Sunday, October 30, 2005
Pictures of My Country and Fellow Citizens
The Gaijin Biker at Riding Sun continues to put out a high quality and informative blog.
A post at Riding Sun this week is particularly noteworthy – a series of photographs by Eolo Perfido, a French-born photographer based in Rome.
Just recently, the artist himself has added to the many comments made to the post thus far. Perhaps his “broken English,” and the innocence it conjures, softens the blow of what are some particularly cruel and dishonest symbolic images of the U.S. and its people.
There are some great (and not so great) comments after the post which are interesting, insightful, and -- in some cases – stupid.
It would be easy for an American to get on an anti-European rant after seeing the photos, mostly because they are so typical of what has come out of Europe in recent years, but that would be both unfair and equally lacking in honesty. There are a few comments at the Riding Sun post from Europeans themselves that are kind and certainly appreciated by Americans sick of the nonsense Euro-leftism inaccurately spouts as representative of European sentiment in general.
The images in the photo series are not so much French or European critiques of America as they are dishonest leftist portrayals of conservatism, which is why the same style of symbolism can be found in the “works” of numerous American artists (not to mention pop entertainment). To these fervent fools, in America, there was no Poe, Gershwin, or Grant Wood, just as there are no decent families, morals, or goodness in America today. There is no prosperous, dynamic society of people who regularly poll among the highest in their level of life satisfaction. No; there are only sadistic, ultra-patriotic religious nuts screaming in sewers (the photo images).
The left is as pampered, spoiled, and deluded as ever. The fact that many of them dominate the countries of Europe is a mere side note.
A Euro-leftist could, of course, travel to a bad, crime-ridden, poor neighborhood in Los Angeles or New York and find “proof” of America’s “sorry state,” but in over 90% of the country they’d find an efficient, well tuned, fun, and prosperous society that runs rings around Europe’s imploding former glory. European politicos have plenty to criticize in their own back yard. Their second-class status on the world stage ultimately has nothing to do with America and everything to do with their own self-destruction wrought by pathetic allegiance to authoritarian/collectivist political ideologies.
For sheer success and overall goodness, I’ll go with the worldview and lifestyle of a farmer from Iowa over a whining Marxist Euro café intellectual any day (or a whining Marxist American cafe' intellectual for that matter).
The artist/photographer of the photo series at Riding Sun claims he "loves" America and Americans – but then, so does Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore, and their consistent depiction of America is also on record as less than flattering.
Denigrating America is like hating George Bush – it’s trendy, it’s reflexive, and it requires no real knowledge, thought, or need for accurate or honest appraisal.
The tragedy in all of this is that some people really don’t know who their friends are. If history had been different, they could be sending their wealth and spirit to an authoritarian Soviet Empire. Instead, they occasionally get movies from America that they wish their fellow citizens wouldn’t watch, or food that they wish fellow citizens wouldn’t eat (the left, everywhere, is always concerned with what other people are choosing).
The best thing for Europe (and something that would be good for the world in general) would be for it to cast off the domination of wannabe socialist “revolutionaries” (in media, the arts, and government) and place their faith instead in common sense and a spirit of genuine friendship with the spirited country across the Atlantic.
A post at Riding Sun this week is particularly noteworthy – a series of photographs by Eolo Perfido, a French-born photographer based in Rome.
Just recently, the artist himself has added to the many comments made to the post thus far. Perhaps his “broken English,” and the innocence it conjures, softens the blow of what are some particularly cruel and dishonest symbolic images of the U.S. and its people.
There are some great (and not so great) comments after the post which are interesting, insightful, and -- in some cases – stupid.
It would be easy for an American to get on an anti-European rant after seeing the photos, mostly because they are so typical of what has come out of Europe in recent years, but that would be both unfair and equally lacking in honesty. There are a few comments at the Riding Sun post from Europeans themselves that are kind and certainly appreciated by Americans sick of the nonsense Euro-leftism inaccurately spouts as representative of European sentiment in general.
The images in the photo series are not so much French or European critiques of America as they are dishonest leftist portrayals of conservatism, which is why the same style of symbolism can be found in the “works” of numerous American artists (not to mention pop entertainment). To these fervent fools, in America, there was no Poe, Gershwin, or Grant Wood, just as there are no decent families, morals, or goodness in America today. There is no prosperous, dynamic society of people who regularly poll among the highest in their level of life satisfaction. No; there are only sadistic, ultra-patriotic religious nuts screaming in sewers (the photo images).
The left is as pampered, spoiled, and deluded as ever. The fact that many of them dominate the countries of Europe is a mere side note.
A Euro-leftist could, of course, travel to a bad, crime-ridden, poor neighborhood in Los Angeles or New York and find “proof” of America’s “sorry state,” but in over 90% of the country they’d find an efficient, well tuned, fun, and prosperous society that runs rings around Europe’s imploding former glory. European politicos have plenty to criticize in their own back yard. Their second-class status on the world stage ultimately has nothing to do with America and everything to do with their own self-destruction wrought by pathetic allegiance to authoritarian/collectivist political ideologies.
For sheer success and overall goodness, I’ll go with the worldview and lifestyle of a farmer from Iowa over a whining Marxist Euro café intellectual any day (or a whining Marxist American cafe' intellectual for that matter).
The artist/photographer of the photo series at Riding Sun claims he "loves" America and Americans – but then, so does Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore, and their consistent depiction of America is also on record as less than flattering.
Denigrating America is like hating George Bush – it’s trendy, it’s reflexive, and it requires no real knowledge, thought, or need for accurate or honest appraisal.
The tragedy in all of this is that some people really don’t know who their friends are. If history had been different, they could be sending their wealth and spirit to an authoritarian Soviet Empire. Instead, they occasionally get movies from America that they wish their fellow citizens wouldn’t watch, or food that they wish fellow citizens wouldn’t eat (the left, everywhere, is always concerned with what other people are choosing).
The best thing for Europe (and something that would be good for the world in general) would be for it to cast off the domination of wannabe socialist “revolutionaries” (in media, the arts, and government) and place their faith instead in common sense and a spirit of genuine friendship with the spirited country across the Atlantic.
