I have a letter from my father awaiting a reply. He wishes to talk by correspondence, he says. Which is fine. I do get we’re both somewhat death and talking to each other on the phone is more difficult than in person.
The problem is that the older he gets the tinier his handwriting, to the point he can cram a normal letter on the back of a postcard. And I’m in the dreaded lands of presbiopia. So I didn’t understand ALL of his letter, only parts of it, enough to get the gist. (And he’s going to be strangely discommoded by mine, because my handwriting used to be merely ugly, but — in case you don’t know this — each country has a distinctive cursive, and my cursive changed with time. now it’s caught in an unholy land between Portuguese script — a lot like old German — and American Script. Not only does it remain the same insane scribbling hand I always had, but now there’s not guarantee of any given letter being rendered the same twice. (If you ever compare my signatures, you will see.) This means I often take notes while reading a book and then sweat trying to interpret what I wrote. This without the charming spelling issues which were always bad and are now worse.)
Most of it is, as it should be, family stuff and a lot about how much he misses mom. Some is world affairs, and I’m afraid being a wretched creature I’m going to have to answer those. Oh, he’s mostly worried not combative, but–
This is in a way an attempt at explaining what happened between Europe and America and why it’s much worse now than it’s ever been.
First, guys, since most of you are born and raised in the US you need an explanation dad probably doesn’t require. It’s like this:
Europe never loved us. Some Europeans did but those of us who did were always an odd bunch and this put us at odds with all other Europeans. They tolerated and encouraged the Soviet Union in the hopes it would “Show up America.”
If I had to guess, since I wasn’t around two hundred and fifty years ago, it started with the certainty that the republic would fail, since it negated the forever European way of living, then moved on to being upset we didn’t. And the fact we saved their asses twice didn’t help at all.
As Heinlein says in Stranger, all “thank you” implies some amount of resentment. Okay, I’m not sure that’s true, because it’s not what I experience. Mostly from me all thank yous involve some number of confusion and fear of trespassing.
But I think the difference is that I was taught how to accept help/charity BY HEINLEIN. I’m not so much accepting help/charity, as I’m taking what I need right then, and it flows outward again when other people are in need. So I’m just borrowing, and pay it forward.
And therein lies the rub. Our intervention in the long war of the 20th century was never paid forward by Europe. it just didn’t happen. In fact it just couldn’t happen, since Europe took the long wars as their signal to go on a self-hating spiral of self destruction.
(I’m not sure how much of that spiral was native and how much was USSR propaganda. Someday maybe we’ll figure out how much cognitive pollution the USSR put into the world, including destroying our own academia and a lot of our political thought. The entire anti-colonial boondoggle is something that the Europeans hold against us — the ones that realize what a disaster it was on both sides — but we were on it because of the extreme lefty academics and air-dreamers were trying to let the USSR grab lands without resistance. Most colonies Europe left were immediately taken over by the USSR de facto if not de Jure.)
On top of which, they outsourced their culture and the production of cultural product to the US. Look, that’s not what they meant to do, you know? they were subsidizing their film and novel production, to make sure the “worthy art” got all the money it needed. I mean, they got enough trash from the US, right. Except that in fact “trash” is what people read and watch. See, for instance, Shakespeare, who wrote plays for apprentices and groundlings. While the promoted art of the cognoscenti goes nowhere. So the result of European governments paying for the “approved art” was to make the only art people watch and read American. (Reading in Europe has been plummeting, in commensurate response to their getting as their only offerings from America the precious darlings of trad pub. Different for those countries to whom Kindle is readily available, but there again… There’s culture. More on that later.) And the problem is the culture they’re getting from us is what Hollywood is selling, which they take deadly serious as “modern” and “advanced” leading to far greater destruction there than here.
This again feeds a hatred of America and a wish to see us stumble.
But until recently, they largely kept their mouths shut where Americans could hear. Oh, sure, their news imputed all the worst vices to us, and generally blamed us for their problems, etc, and also gave them an idea of how we live that meant we had much fun online with Europeans who thought we shoot each other in the streets and also that we’re like Latin America where you’re either very rich or destitute. (This is vital, because the only way their elites can keep hold of the populace in their neo-feudal soft socialism is to project the horrors of what they think naked capitalism would be onto us, and then drive them to think we live in some kind of Dickensonian horror, compared to which their managed decline seems like paradise.)
However it used to be that Europe knew which side of their bread was buttered and that the US has — pardon me the graphic nature of this — a mighty generous tit on which to suckle.
They have now lost what remained of their tiny little minds, and I believe I can explain it.
First of all, they’re completely broken over 2020. At some level they have to know it was all a hoax, and they were not even — as I yelled at mom when she tried ordering me to take the vaccine — the main aim of the hoax. The aim was to steal US elections. Terrorizing Europeans was just stage dressing.
