Homeland's Ambiguities.

Here's how Brian Williams introduced the topic of the car bomb inn Beirut in the NBC Evening news, last night: 
"As recently as yesterday the head of tourism in Lebanon was angry at this past sundae night's episode of the popular TV show 'Homeland' on the showtime network for portraying Beirut as a violent place. Then today, an extraordinary explosion of violence after what was a long peaceful run there - a massive car bomb that some fear the war in Syria is now spreading beyond its borders" (MSNBC Evening News)
Introducing real news by mentioning a fiction proves once again how fiction has become part of our everyday life in our world and the complaining of a foreign ministry about the depiction of its country also shows the globalization of television (American) series in today's world. 

Now of course, the recent turn of events in Beirut may make it more difficult for the Lebanon's tourism minister to sue the makers of 'Homeland' over the way Beirut is portrayed.

Residents expressed bafflement at the episode's description of modern day "Hamra Street". What in the programme is a shoddy quarter where gunmen leap from cars and harass terrified women is actually a busy commercial centre of top-brand Western clothing chains and boutiques.In the show, Carrie Mathison, played by Claire Danes, continuously dons the hair-covering hijab, but women in the part of Beirut where the scene is reportedly set are more often seen patrolling the street in skin-tight jeans, bouffant hair and Jimmy Choos. "The Lebanese are intelligent enough to use such a thing to our advantage," said Mr Abboud. "I am calling on youths to splice images of the war-torn Hamra of Homelandwith the real street. To add insult to injury for the Lebanese tourism ministry, Beirut is back is filmed in neighbouring Israel, a country with which Lebanon technically is still at war. (Telegraph)

It is true that one of the scenes in particular will probably not help tourism:

Militants carrying assault weapons clear the area around a street, shouting in Arabic for people to get out of the way. A jeep pulls up: The world's No. 1 jihadi has arrived for a meeting with top Hezbollah commanders. On rooftops, U.S. snipers crouch unseen, the kingpin in their crosshairs at last.  (USA Today)

The fact that the scene was shot in Jaffa, Israel (a popular mixed Jewish and Arab neighborhood of Tel Aviv, 250 kilometers/150 miles south of Beirut - DallasNews) is likely to anger even more the Lebanese who have a list of contentions with neighboring Isreal. And it is not like the Isreali are any happier. 

"This sort of diminishes Tel Aviv and Jaffa, which are more modern than Beirut," said Rubinstein, speaking for a generation of Tel Aviv residents who are aggressively proud of their city — a densely populated urban area of some 2.5 million people with a standard of living that rivals most places in Europe, a world-class tech industry and a raucous nightlife. (DallasNews)

Can we suspect the show of being biased against Arabs? 'Homeland', is after all based on an Israeli series ('Prisoners Of War'). The foreign affairs editor of the Observer, Peter Beaumont, blames the show for its "its ridiculous view of Arabs and Islam is a distortion of Middle Eastern realities":

As someone who has spent much time in the Middle East, I find the depictions not only crude and childish but offensive. There is more to it than the portrayal of individuals. For Homeland presents an odd and unbelievable image of relationships between countries and identities in the region, where Palestinians, Iraqis, Saudis all share an agenda regardless of background, culture and history.(The Guardian) 

But to be fair, most of us, who have not spent time in the Middle East cannot tell the difference. Only viewers who are familiar with the region may see some hints of Israel like "cars with blurred yellow Israeli license plates, red-and-white curbs that designate no-parking zones, an Israeli-style traffic circle, and a well-known minaret and clock tower in Jaffa."  (USA Today)

Indeed, as you can see on this picture:  the supposedly Beirut open market shows a stall selling two Israeli T-shirts: one red with the white Coca-Cola logo in large Hebrew letters, the other a yellow jersey of a Jerusalem soccer team with the name in Hebrew, Beitar Yerushalayim, and a menorah. 

Besides, American shows have always been known for using stereotypes but it's easier to accept those when they are rather positive and when they encourage tourism, as it is usually the case with the rosy romantic view usually given of France and Paris. 
So does this all thing really matter? Fiction is supposed to be a bout "suspension of disbelief" after all, and not a faithful reflection of reality. Well, the impact of fiction on reality should not be dismissed so easily. Beaumont makes fair point about the influence of television fiction in shaping stereotypes of foreign places and people that we have never been exposed to : 

....television drama such as Homeland not only reflects cultural and social anxieties at any given time, it reflects back those anxieties, reinforcing and shaping them. Crucially there is strong evidence that counter-stereotypical fictional depictions in popular culture may have a positive impact, with some arguing that it can help turn around prejudicial attitudes. (The Guardian) 

That being said, the show is not mostly about Arabs or Muslims. It is not even about a credible story line. It is rather about paranoia, politics, treason and the fears of homegrown terrorism. At the same time, it gives a surprisingly nuanced view of terrorists. Unlike 24 and the likes, the show tries to get into the motivations for terrorism and it is not just religious fanaticism or brainwashing but also the injustices and the consequences of foreign affairs. The subtext may be a criticism of American foreign politics, such as the use of drones that kill innocent victims. (A similar idea was put forward in Law and Order SVU 'Acceptable Loss' two weeks ago). The intended target of the terrorist attack (the Vice-President) does not seem to be a particularly good innocent victim either.

What was neat in the first season was to make the audience doubt everything, along with the main characters (It was great idea to make the main character a bipolar CIA agent). What starts well with season 2 is that the audience grows ambiguous feelings for someone ready to commit a terrible act. The two main characters are well developed and extremely well written. They reflect the ambiguities and paranoia of the audience and society at large. This is the secret of all good TV series: the excellent writing of the characters and of their response to what happens, however improbable the situations may be. 

Despite its well-deserved criticism, it is one of the best shows on American television these days. 

School Books and National Ideologies.

