Liberté, Egalité, Absurdité

January 3, 2005

Don’t blame me for starting a debate on relations between France and the USA today, blame the New York Times and this mystifying hit-and-run piece.

There is so much to argue in this article, which I will only go into in the comments section, but I am more intrigued by the timing of such an article: who wants to stoke up the flames of resentment against France? What’s the ultimate goal behing this? Is this part of the general campaign to go and wage war in Iran (which is specifically mentioned in the article, albeit in an unusually complimentary way as regards France’s role there)? Is it part of the silly game of one-upmanship between various countries on who-is-helping-Asia-the-most? Is it a salvo in the diplomatic game surrounding the possible reorganisation of the UN Security Council?

Or is it just a pleasant, "feel-good" way to start the new year with some harmless bashing of the least politically correct group around?

Please help me make sense of it!

Posted by on January 3, 2005 at 14:12 UTC | Permalink

Comments

One might propose the following exegesis: the French were right about the murderous Iraq fiasco, and it’s no longer possible to ignore the views and interests of France and “old Europe” with impunity. Moreover, France’s insufficient
Zionism is unforgivable, while France’s once having greatly facilitated Israel’s acquisition of a nuclear arsenal is unmentionable.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 3 2005 14:28 utc | 1

In random order…
“French military crackdown in the Ivory Cost”?
France is leading an international peacekeeping force (unanimously backed by the UN Security Council, which includes the US) to separate the rebels in the North from goverment forces in the South, with both sides bent on civil war. Everybody agrees that without French soldiers there would be a bloodbath and France has basically killed off its good relations with a 40-year close ally (the official government of Côte d’Ivoire) to step in.
“Instead, de Gaulle went on to demand that the United States withdraw from Vietnam and, eventually, to pull his own forces out of NATO.”
Cheap link between totally unrelated issues (the paragraph before that being about the Dominican Republic). It’s very easy to find contentious issues at any time between two countries and then link them to whatever point you’re trying to make, but simultaneity does not prove causality. France pulled out of the integrated military command of NATO, but never out of the political alliance (which was the most important part). And the advice on Vietnam was, well, not totally wrong, already back then…
“Hence de Gaulle developed a nuclear arsenal, threatened to destabilize the dollar and criticized American military actions.”
Well, a(n independent) nuclear arsenal is certainly a real reason to be listened to; if puny France was able to destabilise the dollar on its own, it certainly was not very strong to begin with (isn’t that what US politicians say about third world countries beset by financial crises – “if there wasn’t something wrong, the markets would not have punished the country?”); critisizing american military action seems more and more as a vital thing to do for the rest of the world, not that it has much effect anyway (domestic US criticism is much more important and effective so we count on you guys)
“Before the invasion of Iraq, Paris didn’t just express reservations – it tried to sabotage American goals in every feasible venue, from the chambers of the Security Council to the committee rooms of NATO”
For some strange reason, France manage to convince Canada and Mexico (not to mention a lot of others) not to back the US on this one. How on earth could such an insignificant country have an influence on countries who have the US as their main – or only – neighbor??
“The United States may choose to work with France on a few areas of mutual diplomatic interest – Haiti and perhaps Iran – but in general, the marginal amounts of aid and peacekeeping help Paris can offer hardly merit concessions on our part.”
Us aid budget = 10 billion $ (of which about half goes to Israel and Egypt)
French aid budget = 5 billion $
France has 6,000 soldiers in Côte d’Ivoire, a few thousand in Afghanistan, a few thousand each in Bosnia and Kosovo, and is one of the few countries able to send that kind of force with a few hours or days’ notice where it’s needed around the world, usually in coordinatino with the US.
Less than the US, sure. Negligible?
“Moreover, making an example of the French is precisely the wrong approach because it elevates France in the eyes of the world’s anti-Americans, who will always be with us. The one thing France and the neo-Gaullists can’t possibly abide is being ignored.”
You got that one right, John J. Miller of the National Review. Strange that it is the US neoconservatives who seem the least able to abide by these wise words.
Meanwhile, the US alone is the US, the US without France has a “coalition of the willing”, the US with France is “the international community”; why is that?
Maybe simply because an action led by the US and approved by France, which is known to be fiercely critical, is likely to be legitimate? Think about it…

