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Post by lagatta on May 2, 2017 17:00:19 GMT
We have the Black Bloc too, but they only make the kind of minor trouble you indicated in your first sentence. I was shocked to see that escalate into the kind of extreme physical violence seen in Paris.
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2017 17:10:48 GMT
Luckily the victim was "only" burned on the face, neck and hand -- 3rd degree burns on the neck and hand, 2nd degree burns on the lower face. So he should make a full recovery, and thank god for the quality of the protective clothing. He is 41 years old with 17 years of experience. Seeing the photograph, his colleagues are basically in more of a state of shock than he is.
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Post by bjd on May 2, 2017 17:58:39 GMT
Meanwhile, I maintain that a lot of the Mélenchon voters are passive (or perhaps not so passive) supporters of Marine Le Pen since their 'vote' was revealed today for the second round of the election: only 35% of those who expressed an opinion say they will vote for Macron to block Le Pen. The others say they will abstain or cast a void ballot although in a poll, 18% have said that they will vote for Le Pen. Mélenchon has fuelled the fire and will be responsible for the consequences. I agree totally with Kerouac. I just received this video www.facebook.com/Avaaz/videos/10154873574078884/
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Post by lagatta on May 2, 2017 18:09:52 GMT
I remember when anti-police brutality demos here - which at first were started by people who knew - victims of police brutality, often unarmed young men of colour, or psychiatric patients - were taken over by that sort of people, though the actual violence was far less. This made it impossible to get a turnout of families or friends of Black or Brown people, or Indigenous people, as they had a justified fear of the police.
It is an odd grouping. I do want to point out that most anarchists are nothing like that, though they don't believe in electoral politics.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 2, 2017 18:53:20 GMT
Meanwhile, I maintain that a lot of the Mélenchon voters are passive (or perhaps not so passive) supporters of Marine Le Pen since their 'vote' was revealed today for the second round of the election: only 35% of those who expressed an opinion say they will vote for Macron to block Le Pen. The others say they will abstain or cast a void ballot although in a poll, 18% have said that they will vote for Le Pen. Mélenchon has fuelled the fire and will be responsible for the consequences. I agree totally with Kerouac. [Bixa says:] And you all know how I felt about Sanders supporters and others who refused to vote for Clinton in order to block the beast, so of course I agree with both of you. [Bixa says:] Let's hope that's a wake-up call!!!
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Post by patricklondon on May 2, 2017 19:03:53 GMT
Meanwhile, I maintain that a lot of the Mélenchon voters are passive (or perhaps not so passive) supporters of Marine Le Pen since their 'vote' was revealed today for the second round of the election: only 35% of those who expressed an opinion say they will vote for Macron to block Le Pen. The others say they will abstain or cast a void ballot although in a poll, 18% have said that they will vote for Le Pen. Mélenchon has fuelled the fire and will be responsible for the consequences. Faint shades of the Communists refusing to support Social Democrats against the extreme right of the 1930s? But 35% of 20% plus a chunk of Fillon's support and a few of the outliers isn't, of itself, enough to get Le Pen anywhere near 50%, is it? My blog | My photos | My video clips"too literate to be spam"
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Post by lagatta on May 2, 2017 19:11:33 GMT
Well, all my French friends here are voting for Macron, even those who strongly dislike him, to block Le Pen. After all, the older ones voted for Chirac in 2002!
I will add, however, that Chirac took that as a mandate, and acted accordingly. Some might well fear that Macron will do the same.
No, I'm not saying that to advocate either abstention or a vote for the She-Wolf of the FN (yes, a bit Godwinesque, that). Just that it is important to remain vigilant to protect workers' and social rights. Which Bernie continues to do, by the way.
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Post by whatagain on May 3, 2017 14:08:08 GMT
Melenchon is a true Trotskyst : you have to have the situation get worse before it gets better. If all goes to worse, there will be a revolution. Or he is jsut a plain sshole, with a problem of ego : I have won 20% of the votes and I keep those for myself, na ! PCF told everybody to vote Macron and thus to distance themselves from Melenchon.