Anyone who has been exposed to another culture long enough will probably conclude that, to a certain extent, we are all the product of our environment, our culture, our language and our history. This is definitely something we have been trying to investigate on this blog. A good approach for this is to look at how countries see and interpret history in their schoolbooks.

This week's Economist argues that that along with religious texts, school books and material used in class are the most powerful instruments that shape national culture. As we have discussed before, schools can be a real battlefield of cultural and ideological warfare in any country, and France or the United States are no exception : think of the topic of creation vs. evolution in Texas (here) or colonialism in France (here).
Even though, this is not necessarily a hot topic in the media, much is at stake, and the Economist is right to remind us George Orwell's 1984 great saying that “Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past”.

In the United States, Liberals worry that their children are being taught a nationalistic version of history that emphasises the wonders of industrialization and plays down slavery and the slaughter of Indian tribes. By contrast, conservatives complain about insufficient patriotism and too much secularism. (The Economist)

The two main topics of controversy are sex and evolution.

In France, it is the economy and businesses which tend to be portrayed in a biased manner (see here in French):

For years the French seemed quite blasé about economics textbooks that were filled with unreconstructed Marxism. Peter Gumbel, a British journalist and academic who has studied the French educational system, says such books sat happily with the idea that rampant economic liberalism was responsible for France’s weakness in the run-up to the second world war. French textbooks today are rather subtler, but still not much in favour of the capitalist way of doing things.
(.../...)
A new study of 400 pages of high-school economics textbooks, by the Institute of Economic and Fiscal Research, reveals that only a dozen are devoted to companies, and none to entrepreneurs. (albeit a French word) (The Economist)

Then if you add the prejudices of many French teachers of economics, and the current devastating crisis, it is no surprise that the French should be so negative about business and capitalism (even if they keep buying Iphones and eating at McDonald's) .

So I suppose, every people has its own cultural and ideological prejudices but it might be worth paying a bit more attention to the process through which the text books are chose for our children:


The United States is different than almost every country in that it has no identifiable national history standards. Almost every other country does. What ends up in the classroom often depends on where your classroom is located. The content of a history course in Tennessee might sound considerably different than a course in Massachusett.
But two states are most influential because of their population: Texas and California which are respectively the first and second largest textbook markets. The former tends to be very conservative when the second is more liberal. (read here for instance)

France has what's called a "programme national" which means that the Ministry of Education decides on what topics should be taught and then leaves it up to the independent textbook publishers to print the books, which must, of course, follow the programme. It doesn't tell them how to cover the events, only which events or issues to cover and during which years. While this is more centralized than the US, it is not the state-sponsored history (identity) indoctrination of non-democratic societies like Saudi Arabia, Syria and North Korea where the Ministry of Education decides on a curriculum, prints the textbooks themselves, and distributes them to the schools for use, an approach reminiscent of the former Soviet Union.
Besides, any attempt by politicians to meddle with the affairs of the National Education causes uproar and controversy: Sarkozy's attempt to impose a "positive view of colonialism" (here) was met with such opposition that it was actually never implemented.

In case you had any doubt about the differences in the storytelling of historical events in different countries, I would suggest this great book: History Lessons: How Textbooks from Around the World Portray U.S. History, by Dana Lindaman & Kyle Ward. It presents excerpts about the same events from different textbooks around the world, and thus shows the contrasting perspectives on history and national identity, and should be a requirement in school.

'The Rumble 2012': The Other Presidential Debate.

A good and fun way to learn about American politics and the ideological cleavage between Republicans and Democrats, but also between Europeans and Americans is to watch last week-end's debate between Bill O'Reilly, and Jon Stewart, two major influential figures of cable television.

"The Rumble in the Air-conditioned Auditorium" was not only a fun joust, éas the name suggests, it was also an exchange of substance. At the core of the political divide is the role of government, which happens to be a central difference between France and the United States, and also more generally between Europeans and Americans. 
 (A reminder to our European audience: 'government' in the United states is usually understood loosely and often includes local forms of government, and it is not just L'Etat). 

The right (O'Reilly) thinks for instance that government spending should go mostly to military and national defense, whereas the left (Stewart) thinks it should, for instance also go to health care and social programs. No wonder why Europeans tend to feel closer to the Democrats, especially if you consider the healthcare question which probably holds the greater consensus across the board in Western Europe. 

O'Reilly uses two main arguments traditionally held by American conservatives:

- the first is the 'efficiency argument': that government is bad at running most things, (except for defense and the military) and the private sector (like private insurances) will do a better job at it, thanks to competition. 

The problem with this argument is that health is not a mere product you can do without. A system based on profit implies that only those who are profitable will be covered. If, as O'Reilly suggests, government should impose mandates on not being able to deny people coverage (which most conservatives do not agree to do), then premiums and cost will soar even more. 
 Despite O'Reilly's poor experience with the National Healthcare system in Britain, statistics show that  countries with socialized medicine in Europe do better than the United States, both in terms of cost and  life expectancy (see figures here). (It would be nice if O'Reilly confronted his own personal experience to larger numbers so he'd get a real picture of the whole situation). 
More importantly, even conservatives in Britain support socialized medicine which shows that the system must not be so bad after all. 

