Estd. 2002. Politics, tech, startups, media, law, history, philosophy
Gregg Easterbrook has a post about the Atlantic’s cover story this month. He seems to make it sound all unreleased and exclusive – but it’s not. I got the Atlantic last week, as did every other subscriber, and perhaps wasn’t aware of the full implications of the Kerry piece. I preferred O’Rourke’s piece on Iraq.
But hey, Gregg is excited about it so it must be important- link will appear when the Atlantic update their site.
“When we get injured, all it says is `one soldier wounded,’ ” Specialist Acosta said, echoing others at Walter Reed. “Not that a soldier has lost an arm or a leg, or how hard that is.”
Early one morning last July, my rifle company boarded a convoy of trucks leaving Nasiriyah, an Iraqi city 180 miles south of Baghdad, bound for Kuwait. After tossing my pack onto a truck, I looked back at members of the Carabinieri, Italy’s military police force, who were staying. They were made groggy and disgruntled by the early hour, and about to assume watch over the building we had shared for the past month.
Last Wednesday, I turned on the morning news and saw that that same building had become a charred skeleton. It was all chaos and smoke after a car or truck bomb exploded directly beneath the window where I had once slept. I listened to the grisly numbers: the dead, the missing, the wounded, Iraqis and Italians. But there were no faces, no names. I had no way of knowing who among them I may have known. I could only imagine that everyone I had known there had become a casualty. I was at a remove, trying to resume my life in New York
« Cause sometimes you just feel tired.
You feel weak and when you feel weak you feel like you wanna just give up.
But you gotta search within you, you gotta find that inner strength
and just pull that shit out of you and get that motivation to not give up
and not be a quitter, no matter how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face and collapse. »
Continue reading “Gotta search the inner strength inside of you…”
Ok I said I would link to some of the articles in this month’s Atlantic. Here’s talk of the first one.
P.J. O’Rourke does a spectacular job this month – and here is an interview on his piece – which I can’t link to yet. His article is absolutely brilliant – c’mon Atlantic let me link to it.
In the song « Fight Music » from D12, Eminem states :
« If I could capture the rage of today’s youth and bottle it
Crush the glass from my bare hands and swallow it
»
Eminem understands todays youths problems very well. He stands very close to young people, growing up in a fatherless home with an abusive drug addicted mom. He understands what kids may be going through with irresponsible parents who dont take time for them and who are physically and verbally abusive towards them. He goes on in the same song:
« I came to save these new generations of babies
from parents who failed to raise ’em cause they’re lazy
»
In his song « Sing for the Moment » from the Eminem Show, Eminem travels through the thoughts of a teenager whose anger keeps growing against his stepfather. He is surrounded by violence and retaliates with violence.
“He’s a problem child, what bothers him all comes out
When he talks about his fuckin’ dad walkin out
Cos he hates him so bad that he blocks him out
But if he ever saw him again, he’d prolly knock him out
His thoughts are whacked, he’s mad so he’s talkin’ back
Talkin black, brainwashed from rock and rap
He sags his pants, 2 rags and a stocking cap
His step-father hit him so he socked him back
And broke his nose, this house is a broken home
There’s no control, he just lets his emotions go
Come on… “
Kids like him find their only solace in the music. Eminem is conscious as an entertainer to bring something positive to angry and abused children who go through hopeless situations. He says that he sings for them in particular :
“It’s why we sing for these kids that don’t have a thing
Except for a dream and a fucking rap magazine…”
Eminems own story teaches those kids that you can succeed despite a hard childhood.
President Bush stated several years ago that « Eminem is the biggest threat to kids since polio. » Does he offer any kind of therapy to those kids who will probably be hurt for life? Adults who live in their confortable lives wont be able to understand easily the rage of ghetto kids who probably experienced more dramas than they will in their entire life. Many adult « kids specialists » are not close enough to them to investigate their minds.
