Yes, it's Bastille Day again, and while one naturellement prays for the Vendee on this day, one also must rise above the Late Unpleasantness to salute a great nation and a great people on their national day. Drink a bottle of French wine, eat a smelly cheese, hug a French person, put a cedille on your c, have an extramarital affair with Nicolas Sarkozy, taunt an Englishman, just do something today to tip your hat to France and to Franco-American friendship. And, as we do every year on this francophilic blog, watch this:
Vive la France, y'all!
Tuesday July 14, 2009
Categories: A Sense of Place
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Advertisement
Advertisement
Search This Blog
Rod Dreher's New Blog
Recent Posts
About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
Subscribe
Archives
Blogs Worth Reading
- Front Porch Republic
- The American Conservative
- Patrick Deneen
- Conventional Folly
- The American Scene
- First Things
- Andrew Sullivan
- The Plank
- Eunomia
- Get Religion
- Postmodern Conservative
- Alex Massie
- The Corner
- Contentions
- Sharon Astyk
- Barry Ritholtz
- The Oil Drum
- Mere Comments
- First Principles (ISI)
- Brian Kaller
Here is Edith Piaf's rendition of "Ca ira," the Jacobin marching song of the Revolution.
Lee
SteveM: before you repeat the well-worn charge that the French folded without a fight, you ought to look up the casualty statistics. As a percentage of population, the French mobilized more men than the USA. As a percentage of men in uniform, the French had more casualties (including KIA) than the USA. I see no reason to disparage their performance against a superior foe.
Geoff G: The Church was on the side of both the nobility and the peasants -- in short, she was standing up for social stability and the people's freedom to practice their faith. Her opponents were the bourgeoisie, especially freemasons and others those with philosophical pretensions. In the Vendee, it was the peasants who compelled the local nobility to lead them against the republicans ("Que la Terreur soit a l'ordre du jour.").
This is my last contribution to today's remembrance of the Revolution: a recording of "Carmagnole," another Jacobin song from early in the Revolution.
Vive la France!
Lee
Alicia: Casablanca has a peculiar notion of freedom, insofar as Rick's credentials as a "good guy" include siding with the republicans in the Spanish Civil War. Among everything else that the second world war was, it was a time of ideological struggle and political myth-making on all sides.
Hi, Romulus,
Real life and real politics and history are much more complicated than a piece of popular entertainment like "Casablanca" which was meant to inspire and cheer people up in a dark time (and, of course, to make money for the studio). To me, part of the intended message was "We Americans are tough guys. We can take these Nazi b*stards."
I saw a "making of" documentary and the "Casablanca" writers said that what helped them sort out the climax was that they asked themselves, "Who does the audience want to see killed? Major Strasser" and "Who should kill him? Rick, of course." The movie has many themes but one of them is summed by Rick earlier in the film when he says "There are some parts of New York City I wouldn't advise (the Germans) to invade."
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.