The mainstream of the British Conservative party supports a model in which health and other services are funded by taxation, even if they inveigh against “dependency culture” and bemoan inefficiences and unfairnesses.  (Time)

And in case, things might not be clear enough, here's what Conservative Prime Minister Cameron said:

“This is the party of the NHS [Britain's free-at-the-point-of-delivery National Health Service] and that’s the way it’s going to stay,” (Time)

-the second argument is 'the moral argument': government spending creates an entitlement nation and encourages laziness.
This may ring true when you look at Western Europeans (and the French in particular have developed a great sense of being entitled to certain rights, as you can see in their many demonstrations). But, as Jon Stewart pointed out, the United States may very well be an entitlement nation in its own way:
"We are a people that went to another country, saw other people on it and said 'Yeah, we want that'". 
And of course, this even truer when you think of Social Security,  Medicare or the bailout of Wall Street during the recent financial crash.
(I would ad that the way U.S. foreign policy has been conducted in the Latin America or in the Middle East for instance furthers this impression outside the United States that Americans have a strong sense of entitlement.).
The best counter-argument came from Stewart when he said: 
“Why is it that if you take advantage of a tax break, you’re a smart businessman, but if you take advantage of something you need to not go hungry, you’re a moocher?”
No wonder this got him the biggest applause of the evening. 

What is interesting is that while most Americans seem in agreement with the conservatives' rhetoric of "less government "and "less taxation" in principle, it becomes another story when it takes a concrete form. I have always been bewildered by people who are against government and yet want to benefit from Medicare, but the contradiction seems to escape them.
One person's right, is another person's entitlement, I suppose. 
It would be nice though if the Republicans remembered one of the great assets of the American character: pragmatism. Look at what works and do it. The Darwinian principle of 'survival of the fittest' on which competition is based is fine when it comes to your smart phone or cable TV but  not so much when it comes to life and death. We are not wild animals. 

And if you start opening up to what happens in the rest of the world, you'll see this is an area where the United States can learn from other countries. It takes a bit of humility and a slight bent to American Exceptionalism but it is worth it. 

Jon Stewart is right: not only is O'Reilly"completely full of shit", but that he is even "the mayor of Bullshit Mountain,” an “alternate universe” in which history’s greatest villain is Bill Moyers and Big Bird the biggest moocher of all. 

That being said, I must say that, even though I disagree with just about anything Bill O'Reilly may say, I have a growing respect for him for at least debating with Jon Stewart and engaging him, which he has done repeatedly in the last few years. It is good to see that two people on two sides of the ideological spectrum can hold a (more or less) normal conversation. 

On the Importance of American TV Series.

This week is the kickoff of the 2012 fall season for TV shows, and it is always an important event.
OK, "an important event" might be slightly overstating it but whether you like them or not - and of course I happen to love 'em - TV shows offer a great window onto today's American society.
If you think of it, beyond its entertainment value, American TV fiction is remarkable for its ability to address controversial issues.

Is there any other country that... in the midst of its war in Iraq, would broadcast a TV show (Battlestar Galactica) in which the occupation force is the bad guys and the insurgency the good guys? (see here)
Or where a Supreme Court Justice (Judge Scalia) would use a fictional hero (Jack Bauer) to make a legal point (that torture is OK)? (here)
Or where a TV fiction (the Newsroom) would use the name of real powerful industrialists (the Koch Brothers) and portray them in a negative light? (here)
Or, to take one last example,  where a personality as high as the Vice-president would credit a TV comedy (Will and Grace) for educating him on the question of gay marriage? (here)
And the list goes on...
Whether these examples are scary or hopeful, one thing is certain: U.S. TV series not only reflect the discussions in the nation, but they also influence the society as a whole... well actually even the entire world.
For example, in the last few years, some French high school students have organized 'proms': which they call "ball de promo"- a direct import from the U.S. after watching their American peers in TV series.
The good outcome is that it has become a great tool for teaching English since most of my students watch TV series either on French TV but more likely online through streaming.
The downside: they only see an America made mostly of lawyers, doctors, cops or occasionally idle housewives. No one ever seems to work hard or have regular problems. I suppose that comes with the territory.
Also, these shows are so prevailing outside north America that it gives foreign audiences a strange sense of familiarity, especially if you take into account the already dominant position of the United States in the news.
So TV shows also account for a great tool of American soft power by partaking in the propagation of American myths.
That being said, one can also recognize not only the entertaining value of those shows, which can only explain their success, but also, their esthetic dimension, visually and narratively. What makes shows like Game of Thrones, Homeland or The Wire so powerful is their excellent writing and the character development, over several weeks, which, because of its format, no movie can ever accomplish.
In this respect, I would dare compare some of today's TV shows to the writings of Emile Zola, Honoré de Balzac, Alexandre Dumas, or Henry James, Herman Melville, Conan Doyle, or Charles Dickens who, after all, ALL wrote serialized novels published in newspapers, which were social commentary on the issues of the time.

This is why I have decided to try to write more on this blog about my take on many of the TV shows I like watching. This will not be exclusive but hopefully, it will offer a new angle on Americana from a French perspective.

Or this may simply be a made-up pretext to justify writing more often about what I like when I have my night off.

American Civility vs. French Lack-thereof.

From looking at the presidential political campaign outside the United States one might be under the impression not only that the country is highly divided and even that it is almost on the verge of community breakdown. Then if you add the news-clips showing gun violence, religious extremism and offensive rhetoric, you may have a pretty negative picture of American society today possibly re-inforced by the magnifying effect of the the Internet and short Youtube videos that go viral.

This, however, is very far from the reality of day-to-day life of ordinary Americans.

One common reaction of many French people when they first visit the United States is how incredibly kind, smily and courteous Americans are towards them. It is so unusual to the French that they may even find it a little suspicious and wonder if there must be some ulterior motives (and they sometimes point to service jobs where people's smile may be proportionate to the expected tip, or to the abuse of the term "friend" for someone you just met).
They may be some hypocrites of course - there always are - but it is true that essentially Americans are a very generous and helpful people.

In this week's Economist, Lexington also found that civility in the United States endures:

To a visitor, America remains a strikingly courteous place, where strangers may expect to be helped and asked for help, and good manners are prized. Neighbourhoods remain neighbourly. 

This is right. Even in the midst of political tensions between France and the U.S. governments over the war in Iraq in 2003, I, as a French person, have always felt as welcome as ever and was never treated differently - I never saw "freedom fries" outside the House of Representatives cafeteria.

