This should probably go into the Humor section, but I am not at all amused... I don't know what to think anymore... http://www.csindy.com/csindy/2004-01-22/yourturn.html Your Turn Suffer the schoolchildren by Ted Rall CARQUEFOU, FRANCE -- Why do they hate us? And where do they get their hatred from? These questions haunted me and three other American visitors as we studied a huge display of cartoons drawn by local schoolchildren, third-graders assigned to convey their impressions of the United States. Panel after grisly panel depicted the United States, George Bush and those ubiquitous symbols of American commercial culture -- McDonald's and Coke -- as murderous, predatory and gleefully vicious. Obese Uncle Sams chopping up Iraqi children with a knife, their blood gushing across construction paper. A leering Statue of Liberty holding a hamburger in one hand while firing missiles at dying Afghan civilians across the ocean. The American flag, its bars transformed into prisons for the child inmates of Guantánamo. A baseball bat painted red, white and blue poised to smash a ball -- which is a globe. I didn't see a single positive portrayal of the United States. Organizers of Carquefou's annual cartoon art festival had invited four American newspaper artists to this industrial town in conservative western France to discuss the deteriorated state of Franco-American relations. All four of us have used our cartoons to convey our dim opinion of the Bush administration's domestic and foreign policy agenda. We oppose the war in Iraq. We despise the French-bashing that has arisen since the Chirac government threatened to veto Bush's Iraq war resolution in the United Nations. We're a pretty liberal group; that's probably why they chose us. We don't take issue with most of the cartoons' messages. They see Bush as a vicious, thoughtless warmonger with fascist tendencies, Americans as arrogant brutes who don't give a passing thought to the innocent people who die at the hands of their government, and rapacious corporations as hegemonic steamrollers that crush cultural distinctiveness and independence in their ceaseless quest for the almighty dollar. What must Palestinian kids think of us? It would be nice to see these opinions expressed with more subtlety and nuance. Walking past those drawings felt like getting slugged in the stomach. Part of it was the sheer scale -- there were more than 700 pieces on display. But the level of rage and vitriol against America and everything related to it (one kid even trashed Tropicana orange juice) surpassed prewar propaganda in Saddam's Iraqi press. And these are kids. What a difference a hundred years makes: the Statue of Liberty, France's second great gift to America after freeing it from England, was funded by millions of centimes collected by French schoolchildren. It hurts to see what Bush has done to our international reputation. We repeatedly explained that there's more to the United States than George Bush. We pointed out that most voters supported Al Gore in the last election, that hundreds of thousands of Americans marched against the war. We argued that Americans are kind, big-hearted people. French attendees listened politely, and we were treated with the utmost kindness and hospitality, but their kids' cartoons screamed: We hate you. That hurt. Children get their politics from their parents and teachers, who form their impressions from the media. The European media has covered a different war than the one you've seen on CNN and Fox News. A 14-year-old Iraqi boy, shot by U.S. troops in Baghdad, was interviewed for five minutes on the evening news. "They did it on purpose," he said. "They were laughing." The bloody corpses of Iraqi civilians are standard TV fare here. "The United States is using excessive power," Ghazi Ajil al-Yawar, a moderate, pro-American member of the Iraqi Governing Council, told The New York Times Magazine on Jan. 11. "They round up people in a very humiliating way, by putting bags over their faces in front of their families. In our society, this is like rape. The Americans are using collective punishment by jailing relatives. What is the difference from Saddam? They are demolishing houses [of insurgents' family members] now. They say they want to teach a lesson to the people. But when Timothy McVeigh was convicted in the bombing in Oklahoma City, was his family's home destroyed?" It's striking that al-Yawar knows McVeigh's name. How many Americans can identify any Iraqi other than Saddam Hussein? Most foreigners know more about us than we know about them. Hell, they know more about what we're doing in Iraq than we do ourselves. Of course, many of us don't give a damn whether French schoolchildren, or anyone else, think Bush's United States is a land of butchers and thugs. Whether or not we care, however, it matters. Ted Rall is the editor of the new anthology of alternative cartoons Attitude 2: The New Subversive Social Commentary Cartoonists, containing interviews with and cartoons by 21 of America's best cartoonists. Here are some of the cartoons themselves... http://www.kkow.net/etep/rants/french_kids.html Sasha

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Sasha

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Too many people debate as if the point is to show who is smarter, rather than which conclusion is correct.

