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112 Gripes About the French

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Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#121

Post by nicbou »

Hendrikto wrote: post #82
baby wrote: post #10

This whole thing is amazing. It still reads really well today, like there's no tone of racism and nothing seems inappropriate (which is a hard thing to achieve with time). I wish we had such a book currently on how arabs and the muslim world are different, but not so different than us. > We didn't come to Europe to save the French, either in 1917 or in 1944. We didn't come to Europe to do anyone any favors. We came t…

> This one could apply to our relationship with China maybe? This is absolutely nothing like the situation with China, which is definitely NOT an ally of the west. Shortly after assuming his position as President of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping disseminated a secret internal paper with his most important views and plans, including the 7 biggest threats to China in his eyes. In 2013, this "document numbe…

To reply in the style of the book, China learned lessons from its history just like we learn from ours. They cannot easily forget the century of humiliation that was brought upon them by the West.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#122

Post by djrogers »

rsynnott wrote: post #23
ThePadawan wrote: post #9

> (...) tensions began to rise between the French and the U.S. military personnel stationed in the country, with the former seeing the latter as arrogant and wanting to flaunt their wealth, and the latter seeing the former as proud and resentful. Well. I mean... Joking aside, the text is amazingly blunt and honest, in a rather refreshing way. "The French don't bathe." The French don't bathe often enough. They can't.…

> the text is amazingly blunt and honest It would likely have been written to be comprehensible to people with a fairly low reading level.

Why? The US literacy rate in the 1940s was 97.1%, and the US military had special programs to teach the illiterate to read. During WW2, 95% of illiterate recruits achieved minimum literacy within two months through the special training units developed for that purpose.

I know it’s easy for some people to think of a trigger puller as a dumb grunt - even more so one who served 80 years ago, but it’s not accurate or fair.

[0] https://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp [1] https://library.syr.edu/digital/guides/s/soldiers_lit.htm

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#123

Post by rualca »

Bayart wrote: post #111
rualca wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hah. The first encounters between the French and the US in WW II were hostile: The US landings in Morocco against French resistance. I feel this statement grossly misrepresents history. French north Africa was controlled by Vichy France, which was Nazi Germany's puppet regime and did not represented french sentiment or opinion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Torch

Vichy did represent French sentiment at the beginning. Things changed with time.

> Vichy did represent French sentiment at the beginning.

No, not really. The Vichy regime was the dictatorship puppet regime imposed onto the remaining french territory after the third republic was dissolved, and enacted policies imposed by Nazi germany such as rounding up Jews to hand them over to them. It grossly misrepresents the french sentiment of the time to even suggest that France suddenly had a change in heart and decided to not only accept Nazi Germany as it's political and ideological compass but also jump enthusiastically and head-on onto the Holocaust to the point of eclipsing even Franco's Spain.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#124

Post by nodejs_rulez_1 »

Bayart wrote: post #109
nodejs_rulez_1 wrote: post #42

> France sounded like a muslim country back then: >> Most French girls before the war had far less freedom than our girls back home. A great many were not permitted to go out without a chaperone. France is dominantly Catholic in religion and in morals... Can you imagine: from that to disallowing fathers to do a DNA test in less than 100 years!

What are you on ? It's perfectly legal, there's just a process to follow because it's completely illegal to take someone's DNA without their consent, unless there's a criminal procedure with sufficient proof. Sneaking a paternity test by taking someone's DNA surreptitiously would be not only worthless as a legal document, but also put you on the spot for litigation.

Following your logic: 'French girls were fully permitted to go out but there was just a process to follow - presence of a chaperon.'

Seriously, just open Wikipedia and read about different countries e.g.: In the United States, paternity testing is fully legal, and fathers may test their children without the consent or knowledge of the mother. Paternity testing take-home kits are readily available for purchase, though their results are not admissible in court and are for personal knowledge only.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#125

Post by rsynnott »

djrogers wrote: post #122
rsynnott wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the text is amazingly blunt and honest It would likely have been written to be comprehensible to people with a fairly low reading level.

Why? The US literacy rate in the 1940s was 97.1%, and the US military had special programs to teach the illiterate to read. During WW2, 95% of illiterate recruits achieved minimum literacy within two months through the special training units developed for that purpose. I know it’s easy for some people to think of a trigger puller as a dumb grunt - even more so one who served 80 years ago, but it’s not accurate or fai…

I didn’t mean it as a value judgement; it’s clearly written to be very comprehensible. That’s a good thing!