But oooh, boy, were they terrorized. Not even the crazier state in the US locked down as fast, as hard, as long or as stupidly as Europe did. And they had a ridiculously high buy in to the dangerous vaccines, too.
At some level they know they were hoaxed, but they can’t process how their old mechanism of trusting the authorities and the “best people” so they have a lot of free floating anger which their media and reporting is encouraging them to attach to us.
Okay, this is the part that I need to explain to my dad: the media over there really has them utterly convinced that we are repeating fascism.
This is partly their hatred of Trump whom their elites hate because our elites hate him, and how bad a person do you have to be even those American know nothings hate you? And partly that they absolutely believe that our media is absolutely truthful, when our media has also lost its tiny flipping minds and is now reporting completely imaginary stuff.
Partly though is that they absolutely believe that history repeats itself and have been on the lookout for Hitler anywhere a shred of patriotism remains, because patriotism causes Hitler. (DUH. That’s what they were taught in school. DUH.) And of course keep fitting the little they know onto this model.
The thing is the model they were taught in school was not how to find Hitler, but how to find anything that was antithetical to the USSR swallowing them whole. So sure signs of Hitler are: a strong military. Patriotism. Any reduction in social net spending. Self sufficiency or the encouragement thereof. Etc. etc. etc.
And in that light, we look terrible.
They also believe our country is convulsing itself with people trying to fight Trump. That ICE really is deporting anyone who tans. And other fantasies. Which is even more Hitlery.
AND the crowning thing in all this: They haven’t embraced the digital revolution as much as Americans have.
Oh, don’t get me wrong: Everyone has a cell phone. But political blogs are rare and for reasons that evade me, so are groups where people from all over just gather.
I KNOW my dad is going to ask me how I know that the rest of the country isn’t in revolt against Trump, that it’s just Minnesota.
And I’m going to answer that throughout most of the weekday I hang out with my writing group, which is spread out all over the US (and a couple from Canada/Japan.) SO I know. I know that in most cities the actual “resistance” is a dozen boomers with walkers and oxygen tanks.
Because between the work from home, and our just swimming in the digital sea, we all know people all over the country and can verify reports and rumors. (EXCEPT aged boomers of course.)
Which is a divide with Europe that I don’t understand and can’t explain.
But it contributes to their worry for us and their certainty we’re about to fall to Hitler2, this time it’s Orange.
And we have no way to reach them, because it would take explaining all this stuff.
It’s not just that they’re watching a different movie. It’s that someone has locked the theater doors and keeps amping up the sound, till they only see what they’re shown.
This will end in tears.
According To Hoyt 
They locked the theater doors, the gas is leaking, and someone has lit a cigarette . . .
LikeLiked by 1 person
The most the Reader is willing to do for Europe at this point is to airdrop AR-15s, ammo and Starlink terminals to worthy resistance groups. Presumably, Musk will activate the terminals with free service
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you for a perspective I had no idea about. Learning is a good thing.
Sent from AOL on Android
LikeLiked by 1 person
Of course, Europe has gotten more senile since WW2 so of course, Europe cannot understand the US.
LikeLike
I’m sure it’s difficult to even reach the internet in the EU on purpose, courtesy of the EU. But now that I think about it, it’s not just throttled internet it’s that the green commies have nearly killed every bit of power in that continent. I’m sure the nomenklatura would love to throttle our internet but that ship has sailed.
But once upon a time in the eighties when the wall was still up there were a couple Germans who knew what Russian occupation meant. Those dozen or so old Germans were OK with Americans.
LikeLike
It isn’t actually.
LikeLike
I never had trouble getting to the ‘net when I was over there, unless I was in a dead cell area (more common than one would think, “even” in western Europe). However, I was very aware that everything I did was tracked, so I avoided most of my usual sites and stayed with BBC, CNN, DW, and local information searches.
LikeLike
And another thing. I wanted to see Europe again. I don’t see a way forward because I believe that our authress is correct. They don’t want Americans around and I can’t pass for, anything EU, and don’t intend to try.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We had a couple from church take a Viking cruise through Germany a few weeks ago, to celebrate the wife’s finishing chemo. Unfortunately, one side effect of that chemo is brittle bones, which is how she broke her ankle tripping while leaving their cabin bathroom.
So aside from the trip to the hospital, they barely left the boat. The boat did not have a wheelchair for just-in-case, so she spent most of the cruise in the cabin and he didn’t want to leave her.
That said, perhaps because it’s a tourist situation, they were happy with the way they were treated and missed any negative views on Americans. I’d wonder about medical service, since the hospital they were taken to set (more or less) the ankle and told her she needed surgery but they couldn’t do it. Note the local orthopedic center took her in for the surgery the afternoon they got back.