Statistics (see here) also seem to indicate that Americans have on of the highest levels of pro-social behaviors of all OECD countries, almost twice as much as the French (who are below OECD average). Here pro-social behavior is measured by whether the respondent has volunteered time, donated money to a charity and helped a stranger in the last month. It is hard to drawn any definite conclusion from these statistics as to why there is a such a gap between the French and the Americans, but one can make hypotheses:

In France people are more likely to rely on the government when it comes to helping the needy, which in turn makes it more acceptable to pay higher taxes, whereas in the United States, charity is more the job of private individuals. (And by the way, the major role of the State in France has nothing to do with socialism, as it is often misunderstood by Americans. It dates back way before socialism was even an idea - to at least the 17th century and Louis XIV notably when the French State unified the country around certain cultural and linguistic norms, which became the model eventually followed by the French  Republic.)

As far as helping strangers, the Economist had another suggestion for American civility:

In a big and mobile country, being a stranger is common: feeling able to trust other strangers is an economic and civic boon.

This could not be more different from the French may be the least mobile people in Europe. France is the only country that never had massive waves of emigration to North America, not even to Canada, which was founded by a relative small amount of people. This may be because the French culture grew out of rural communities whose basic unit was traditionally held by the family.

It may also be that Americans can differentiate politics from the people they meet but also that Americans tend to be less political than the French who always love a good heated debate. In my experience Americans like to keep their political views more private than the French. Moerover, a  lot of Americans may be more immune to political differences because they have tended to cluster in communities of sameness, with people with similar political beliefs (see for instance, The Big Sort, by Bill Bishop).

Whatever the explanation, it remains that social relations in America are extremely pleasant and relaxed, and one can only wish for a little more civility in the rest of the world, and particularly in France. In the end, this may be the main reason why I always need to recharge my batteries and come to the U.S. after a few months in France.

Voter ID Laws.

From continental Europe, the hot topic of voter ID laws (i.a. laws that require a photo identification to vote)  in this presidential campaign seems like a very strange controversy.

Even though, this topic is not much covered in the European media, I bet most Europeans would be surprised, "You mean people can to the poll and vote without ID in the U.S.?". Simply, "yes!".

Of course, most European countries have long had some form of national identification, it be a formal ID Card or an alternative proof of identity, such as a driver's licence. This identification seems particularly useful when you need to prove you're the right person registered to vote.

So the United States is a bit of an oddity in this respect, along with, (surprise!), the United Kingdom -two countries where there is no true identify card issued by the government, other than a passport (and most Americans have never had one). (see the list of identity card policy by country here)

VOTER REGISTRATION
So how does it work exactly when you want to vote in the U.S.?

First you need to register  and you do so by filling a Voter Registration Application and then it varies state by state. In most cases, if you don't have a driver's license, you can use your social security number. In the United States, the one thing you don't to lose is your social security number, which has de facto become a national identification number.  On election day, depending which state you live in, you will be asked some proof of your identity but not necessarily with a photo. For instance in Ohio, you can also show

• An original or copy of a current utility bill; or
• An original or copy of a current bank statement; or
• An original or copy of a current government check; or
• An original or copy of a current paycheck; or
• An original or copy of a current other government document. (source here).

In other states, like Minnesota, you can also register  at your polling place on Election Day. Here's what the North Star state requires :

• A valid Minnesota driver’s license, learner’s permit, Minnesota ID card, or receipt for any of these
• A valid student ID card including your photo, if your college has provided a student housing list to election officials
• A Tribal ID card that contains your picture and signature 
• A valid registration in the same precinct under a different name or address 
• A notice of late registration sent to you by your county auditor or city clerk
• A voter registered in the same precinct as you who can confirm your address with a signed oath
• An employee of the residential facility where you live who can confirm your address with a signed oath
• Both 1) a photo ID from the list below, and 2) a current bill from the list below with your current name and address in the precinct must provide. (Source here)

I find it interesting that you may have a "voter registered in the same precinct as you confirm your address with a signed oath" or "An employee of the residential facility where you live who can confirm your address with a signed oath." According to my Minnesotan friend, this is in part a relic from the past when, in rural areas and small towns, people all knew each other, and there was no better way to know someone's identity.

FRAUD?
Now of course, these requirements could hardly prevent fraud. At at the same time, fraud would have to be on such a massive scale to impact an election that it would require a powerful organization. And despite wat some Republicans claim, and this is the core of the debate, there is no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections. Most cases have actually involved people making mistakes more than anything else. (NYTimes)

A POLL TAX
The current controversy is that ID laws to vote amount de facto to a poll tax, since access to the poll would then be pre-conditioned to having a photo ID that costs money. Interestingly, it is estimated that about 11% of registered voters lack government-issued ID (that's a good 21 million voters). Those do not even have a drivers licence and don't fly or go abroad are usually found among the elderly, the minorities and students... (like in this example)... pretty much the same ones you see take the bus... and tend to vote for Obama.
No wonder the Democrats feel like they may be cheated of their electorate, and in case you had doubt, Pa. House Republican Leader Mike Turzai made it very clear this is a deliberate strategy to win the elections:

Of course on possible solution would be to require states to provide free voter IDs for those without a driver's licence. It is the case in France and Germany for instance, and, other than the pictures, you can also get for free the underlying documentation, like a birth certificate. (Of course, then one could ask about absentee voters...).

PATH TOWARDS TOTALITARIANISM?

