Y'know, I was watching that movie about Joan of Arc the other night ... the one with Sobieski, not Jovovich ... and a funny thought occured to me.
France is a pretty cool place, really. It's had its screwed up moments, to be sure, but I think that the United States is now rushing into a period that will easily equate to Nazi collaboration. Maybe, in half a century after the smoke has cleared and we've all had time to figure out what the hell happened, we'll be a little less quick to judge.
But what I was really thinking was that France was the center of culture in Europe for a really long time. If you really look at the divisions of Europe, historically, what you've got is Scandinavia, Germany, Russia, the Mediterranean, Britain, and France. The Mediterranean, naturally, was the center of western culture for like a zillion years ... and once that ended, it moved to France.
I don't think it's a coincidence that the French were responsible for harboring the theory of Democracy for so long, and that they passed that theory on to these lunatic warlords in North America that came to form the United States of America, which is now becoming the new center of western culture.
Of course, it's also important to note that France dabbled in fascism ... having a Democracy is one thing, keeping the landowners from taking it is another ...
Gah. I'm babbling. My original thought was that Joan of Arc could be considered, indirectly, an American hero. Without her, there would've been no France (not as we know it anyway), which would've meant there was no United States of America.
