Last September, I wrote a diary entitled A View from Abroad which collected a few impressions from our local villagers.
To recap, we now live in a small village (pop. 1000) in the South of France (photo), having left Los Angeles in January 2005. (There's a blog and a book.)
Last Monday, Easter Monday, was, for a reason which escapes me, Omelet Day. Our local city hall had organized a town banquet, half-potluck, but with a giant omelet being the centerpiece. It was very convivial and a good time was had by all.
Being the town's token Americans, we were naturally grilled about the recent developments on the US front.
(More below fold.)
Before I get into the matter proper, let me say that the opinions of a dozen (at most) villagers from the South of France, retired teachers, civil servants, local doctor, farmers, etc. likely have no statistical value; my region is virulently opposed to M. Sarkozy and his policies, so they won't even affect France's policies in general. So this is provided purely for its anecdotal value.
The number one topic was John McCain, who had visited President Sarkozy not too long ago. (I don't watch French TV so I have no idea how that was handled by the local media.) After Bush was reelected in 2004, just before we moved here, I recall that the main reaction was surprise, as in: "How could Americans be so dumb as to reelect that man?" I still got some of that at the omelet party last Monday...
But now, people have discovered John McCain, and have heard of polls that say that he is in the lead here or there, and might in fact win. (They don't quote get the Electoral College thing.)
The universal reaction I saw was now much closer to anger, as in: "Americans can't do this; they just can't." You know the type: the anger one feels upon hearing thews that the much-battered wife has once more returned to her abusive husband.
Yes, anger, perhaps mixed with a little fear and distrust. But mostly anger. My villagers understand quite clearly that, with McCain, the disastrous neocon dream will live on, and that is something they can't accept. They all think that that "vision" of the world is disastrous and fraught with danger and also morally repugnant. They just can't accept that America would vote again for it.
Obviously, they can't do anything about it, but they're quite angry about it. I think what may well be a reaction to a sense of powerlessness is amplified by the fact that they don't think America is ready to, or will, elect an African-American candidate -- a Black as they say.
I'm not sure if they feel that way because they heard of polls that claim that McCain would beat Obama, or simply because they think that (a majority of) Americans are still too racist to elect a black man. No one had heard of the Rev. Wright's controversy, so this was purely in general.
I was able to convince my fellow villagers that 45% of Americans at least believed just like they did. In fact, I just discovered that none of my fellow villagers had heard about the demonstrations against the Iraq War in 2003! They were surprised, and pleased, I think, to hear that hundreds of thousands of Americans had marched against the War, way back then. What they were shown on TV was the sorry sight of Americans throwing French wine in the gutter and boycotting French fries. I guess their media are just as cliché-driven as ours, but obviously that left a mark.
Strangely enough, no one asked me about Hillary; it was mostly McCain and Obama. I think I was successful in convincing my fellow villagers that things weren't that grim yet, and that Obama did have a good chance to win. I hope I'm proven right, because if McCain gets elected, there's going to be some real anger here...
Number two topic, unsurprisingly, was the so-called "subprime crisis," ie: the economy. Everyone is now aware, even if in an oversimplified and rudimentary fashion, that the proverbial shit has hit the equally proverbial fan in the American economy. I won't repeat here what we all know about the topic, and limit myself to the local perspective.
I had already mentioned in that earlier diary that one of the things that most changed the perception of America here were the images of the post-Katrina debacle. In fact, they saw some more updates on TV last fall. Now they are shown reports about tent cities in California and ghost towns where every commercial real estate or housing development is for sale.
The post-Katrina reaction had been one of surprise, as in "We can't believe that the richest and most powerful country in the world can't take care of its people." Interestingly, the latest reports now appear to be received with jadedness, as in, "Oh yes America is in deep shit again, so what's new?"
The folks here don't have much savings and even those who do, tend to invest in safe government passbooks or life insurance annuities at best, so they don't feel particularly threatened by the stock market -- they are are more concerned by the sharp increase in the prices of milk and food products (on some items, +45% in the last six months).
They don't remember the Great Depression, but their parents did, and somehow, I got the sense that they are not victims of that "things will just go on as before" shared delusion that too many Americans suffer from. They are more prepared to accept that the sky may be falling after all. This is true of global warming, too, by the way, which is pretty much taken matter-of-factly.
I would say that, now that the news of the real estate/banking collapse in the US have begun to spread (and I look like a prophet here for having mentioned this well over a year ago), it's another portion of the myth of America's power, wealth and invincibility that has been demolished, just as we toppled that statue of Saddam in Iraq.
In conclusion, I would not for an instant argue that these are statistically representative views of anyone or anything, nor that these dozen or so of villagers have any power whatsoever to affect policies. And yet, I can't help feel that, by seeing only the contours of the mountain from afar, these people are better able to discern its shape than we who stand upon it.
I think there is an enormous crisis, financial and political, at home and abroad, looming upon us, and this year is the year where we'll be judged, as a people, as a country.
Maybe I shouldn't say "judged"; I merely mean to say that for any action, there is a reaction, and I think our actions this year are going to generate far more of a reaction than ever before.
One is reminded of the Chinese curse about "interesting times."