Until recently, the idea of a national ID was seen as a "trademark of totalitarianism" in the United States, and ironically, the more conservatives Americans are, the more sensitive they tend to be to the power of government. This may seem a bit far fetched, when you're used to centralized governments, but on the other hand, if you look into the history of the identity card, say in France, you'll see that the carte d'identité was first introduced and made compulsory for adults by the Vichy government in 1940 - not exactly the paragon of a Democratic government. Then, when the Vichy Régime fell, it turned out to be so practical for law enforcement that it stayed, although it is now non-compulsory (but widely used).
Of course, in the age of social networks, wiretapping, and terrorism laws that infringe on personal freedom, it seems there would be better ways for a modern government to control its citizens anyway, and this concern may be slightly outdated.

FAKE IDs
Another irony - and frankly I'm surprised the Democrats have missed this in the debate - is the boom of fake IDs, thanks in part to technology, to age drinking in the U.S. which has made fake IDs more profitable but also to states "phasing out licences with magnetic strips in favour of cheaper ones with bar codes". (The Economist):

The business of forged identity cards is booming, particularly in the Anglosphere. A study in 2009 of American university students found that 17% of freshmen and 32% of seniors owned a false ID. Today the numbers are even higher, experts reckon. Bars near American campuses have started to ask for two kinds of identification.

IDENTITY THEFT
It seems to me, but this would require further investigation, that the lack of national ID and the importance of non-photo IDs like the social security number makes Americans more vulnerable to identity theft.

So national IDs may be a good idea (not pun intended), but not right now, and not this way. The move of the Republicans is bad politics with a cynical twist uncommon in the United States. What may prevent some of those laws from taking effect though may be the cost which ranges from $720,000 to more than $10m in providing voter IDs. This leaves Republican governors arguing for a new, costly government programme of questionable utility in straitened fiscal times.

In any case, making it more complicated to vote in a country that already has one of the lowest turnout in Western democracies and virtually no fraud does not seem very democratic.

In the mean time, this whole controversy has at least the merit of offering us another opportunity to further our cross-cultural analysis of France and the United States.

(Conservative) Americans from Mars and European from Venus? Ask Romney!

In the ongoing symbolic "battle" between Europe and the United States (some might call it healthy competition, depending on who you ask), here's a funny article from this week's Economist:

CONSERVATIVE Americans like to contrast the vigour and virility of their own country with the decadence and decline of Europe. Demography is exhibit A in their argument.
Mitt Romney, for example, talked about Europe’s “demographic disaster” as he ended his presidential bid in 2008, calling it “the inevitable product of weakened faith in the creator, failed families, disrespect for the sanctity of human life and eroded morality”.

(.../...)

So it comes as something of a shock to discover that in 2011 America’s fertility rate was below replacement level and below that of some large European countries. The American rate is now 1.9 and falling. France’s is 2.0 and stable. The rate in England is 2.0 and rising slightly.

France’s fertility is now higher than America’s; and the demographic reaction to the great recession does not suggest any profound transatlantic difference between virile Americans and flaccid Europeans.

I wonder if this is also going to be used against Obama in the campaign. In any case, when it comes to international relations, Romney has quite a bit of work to do.. After offending the British, his words could very well offend the rest of Europe if they ever come out in the mainstream European media.
If one is looking for explanation as to why Romney has to put others down, maybe newsweek has a valid suggestion:

(article to read here)

The only possible redeeming factor may be that he speaks French, although I have a feeling he's not going to capitalize on it with his consertative electorate, who may then suspect him of being a socialist spy. ;) 

Internet Connection in France and the U.S. and the Need for Regulated Competition.

As a European traveling regularly to the United States, my experience with the internet in north America has been mixed: easy free access with decent speed in some institutions like libraries (the NY or Chicago public libraries for instance) or campuses (UMD, or UW Madison, but not so much UCLA), easy and free in cafés in most big cities (Starbucks has now made it free), and expensive and bad in most hotels (even downtown New York).

Now more tellingly, my experience with the internet connection at most of my friends' homes has been rather disappointing. Their connection is usually rather slow, the wi-fi is not very strong, and then they seem to pay a whole lot more than we do in France. This is surprising for someone like me who grew up looking to America for the cutting edge stuff in everyday life. 

Of course I live in Paris so my experience is slightly biased and does not necessarily reflect what it may like in French rural areas. Besides, I'm always suspicious of personal impressions. They may reflect something but they are clearly not scientific and can be highly subjective.

Then, I started reading articles that seemed to confirm my initial impressions. This latest article in Slate last week summarized the finding of a recent report that "suggests that the U.S. is lagging behind many of its international counterparts, most of whom have higher levels of competition and, in turn, offer lower prices and faster, with the exception of a few places like San Francisco,( and more surprisingly Chattanooga;  Tenn.; Lafayette, La.; and Bristol, Va.

The Slate article makes a parell between electrification and modern broadband policy which makes sense since, today the internet is as important for economic development as the electricity was at the end of the 19th century. But the crux of the article is in its somewhat political conclusion:

But unlike electrification, our present inside-the-Beltway policymakers have mostly ignored nonprofit approaches as a solution to expand affordable, reliable, and fast access to the Internet. And since community networks don't have lobbying arms working the corridors of power in Washington, key decision-makers have silently watched as cable and DSL lobbyists have created substantial new barriers to community networks in 19 states—limiting both competition and local authority and leading to worse, more expensive service than in a growing list of other countries that don't create these regulatory barriers. (Slate)

In other words, this is yet another good example as to why government is needed to regulate the market. Interestingly, a complentary conclusion can be drawn from the French example.

What has made internet connection cheaper and more efficient is a policy that forced the former state-owned monopoly, France Telecom (which sells mobile and Internet services as Orange), to open its network to rival operators such as Free.

