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Post by Deleted on Jul 11, 2017 18:07:21 GMT
That's what the president said. "There are those who are successful in business (ceux qui réussissent) and the rest, those who are nothing."
So I'm a nothing, and extremely proud of it like millions of people of the Left. Personnaly I will take any insult from Mr M. as a compliment. I'd just like he carries on like this, we will need plenty of "nothings" in the months to come, when it's time to take on the streets.
There is at least something we cannot call him; that is to be a populist. Macron was elected by the ruling class to serve the interests of the ruling class. He makes no mystery about it. At least that is what they say in the Figaro! (The biggest right wing newspaper.)
I must say that I feel a little bit sorry for the leftists who couldn't resist to the pressure of voting Macron at the second round; the "If you dont vote Macron, you're a supporter of Marine Le Pen."
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 11, 2017 18:24:43 GMT
I agree that it was an incorrect/unfortunate statement, but I think that a couple of words were missing. He already made that mistake when he talked about wearing a suit during the campaign, but that was a more serious mistake because he seemed to think that everybody wants to wear a suit. No way!
This time his thought appeared to be "people who have succeeded at nothing" rather than people who "are" nothing. Not the same thing.
It is very important to speak properly because people become irritated at every detail. Who is the last politician you know who made no mistakes when speaking?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 11, 2017 20:08:19 GMT
Of course his staff said that it was misinterpreted. He did say "les gens qui ne sont rien" " "people who are nothing". Even I can translate it in English.
"People who have succeded at nothing" is about the same. And it'not what he said anyway.
He might also have thought "the good for nothing". Who knows?
Remember when he called factory workers (women) illiterates?
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Post by lagatta on Jul 11, 2017 22:04:39 GMT
Workers could be illiterate - nowadays they'd be at least semi-literate, given compulsory school attendance - and also very good at their job.
Askar, on the other hand as a leftist you might give credit to workers and people in social movements for voting against Le Pen out of historical memory against the scourge of fascism, which destroyed the workers' movements and killed countless representatives thereof. De Gaulle and Churchill were far from leftist or pro-labour - or even antiracist, but it was important to be on the same side against the other guys who were even worse. I don't believe in lesser evils either, but some things are mortal dangers.
Oh dear, suits... As a cultural worker, with several useless degrees and certifications, I'm not exactly a prole, though in terms of income, on average we make far less than skilled industrial workers. But I've always sought jobs where I didn't have to wear a suit, or more to the point for women, high heels and stockings.
In terms of world leaders, Angela Merkel is one who obviously doesn't give a shit about suits, though she admits that it is necessary in her role to at least have a nice jacket and trousers. I think they actually dragged her husband (an equally nerdy scientist) to the last G20.
Macron's parents are highly-educated medical professionals, but doctors aren't always in suits nowadays, even outside the operating theatre... Hmmm.
Saying people are nothing really is unacceptable.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 11, 2017 22:07:27 GMT
I don't like saying "he is just young" since I don't think that age 39 is 'young' in terms of what one should know what to say, but at the same time I find it a bit refreshing that he has less of a filter when speaking than a lot of professional politicians, and he is obviously still leaning how to formulate his thoughts. Am I allowed to say that I am less indulgent when somebody like J-L Mélenchon says something stupid and has to apologise the next day? After all, he has more than twice the experience. But no, one of them has been elected president and the other is just an old fashioned politician from the previous generation, who is a prisoner of previous dogmatic rules and vocabulary.
Frankly, I do not yet have a strong opinion of the new president since he was only elected 2 months ago. I have less indulgence for political figures who have been in the spotlight for 20 or 30 years.
By the same token, I am trying to be indulgent with my new parliamentary representative, Danièle Obono, who is a member of the Mélenchon group. I have subscribed to her Twitter account, but so far I am not extremely impressed. Her tweets seem to have been written by a political robot rather than a human being. I feel as though I have been projected back to the times of Georges Marchais in terms of her expressed 'ideas.'
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Post by fumobici on Jul 11, 2017 22:28:45 GMT
Macron, Trudeau, and Obama are all to me seemingly popped from the same mold, pretty faces in stylish suits that can kiss up to money and punch down on the less advantaged and the working classes while looking and sounding well-spoken and shallowly sophisticated doing so. There's a huge demand for such figures as neoliberal capitalism winds down. They are no more inclined to deliver quantifiable material benefits to average people--in fact the neoliberal playbook is *always* about cutting those benefits, citing a need for endless austerity, union bashing, and "fiscal responsibility" (rich getting richer; poor getting poorer status quo). You are then given the choice between this pretty neoliberal "good cop" who speaks in soaring, empty rhetoric and looks good in a fitted suit, and a neoliberal right-wing alternative "bad cop" who will implement essentially the same set of economic policies primarily benefiting global corporations and the wealthy but who will use open appeals to people's coarser natures as their pitch. Take the high road or the low; they lead to essentially the same place--which is obviously the plan. Mélanchon, Corbyn, or even the comparatively moderate Sanders in the US aren't playing the game, so the media are ordered to destroy and discredit them by their billionaire owners, and they generally happily do as their paychecks depend on it.
