Friday, May 15, 2009

Italy’s FIAT Saves US’s Chrysler: Italians Enjoying The Moment

Posted by Peter Quennell


Click above for the report. Our previous post on this here.

FIAT also owns Ferrari. Seems those pesky Italians really know how to make cars - and those pesky Americans really don’t.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 05/15/09 at 08:40 PM in The wider contexts

Comments

This weekend, has there not been anything in the court of Perugia, or when do they start again?

Posted by Sansrivale on 05/16/09 at 11:39 AM | #

I really don’t see how these posts are relevant to the case. Snarky generalized comments about American’s car making abilities could also be viewed as anti-American bias.

Posted by bobc on 05/16/09 at 12:08 PM | #

Sansrivale, the trial resumes next Friday and Saturday. The trail continues to average around six days a month, and the prosecution appears to have indicated that it may conclude its case early in June.

BobC, the cracks in the US media against Italy in connection with the case have been numerous and still continue now, and many get to hear them. Just this last week, a prominent host of a legal talk-show on CNN referred to the trial in Perugia as a “kangaroo-court trial” and the term “like a third world country” has been heard more than a few times. I know of Italian-Americans around New York who are sad and depressed at how the country of their ancestors is being depicted. 

Point of the posts (of which there have only been two) is not to put down the US, merely to show that in many ways Italy is on just the same level. This post on the Italian system of justice was one of our most-read ever, and it opened more than a few eyes to the fact that in some ways the system there is more fair, deliberate and cautious than the system here.

Just to put this in some context. In general, negative remarks in the media here against other nations and nationalities are very few, and the positive remarks very many. Perhaps the only other recent case of a country being put down to suit an agenda was that of France during the early days of the Iraq war, when the Bush administration became irritated at the French position at the United Nations. (In the Congressional cafeterias “French fries” were renamed and so on.)  There was then a campaign by those who love France and things French to show that that too was unreasonable.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 05/16/09 at 12:37 PM | #

BobC, Pete has only commented a fact - without the “pesky"part, it’s more or less what Obama said 😉

I don’t think that a comment about car-making abilities could be perceived as “anti-American”!.

And BTW what should the Italians say then, after all the undeserved derogatory comments that have been made against their country?

I am only glad that the average Italian does not even know about this crap, since of course they do not read the American press nor watch CBS, and the Italian press has more important foreign news to pick up than Bremner, Ciolino & co’s stupid comments.

Posted by Nicki on 05/16/09 at 04:06 PM | #

Creating a positive image is fine, but if one thinks the tactics of the opponent is wrong, how can adopting the same tactics possibly be a good idea?

But if Obama said it then I guess it’s ok 😉

Posted by bobc on 05/19/09 at 12:26 AM | #

Hi Bob. Re “adopting the same tactics” I checked around here and Italy being seriously denigrated almost daily doesn’t seem to anyone to compare with a mild piece of satire highlighting the opposite. The FIAT move impressed those relatively few who picked up on it, and has done Italy a certain amount of good.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 05/19/09 at 03:53 PM | #
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