Posted by: Jérôme | Jan 3 2005 14:56 utc | 2

@ Jérôme If I were you I wouldn’t take these anatomically amazing neo-“con”
assholes seriously. If you stop to think about it a bit, what the American opposition (both left and right) is now trying to preserve (or restore) is precisely that precious inheritance that all Americans (but not only Americans) have from the French enlightenment, especially the thought of Montesquieu on division of powers and the very notion of a secular state
without privileged castes or hereditary aristocracy.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 3 2005 15:11 utc | 3

Kos link
HKOL – I know, but it’s just so much fun sometimes…

Posted by: Jérôme | Jan 3 2005 15:49 utc | 4

The neo-cons need villains, a scapegoat. Out of thin air they pulled “Freedom Fries”. It all would be laughable, a two year old’s temper tantrum, except these neo-cons are in control of the Pentagon and the White House.
If they are so illogic to destroy relations with old Europe and kill hundreds of thousands in a voluntary war of aggression, there is absolutely no guarantee that they won’t bring democracy to Syria and Iran from the innards of a Stealth Bomber.
One guarantee, the neo-cons hate sane leaders who tell them that their beliefs are delusional.

Posted by: Jim S | Jan 3 2005 16:41 utc | 5

The whole article doesn’t make any sense to me, unless it is just about French bashing. There is also an interesting article in IHT (seems it was originally in the NYT too) today. I guess you are right Jérôme that there must be a hidden agenda – actually two article in one day, curious. But why – maybe just because they can, or because they need a scapegoat?
America’s ridiculous hatred of the French – Antoine Audouard, The New York Times

But the hysteria of French-bashing has given way to a more insidious form of bias. For example, it was humbling for us French to watch Democratic operatives desperately trying to hide John Kerry’s French relatives – who had come to be with him at the Democratic convention – from the news media. And it was rather funny to hear the advice given by some television pundits to Kerry minutes before the first debate: “Don’t speak French.” (He didn’t, and by the way, it made no difference.) And whether in rustic tabloid lingo or in the more refined language of broadsheets, the typical out-of-touch East Coast liberal is more often than not “French-speaking” or “Bordeaux-drinking.”
.
Then there are the jabs delivered by all those late-night comedians. It has become fashionable – even commonplace – in the American media to associate the French with things cowardly, despicable, unfaithful, ungrateful or foul-smelling, in addition to the (more conventional) complaint about Gallic arrogance.
.
Here in the country of political correctness, where the mainstream media tread on eggshells when talking about race, religion, nation or ethnicity, French-bashing, it would seem, has become politically correct.
.
Why the French exception? Several reasons spring to mind. France’s opposition to the war in Iraq is the first, of course. This has infuriated the political establishment – Republicans and Democrats alike. And during times of war, patriotic sentiment can quickly become xenophobic. Having cast themselves in the role of Cassandra (who was endowed with the gift of prophecy but not with the talent of making herself heard), the French should not be surprised by the American Agamemnon’s resentment.

Posted by: Fran | Jan 3 2005 17:18 utc | 6

jérôme
look who this fellow writes for. enough of our time is necessary to be taken with serious thinking – not the sophomoric banalities of a fifth rate mind that ejaculates as quickly as you can say hungarian uprising
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 3 2005 18:49 utc | 7

To paraphrase two-ton Tony Galento: “John J. Miller? I never hoid o’ da bum”.
Our combined lives are not long enough to pick out all the idiocy in this “editorial” so let me briefly target the bad ally fallacy.
One could bring up the old story about De Gaulle refusing to look at satellite pictures of a Soviet missile buildup in Cuba during the missile crisis claiming that the U.S. president’s word was good enough for him (Kerry seemed to like that one).
Then there’s the French atomic weapons program which was encouraged and helped along by the U.S.
I might remind Miller that U.S warplanes based in the UK were authorized to fly over France in order to reach Iraq during this Gulf war…
But then I’d be making the point that a substantial part of the trans-Atlantic acrimony is an electorally driven act for the masses on both sides. A “journalist” who seems not to know this has no business writing for his high school paper much less for the NYT. What’s next John: “Yo Mama is so French” jokes? Actually, that might at least have some entertainment value.