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Post by whatagain on Jul 12, 2017 5:17:02 GMT
Problem in france is that a newly elected president is the messiah.
He will change everything and at the first step he misses people use their Kalashnikov.
So yes a very unfortunate choice of words.
Hollander had it about les 'sans dents' not much better and le Pen about a detail in history about the Shoah. Frankly disgusting.
So I will choose to let it pass.
But I used to wear a suit and by my standards I succeeded.
After all I am in the top of 10 pic of people in terms of earnings aren't I ? And we have 5 cars for 3 people with driving licences.
I don't have a Rolex though.
Success ... yeah sort of.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2017 16:29:59 GMT
Workers could be illiterate - nowadays they'd be at least semi-literate, given compulsory school attendance - and also very good at their job. Macron was speaking about employees of an abattoir in a small town of Brittany which was about to shut down. He was still minister of the economy at the time. Some of the employees had no driving license which make it even more difficult to find a new job. So one morning the well educated Mr Macron declared on the radio. "In my files, I have the Gad company. It's mostly women who work in this abattoir, and many of them are illiterate..." There was the choice of letting Macron win the election with a safe margin like 55℅ without our votes, or to vote for him and give him the score of the president of a banana republic. If you looked at the results of the 1er round you could see that Macron could win without the support of France Insoumise. Anyway, if Macron wants to win another mandate in 5 years, he will need again a strong Front National. |
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 13, 2017 16:46:10 GMT
I think that analysis might be a bit premature. Macron has only been president for 2 months and no laws have been voted yet... and of course no results yet either.
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Post by bjd on Jul 13, 2017 17:16:28 GMT
I really get upset when Mélenchon is held up as some defiant revolutionary. The man has been in politics since the 1970s, and has been paid out of taxpayers' money for his many and various political positions since then. MélenchonI'm not sure which "game" is it that he is "not playing". |
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Post by fumobici on Jul 13, 2017 20:59:29 GMT
One could say the exact same about Sanders or Corbyn couldn't one? The game none of these three politicians play is the one that assumes that modern neoliberal predatory capitalism is an unchallengeable, natural condition and that anyone questioning the status quo that consistently serves the few and punishes the many and of course rapes the planet for profit may then be dismissed as unrealistic dreamers, dirty hippies, envious losers, or useless Trotskyite throwbacks. In other words those three in their own way openly challenge the power that serves the few and advocate for the many the current status quo only serves to exploit and extract profits and rents from. It isn't about these three's CVs or their personal stories but about the concrete policies they advocate and who will win or lose as a result. The "game" isn't to do with personalities, but policies, about who shares in the unimaginable wealth of our modern societies and who is excluded from those benefits. So that game then.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 13, 2017 21:08:35 GMT
I love the vocabulary of leftist extremism, but really a lot of the terminology is just gibberish, isn't it?
Mélenchon isn't challenging the system at all -- he is the system, just a bitter old man who has been in politics forever and did not succeed. He is reminding me more and more of Jean Marie Le Pen in his venimous rhetoric that provides absolutely no new ideas or solutions. It's a shame because he is intelligent. So far his idea for opposing the new government has been to organise tiny little demonstrations of his dogmatic followers just to say no to anything new without even knowing what the proposal is going to be. It is quite sad and a terrible way to end his career.
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Post by whatagain on Jul 13, 2017 21:20:25 GMT
'just a bitter old man who has been in politics forever and did not succeed'
My thoughts exactly Kerouac.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2017 22:47:22 GMT
My husband expressed the exact same sentiment as you did in your last post Fumobici however, not as eloquently.
My involvement in politics is limited to local elections that involve both candidates and referendums etc. that have a direct impact and I feel best serves the community where I live.
I do vote in national elections but that's the extent of that. Why? Because I feel powerless wheras on the local level I can really make a difference and I dedicate a lot of time to various causes.
I have been urged on several occasions to run for a variety of different offices but I am not interested.
(Too many skeletons in my closet and my goal has always been to grow old gracefully in the peace and quiet of my garden and sanctuary).
This may come across to many as a "cop out" but thus I remain.