 Almost immediately, independent ISPs and carriers from other countries began to lease access to France Telecom’s infrastructure and compete to offer broadband services. New companies like Iliad (offering services since 2002 as Free) emerged as fierce competitors, benefitting from the fact that they did not have to pay the initial costs of laying wires. And now, those companies are beginning to build their own infrastructure in order to meet a growing demand for faster speeds at low prices.
Free, for example, has always charged the same monthly rate, but continued to add new features to its service. Today, Free offers competitive DSL prices in Paris, and has begun to lay its own fiber in the city to provide even faster speeds. Eligible customers can get a connection with download speeds of up to 100 mbps (50 mbps upload) for the monthly fee of €29.99 ($34.47 adjusted for PPP), the same cost as Free’s standard DSL package. To get comparable speeds in most major US cities would cost over $100 per month.
 (.../...)
(As a result), Paris has emerged as a model in providing fast speeds at competitive prices—a shift which can be traced back to government policies instituted a dozen years ago. (New America Foundation)

So one can conclude from the experience in both France and the United States that the solution is half way between unregulated free market, and  state-owned monopoly since in both cases competition is limited, either by large corporations or by the state.
What is needed then is a regulated market, but in order to do that one needs to go beyond the blind ideological faith in laissez-faire economy as it is often the case in the United States or the blind ideological fear of competition as it is often the case in France. 

Ideology in the U.S. Presidential Campaign.

What makes gaffes interesting in politics is that that they usually happen in those too rare moments of unscripted and uncontrolled communication by a politician. As such, they are refreshing but they also reveal plenty, not only about the teller of the gaffe but also about his opponent, and more importantly about what they perceive their voters want to hear.

Let's take President Obama's "you didn't build that" gaffe. Obama wanted to make the point that no one succeeds in modern society without the help of other people, or infrastructures, but he put it very poorly:

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

Here of course, the problem is first and foremost grammatical: "THAT" instead of "THOSE" which stand for "roads and bridges" but it can have dire consequences in a presidential campaign, and sure enough, the other side took advantage of it.

Jon Stewart had a good take on it:

The Daily Show
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Clearly, deep down, Romney agrees with what Obama meant to say. As Jon Stewart pointed out: he pretty much said the same thing about athletes at the Olympic Games.

Beyond the hypocrisy of using a sentence out of context, the whole controversy reveals plenty about American values, and American politics.

INDIVIDUALISM
As Michael Foley has shown in his excellent book American Credo: The Place of Ideas in American Politics, Americans tend to see failure or success in highly personalized terms. Just like American heroes, (the self-reliant pioneer, the lonesome cowboy, the outlaw, the super-hero, the crusading lawyer, etc), American entrepreneurs are seen as heroic individuals engaged in individualized projects. As a result, in the United States succes or failure is  assigned to the person rather than to the structure or conditions, contrary to Europe. Hence the importance of personal virtue for political leaders, especially for the commander-in-chief.
This is also why there is greater tolerance for extreme poverty and extrem wealth, and for economic 'inequality' in the U.S. than in Europe. In France in particular, the word "individualism" tends to carry negative connotations akin to selfishness.

That being said, the pendulum swings even more towards individualism for conservatives than for liberals. In this respect, president Obama has a typical liberal view that stresses the importance of the community, (and this is not surprising, after all Obama used to be a community organizer) whereas Republicans give primacy to the individual and the protection of personal liberties.

FREEDOM
Associated with individualism is of core the core notion of 'freedom' which lies at the heart of American identity, but here too, the meaning attributed to the concept in policies and politics varies in Democratic or Republican circles.

Generally speaking the word 'government' and 'Washington' are viewed negatively.

But it gets even more complicated when you realize that the same voters respond differently to the ideological appeal of 'freedom' and to the policy consequences of less government. The same people may want smaller government but better government services, less taxation but better infrastructures (roads, bridges, water pipes, power grid, etc...), or they may be set against healthcare may but praise Medicare and Medicaid.
This is akin to a schizoid split between abstract ideology and concrete operational use.

IDEOLOGY
And sometimes when a presidential candidate is trying so hard to embody ideology that he changes reality to fit his ideology.
The irony of Mitt Romney praising free enterprise for the economic success of Poland Vs. the "false promise of a government-dominated economy" has not escaped the Europeans who know - apparently better than he does - how E.U. subsidies have helped the Polish economy grow substantially:

In the EU’s 2007-2013 budget, the subsidies for Poland amounted to nearly EUR 68 bln, the highest sum among the EU funding beneficiaries. (source here)

And we're not even talking about the fact that total government expenditure as a percentage of GDP was about 44 percent last year — compared to 41 percent in the United States. (CBS)

Then, when during his stop in Israel, Romney also praised the Israeli economy while people there set themselves on fire in a desperate action of protest against their harsh economic situation. (CNN, ENews).
And it gets teven better when, he lauded the Israeli health care system, which is managed care, universal coverage, and has even more government control than the Obama health law Romney so strenuously faults. (Boston Globe). In effect, he's endorsed President Obama.

Well, Mitt Romney is probably smart enough to know all that, and this all tactical politics.

After all, what do most (conservative) Americans know about Poland, Israel or the Olympic Games for that matter. This message is for them and nobody cares as long as the message reinforces pre-conceived ideas about values and principles. And who cares if the conservative ideology has no applicability, the only thing that matters is to get to the highest office, then you'll deal with issues when they get there. 

This may be why Romney has be so evasive about his program and concrete ideas.

Mass Shooting in America (2/2): American Mythical Violence

When it comes to violence, there is something different that sets the United States apart from the rest of the world.
In his masterpiece, Gunfighter Nation, Richard Slotkin says this:

What is distinctly “American” is not necessarily the amount or kind of violence that characterizes our history but the mythic significance we have assigned to the kinds of violence we have actually experienced, the forms of symbolic violence we imagine or invent and the political use to which we put that symbolism. (p.13)

Slotkin sees it as one foundational element of the American narrative, which dates back to the Puritan Era and the Frontier stories of “captivity narrative” and "American hero-as-Indian-fighter".