Posted by: Guillaume | Jan 3 2005 19:07 utc | 8

By present neo-gangster code, anything “not with us” is an enemy. Especially, anything successful. Consider Cuba, especially lately in it’s world leadership role in non-corporatized agriculture. Of course they were always after Cuba since Castro fucked over their off shore fucking.
France was right and lead the effort against US self-justified hegemony of Iraq. France lead the way in enlightenment ideas and even influenced stalwarts like Jefferson & Franklin. It’s about time they were put in their place before they expose our Syrian and Iranian projects for this new century.

Posted by: Juannie | Jan 3 2005 20:31 utc | 9

Jerome, I have no idea why the NYT would have printed this particular screed at this time, other than in a misplaced attempt to interject some humor onto its editorial page. This piece, though, does call to mind yet another disturbing similarity between the Right Wing in the United States and the Nazis — the treatment of any form of higher culture as effete. Of course, one of the cultural hallmarks of the Nazis was their glorification of German Volkkultur, or at least their artificial interpretation of it, and the concommitant denigration of Hochkultur. The former was genuine, manly and patriotic, while the latter was artificial, effete,and “cosmopolitan.” In fact, in the run-up to Nazi power, one of the ongoing criticisms of the Jews was their alleged adherence to “cosmopolitan” rather than “German” culture.
I think we’re seeing exactly the same thing in American culture. I’ve never been one to decry popular culture — my tastes in music, for example, are pretty Neanderthal — but even to me, raised on American television and movies, American popular culture is coarsening at an alarming rate. On the other hand, who is the very epitome of all that we aren’t, culturally, but the French? I have thought from the beginning that the pointless attacks on France reflected in part a deepseated and wholly unwarranted sense of inferiority by Americans, but mostly a semi-conscious attempt by the Right Wing to play on the sensibilities of the masses. This incidentally explains why you haven’t seen the same attacks on Germany, even though Germany has been equally unhelpful (and right) — German culture in the United States has the image of being hearty and, heck, manly. Significantly, this glorification of “manliness” was a near-obsession with Hitler and Nazi propaganda, just as it is with the Christian Right in Amerika.
I’m sure there are many people out there who understand the interplay between culture and politics infinitely better than I do — are you on-line, rememberinggiap? — and I would love to hear from them on this.

Posted by: Aigin | Jan 3 2005 21:53 utc | 10

aigin
to put it simply – i think you are absolutely correct to make these demarcations & i am worried that somehow indirectly it is a paper war preparing us for a real war with iran
i know the connection is not obvious – but if i have learnt anything from sicily it is that – make them focus elsewhere while you plan for the worst type of action. for france a war with iran would be unthinkable & if i was going to sart something in iran – i’d want to pre-hot some of the likely opponents
aigin – there is much that i lkie in abstract expressionism – in the work of pollock, rothko, kline, newman, rivers but there was unquestionably a political imperative to move the cultural capital from france to new york. there are a number of books on this point that are worth reading. all the cold war scholarship with cia support like the associations for cultural freedom were not incidental to the enterprise of announcing pax america – & the policies of terror that would be applied to latin america, asia & africa commencing in the fifties
no art is neutral
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 3 2005 22:26 utc | 11

This is not a hard call, Jérôme. The New York Times has long sustained an almost morbid level of envy and rage at Paris for having kept, since WW II, its position as the intellectual capital of the West (for Paris, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, has done exactly that ). The warm reception of French thought by America during the seventies–as of Levi-Strauss, Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida, Debord, and others too numerous to mention–was neither noticed, nor sanctioned, nor in any way deliberated by the New York Times. That paper has rather confused the intellectual work of contemporary France with a later, less intellectual, and more punctual (or more visible) disturbance known as “9/11”. And there’s nothing to be done about this, because the paper’s monoglot writers and editors can’t read or speak a single word of French. To them, French is indistinguishable from Arabic (I know them, Jérôme, and what I say is true).

Posted by: alabama | Jan 3 2005 22:39 utc | 12

On the other hand, if you should further insist on a united Iraq, you will fail, and all your efforts and sacrifices of so many people will be in vain
Clusterfuck?

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 3 2005 22:59 utc | 13

No conspiracy Jerome or Fran, just a slow opinion day.

