--
--
Best
Greg

" I find Greg Morrow lowbrow, witless, and obnoxious. For him to claim that
we are some
kind of comedy team turns my stomach."
- "cybercat" to me on rec.food.cooking

"cybercat" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Michel Boucher" > wrote in message
> . ..
> > "Gregory Morrow" > wrote in
> > news > >
> >> As much as you admire communism,
> >
> > Wrong.
>
> There is no sport in arguing with the simpleminded.


"Message from discussion For USAins (Knowledge of Geography)

From: Michel Boucher >
Subject: For USAins (Knowledge of Geography)
Date: 2000/05/18
Message-ID: >#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 624775658
References: >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> >
>
>
> >
> >
X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x30.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 192.197.82.230
Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy.
X-Article-Creation-Date: Thu May 18 00:54:06 2000 GMT
X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDalsandor
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.08 [en] (WinNT; U ;Nav)

In article >,
Alan Zelt > wrote:

> Michel Boucher wrote:
>
> > You know, it's pretty pathetic when a foreigner (moi) has to set
> > USAians (not every USAian) straight about their own frikking history
> > when the documents are there and are available to all to set
> > themselves straight.
> > Oy!
>
> For some, the flag waving so hard in front of them makes it very hard
> to concentrate on facts. Besides, for some, facts are only a nuisance,
> getting in the way of belief.

Don't worry Alan, you're not on my hit list ;-)

I've been rereading Hannah Arendt's book On Revolution in the last few
days and I'm seeing it with new eyes. Her essay on the social question
(chapter 2, central to European revolutions) clearly establishes the
distinction between the creation of the US and that of France (and
consequently all of modern Europe) which I believe are still present to
this day.

Without passing judgment on either choice, it is clear that the European
one focuses intently on the alleviation of poverty and the subjugation
of individual choices to the common weal (socialism, communism, and in
its essence Christianity), whereas the US revolution brought about the
institutionalization of ownership by all (white males) and the right to
defend that against encroachments. This is something which is foreign to
nations where the alleviation of poverty has had to be the first diktat.

I can see snippets of this dichotomy in the debate here. It may also
explain why, with all the good will in the world, the US will never be
able to do more than manipulate purse strings abroad and their system
of government is redundant in places like Africa. In their fundament,
they don't understand the forces that drive less fortunate states.
Until wealth is more evenly distributed in the entire world, it's never
going to happen.

Enough rambling. Back to the fireworks! :-) "

</>