In which Den gets political.

[den]

re this article linked to by bearblue

I'm really disappointed in the casual dismissal of the deaths of 15,000 people, most of whom were old or very young. It had NOTHING with them being French, or the Government being on holiday, or "the sun being out a little longer than usual," and EVERYTHING to do with a protracted, unseasonal spell of above-average temperatures that European architecture was never designed to repel.

I hate casual dismissals like that. How would people feel about "200 dead in Detroit due to a blizzard, because it got a little colder than usual and Government did nothing, but it's all right because they were AMERICANS." That attitude is wriong, wrong, wrong, and has no place in an article if the writer wants to be taken seriously.

"The World" doesn't hate Americans and the US. They DON'T like "Who gives a fuck." Other countries are not America. We usually do things and think differently from you. But who gives a fuck?

Well, WE do.

The Australian way of doing things has become buried in Americana. Oh, little bits show through in places but it has mostly become US culture. We're a little more relaxed about things, and we talk funny and drive on the wrong side of the road and we certainly don't call the Opposition party "traitors," but it's mostly the same.

And we don't like that much, but we Aussies are a bunch of surrender monkeys and won't complain about that. Much.

Because who gives a fuck?

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/crossfire_/]

That's what you get for reading articles written by Nationalists.

Though our current administration is run by Nationalists, the majority of the United States citizenry is not. Not at this moment, anyway. Sure, we've been hearing much more from them lately, but that's not because there are more of them. It's because Nationalists thrive on international conflict, and love nothing more than to add fuel to the fire by (for example) denigrating the deaths of 15,000 people.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

You know, I had this conversation before with BattyDen. The author is not denigrating the deaths of the 55 thousand people (the actual number; it's about 15,000 more than "average"). Instead, he is lamenting the French government's attitude toward it.

Indeed, I've seen many articles about that incident that call for the French ministers involved to resign. The author seemed to get that right.

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[http://users.livejournal.com/crossfire_/]

From the article:

Or how about france, where 15,000 people die simply because the sun stays out a little longer than usual and the civil servants can't be arsed to get back from the beaches in time to help?

Sounds to me to be both denigrating the deaths ("simply because the sun stays out a little longer than usual") and lamenting the government's attitude towards it ("the civil servants can't be arsed to get back from the beaches in time to help").

[level-head.livejournal.com]

That civil service attitude toward it is exactly what the French new services were saying.

The deaths are peculiar in the sense that it gets much hotter near where I am than it did in France. And Las Vegas regularly hits 115. Also, France's purported death toll from the heat wave was many times higher than all of the rest of Europe combined. It IS hard to explain.

But it is clear that he has the same unhappiness with the civil servants that many others actually in the country do.

An attitude common in France is not fairly attributable as a mean-spirited attack by this US resident.

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[http://users.livejournal.com/crossfire_/]

All true.

But it doesn't alter the fact that "simply because the sun stays out a little longer than usual" is a pretty mean-spirited way of describing the situation.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

It may not be "fuzzy" -- and in fact is not even likely to be accurate in this case. But it was clear from the sentence that his annoyance was directed at the French government officials.

That doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

Perhaps he can stand accused of using speech not sufficiently "sensitive". I think that's fair -- but at the same time, the responses to it that misunderstood the intent look like they have exactly the same problem in my mind.

Not that either is evil -- but I approached this by reading about what happened in France in some detail. As I understood the background and the fact that he shares the affected population's own take on the matter, I understood the fellow's comment. The "outraged" attacks on him were not, ah, sensitive to this. ];-)

Now, I cannot say that it IS the French government's fault! In fact, I'd expect that this is largely unfair -- after all, they expected 40,000 people to die under "normal" circumstances. But I am intrigued at France's very peculiar results compared to its immediate neighbors, and wonder also at the manipulation of statistics I have seen in the various stories about it.

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[http://users.livejournal.com/crossfire_/]

*looks around*

Who are you talking to? I wasn't outraged, nor did I attack the author. I classified him as a Nationalist and that particular statement as denigrating.

And I still agree with you that the author is also lamenting the behavior of the French government. That's quite clear, once you pointed it out to me. But it doesn't alter my perception of the phrase "Or how about france, where 15,000 people die simply because the sun stays out a little longer."

Am I missing your point?

[level-head.livejournal.com]

It is hard to explain why the death rate in France jumped up so very much because of the increase in temperatures -- so very much more from neighboring countries with similar weather and populations.

I think that "the sun stays out a little longer" is not accurate, of course -- it is the same sort of trite response that "global warming" would be. It was an unusual weather pattern. But why a nearly 40% increase in the death rate?

And incidentally, how would you phrase it?

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[http://users.livejournal.com/crossfire_/]

How would I have phrased it? Well, if I were concentrating on criticising the French goverment, I would have written something like "Or how about France, where the civil servants can't be arsed to get back from the beaches to help their own people who are dying in a heat wave?"

If I were going to try and call attention to a reported death increase incongruous with that of neighboring countries, I would have said, "Or how about France, a country whose government reported 40% increase in deaths due to a heatwave, an increase that neighboring countries suffering the same heat didn't share." I sincerely doubt the author was trying to make that point, however, because nowhere does he mention it.

That phrase ("simply because the sun stays out a little longer than usual") is nothing but denigrating and mean-spirited. But that's not surprising; Nationalists often characterize the people of other nations as weak or their governments incompetent. In this case, the author was doing both because it fit the rhetorical question ("Why would anyone want to take orders from the French?") he was posing.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

So the French that agree with him are Nationalists? That sounds bad. ];-)

And the Europeans that express the same attitude toward the US are Nationalists?

What about Americans who express the opinion that Americans are weak and their government incompetent? I've heard that quite a bit recently, but "Nationalists" seems inappropriate for that sort of thing.

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[http://users.livejournal.com/crossfire_/]

Nationalism as a philosophy means exalting one's nation, and promoting its culture or interests above all others.

Bearing that definition in mind, your first and third questions are clearly absurd (which is why I defined Nationalism; those questions indicated to me that you don't know what it meant).

The answer to your second question is "maybe." It would depend on the context.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Hi Guys. This is your Moderator speaking. Just thought I'd pop in to say "Hi" and "Keep playing nice."

den