Posted by: FlashHarry | Jan 3 2005 23:05 utc | 14

I don’t see anything new here, just a crystallization of previously diffuse misconceptions. To American puritans – and to the British as well – France has always been sinful, meaning by this, of course, joyful, unrestrained & horribly desirable. Hence “French kiss”, “French letters”. This was tolerable when tolerance wasn’t in such scarce supply. Intellectual superiority wasn’t and still isn’t a big issue because few Americans are able to notice it anyway.
Sin, however, is only the tip of the iceberg. There are two diametrically opposed worldviews colliding here. Given the impossibility of manning all battle stations in their quest to become Masters of the Universe, the American dream of empire always had to rely on cultural hegemony. We all wanted to be Americanos. That’s how it worked for a few decades, but now the natives all over the world are getting a bit restless over the visible results of this enterprise – violence, greed, fear, unhappiness – and are looking for other models. What is the single established culture that can provide a clear counterpoint to the American way of doing things?
I can tell you what is happening in practice here in Brazil. We’re back at watching French movies, something that had gone out of fashion some 20 or 30 years ago. We are listening to French music and reading the French authors. Our young students want to go to France, Italy, even Eastern Europe, anything but the United States. Repulsion is growing towards the US and, when that happens, the obvious point of attraction is France.
On this regard, it should also be noted that the American disgust is hardly unilateral. The French, as a rule, equally despise Americans and what they stand for, albeit a bit more discreetly. I remember asking the shop owner at my hotel in Paris whether they would be open on the next day, a Sunday, and hearing the proud reply: “Monsieur, nous ne sommes pas Americains.”

Posted by: pedro | Jan 3 2005 23:45 utc | 15

pedro
a good thing too – the chanson française is seriouslly underestimated & i can suggest noir desir, francis cabrel, lojo triban, bernard lavilliers(a passionate lover of brazil & brazilians) arnothere are woman singer here to rival the temptress mercedes sosa & of course you & i pedro will turn althusser into song. brazil is one of the centres of althusserian scholarship & they have never allowed a ‘darmatic situation’ to get in the way of lyrical philosophy
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 3 2005 23:57 utc | 16

that should read ‘dramatic situation’ tho i could have meant ‘dharmatic situation’ or another variation based on my highly proficient typing skills

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 4 2005 0:01 utc | 17

a book that’s gotten some attention here is called The United States of Europe.
You can listen to an interview with the author, Reid, on Fresh Air
…Sixty years later, not only has the European Union been created — complete with a capitol, a democratically elected parliament, a flag and an army — but the unthinkable also occurred: they created a common currency, the euro, which is beating the pants off the almighty American dollar.
According to T. R. Reid, author of eight books on the economies of Japan, China and the Middle East, while America was thundering along, assuming its place at the head of the pack as the biggest, the baddest and the best, the youthful European Union has sprinted up and pulled out to pass a complacent and self-satisfied giant. America Firsters will not take kindly to at least one early chapter where health and longevity, income, marriage and commercial productivity figures are compared –– none too favorably –– with the European Union. Reality bites, as they say –– and Reid shows us a reality that any thinking economist, or any American for that matter, should chew on.
Last year at this time, The Guardian had a story about the UK studying the French health care system because it was the best in the world. Many Americans live and breathe the idea that “socialized medicine” is terrible…so many people have internalized that bull it’s astonishing. They hate to hear that France is better than the U.S.– or that infant mortality in the U.S. is higher than so many other western democracies..Americans can’t stand it when they’re not able to claim their system is the best of all possible worlds.
The bashing, in other words, seems to be coming about because those who are aware know that the EU is a threat to U.S. hegemony, and France is often seen as the voice of the EU because Chirac is willing to play the power game more vocally than others.
As mentioned before, fewer people want to study here because of the current administration’s policies. People are making transfers on flights in Canada, rather than the U.S., to avoid the new security measures.
Again, I’ve never heard so many people who are Americans who talk about wanting to move…again, because of those in power now.
The neocons expect the world to bow to their power, and they will try to exact revenge when people do not. They’ve been waiting since the early 90s to get this moment to act like son of a bitches around the world. I hope we all survive them.