I dont even think psychiatrists will be able to help them to work out those problems. As far as I am concerned, music is the best way to cure negative emotions that need to escape from our soul. As long as we keep those negative emotions deep inside, we will feel sick and hurt. Being asked for himself if he needed some therapy in an MTV interview by Kurt Loder, Eminem replied :
” No, I don’t. I feel like I don’t need therapy. I feel like my music is my therapy. Because once I sit down and write, I get everything off my chest. People might think that I walk around mad all day, and I’m not, you know what I’m saying? For the most part I’m happy. I get all my aggression out in the studio. When I leave the studio, I’m like, “Whew.”
The same words that cured him will also help thousands of young people to get rid of their rage.
Singing is a good way to express the rage that we feel inside and step by step, we will see it vanish. This actually happened to me.
« Cleaning Out My Closet » is a song that should be taken seriously as a therapy for many mishandled kids. It will certainly help to prevent from children abuse. The video is impressing : it is a travel through different life periods, the scariest vision is Eminem as an adult watching himself as a kid. Its like watching a science fiction film. The pain is present in the whole video : at home, at church, digging Debbies grave. Some people accuse Eminem of being a selfish whining man who is self-obsessed and who only talks about his own problems. Even if his music seems to be self-centred at first sight, it delivers a strong message of hope to many young people. They will realize through his example that they can succeed, no matter what abusive parents did to them. A cured mind will help them to the way of success.
In one of his freestyles from his movie « 8 Mile », Eminem claims :
« Your style is generic/Mine is authentic made… »
Eminems rhymes and music are so particular that you could recognize him easily among thousand other rappers. This is not due to his skin color, but to the authenticity and creativity of his rhymes.
In my point of view, Eminem gets a lot of appreciation from people because of his great rhyming ability, but also because the songs he wrote refer to authentic feelings that come out of his chest. It is well known that Eminem spends hours studying words in his dictionnary in order to find new words to rhyme.
When the inspiration comes to him, he needs to write them down, no matter where Thats how he used to do as a kid :
« I like to throw my ideas just scattered on to paper. When I was busing tables, Id write em on my hands or on receipts. I wrote rhymes on the wall in my old house right above my bed. I did it in pencil but one time when I went to wipe it off, I wiped off the paint. My mom fuckin flipped. »
People also appreciate the fact that the talented rapper uses the words to speaking his mind. All the tragic events and emotions he went through are used in a creative way. All kind dramas, emotions and thoughts are canalized in Eminems music. Eminems rhymes are much more than just a couple of beats and cusswords. He has brought hip hop lyrics to a high level of poetry.
Even if some listeners are less sensitive to Eminems high level of skills, Eminem manages to convince them through his originality. He doesnt rap about big cars and jewels, he raps about himself, he lets true emotions out, he raises real social issues. Eminem sounds convincing, because he keeps it real. He never tries to manipulate his public nor to fake himself. He has the sincerity to expose his own mistakes publicly.
He may be the most wanted rapper on the planet, but he always keeps simple.
His simplicity makes the greatness of the man, because Marshall Mathers is a genuine person in his music as well as in life.
Three major European countries returned to muted economic growth during the summer, underscoring both the momentum of the global recovery and Europe’s lagging role within it.
Germany, France and the Netherlands, which together account for more than half the economic activity in the euro zone, on Thursday all reported a modest expansion of gross domestic product in the third quarter, after their economies shrank in the previous quarter. For Germany and the Netherlands, which had been in recession, the numbers were a welcome bill of health.
But the actual gains – 0.2 percent in Germany, 0.4 percent in France, and 0.1 percent in the Netherlands – illustrate that in Europe, the difference between a recession and recovery can be little more than a rounding error.
“Europe remains very sluggish,” said Daniel Gros, the director of the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels. “What we will have at the end of this year in growth would not be considered adequate in the U.S.”
Indeed, much of Europe’s resurgence can be traced to the more robust recovery in the United States and the continued torrid growth in China. Americans are buying French fashion while the Chinese import German machinery.
The growth in demand for European exports, particularly those of Germany, has come despite a rising euro, the damaging effects of which had been widely forecast in Europe.
The euro rose again Thursday, to $1.173 in late trading from $1.164 Wednesday.