But they didn’t come back frothing about billionaires, like my cousin who went to France with her husband just before they locked down hard. Sheesh.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ah, the wonders of socialized medicine, under which doctors are treated like slaves and patients are property to be sold, traded and depreciated until they’re deemed ‘not worth’ expending any more resources on.
If it’s a Viking Cruise, why aren’t you allowed to sack a few towns along the way? 😁
LikeLike
You could probably pass for Australian. When I was in Spain and Turkey some years back people assumed I was Australian for some reason. Evidently, they get a lot of tourists from there and I certainly didn’t seem European. Apparently, Europeans treat shop workers, etc. as lower class and don’t say thank you or chit chat with the help.
Australians and Americans are friendly to everyone.
LikeLike
Old (post WW II) Polish saying, which might even still be current.
Only idiots and Americans smile at strangers.
Maybe we ought to add Ozzies to the mix, too. (Not that their own politics of the moment doesn’t have a bad case of the Yurrrps, see “can’t get to the Internet [legally] without proper ID” etc.)
LikeLike
Back when I was gallivanting around warmer climes, I was advised by a more experienced expat that if I were in a tight spot I should try to pass as Canadian. Pronounce any ‘out’ combinations as Oot and throw in an occasional ‘eh’ and most folks would be none the wiser. Helps that I am Minnesota born & raised, and spent some of my misguided youth actually in our neighbor to the North.
This did not assist me with avoiding spending the longest 1/2 hour of my life at AK-47 point in Panama shortly before the ’89 party. Mostly because I was in a van packed with my American co-workers . . .
LikeLike
Why isn’t Europe involved in the digital revolution? It’s more a case of why America is involved. It’s the phenomenon that de Tocqueville pointed out as peculiarly American: our penchant for forming voluntary social associations. What is an Internet chat room, or a sub-Reddit, or, well, this blog, but a voluntary social association? What is following someone on X but associating voluntarily with that person?
For whatever reasons, it comes naturally to Americans, and does not come naturally to Europeans. Well, it did to some Europeans at one time, but a lot of them decamped for America.
Republica restituendae, et, Hamas delenda est.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Sometimes, I forget just how odd our American culture, compared to Europe and Asia. We tend to be fine with voluntarily organizing for civic activities. And, we mix up socially with differing income levels, religions, and even – to some extent – racially/ethnically. It’s often the minorities, particularly those who are immigrants, who are resistant to our informal interactions.
LikeLike
Funny thing is, you know who is really really mandatorially Great Patriotic War Reenactor patriotic? Yep, those cuddly Rooskies. Dress your stroller-age toddler up as a WWII cannon fodder draftee in the glorious Red Army patriotic.
So one wonders why the whole Vlad thing is not at the level of yoorupeen concern as our Orange Man.
LikeLike
One also wonders why Leftist terror groups survive in Europe for decades without being arrested or even hassled, while normie political groups get banned.
LikeLiked by 1 person
because their culture comes from America.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I realize that there are different cultures involved, and that’s likely part of it. But I wonder if part of the reason why political blogs and groups aren’t more common in Europe is because of governmental pressure? Look at what’s going on in places like the UK and Germany right now, with reports that protesting the criminal sentence of a migrant got the complainer more prison time than the migrant? Or the heavy-handed attempts of the German government to suppress AfD? Or the current attempts by European governments to censor American websites? That’s got to have a chilling effect.
On a completely unrelated note…
When reading the post I was reminded of a YouTube short that I saw the other day. It was part of a reaction video by a black guy to a young Chinese woman in the US who was complaining about what she saw as Chinese “aunties” (a Chinese term referring to women in their forties and older) who were entering into relationships with MAGA men. She claimed that “thousands” (an exaggeration, I’m sure) of aunties are doing this, and that her own mother knows “several”. But that’s not the important part. The important part is why she was ranting. See, she *knows* that the MAGA men that these aunties are involved with are all misogynist. But according to her they’ve learned to hide their misogyny, often during a prior marriage (she stated that many of them were divorced), from these clueless aunties. Additionally, as she knows, MAGA types hate all immigrants, so the only reason why these MAGA men are getting involved with the Chinese aunties is because of yellow fever (for those who don’t know, a slang term meaning attraction specifically to Asians because they’re Asian). So according to her, “thousands” of older Chinese women are getting involved with (and married to) men who hate women in general, and immigrants in particular, and are only interested in the women because the women are Asian.
Racist much?
LikeLike
Eh, she’s just jealous.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Of course they’re racist. Always have been. If you’re not Han, you’re not human.