Posted by: fauxreal | Jan 4 2005 0:40 utc | 18

rememberinggiap, I’m taking notes & will look for those at Soulseek, my latest addiction. (By the way, I went to see Jane Birkin a few weeks ago in São Paulo & unfortunately I think I still love her.)
What I was trying to say in my post is not, obviously, that France could ever be a match for the US in political, military or economic terms, but precisely that it can be the annoying proof that none of this really matters. Simply by existing & remaining culturally self-sufficient and defiant it points us in a wholly different direction, one in which efficiency and rationality can be coupled to pleasure and enjoyment of life. Brazil has a powerful culture as well, but we are plagued by an inferiority complex. We were becoming too American for my own taste; perhaps now things will change a bit.
Incidentally, this is somehow what I was clumsily trying to drive at when I posted my New Year’s wishes a few days ago: let’s be analytical, let’s rage, but let’s try to be happy as well. Happiness is a potent political statement. Perhaps one of the shortcomings of the American Left at present is that, contrarily to what happend in the 60’s and 70’s, now the “erotic” subtext (in the widest possible meaning) is missing. Being against something is not appealing enough; one must also propose – and, if possible, embody – something more desirable. I don’t see it happening, perhaps because hope seems to be in such short supply.
And yes, dharmatic situation is very good…

Posted by: pedro | Jan 4 2005 0:55 utc | 19

aigin
to put it simply – i think you are absolutely correct to make these demarcations & i am worried that somehow indirectly it is a paper war preparing us for a real war with iran
i don’t believe it is for no particular reason and tend to agree w/ r’giap. we know what their goals are and it is not to stop w/iraq. so rovian to start accusing in a timely fashion before they go in for the kill. perhaps we should prepare the barge and send back the statue.
four years is not a very long time. just like they had iraq in sight in 2000 i’m sure they have a plan now. we should all be alert for any little sign. i put nothing past them. why print something like that on a whim? it makes no sense.

Posted by: annie | Jan 4 2005 1:05 utc | 20

hm, those last paragraphs were not supposed to be in italics.

Posted by: annie | Jan 4 2005 1:07 utc | 21

pedro
i’m a little in love with this latest version of jane birkin myself – was it the arabic versions of serge’s songs for her – they’re really quite beautiful
& you are really on point in relation to our erotic energy as the great willy reich would have also noted bt i believe the ‘erotic’ moment is only just beginning because it was reich who said that to get through to eros we must pass through the death instinct
& the u s is bringing us the death instinct on the hour every hour
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 4 2005 1:08 utc | 22

” Gaullism insists that France must exert an outsized influence on the course of human events.”
and our influence is not outsized?

Posted by: annie | Jan 4 2005 1:12 utc | 23

America has been overthrown people. Soon, very soon you will know this…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 4 2005 1:33 utc | 24

New Year’s resolution:
Stop wasting my attention on fools and assholes. This goes for narrow-minded liberals as well as the right-wing dross. Keep an eye on things but don’t get sucked into pointless debates and permutations about electoral strategies, etc.

Posted by: biklett | Jan 4 2005 1:43 utc | 25

pedro
also alain bashung, gerard de palmas intersting singer
miossec, murat

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 4 2005 1:44 utc | 26

ccommon dreams has news which say al zaqarwi has been captured – there is little other than that on the site but it has not been folloewed by reuters or afp

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 4 2005 1:56 utc | 27

R Giap: I suppose Manu Chao is too obvious, or maybe too commercial?
Whatever, it is funny to think of what would happen if major US politicians or a major US newspaper decided to rant about Israel at just 1/10th of what is done with France.

Posted by: Clueless Joe | Jan 4 2005 2:15 utc | 28

no manu chao is good, very good

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 4 2005 2:54 utc | 29

Thanks to aigin, alabama, pedro, and rgiap for turning the dross of
the Times op-ed into this golden thread.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 4 2005 5:57 utc | 30

We need to show our enemies that we are not going to do this on the cheap.
With Politicians like this, how the F does the US expect to prevail in Iraq?