Something else, can somebody tell me why the new president of FN stayed in position 3 days (last week ?) Jean-François Jalkh : a nice guy, who commerated the death of Petain and tells to who wants to listen that Zklon B is IMPOSSIBLE to use in mass murder. We call these basterds revisionists or even negationists in France.
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2017 13:42:54 GMT
It is doubtful that foreign interference in elections is a good thing.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 4, 2017 14:26:40 GMT
Well, when you consider that quite recently the world watched in trepidation as first the UK then the US stood on the brink of profoundly changing the way those countries interacted with the world, it's not surprising that now France's choices are being pronounced on from afar. When I saw this article I figured I would just glance at it then dismiss it. I wound up reading it all the way through as it's a fascinating look at how people can be manipulated by an image so carefully crafted that it looks natural: The Look of the French Election
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Post by bjd on May 4, 2017 15:21:07 GMT
Well, frankly, I find that article rather a stretch. Marine le Pen has been dressing the same way forever: navy blue pantsuit or straight skirt, white top and high heels. The other day on her fishing boat photo-op she wore a yellow oilskin. But if she is supposed to look like a "mother", then we should all wish to be orphans. She is horrible, aggressive and loud-mouthed. As for the famous campaign poster -- I didn't notice the "flash of thigh" -- my reaction was, "They put her in front of books to show she can read."
And as much as I dislike her, she looks better in her pantsuits than either Hillary Clinton or Angela Merkel. But I don't believe her supporters will vote for her because she looks like a mother.
And comparing Macron with Hollande, who is 25 years older and has a bit of a paunch and losing his hair (which his previous companion told him to dye before running for president in 2012) is also stupid. He wears suits to look the part of a presidential candidate. He has to look serious since one of the big criticisms levelled at him is that he is too young.
I agree with Kerouac that outsiders should keep their endorsements to themselves, especially Tony Blair.
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2017 15:48:02 GMT
I'm confused as to why endorsements from foreign leaders of other countries is viewed as "interference" although, I most likely would agree with either of you (K2 and BJD).
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2017 16:20:18 GMT
Well, just try to imagine Putin or the king of Saudi Arabia or Kim Jong-un of North Korea making a video to endorse a candidate in an American election. While an endorsement by Barack Obama is probably flattering to the majority of the French, it opens the door to total assholes doing the same thing.
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2017 16:29:51 GMT
I see your point but I don't know if I would call it interference. People are going to vote for whomever and I would like to think that it's doubtful that it would sway one's vote for whomever.
Perhaps I am that naïve.
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Post by lagatta on May 4, 2017 17:47:25 GMT
I'm surprised at no comments on the infamous debate, when Marine really seemed to lose it.
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Post by fumobici on May 4, 2017 17:47:50 GMT
I like these two-axis political compass graphs, I think they get a lot deeper and more nuanced than the simplistic left-right single-axis continuum we are taught to think in terms of. People saying, as they often do, that the left and right become similar at the extremes only do so because they are constrained by their fixation on the common single-axis over-simplification of the political map. Such one dimensional thinking in fact leads to a lot of unnecessary confusion and inability to make sense of a dynamic political landscape. www.politicalcompass.org/france2017 Above is a link (in both English and French) to a short explanation of the above graph. I think it's a quite correct analysis although people who identify as left-leaning and who mischaraterize Macron as left will be particularly unable to process that Le Pen is well to his left in the most important economic sense, as they will be confused by her rather extreme authoritarian political leanings.
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Post by bjd on May 4, 2017 19:05:05 GMT
Is this graph supposed to show that Macron is to the right of Fillon economically? After Fillon proposed a complete Thatcherite program of cutting 500,000 state employees, raising the retirement rate and working hours?
