he quite simply is not white skinned, what a wonderfully simple way to attempt to bring trust and hope back to a troubled world. Without going into detail most people should be able to see my point here although most refuse to see.
Once again people took him in and now see how he hasn’t lived up to his own ideals.
We have no belief in this man or the country he runs, you only desecrate our lives further in this the 21st century. The US should be leading not losing and terrorising.