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 4 2005 10:45 utc | 31

@ Cloned Graham passes for a stateman among his colleagues (after all he was one of the House “prosecutors” in the Clinton impeachment). Apparently such views are the “conventional wisdom” in South Carolina Republican circles.
Meanwhile, the even greater folly of trying to
“solve” the Iraq problem by taking action against Iran is
definitely not to be ruled out
merely because its insane:
GlobalSecurity.org has recently posted

this “impressive” document, which is only slightly weakened by this

condemnation of the documenters as a terrorist front organization by the U.S. State Department. I guess we are supposed to accept the accuracy of the charges without worrying about the alleged source, perfectly reasonable behavior if you think that once again there’s a Mossad-CIA hand operating in the background. By the way, I hate accusing the Mossad and CIA of things for which they may well have no responsibility: as always I mean “whatever smoke-making machine and whatever intelligence agency is making the smoke”. Both the U.S. and Israel have more than one candidate, offering varying degrees of deniability.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 4 2005 11:11 utc | 32

If this $1b is passed, look for the administration to change tack and prepare people for the “long haul” – ie, get ready for a 1b (in)appropriation every year until the war is “won.” Then it will become part of the regular budget.
BTW, Pedro, Rgiap, et al, great analysis on U.S. francophobia.

Posted by: stoy | Jan 4 2005 16:25 utc | 33

Jonathan Nossiter’s excellent documentary, Mondovino, about the globalisation/merlotisation of French wine production being driven by US marketing and capital via the Californian Napa Valley-based Mondavi family empire, expertly dissects the phenomenon of US francophobia.
One acerbic, not-to-be-bought old French guy – proprietor of the tiny Domaine de Montille – is scathing about the new methods (mainly soul-destroying standardisation) and ruses introduced by the new US owners – “the eye of Moscow”!
What really gets the Mondavies pissed, however, is that the recalcitrant burghers of Languedoc voted in a Communist mayor (in Montpellier) specifically to thwart their expansion plans! Les Mondavies then shifted to Italy, where the Berlusconi govt could be guaranteed to be more accommodating.
Interesting that a major US wine magazine is called “Wine Spectator” rather than anything related to the actual sense in question. It’s evident from the film that for wealthy US consumers, wine is about conspicious consumption (sight), rather than having a taste for diversity. The “Wine Spectator” writer even berates the World Cup winning French soccer team for no particular reason (probably for being no.1). Traditional French producers who are prepared to wait 15 years for a vintage to mature are even called by US representatives, “terroir-ists”.
The overall message is clear: French viniculturists (unless like Rothschilds and most Bordeaux producers they sell out to Mondavi) = Commie terrorists.

Posted by: Bibulous | Jan 6 2005 21:46 utc | 34

learned a new word today: bibulous.

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 6 2005 21:55 utc | 35

bibulous

Posted by: Jérôme | Jan 6 2005 22:17 utc | 36

Consider the source! LOL!
American neo-cons aren’t the only bigoted nationalists who stereotype foreigners in order to feel superior. Americans aren’t uncultured slobs, but that’s how the European version of JJ Miller generally puts down all Americans. Hence the wine spectator comment. God forbid that any American might actually understand and appreciate good wine. Doesn’t fit the stereotype! LOL!

Posted by: gylangirl | Jan 7 2005 4:18 utc | 37

God forbid that any American might actually understand and appreciate good wine
Have you seen the film? There’s an importer from NJ (?) in it who is clearly knowledgeable about what he’s buying and who is a human being to boot (compare the response of the guys working for him with the response of those working for the Mondavies). For the Mondavies & co, it’s clearly about volume (even to the point of fraud), as well as creating the marketing/magazine editorial environment to achieve huge increases in sales for certain brands (like one Italian wine the price of which has increased fourfold since WS named it “world no1”). Big sacrifices are being made to achieve these ends in terms of environment, in terms of variety, in terms of jobs – think Standard Oil – in the European producer nations.
The people in the film who are concerned about what those sacrifices mean for quality of life (rather than quantity of cash) present a more persuasive case and, more to the point, are far more amusing company than any of the humorless Reaganites ranged against them (who are supported by Michel Rolland, laughing his aggressive, unpleasant monkey laugh throughout).
In the film there are also lots of humorless French and Italian people, many of whom collaborated with the Nazis/Mussolini, who are more than happy to sell to the Mondavies. It’s just you probably wouldn’t want to have a drink with them.
Wine = the newest US spectator sport.

Posted by: Trying to imbibe less | Jan 9 2005 17:45 utc | 38

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