Lagatta -- everyone I have heard and talked to agreed that Macron was more convincing than le Pen, who said quite a few stupid things and lost her cool as the evening went on. Furthermore, the two journalists who were supposed to be moderating were basically useless, especially the guy who looked totally lost. Also, le Pen's comment that Macron might have a hidden account in the Bahamas was picked up on social media and spread by Russian-based Twitter accounts. Macron has complained and French prosecutors are making enquiries.
I don't know how many undecided voters came to any conclusions after the debate.
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Post by lagatta on May 4, 2017 20:08:52 GMT
Yes, what you said, bjd, was also the conclusion on the Radio-Canada morning show. Le Pen didn't seem to know her dossiers, as any serious candidate should.
I spoke of the political compass upthread and do think it is a much more useful too than either a left-right straight line or the idea of a horseshoe that brings far left and far right together. That might seem to make sense, but in retrospect there are many things we take for granted now such as at leact tacit equality for women, people of colour or lgbt people that were unthinkable when I was a child.
When far left and far right come together, it is because the particular currents involved are authoritarian. Stalinism and fascism/Nazism are of course the classic cases of extreme authoritarianism.
And the problem with placing Le Pen to the "left" of some of the others is that she is simply lying - demagogy.
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Post by fumobici on May 4, 2017 20:51:45 GMT
The site that does the graphing I linked to uses economic policy as the central weighting factor in left-right. When one candidate (a liberal but not remotely of the left) helped write le loi El Khomri, and the other putatively hard right promotes a 30 hour week, things won't be simple to unpack and neatly assign a spot on a 2D line. The site has been around for a long time and I think it has done a great job by and large. They've made graphs for many different world political figures and they are logically consistent and make sense to me and a lot of other people. The word "liberal" throws people off because it's so frequently conflated with being left wing but being economically liberal--less regulation of business and trade, austerian, pro privatization, pro immigration, are often economically not left wing at all, so if you weight that highly, you'll see a result that seems odd at times because it doesn't conflate liberality with the political left as if they were the same.
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2017 21:18:09 GMT
Melenchon is a true Trotskyst : you have to have the situation get worse before it gets better. If all goes to worse, there will be a revolution. I'm not sure if it's the best definition of trotskyism. Mélenchon was indeed a member of a trotskyist movement in the 70's, along with several future prominent figures of the socialist party, such as Lionel Lionel Jospin (former Prime Minister) or Jean-Christophe Cambadelis (!). . Meanwhile, I maintain that a lot of the Mélenchon voters are passive (or perhaps not so passive) supporters of Marine Le Pen Lucas, a member of our local group, is just back from the hospital after he was attacked by two thugs of the FN. I will ask him if he's a passive or an active supporter of Ms Le Pen. Exactly: 35% of the members of France Insoumise plan to vote for Macron. When it comes to the 7.000.000 people who voted Mélenchon (not only members), ~50% of them will vote for Macron. In addition there will be the voters of Fillon, 50% also - so that makes 3.500.000 Mélenchonists + 3.500.000 Fillonists. According to the polls 18% of the voters of JLM plan to vote for Le Pen (alas). On the other side, you have Fillon who told his voters to go for Macron - and it's 33% of them will vote for Le Pen.. So, why the fury towards Mélenchon and not towards Fillon? It's not like Mélenchon had betrayed his camp, unless of course you consider Macron a leftist. I'm one of the voters of Mélenchon who will not for Macron. I'm fed up to vote for the "less worse" of the candidates. I'm not saying that Macron is no better than Le Pen. I would choose Macron if I really had to but I don't. It suffice to look at the results of the first round to see that Macron is very likely to win even without the vote of France Insoumise. Very likely is not enough of course, but we have the polls. The margin of error is estimated at 2%. The gap Macron-Le Pen is 61%/39%. At 3 days before the election Le Pen has absolutely no chance to win. What fire and which consequences ? It's unclear to me. Mélenchon was called many things: a Khmer Rouge (Gérard Collomb, mayor of Lyon) "Your program... it's North Korea" (Jacques Attali, former president of European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) The best: "Mélenchon is a dictator" - François Hollande, who thinks that it's OK for a president in office to insult a candidate to the presidentiel élections. Well, all my French friends here are voting for Macron, even those who strongly dislike him, to block Le Pen. After all, the older ones voted for Chirac in 2002! I will add, however, that Chirac took that as a mandate, and acted accordingly. Some might well fear that Macron will do the same. That's what I tried to explain in another post. Here's a very interesting article for those who blame Mélenchon for not supporting Macron: Mélenchon fait-il ce que Jospin a "toujours regretté" de n'avoir pas fait ?
