Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA18470 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 13 Feb 2002 14:41:59 GMT From: <AaronLynch@aol.com> Message-ID: <182.38576c6.299bd3da@aol.com> Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 09:36:10 EST Subject: Re: An odd addition to the axis of evil To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Windows 95 sub 113 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
In a message dated 2/13/2002 6:38:29 AM Central Standard Time, Vincent
Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> writes:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Saw this in 'The Times' last Friday, thought it was interesting:
>
> [From the Media Diary]
>
> 'The readers of the Weekly Standard, bible of American neo-conservatives
and
> a distant colonial cousin of this newspaper [owned by Murdoch then...],
have
> an unusual grasp of foreign affairs. In its Question of the Week section,
> readers were asked to nominate a fourth member for George W.Bush's Evil
Axis
> of Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Syria was suggested by 32 per cent of
> readers, Libya by 7 per cent, but the runaway winner was France which
polled
> 41 per cent.'
>
> I guess the memories of the French nearly bringing down GATT still rankles
> with the readers of the Weekly Standard. Either that or the meaning of
> 'axis of evil'- which went down incredibly badly in Europe, particularly
> within the corridors of the EU- means something very different to right
wing
> Americans...
>
> Hence, and here's the memetics link, how could anyone argue that it's the
> idea of an 'axis of evil' that's the meme, as I presume some would?
>
> Vincent
Hi Vincent.
I doubt that GATT had anything to do with this. Instead, many American
neo-conservatives view the world in terms of Evangelical Christianity and
religious morality. I haven't asked neo-conservatives about France, but they
probably see that country as having loose morals, as favoring big government,
and lacking Evangelical Christian faith. Their xenophobia probably resembles
that expressed by Pat Robertson several years ago when he referred to
Scotland as a "dark land filled with homosexuals" (or some such).
The "axis of evil" phrase was not widely used until Bush's state of the union
speach before Congress.
--Aaron Lynch
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