One way of understanding how the French really feel about the United States these days is to ask them not about Iraq but about Arnold Schwarzenegger.
When the Austrian-born actor won the governorship of California, some politicians and commentators said that his victory reflected a dangerous American populism.
But many French shared the enthusiasm of Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s law-and-order interior minister.
Sarkozy is said to harbor presidential ambitions, but the fact that he is the offspring of Hungarian immigrants and never went to an elite school puts him at a distinct disadvantage.
In a remarkably confessional interview with RTL radio, Sarkozy said of Schwarzenegger: “That someone who is a foreigner in his country, who has an unpronounceable name,” can become the governor of the biggest state in the United States, “is not nothing!”
The current French-American rift, born of differences over Iraq but rooted in deeper post-cold-war friction, is more complex than it may appear. Bitter feelings remain strong on both sides of the Atlantic, and there is a sense that something fundamental in the relationship has failed. In many areas, anti-Americanism – of the kind President George W. Bush will encounter in a visit to Britain next week – is at a high pitch.
But a close look at French attitudes toward America suggests that repulsion and disenchantment are at least equaled by attraction, curiosity and outright envy.
Huge swaths of the relationship – in the realms of business, intelligence and even military affairs – still work. Criticism of the Bush administration, given full voice in the media, is offset by a French business ethic that often lauds the United States, and by a strong feeling, particularly among the young, that America remains a land of opportunity.
“When someone says, ‘I’m going to work for a big corporation in New York for two years,’ well, we all want to live that life,” said Martin Coriat, 24, a student at a business school.
It is true that in strategic terms, the countries often seem to have parted ways.
France’s unease with the extent of American power has been bubbling since the end of the cold war dissolved the glue of trans-Atlantic relations: a shared threat assessment of Soviet power. No such common threat assessment has existed since then.
Indeed, if Sept. 11, 2001, is now the date of reference for America’s security outlook, France and all of Europe tend to look more to 1989 and the end of the cold war. Even as America feels more threatened, Europe and France feel less so. With Iraq, these differences exploded.
“The Americans used the equation ‘Iraq equals terrorism’ to create a sort of debt of loyalty,” argues Stanley Hoffmann, the Harvard historian, in his new book, published in France last month, titled “America, Truly Imperial?” But, he adds, the French government failed to “appreciate how much the context was new.”
What also is new is that France, like much of Europe, has relinquished some sovereignty, embracing multinational institutions like the European Union and the World Court.
As a result, France seeks to maximizes its influence by becoming part of a bigger whole. By contrast, the Bush administration prefers to make decisions unilaterally, working with others only when necessary, as with the invasion of Iraq. Tensions inevitably grow.
They are accentuated by the fact that France still believes, like America, that is it has a global mission to spread democracy and liberty. But French “republicanism” requires adherence to the notion of the ideal citizen and does not celebrate diversity or ambition. That, says Michele Lamont of Harvard University, “limits possibilities.”
The lure of America The view of America as a land of possibility is strong at L’Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales in Jouy-en-Josas, a leafy town 25 kilometers, or 15 miles, from Paris. At this school of business and commerce, the goal is to teach students how to compete in a globalized world where American business models set the standard. Gone is France’s historic unease about discussing money.
“Profit is the driver,” said Bernard Ramanantsoa, the school’s dean and a professor of strategy and business policy. “Money is the key.”
Here, the dream among many French students is not to put down roots at home but to sail away – to America, a mythical place, perhaps, but one of boundless energy and possibility.
For Florian Bressand, 23, America offers “the right to fail that does not exist in France.”
The exodus of young French to Silicon Valley is so dramatic that it has led to the creation of organizations like Interfrench, a nonprofit group of 5,000 French-speaking members who share business intelligence and even advice about French restaurants.
The departures reflect a measure of self-doubt. A slim volume titled “La France qui tombe,” or “France in Free Fall,” is on the best-seller list; France’s troubled economy has sparked a fierce debate on the wisdom of a law limiting workers to a 35-hour week and whether the French work hard enough. A recent poll found that 63 percent of the French believe their country is in decline.