In political terms, think of the prevalence of the WAR METAPHOR for example. From Johnson’s “War on Poverty”, Ford’s “War on Inflation”, to G.H Bush's "War on Drugs" or G W. Bush's "War on Terror".  American media even talk about the "Cultural War" within the nation.
This may not seem like much, since after all, these are 'just' metaphors. But the war metaphor implies policies that leave no room for compromise, especially in the domain of law and order. War metaphors favor binary views with a threatening Other. It excludes ideas and polarizes. It also makes violence seem like a normal part of life.
It also favors resolution of conflict through violence over, say, diplomacy. Beyond the argument as to whether wars are necessary, it must be noted that the United States has been almost consistently in some kind of war (declared or not) since WWII.

This rhetoric of war finds its roots in the Puritan dogma of absolute good and absolute evil, which tends to rationalize violence. Interestingly, religious rhetoric in U.S. politics today also tends to emphasize the God of the Old Testament, with His wrath and judgement over the Jesus of the New Testament, with His forgiving and somewhat passive attitude.

Violence in America has become mythical (in the sense of 'sacred'), just like guns, because it is seen as a necessary evil. This is clearly visible in popular culture, especially in superhero stories that depict impotent communities requiring an extraordinary outsider to cope with the evils in their midst. The underlying effect is to consider the hero's violence (and therefore ours) benign because it is the response to the apocalyptic fight between good and evil. (see Jewett ,Robert;  Lawrence, John Shelton; Captain America And The Crusade Against Evil: The Dilemma Of Zealous Nationalism)

Of course, I am not saying that superhero stories or war rhetoric should be blamed for the massacre in Colorado. And like the pro-gun people will certainly say, it is not the guns that killed people, but the owner of the gun. Yet, this sacredness of violence, not only in movies, but also in every day language helps create an atmosphere that, in addition to the availability of guns, may make lose canons more likely to see redemption or doom in some kind of mass killings. This is after all what he has been exposed to all his life.

Despite knowing little of the killer's motivation, I find it very perplexing that he should have claimed to be "the Joker".

There is probably no short term solution. I am certainly not advocating for censorship. But maybe this great nation should have a conversation about the meaning of violence.




Maybe, the negative consequences of violence should be also shown or talked about more. Maybe people should be less accepting of vigilantes like Zimmerman. Maybe, the violent past should be less mythified, and past wars (even WWII) less glorified.
Maybe people should be less shocked about sex and more about violence when it comes to kids.

And maybe young parents should not take their infants or babies to see Batman past midnight (or any other time for that matter.), and maybe they wouldn't if the consequences of exposing young kids to violent images was frowned upon or at least talked about at a national level.

NOTE: I was glad that I was not the only one baffled by the fact that some (young) parents apparently took their infants and babies to see Batman, given the violence of the movie.
Last night, NBC newsman Brian Williams asked a relevant question
 "A whole lot of parents woke up this morning across the country and said "what were young kids doing at that movie, at that hour in that theater?".
Here's what Ann Curry responded:
"I think the answer to that is something we all really know the answer to. and that is that parents, especially young parents need a break, like everyone else. So they were going because they heard so much about this movie  and everyone was so excited to see and it was just an opportunity for them to be together, to have a family moment."
An opportunity for them to be together"? Seriously?

Mass Shooting in America (1/2): Guns

The most horrific thing about mass shooting is not just the number of people killed or wounded, but it is rather how easily one can identify with the victims.

The massacre in Aurora, Col is a no exception: who hasn't been (or doesn't anyone who has been) to the movie premiere of a much anticipated blockbuster?

Mass shootings are horrible abnormalities in very normal time and places - in schools, on campuses, at political gathering, in shopping malls, in churches - in all those locations that we are so accustomed to and that are part of our everyday life. And so the victims could be us because, even though it is statistically unlikely it should happen near you, the sentiment is that it can strike anyone, anywhere, anytime. 


The other scary element is that contrary to what you may see in Europe, those are recurrent events. (see my post on this blog last year). The last killing spree in the U.S. happened only last April 2012.
And every time, it prompts a "national talk" on gun control in the United States (NYTimes, Wash. Post), while the rest of the world is watching, bewildered.
And the two sides of the issue are mostly divided along party lines:

With 70% of Republicans but only 30% of Democrats saying it's more important to protect the rights of gun owners than to control gun ownership. (source here)

Now it seems that the conservative side has won the argument, despite the recurrent mass shootings, and even optimists, likes James Fallows cannot imagine this to change any time soon.

It is very hard for the rest of the world to even begin to understand where Americans come from on gun issues, especially if they hear an argument like that of this representative from Texas who questioned "why nobody else in the theater had a gun to take down the shooter." (here) - a typical pro-gun argument.
There is a sense that the United States is really apart from the rest of the world on this question. And it is.

First because because the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms. But from reading it, you'd never guess it is about people carrying weapons for their private use. It reads

“A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"

This has been used by the Supreme Court to strike down gun restrictive laws. Yet, it was not always so. 

Jill Lepore, a Professor of American History at Harvard University, had an excellent (but very long) piece on the gun issue in the New Yorker last April.

She explains that the current prevalent view of the 2nd Amendment is something rather recent and finds its origins - against all odds -in the liberalism of the 1960s, she says.

They are the product of what the Harvard law professor Mark Tushnet has called the “rights revolution,” the pursuit of rights, especially civil rights, through the courts. In the nineteen-sixties, gun ownership as a constitutional right was less the agenda of the N.R.A. than of black nationalists.

Even more surprising, the NRA (National Rifle Association - the very powerful gun lobby) supported the 1968 Gun Control Act, in the wake of the assinnations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The N.R.A.’s executive vice-president said at the time that although some elements of the legislation “appear unduly restrictive and unjustified in their application to law-abiding citizens, the measure as a whole appears to be one that the sportsmen of America can live with.”