LikeLike
Women who are “too old” for Chinese men are getting American men. And they don’t have to get a brideprice for the family and bankrupt a man before marrying him. And the women don’t have to deal with the family adding last minute money demands.
And they can get the heck out of China.
LikeLike
Given the decidedly American accent of the young woman who was ranting, I suspect that the aunties in question moved to the US before they met their MAGA men.
However, I don’t rule out the possibility that “move to US and meet a nice American husband” was a plan on their part, as part of an inverse of what the “passport bros” do.
LikeLike
It’s a younger woman who thinks she has support to count coup on, and regulate the behavior of, older women.
I’m sure the PRC thinks it owns these women, no matter what the formalities, and that the PRC does not entirely like MAGA.
Anyway, if hundreds of women were marrying in X way, or if hundreds of men are marrying in Y way, most of them would be people I don’t know, and I would not know a lot of different things about what the couples are thinking.
There’s a joke that this younger lady must be soo much smarter than I am.
Really, I am a smartass, and a bit of an arrogant and overconfident twit. But, the history of my mistakes tell a tale, and it is a tale not entirely devoid of learning from error.
LikeLike
“We’re both somewhat death”
i had to read thst three times before i figured it out.
one of your better typos.
LikeLiked by 1 person
In my working life I traveled a lot in Europe. One night I went to dinner with a Norwegian, a Swede and a Finlander. I know, it sounds like the beginning of a joke… anyhow, I was shocked by the level of viciousness they had for each other. All smiles but constantly insulting and denigrating each other. Seen similar behavior all the time. The worst was on a trip to Ypres (Belgium) and the week before two Ukrainian workers were killed next door to the place I was. They were trying to grind the copper bands off a WWI artillery shell that had surfaced when the thing went off. The plant manager just laughed and said it was only a couple of dumb Ukrainians so who cares?!?
The problem for Europe is Americans see them for who they are, and we just don’t care anymore. America is not going to get involved in their stupid little wars anymore. America is certainly not going to do anything as they sink into the demographic swamp. We’ll miss the castles and art galleries, but the Taliban will probably dynamite those things in 20 years anyway!
LikeLike
They’re also terrified of Trump because they fear he is the harbinger of a tide which will wash them away, and put the filthy unwashed rightwingers like Le Pen and Farage in power.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Worse, those are populists! Nationalist populism is double plus ungood, since it appeals to the actual aboriginal natives of a country to actually control their country, rather than letting their unelected betters in the EU doo it as is obviously their birthright.
LikeLike
“…they absolutely believe that history repeats itself and have been on the lookout for Hitler anywhere a shred of patriotism remains, because patriotism causes Hitler.”
This is not only what school taught them (and they uncritically accepted, because Authority) — this is a whole major undercurrent of just-post-World-War-II thought. How could a Greater Than Great War, with all its quite-genuine horrors, ever have happened? How do we prevent it coming back?
(My main introduction to it was… science fiction. No, really; look at the themes at work even with people who ought to know better, or did. Early Poul Anderson, most notable by contrast to his more politically and writerly mature self. Even ultra-down-to-Earth H. Beam Piper, and his taking for granted that with nuclear weapons, it’s one planet, one nation, or else disaster later or sooner. For other writers, it’s not even an exception, it’s the — sigh — rule.)
Patiotism, nationalism, causes Hitler causes super-war causes mass human misery and (possibly in the wake of Trinity and Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Castle Bravo and all the rest) human near extinction. So, survival equals anti-nationalism, globalism, UN-ism, etc. It might even help explain their almost-mania for computer-guided or machine-ruled society, look carefully at things people wrote and said right out loud… today’s WEF-o-crats would’ve fit right in, back then. Mainstream!
So, it seems much of Europe is stuck somewhere about 1950 plus-minus half a decade. Figures.
Of course, there was a big current of propaganda reinforcing this, mostly USSR-genic. Which is really “embrace the power of and” with a not-impressive bonus insight that while the old Soviets were not-good at a lot of things, propaganda to the gullible could be one of the exceptions.
LikeLike
This means I often take notes while reading a book and then sweat trying to interpret what I wrote.
This is why I always transcribe meeting notes into a computer ASAP. If I wait a few days or a week I have a hard time interpreting them.
LikeLike
Many in the U.S. have ancestors that fled Europe. Their ancestor’s reasons are now probably all forgotten, but I doubt it was a rash decision to do so instead of a vacation.
Europe is Europe, and it doesn’t fit well with the liberty attained through a Constitution demanding it shall be so. Many don’t understand us, and that’s fine, but I think it’s a huge waste to try and teach them what over two centuries created. The pattern to achieve the same has been available for a long time, but those in power in Europe can’t allow that to happen.
LikeLike