Yet such doubts coexist with a French sense of cultural superiority to America that often seems overwhelming. Only 24 percent of the French are inspired by the American economic system, 13 percent by American culture, 10 percent by lifestyle and 8 percent by American foreign policy, a poll by the BVA group last found in February.
The disdain for things American is expressed in a variety of ways. Mayor Bertrand Delanoë of Paris, for example, protested the death penalty in the United States by bestowing honorary citizenship on Mumia Abu Jamal, a former Black Panther sentenced to death for the 1981 murder of a white Philadelphia policeman.
The Americanization of France
Dreams of America do not exist in the worker bars just outside a Michelin tire plant in Clermont-Ferrand.
Here, the smell of cigarette smoke masks that of rubber and glue in the medieval-turned-industrial city in the heart of France. The conversations about America among assembly line workers just off the night shift tend to focus on the dangers of a world driven by the American quest for profit.
“The United States, many people say it’s so good. But the bottom line, the only thing that counts, is money,” said Jose Fernandes, 45, a 26-year veteran at Michelin. “Retired people are forced to go back to work. The lowest workers don’t get paid vacations. If your boss doesn’t like you, you’re fired.”
Fernandes added that Michelin management “would copy the United States if it could. But it can’t. Here, we have laws.” He was referring to French regulations that often make firing an employee impossible, guarantee six-week vacations and provide comprehensive pensions and health care.
The scene is rather different inside Michelin’s corporate headquarters. Here, managers use American team-building models and are driven by a fierce competitiveness that has put Michelin ( barely) in the position of No. 1 global tire manufacturer.
Michelin may be one of the most secretive companies in France, but it is also one of the most global, with operations in 18 countries. Only about 30,000 of 130,000 employees worldwide work in France.
“The culture of Michelin is not to be too French,” said Jean Laporte, director of Michelin’s internal communications. That means talking about profit all the time, he said, adding, “Maybe it’s a little bit of an exaggeration to say that the French never talk about money.”
Last spring, in the face of an American campaign to boycott all things French, Michelin itself went to war. It answered every letter, e-mail message and phone call, informing its potential enemies that Michelin is as American as it is French, that it employs more than 20,000 Americans in 17 American factories and produces tires for U.S. Army armored personnel carriers.
The public relations offensive worked; the boycott – at Michelin, at least – failed.
What works, what doesn’t
Just as Michelin has gone on selling tires in America, swaths of the France-American relationship have continued to run smoothly. When the French police in June arrested Christian Ganczarski, a German Al Qaeda sympathizer with links to the bombing of a Tunisian synagogue in April 2002 and the Sept. 11 attacks, it was the result of an American-inspired sting operation with Saudi and French cooperation.
“The cooperation with the CIA and FBI has become even stronger since September 11 when the United States understood – as we did long before – the war against radical Islam,” said Pierre de Bousquet, the head of France’s counterintelligence service. “Nothing has changed because of Iraq.” But more than six months after Bush declared the war against Iraq over, the extreme friction with France is not. On several issues – from the environment to the death penalty – France and America do not share the same values.
The Bush administration remains in an unforgiving mood, French diplomats say. White House officials remind their French counterparts that the relationship is seriously damaged, and that they are sorely disappointed that France is refusing to contribute to Iraq’s reconstruction.
Cognizant of the damage, President Jacques Chirac has stopped using the expression “multipolar world,” which had enraged Bush administration officials because it seemed to envision a power to oppose rather than support America.
But privately, many of Chirac’s advisers have concluded that they will have to wait for a new American administration before the rift can be repaired.
By both American and French accounts, when Bush and Chirac met in New York in September, they had a remarkably cordial chat – until conversation turned to Iraq.
Chirac said that he knew from “bitter experience” not to underestimate the power of Arab nationalism, and that a swift transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi people was crucial, said two senior officials familiar with the conversation.
“Jacques, I have listened carefully and I strongly disagree,” Bush was paraphrased as responding.
Chirac backed off, saying that he was making the point as a friend. Then he added ominously, “History will judge.” For France and America, the rift is not quite complete.