(Nice to see you Askar. Please don't be a stranger. I've always valued your input).
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Post by lagatta on Jul 13, 2017 23:14:11 GMT
Shit, I lost my long rant. Tomorrow. But thanks casimira, as the tone here is getting unfriendly. I have spent much of my life defending those who are nothing.
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Post by fumobici on Jul 13, 2017 23:40:28 GMT
I love the vocabulary of leftist extremism, but really a lot of the terminology is just gibberish, isn't it? Is it extremism if it is relatively mainstream (Mélanchon, Corbyn and Sanders all have all successfully amassed impressively and remarkably huge vote totals in a all-encompassing media environment completely and pathologically hostile to them and virtually all the policies they propose) or is the tagging of the left as "extremist" simply a intellectually lazy, ad hoc pejorative used by blinkered extremist centrist apologists for the status quo in order to avoid a having to mount a defense for that morally bankrupt status quo. And yes, the status quo, the center, the so-called moderate positions are in many ways extreme, even if they have been normalized. The phrase "modern neoliberal predatory capitalism" isn't gibberish. It is rich and deep with actual meaning. But if you haven't done the research to find out what it really is and what it means, it's obviously easier to summarily dismiss it as such. In much the same way technical terms may sound like gibberish to those uneducated in the technical field they are used in. It's a concept more people should inform themselves of rather than to blithely dismissing it, because the system it describes exploits and oppresses the poor, the disadvantaged, average humble working folk, and those far from the glittering centers of power, it causes and brings war and misery to all corners of the world, and it is polluting, despoiling, and very quickly destroying our only home only to wring obscene profits on top of obscene profits for people who already have more wealth than they can usefully use, but who use wealth as markers in a sick and childish competition between them and other sociopathic wealth hoarders. The real extremists are sometimes those who just want to carry on as if everything were just fine and ignore those being crushed underneath the march of so-called progress. |
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 14, 2017 4:16:23 GMT
Ha ha.
Modern - isn't everything modern that is not historical?
Neoliberal - what is the difference between liberal and neoliberal?
Predatory- a term from the animal kingdom to qualify an economic concept?
Capitalism - a catchall term ranging from simple private ownership to exploitation of the masses
Now we can work on
Extremist
Centrist
Apologists
So-called
Moderate
Normalized
etc.
Overloading one's rhetoric with adjectives and meaningless labels certainly does not indicate a clarity of thought. Gibberish, yes.
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Post by bjd on Jul 14, 2017 6:38:39 GMT
I find that lumping centrist voters (for example, those in France who voted for Macron because of a desire for change without actually wanting to tear everything down) with obscenely greedy "sociopathic wealth hoarders" extremely reductive. It's possible to own one's own home without also having a large yacht and private plane, exploiting the masses and polluting and despoiling the planet.
One thing the extreme left and extreme right have in common is the need to label everyone they oppose. The extreme right tend to use dog-whistle phrases during their speeches which are understood by their followers.
In France (since this thread started about comments by Macron), the unions still take advantage of political agreements dating from just after WW2 when de Gaulle wanted to appease the (then important) Communist worker movement to present themselves as representatives of "average humble working folk". Well, if you look at the demonstrations against any change to anything in France, those marching are high school pupils and municipal employees. The average humble working folk cannot take a day off to demonstrate in the streets. And Mélenchon presenting himself as a humble defender of the poor working class is simply bullshit.
I think many people in western countries are aware that things are not just fine and are changing their attitudes re consumption, tourism, day to day life and work, so criticizing them as enablers of an obscene system is simply unfair.
As for the great majority of the world's population still living in miserable conditions of housing and health, and exploding populations under corrupt political systems, that's a whole other aspect of the problem.
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Post by whatagain on Jul 14, 2017 7:35:22 GMT
I find bjd post extremely well written.
Indeed strikes are now done about 99pc of the time to retain advantages that the masses don't have.
Like pénibilité for train drivers - yes it was in 1946 not now like EDF guys joining the strike - ever heard of how wealthy their comité d'entreprise is ?
But being less positive than bjd I will add that I don't why we must applaud and respect (what I do btw) those who have nothing and why I should hide if (and it is the case) I own several houses. I don't think I stole the money I have from those who have less. I don't think I don't work fir what I get and if I was fortunate to have some brains I spent a lot of time at school and studying.
Right now I have to cope with 2-3 guys in their early 20's who left school and hold small jobs.
Later these same guys will be des sans rien but they will have reached this status by doing ... nothing.
Sorry but I have zero respect (I like them) fir these guys. They chose the easy way. No school booze party no responsibility.
