French schoolchildren know the Statue of Liberty was a gift from France. Romain Gueraud's drawing shows what he imagines is Lady Liberty's current state.
Posted on 07/29/2005 9:25:12 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
The typical citizen of Seattle would feel more at home, ideologically speaking, in Paris than in Dallas. Yet, even a liberal Seattleite would be shocked by the images of America drawn by French schoolchildren.
In January, a cartoon festival was held in the town of Carquefou, just outside of Nantes in the northwest corner of France. Students of all ages competed in a contest to illustrate their vision of the United States. They drew obese Americans devouring Coca-Cola and McDonald's hamburgers. They drew the Statue of Liberty with fangs or in chains or being run over by a wicked Uncle Sam on a motorcycle. And they drew George W. Bush: Bush riding a tank to war; Bush taking over the world; Bush as a liar; Bush as a monster.
There were a few lighthearted drawings of Hollywood and Las Vegas and fast food (hamburgers, always hamburgers) but, predominantly, from ages 8 to 18, the French students sketched images of a fierce and fearsome country. One cartoon summed up American villainy with a series of three hands. The first was a fist representing Stalin's Russia. The second was a saluting palm, representing Hitler's Germany. The third was another fist clutching a cross, representing Bush's America.
Stalin, Hitler and Bush -- one French student's axis of evil.
I was a guest at the cartoon festival, one of four U.S. editorial cartoonists invited to represent an alternative America. The others were Kal (Kevin Kallaugher) of the Baltimore Sun, Steve Benson of the Arizona Republic and Ted Rall of Universal Press Syndicate.
The four of us spent an entire day onstage talking and drawing for nearly 2,000 French girls and boys. We did interviews with national radio networks. We sat near displays of our cartoons, drawing caricatures and meeting hundreds of local folks. We were feted at dinners and wine ceremonies and applauded in public presentations. They might hate our president, but the French loved us -- which is no great surprise since most of what we said was what they wanted to hear. Benson and Rall expressed their views with the unambiguous zeal that outrages so many of their readers. Kal and I were more nuanced. Nevertheless, we were brought in with the assumption that we would be Bush bashers and we lived up to expectations.
At one point, as we stood onstage getting our pictures taken with yet another student being awarded a prize for yet another anti-American image, I turned to Benson and said I felt like one of the Dixie Chicks, the all-girl country singers who got heat in the heartland for denouncing their president at a concert in Europe. We realized it was one thing for us to point out our country's flaws in our daily cartoons and quite another to see our homeland portrayed in such brutal imagery by French schoolkids echoing what they hear from their parents and teachers and see in the media.
As sharp critics who, nevertheless, love our home, we tried to point out that the America simplistically rendered in the children's drawings was a mere caricature, that our country, like theirs, is a complex society struggling to make real its founding principles of liberty, justice and equality. But it was impossible to move the conversation far from the president and his triumphalist foreign policy. Europeans are preoccupied with their disdain of Bush.
It would be nice to think that, once the current occupants of the White House are retired to their ranches, think tanks and corporate boards, all will be harmonious again between old allies, and French schoolchildren will see America in a kinder light. But that ignores broader trends that are causing the United States and Europe to drift apart. The reality is that Europeans are not what they used to be. That, as much as their current anger over American unilateralism, affects how they view the United States. We did not even come close to approaching this subject at the cartoon festival, but it might have been enlightening if we had.
America is a country that rose to pre-eminence through force of arms, from Yorktown and Gettysburg to Omaha Beach and the Persian Gulf. Conversely, Europeans ravaged each other through centuries of disastrous wars over religion, land and ideology. Although military solutions still can be sold to Americans, the average European is convinced that war is virtually never a sane alternative. They want to believe that all problems can be resolved in rational discussions at pleasant meeting places. That's why the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war is anathema to them.
It is more than aversion to war that breeds Europe's animosity toward warrior America, however. Today's Europeans want to escape from history. They live very comfortable lives and do not want to be disturbed by America's flag-waving crusades. This allowed them to brush aside Bush's bogus claims of an imminent Iraqi threat, but it has also led to a certain level of denial when it comes to the genuine perils of international terrorism.
Bush-hating has also given Europeans a marvelous distraction from their own failures; their failure in the Balkans, their failure to come up with a constitution for the European Union, their failure to build an independent military force, their failure to put together a single, coherent European foreign policy. In so many ways, Europeans who once ran the world now feel impotent to affect international events or even get their own house in order. They float like a lovely but rudderless old yacht in the surging wake of an American aircraft carrier.
So, Europeans do the one thing that makes them feel superior: revile Bush, the lunatic cowboy, and all those gun-toting, overweight, money-obsessed, religion-crazed Americans who chose him as their president.
Yet, even when George W. Bush is gone, American power and predominance will remain and so will European unease with having to live in such a unipolar world.
As one French student's illustration pictured so brilliantly, America will still be the bat and the rest of the world will still be the ball.
No surprise...
French schoolchildren know the Statue of Liberty was a gift from France. Romain Gueraud's drawing shows what he imagines is Lady Liberty's current state.
I really don't care what Frogs in a pond think.
Not only would Seattle Congressman "Baghdad" Jim McDermott not be shocked at such images, he's probably drawn a few himself. ....while chanting softly to himself "Bush Lied" ...."No blood for oil."
Stopped reading after this, as it gives away the authors idiocy.
America is a country that rose to pre-eminence through its force of LIBERTY. Because we can do as we please, think as we please; it gives us the ability to be creative.
That creativity created our economy, which allowed us to also afford our military. You cannot have one without the other. But more than that, because our people (mostly) still appreciate those liberties, enough of us are willing to die for them that we will NEVER be defeated.
So someone's actually starting to realize their actions have consequences? A cartoonist who sees the result of his continued bashing of Bush? And he's surprised that a continent that can't wait to pick nits against us has latched on to his Anti-Americanism?
And they wonder why we question their patriotism?
Will somebody please shoot me or at least get me a moving van.
And they best not forget it.
I'd tell you to move over here to Idaho, but alas, Idaho is full.
ROTFLMAO!
Niccolo Machiavelli
Fremont, self-proclaimed "Center of the Universe," is the venue for America's largest statue honoring Lenin.
No, kids -- not one of the Beatles, but Vladimir Illych Lenin, hero of the workers, Communism, and the former Soviet Union.
Is anyone surprised by this attitude? When all of the news outlets available bash us and the Prez every chance they have. I was never surprised that the little Froggies, Krauts, and Sprouts (Belgians, courtesy of Monty Python)dislike us and hold us in contempt. They are ignorant and envious.
F--- THE FRENCH!
Most Texans think Dallas is overrun by Yankees and liberals so comparing Paris to Dallas doesnt really contrast Seattle liberalism with Texas consrvatism effectively. Try Fort Worth or better yet Abilene!
No, Dave, it isn't. It's exactly the same thing. What they know ofs the U.S. is shaped by precisely such people as Horsey and Rall, and it stinks.
And, to be perfectly honest, the view of the U.S. so recorded is equally skewed - the truth of the matter is that David Horsey understands as little about his country as a French third-grader who's never been here.
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