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2017 21:53:02 GMT
I think it's a quite correct analysis although people who identify as left-leaning and who mischaraterize Macron as left will be particularly unable to process that Le Pen is well to his left in the most important economic sense, as they will be confused by her rather extreme authoritarian political leanings. Frankly, I am not surprised at all since Le Pen told a lot of fairy tales such as "full retirement benefits at age 60" and a big increase in pensions and family allocations, which she already admitted was not possible in last night's debate. Time to revise the chart maybe. As for Macron being right or left, that is not even the point anymore because we just spent 5 years of Hollande making promises on the left which he had to renounce one after another. Not his fault most of the time, just a brick wall that he kept slamming into every time he tried something. Macron seems to be a bit more realistic and is not making impossible promises. For the first time ever, a lot of the voters seem to appreciate this rare honesty, even if it is disappointing in terms of how we would like the country to be. I totally believed all of Mitterrand's pipe dreams in 1981 when he immediately put in place a large part of his programme -- reduction of the work week, nationalisation of the banks, end of the death penalty, a fifth week of paid holiday for all, proportional elections for the national assembly... I thought all of that was pretty great. And then he slammed into a brick wall (with quite a bit of sabotage) and the economy collapsed, the proportional elections brought 35 members of the Front National to power. Things didn't seem so good anymore. I prefer to err on the side of caution now while not abandoning my ideals. So, why the fury towards Mélenchon and not towards Fillon? It's not like Mélenchon had betrayed his camp, unless of course you consider Macron a leftist. No fury, just a certain disappointment. The main candidates for the presidency presumably considered themselves to be leaders -- otherwise why bother? The others did not hesitate to advise their voters to do something for the second round. But Mélenchon suddenly was not a leader anymore and said "oh, I can't decide anything for my voters; I have to ask them first." Well fuck, the others can't decide anything for their voters either, but they at least had an opinion. Mélenchon could have said 'vote for Le Pen, vote for Macron, vote void or don't vote at all' but the poor man couldn't make up his mind. I understand that he was hurt and disappointed, but so were the others. So at that moment for me he stopped being a leader and turned into a whiner.
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2017 22:26:41 GMT
On the assumption that Macron will have a victory to celebrate on Sunday, his team has been looking for a place for all of the anonymous supporters to gather, which is a tradition in French politics. The left has chosen Bastille in the past while the right has chosen Concorde. Other major areas were eliminated due to being marked politically in recent times -- Trocadéro was used by Fillon for a big rally, Hamon and Mélenchon used République, Mélenchon also used Stalingrad. Nation is where many of the trade union marches end, so that is out of the question as well. There was an idea about the Champ de Mars below the Eiffel Tower, but the city of Paris put a veto on that. The international Olympic committee is visiting Paris in a few days and the city does not want all of the grass to be totally trampled as it was during the Euro football cup last year since it would be one of the major venues.
So it looks like the place will be the central courtyard of the Louvre, which will probably make everybody happy as a safe place, because the building itself hemming everybody in of 3 sides will make security much easier. While any other place would be totally surrounded by metal barricades with just a couple of access points, this saves a huge amount on barricades.
No word yet on where Marine Le Pen's followers will celebrate, because even assuming that they lose, a crowd will want to gather to celebrate her 'good' showing and plot revenge for the next elections.