Not really what the workers I respect are. Such as my grand pa who went back to school after getting married or this worker who flew business when I was in economy going to India and who told me his life over a beer : not only did he work like a dog but he adopted 7 Vietnamese children then 6 Koreans over a span of 30 years and made it that they all got educated.
Don't confuse branleurs sans rien and workers and insoumis.
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Post by fumobici on Jul 14, 2017 15:25:50 GMT
Ha ha. Modern - isn't everything modern that is not historical? Neoliberal - what is the difference between liberal and neoliberal? Predatory- a term from the animal kingdom to qualify an economic concept? Capitalism - a catchall term ranging from simple private ownership to exploitation of the masses Now we can work on Extremist Centrist Apologists So-called Moderate Normalized etc. Overloading one's rhetoric with adjectives and meaningless labels certainly does not indicate a clarity of thought. Gibberish, yes. Protip: just because you don't or won't understand the accepted meanings of words doesn't imply they lack those meanings. Let's go through the first three here and we can then, if desired, proceed to the next. "Modern" here is essentially synonymous with recent. In this specific context the usage and meaning of "modern neoliberalism" can probably be dated to the eighties. "Neoliberal" is well defined by Wikipedia, here's a link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism In a nutshell modern neoliberalism is similar to laissez-faire capitalism where deregulated markets are assumed to be optimal for the efficient allocation of resources--a concept well debunked by John Maynard Keynes decades earlier, but revived because capitalists inevitably hate being constrained by any regulation that balances the interests of capital vs. those of labor and society. Modern neoliberalism is probably more akin to a religion than a cogent theory, Adam Smith's imaginary "invisible hand" playing the role of an omniscient God. "Predatory" is straightforward. The second dictionary definition will serve perfectly here: Obviously, definition number two is the one that applies in the context of economics. Your definition of capitalism, "Capitalism - a catchall term ranging from simple private ownership to exploitation of the masses" really is only your own invention. The actual dictionary definition: is pretty un-nuanced (as brief definitions of complicated ideas will necessarily be), but is on the right track. In our context here relating to modern neoliberalism, it is a simplistic Randian ideological belief in the superiority of unregulated markets over regulated or publicly owned or controlled ones. A defining feature of capitalism is that all economic decisions are assumed to be best made by the holders of capital/wealth rather than by labor or common public consent. We may then work our way down the list, but I'd propose that standard dictionary definitions will again be a good starting point for understanding them and untangling any unintentional ambiguities. |
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Post by fumobici on Jul 14, 2017 17:24:04 GMT
I find that lumping centrist voters (for example, those in France who voted for Macron because of a desire for change without actually wanting to tear everything down) with obscenely greedy "sociopathic wealth hoarders" extremely reductive. It's possible to own one's own home without also having a large yacht and private plane, exploiting the masses and polluting and despoiling the planet. We will own our own home later this Summer. That doesn't align my interests with billionaire capitalists does it? What is calling the populist left "extremist" but exactly the same thing? I don't like to personalize politics this way, I think it is far more likely to distract or deflect than to inform. The policies associated with the left are, I would assert, pretty self-evidently those aligned best with the interests of average working people. Whether Mélanchon is "humble" or not isn't germane. If normal working people cannot afford to take a day off work to exercise their freedom of political speech, that is obviously a good indication that the status quo is failing them, not a knock on the left. If things are not "just fine" perhaps that can and should most logically be an impetus to foment progressive economic change rather than to double down on continued centrist sleepwalking and deck chair re-arranging. We in the developed west have limited control over the political and economic realities in the developing world. I don't have a simple answer for that, but I don't think the west continuing with essentially the same economic policies that put us where we are is likely to fix those issues either. One can argue that global capitalism's constant race to the bottom chasing ever declining wages and working conditions in the developing world has indeed provided opportunities that didn't before exist in those places, but the workers' interests are the furthest thing from global capital's mind. Global capital sees such places as opportunities to exploit local sweatshop labor for increased returns and profits. Any improvement in local economic conditions are purely accidental and even if that leads to significantly improving those conditions, will inevitably only lead to capital flight to the next lower wage labor market. Worker's rights such as regulation of working conditions, minimum or living wage laws and the right to bargain collectively are antithetical to the race to the bottom-- global capital only sees such basic human rights as an unwelcome obstacle to profit seeking. |
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Post by bjd on Jul 14, 2017 18:44:47 GMT
It seems, Fumobici, that we actually agree on several points: home ownership is not a bad thing, for one. I agree too that "global capital" seeks to get a maximum of profit from a minimum of workers' rights, labour exploitation, etc.