I personally don't trust the French. The only reason why the French helped the US in the American Revolutionary War was to get at England. It wasn't for freedom or anything like that. The noble class of the French that helped the American Revolutionaries were the most tyrannical and autocratic rulers of the time. On the same token, the colonists at the time had pretty much defeated most of the British by the time the French arrived to help the colonists. Though it is good the French helped us out, I sometimes wonder if the French are really appreciative of the US bailing them out of both World War I and World War II. I think the reasons the French hate America is because America is able to do the things that the French government wishes it could do. I feel that some of this hatred is illegitimate. I remember a Congressman who wanted to pass a bill to dig American troops buried in France who liberated the country from the Nazis. I want our troops to rest in peace, but on the same token, I want them to rest in a country that will appreciate them. America is not the monster that the French have tried to make us out to be. I also think that the fact that Bush is willing to act decisively and do what he feels is right whether French likes it or not is the reason for this hatred. The French never liked Americans at all even shortly after World War II and only used America for protection against the Red Army along with the rest of Europe. At times, I wonder if we should start targeting our nukes at France. I don't think their hatred is justified or legitimate and they have total misconceptions about Americans and our leaders. I don't trust their ulterior motives. Kill one man and you are a murderer. Kill millions and you are a conquerer. Kill everyone and you are a God. --Jean Rostand

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Are you angry that others disappoint you? remember you cannot depend upon yourself.
-Benjamin Franklin

I will tell you a story about the French and Yugoslavia Sasha. I know and I can tell you with 100% certainity that the Serbs in Yugoslavia were committing a program of genocide. Yet, in Kosovo, when the US was trying to do the right thing and stop another genocide from occuring (like what happenned in Bosnia) the French were feeding intelligence to the Serbs about our targets that we were fixing to bomb. Hmm...so since I know for sure that the Serbs were the ones that should be bombed and also know that the French were endangering the lives of our pilots, that makes the French a bunch of backstabbers who were aiding and abetting Milosevic's genocide. I have a hard time trusting the French. They are not trustworthy. They also aided a regime that was committing the crime of genocide while endangering American pilots. My personal opinion is that French never liked America, at least since it became a super-power. France likes an America that is weaker than France and not because America is some sort of monster. I don't trust them and I sometimes wonder if we should start targetting our nukes on Paris. Kill one man and you are a murderer. Kill millions and you are a conquerer. Kill everyone and you are a God. --Jean Rostand

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Are you angry that others disappoint you? remember you cannot depend upon yourself.
-Benjamin Franklin

Based on what I know from the Former Yugoslavia and the fact that France was willing to side with the Serbs while they set up over 100 death camps in Bosnia and started a campaign of genocide in Kosovo. I view the French government as coniving and a bunch of backstabbers who are untrustworthy. Kill one man and you are a murderer. Kill millions and you are a conquerer. Kill everyone and you are a God. --Jean Rostand

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Are you angry that others disappoint you? remember you cannot depend upon yourself.
-Benjamin Franklin

Hmm judging by one of the pictures drawn here, the French seem to think that "the Jews" control the US media. The author of this drawing won second place. Here is a caption written on the picture:

quote:

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2nd place: Corinne Goislot Okay, you're symbolizing shitty American blockbuster movies by graphically depicting rich, old white men circle jerking. Yeah, like French films are any better. Nice touch with the big noses, is that supposed to be a Hollywood is run by Jews stereotype?

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and I especially like this caption quoted here from the first drawing (these captions are critics of the drawings and I am supposing american critics):

quote:

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Nice. You've changed France, you've changed. We used to be friends but apparently once you stopped being Nazi France you're too cool to hang out with us anymore.

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Kill one man and you are a murderer. Kill millions and you are a conquerer. Kill everyone and you are a God. --Jean Rostand

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Are you angry that others disappoint you? remember you cannot depend upon yourself.
-Benjamin Franklin

Some of the pictures are actually pretty funny though, even if they are making fun of us heh heh. Kill one man and you are a murderer. Kill millions and you are a conquerer. Kill everyone and you are a God. --Jean Rostand

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Are you angry that others disappoint you? remember you cannot depend upon yourself.
-Benjamin Franklin

Я бы сказал что доверие Франции к США испарилось еще в 1965 году. А оттуда все и начало расти как снежный ком.

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