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#127

Post by tinco »

eplanit wrote: post #52
ThePadawan wrote: post #9

> (...) tensions began to rise between the French and the U.S. military personnel stationed in the country, with the former seeing the latter as arrogant and wanting to flaunt their wealth, and the latter seeing the former as proud and resentful. Well. I mean... Joking aside, the text is amazingly blunt and honest, in a rather refreshing way. "The French don't bathe." The French don't bathe often enough. They can't.…

It's true. Europeans of that era did not bathe everyday. My stepfather escaped nazi Germany, and moved to the us in the 40s. He grudgingly adapted to daily bathing (my mother's insistence), but remarked how very American that is. He was very 20th century European, for sure.

(European here) my grandparents bathed I think once per week, we often joked about this in the family. My uncle who is a commercial construction inspector/engineer arranged for a full bathroom model a couple years before they died. When we went to sell the house he complained the bathroom was unused and looked the same as the day he signed off on it.

Despite this, they never smelled bad to me, they certainly had a recognizable smell, but it wasn't foul. Contrasting with myself, if I don't shower for a day, I'll get remarks from my girlfriend the next afternoon, and on the third day I smell so foul I can smell it myself. I also get more randomly itchy.

I wonder if by showering daily I'm somehow tampering with my bodies ability to fend off some foul smelling bacteria or something. Besides fearing to smell bad for a couple weeks (months?) to find out, I also enjoy showering to start my day fresh and I like the way it makes my hair feel.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#128

Post by jtrip »

smhost wrote: post #80
postingawayonhn wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No western democracy could have paid the human cost the USSR did. Arguably they only paid such a high price due to their industrial underdevelopment which was partly due to their economic and political system. It's often said that the war was won with British intelligence, American steel, and Soviet blood.

> their industrial underdevelopment which was partly due to their economic and political system I'm sorry? They went from a peasant society immediately to defending against multiple foreign invasions (including the U.S.) to fighting and defeating the fascists, all in three decades. That was achievable only due to their economic and political system.

His intent was not to suggest that the USSR was always backwards, but rather that due to it's history the development was not undertaken until the war. The Tsars didn't do it because they were busy being feudal masters and the communists because they were nation building and hadn't faced the german onslaught yet. Atleast, that is how I understand it. His comment is not an underhanded insult.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#129

Post by tehjoker »

Hendrikto wrote: post #82
baby wrote: post #10

This whole thing is amazing. It still reads really well today, like there's no tone of racism and nothing seems inappropriate (which is a hard thing to achieve with time). I wish we had such a book currently on how arabs and the muslim world are different, but not so different than us. > We didn't come to Europe to save the French, either in 1917 or in 1944. We didn't come to Europe to do anyone any favors. We came t…

> This one could apply to our relationship with China maybe? This is absolutely nothing like the situation with China, which is definitely NOT an ally of the west. Shortly after assuming his position as President of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping disseminated a secret internal paper with his most important views and plans, including the 7 biggest threats to China in his eyes. In 2013, this "document numbe…

Isn't China our biggest trading partner. This sounds like xenophobia.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#130

Post by dnhz »

Hendrikto wrote: post #82
baby wrote: post #10

This whole thing is amazing. It still reads really well today, like there's no tone of racism and nothing seems inappropriate (which is a hard thing to achieve with time). I wish we had such a book currently on how arabs and the muslim world are different, but not so different than us. > We didn't come to Europe to save the French, either in 1917 or in 1944. We didn't come to Europe to do anyone any favors. We came t…

> This one could apply to our relationship with China maybe? This is absolutely nothing like the situation with China, which is definitely NOT an ally of the west. Shortly after assuming his position as President of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping disseminated a secret internal paper with his most important views and plans, including the 7 biggest threats to China in his eyes. In 2013, this "document numbe…

Each comment GP made corresponds to quote following the comment. i.e.:

>This one could apply to our relationship with China maybe?

>> Yes, we quarrel with the French. The members of a family argue pretty freely inside the home ; We quarrel with our allies, We don't quarrel with our enemies -- we fight them.

With that said, I wouldn't interpret the US relationship with China as one of alliance nor as one of enmity (yet).

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