In the 1970s, the N.R.A. began advancing the argument that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to carry a gun, rather than the people’s right to form armed militias to provide for the common defense. 

Opposing gun control was also consistent with a larger anti-regulation, libertarian, and anti-government conservative agenda. 

Ironically (since he was himself shot), Ronald Reagan was the first Presidential candidate whom the N.R.A. had endorsed.

In 1986, the N.R.A.’s interpretation of the Second Amendment achieved new legal authority with the passage of the Firearms Owners Protection Act, which repealed parts of the 1968 Gun Control Act by invoking “the rights of citizens . . . to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment.” 

In 2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court ruled, in a 5–4 decision, that the District’s 1975 Firearms Control Regulations Act was unconstitutional. Justice Scalia wrote, “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia.” Two years later, in another 5–4 ruling, McDonald v. Chicago, the Court extended Heller to the states.

Despite this:

Since 1980, forty-four states have passed some form of law that allows gun owners to carry concealed weapons outside their homes for personal protection. (Five additional states had these laws before 1980. Illinois is the sole holdout.) A federal ban on the possession, transfer, or manufacture of semiautomatic assault weapons, passed in 1994, was allowed to expire in 2004. In 2005, Florida passed the Stand Your Ground law, an extension of the so-called castle doctrine, exonerating from prosecution citizens who use deadly force when confronted by an assailant, even if they could have retreated safely; Stand Your Ground laws expand that protection outside the home to any place that an individual “has a right to be.” Twenty-four states have passed similar laws.

There may be hope:

The United States is the country with the highest rate of civilian gun ownership in the world. (The second highest is Yemen, where the rate is nevertheless only half that of the U.S.) No civilian population is more powerfully armed. Most Americans do not, however, own guns, because three-quarters of people with guns own two or more. According to the General Social Survey, conducted by the National Policy Opinion Center at the University of Chicago, the prevalence of gun ownership has declined steadily in the past few decades. In 1973, there were guns in roughly one in two households in the United States; in 2010, one in three. In 1980, nearly one in three Americans owned a gun; in 2010, that figure had dropped to one in five.

(End of Part 1)

What American fiction Says About America: The Newsroom.

One of the most powerful elements of American fiction is its ability to deal with current social and political issues.

For obvious reasons, TV series prove particularly reactive to the news and a great medium to reflect the talk and anxieties of the nation. Think of police procedural crime dramas like Law and Order, (read my posts here and here), or even sci-fi series like Galactica or V, or of course political shows like Aaron Sorkin's highly praised The West Wing. 
Now Sorkin has a new show on cable television called The Newsroom, and after watching the first 3 episodes, I am amazed at  how much he has furthered his ability to use fiction to talk about important yet controversial issues in the United States. 

The Newsroom is about a fictional  cable news network (Atlantis Cable News, ACN) and its news program  "News Night", whose anchorman Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) and staff decide to transform by prioritizing the truth over ratings. 

Charlie, (Sam Waterston) who heads the news division, declares that he wants "news for the center. ... We don't pretend that certain facts are in dispute [just] to give the appearance of ‘fairness' to people who don't believe them. ‘Balance' is irrelevant to me. It doesn't have anything to do with truth, logic, or reality." (source)

The words "fair" and "balance" are clearly a direct hit at Foxnews (which is anything bu, as Jon Stewart has shown many times). 

As you might expect given the pitch, it is a show about journalism, corporate power and politics. But what is most impressive is its mix of fiction and reality, including the criticism of actual politicians. 


The last episode (Episode 3, "The 112th Congress") is particularly amazing - it is supposed to take place during the 2010 mid-term elections. Will McAvoy who claims to be a Republican, wants to take on the Tea Party for driving his old-time party to the right. He tells his boss, Charlie that he initially understood the initial impulse of the Tea Party as a grass root movement but that it's been co-opted by corporate interests, specifically the Koch brothers. 
This is interesting because the Koch Brothers are REAL very powerful American industrialists who are also political activists. They have been financing the Tea Party and right wing issues through organisations such as Freedomworks, or Americans For Prosperity (see my posts here or read this NYTimes article) and have influence up to the Supreme Court. 
It goes even further by portraying the owner of the cable news network that broadcasts News Night, Leona Lansing, threatening to fire Will for going after the Koch brothers. It is not that she cares about ratings because the cable channel accounts for less than 3% of her corporation’s profits, but rather it was her other business ventures, unnamed, that were potentially in peril."  I have business before this Congress,”, she ends up saying (source). 

The irony is that Leona Lansing is (very convincingly) played by Jane Fonda, who is known for her liberal views,(she is continuously called 'Hanoi Jane' by FoxNews) but also the former wife of CNN founder Ted Turner. 

Clearly the show has it flaws: it has been (probably rightfully) criticized for its somewhat sexist depiction of its female characters (here and here), for being too preachy (which it is) and unrealistic (which remains to be proven... but who cares... this is fiction after all!) (here), or for its middl-school soap opera tone at times (which is true - and annoying-  but not unlike many American shows). It also smacks of nostalgia, (especially in Episode 1), as if the time of Edward R. Murrow ever was this perfect time when the United States was "the greatest nation" on earth.

Despite its flaws, the show works for me because it has balls and tackles current issues heads on. It is precisely what makes American fiction far superior to any other. No other country in the world, not even in Europe, and certainly not in France would have the guts to use reality in fiction to such an extreme. even though Senator Mike Lee has taken on HBO over the newsroom allegation, it gives me hope that freedom of expression is not dead in the United States.
After all, whether you agree with its political bias, which is clearly to the left, (and granted that most conservatives must be turned off after episode 3), this show has the potential to make people think about the broken state of media and politics, and its incestuous relationship in today's America. In fact, it is not about a news channel, it is about America itself.