".....The French never really liked the Clinton administration, either. In June 2000, during President Clinton's last year in office, France was the only one (talk about unilateralism) of 107 countries to refuse to sign a U.S. initiative aimed at encouraging democracy around the world. A year earlier, State Department spokesman James Rubin complained, "We do find it puzzling and passing strange that France would spend so much energy and focus so much attention on the danger to them of a strong United States rather than the dangers that we and France together face from countries like Iraq." The French oppose the United States, quite simply, for what it is—the most powerful country on earth.
If Britain's "special relationship" with the United States is to pal around with it and work to influence its policies from within, France thinks it has an equally special relationship with the U.S.: Its sacred duty is to check American power by publicly and ostentatiously objecting to it from without...."
posted on March 1, 2003 08:44:35 AM new
Slate - Thought I'd read they were going to be 'going out of business' due to lacking financial support. hmmmm
Anyway...I've lifted the paragraph from twelvepole's thread [url] where it was stated: I guess it's time again for the ritual bi-weekly statement that I don't really care "why they hate us". When you're fighting a war it is inevitable that it will make a lot of people unhappy. Thus has it always been. So be it....because I agree with it.
posted on March 1, 2003 09:27:17 AM new
It's Salon that's probably going out of business, not Slate. They're different entities, Slate is part of MSN, lack of financial support probably isn't going to be a problem with Slate.
I was thinking the other day about how when I was a kid, one of the things we learned in school was that there was a balance of power, between Russia, China, and the U.S. If Russia wanted to do something too dangerous to the world, China and the U.S. could team up to stop them, if China got too threatening, Russia and the U.S. would join up temporarily, and the U.S. was held in check as well by the knowledge that we could be stopped by a China-Russia partnership.
This was a real comforting idea to a kid. I'd like to have it as an adult as well. France isn't going to be able to restore the (probably mythical) balance of power. It would be nice if they could.
posted on March 1, 2003 12:03:49 PM new
Thanks donny, you're right. Not Slate. On the financial health of MSN you might be right...but their MSNBC ratings have been dropping for quite a while...recently...Donahue was canned as he couldn't get the ratings they had hoped for...and now Michael Savage has been brought abroad....hoping to pull the conservative audience?? [maybe]