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Post by bjd on May 5, 2017 5:44:45 GMT
A friend just sent me an interesting article from Foreign Affairs magazine about how difficult it might be for Macron to rule as president because under the French system, the government is run by the prime minister who is appointed from the party which wins the most seats in the legislative elections.
The author claims that to win one of those 577 seats, you need a party machine, like the Socialists or Républicains, and since the electorate wants to punish the PS after the Hollande presidency, the right might get a majority. Hence, Macron would have to choose a PM from the right, and preferably a woman, because of current requirements for gender parity. If she implements her party's economic policies, Macron would be seen as a wolf in sheep's clothing. If he tries to undermine her, it would be a mess and similar to Mitterand's sniping at Chirac during their "cohabitation".
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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2017 6:19:57 GMT
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Post by patricklondon on May 5, 2017 9:21:22 GMT
Interesting, but it would also be interesting to have some idea of who the new EM members will be - re-treads from previous political movements, or wholly inexperienced and quite possibly unpredictable? And will they hang together as a political movement? My blog | My photos | My video clips"too literate to be spam"
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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2017 10:58:18 GMT
Only 12 of the 577 candidates have been announced so far. Some rather major surprises are expected with all of the risks that it entails. Quite a few old pros are hinting about how nice it would be as well as richly deserved for them to be named PM by Macron, but he has acknowledged absolutely nothing other than he would very much like to have a woman as prime minister.
Just a couple of hours ago, though, he said that he had chosen someone -- if he is elected.
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Post by bjd on May 5, 2017 11:16:51 GMT
Interesting, but it would also be interesting to have some idea of who the new EM members will be - re-treads from previous political movements, or wholly inexperienced and quite possibly unpredictable? And will they hang together as a political movement? It's a tough call for sure. Too many old hands, and he is open to criticism from those hoping for a clean sweep of French politics. Too many newbies and you don't know who you are getting or how capable they will be.
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Post by whatagain on May 5, 2017 20:21:26 GMT
My grandfather was a communist. So he joined the resistance in june 1941 and became a member of an escape network for downed pilots. I wish wiht this experience people like Askar, who clearly took the time to analyze the situation and sounds like a good guy would join directly Macron instead of helping make the bed of a Nazi. Neo or not. I'm very proud of my gransfather but really not of the PCF and PCB of 1940 - and Melenchon is behaving exactly the same way as Stalin. So it is the duty of an good communist or leftist to vote Macron. 15 years ago Chirac was lected by 85% of the voters against Le Pen - how can we be content and say it is not needed to block Marine now ? Is it acceptable to let the arrogant bitch 'lose' with 40% of the voters - she wins !
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Post by lagatta on May 5, 2017 22:35:38 GMT
Well, an old friend in France who is very far left indeed (and whose parents had to flee Austria for a country in South America infested with fascists he had to flee a generation later) agrees with you. He hates Macron (because of his refusal to go back on his plans to reduce social protection and labour rights) but will be voting for him in a few hours, as will his wife.
I have LOTS of criticisms of Mélenchon - his cocorico patriotism for one thing, but comparing him to a butcher like Stalin with millions of dead on his non-existent conscience is a bit much, non?
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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2017 23:06:14 GMT
A big problem is going to be the legislative elections next month. During the municipal elections in 2014, all of the traditional political parties had severe issues with their sense of entitlement during the numerous triangular or quadrangular runoffs. Triangular runoffs have become extremely common with the configuration Front National + left party + right party being qualified after eliminating half a dozen or more lists in the first round. In the past, the traditional left and the traditional right had no trouble merging their lists to have a reasonable chance a week later. Not anymore. There is so much acrimony that they prefer to lose rather than give their former allies an advantage.
One of the saddest examples of this happened in the very leftist city of Mantes-la-Ville which now has a Front National mayor.
The second round results were:
Front National 30.26% Socialists 29.35% dissident left 19.6% dissident right 12.09%
In the upcoming elections, the Front National will win quite a few districts with just 30-40% of the vote because the other parties prefer to self destruct.
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