However, I would venture that your views are also largely affected by your being American -- a country where a weak attempt at generalized health insurance has been yanked back by a bunch of knuckle-dragging Republicans, where banks were able to con people into borrowing money to buy houses they couldn't afford, where state/federal intervention for public good is seen by many as something undesirable. This is not to say that everything is rosy in Western Europe but people here will not be thrown out of a hospital if they don't have insurance, the population expects the government to provide public housing, public education, make regulations about no GMOs in food, etc. Of course, there is also pressure from industry to roll back some of the regulations, but it's certainly nothing like in the States.
I would be interested too to know what you call "progressive economic change" as opposed to "centrist sleepwalking and deck chair re-arranging". From the history I have studied and read about, radical change is often (usually) followed by much worse conditions. The total incapacity of all countries with Communist/Communist inspired change to provide a decent economic life and political freedom for the population comes to mind. The Chilean military regime of Pinochet guided by right-wing economics of the Chicago school are another example of a system where everything is privatized and basic needs become unaffordable for many is an example of poor economic and political choices from the right. They all claimed they were making progress.
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Post by fumobici on Jul 14, 2017 22:36:16 GMT
It seems, Fumobici, that we actually agree on several points: home ownership is not a bad thing, for one. I agree too that "global capital" seeks to get a maximum of profit from a minimum of workers' rights, labour exploitation, etc. However, I would venture that your views are also largely affected by your being American -- a country where a weak attempt at generalized health insurance has been yanked back by a bunch of knuckle-dragging Republicans, where banks were able to con people into borrowing money to buy houses they couldn't afford, where state/federal intervention for public good is seen by many as something undesirable. This is not to say that everything is rosy in Western Europe but people here will not be thrown out of a hospital if they don't have insurance, the population expects the government to provide public housing, public education, make regulations about no GMOs in food, etc. Of course, there is also pressure from industry to roll back some of the regulations, but it's certainly nothing like in the States. I would be interested too to know what you call "progressive economic change" as opposed to "centrist sleepwalking and deck chair re-arranging". From the history I have studied and read about, radical change is often (usually) followed by much worse conditions. The total incapacity of all countries with Communist/Communist inspired change to provide a decent economic life and political freedom for the population comes to mind. The Chilean military regime of Pinochet guided by right-wing economics of the Chicago school are another example of a system where everything is privatized and basic needs become unaffordable for many is an example of poor economic and political choices from the right. They all claimed they were making progress. I'm certain we'd end up agreeing about a lot more than the stuff we disagree on if we sat down and talked for a while. For me "progressive economic change" is--let's say in the US to keep it simple and because this is where the changes would need to be the most profound--not about radicalism or Trotskyist broad nationalizing of business (even Mr. Trotsky didn't propose such a thing) but mostly just reversing the course our economic policies have been on since around the time of Reagan and Thatcher until we have at least undone what were in retrospect a bunch of policies based on pure economic woo woo like supply-side and the Laffer Curve predictions for tax revenues, from reckless deregulation, privatization of public commons, forty years of radically slashing tax rates for the top 5%, to returning to normal tax progressivity like we had here in the fifties and sixties. Then we could move on to other commonsense reforms that most Americans polled already support such as universal single-payer health care, and redirecting money from the military to badly-needed infrastructure investments, comprehensive campaign finance reform, undoing forty years of gerrymandering, a financial transaction tax, and a return to hand counted paper ballots to ensure electoral integrity. In Europe the necessary reforms would be considerably less because the baseline is a lot less messed up, but basically an ending of and reversal of austerity, reversing the trends of continually cutting public benefits and programs that assist the least advantaged and neediest, assuring all full-time jobs pay a living wage and provide dignity and full rights to workers, and essentially just repairing the social safety nets so you no longer see homeless camps in all the major European cities. We are all wealthy nations, if we can't take care of the weakest and most vulnerable among us, we are failing unacceptably. Deep poverty and children missing meals and sleeping rough on sidewalks simply shouldn't be tolerated, ever, and more so when they struggle surrounded by the comfortable, and the wealthy. A vote for a moderate is a vote for not fixing any of this, of trying the same failed policies over and over hoping vainly for a better result, for surrendering to despair, or cynically taking what one can grab and devil take the hindmost. Things are quickly getting worse for a lot of people and voting for status quo politicians will obviously never fix the problems that the status quo cheerfully tolerates and enables. People understand this even if the comfortable don't and if solutions from the compassionate left aren't adopted it'll be the troglodyte right that leverages this ocean of discontent into power. Kicking the left feeds the extreme right, strengthens it, breeds the conditions that will see that ugly populist right grow in power and influence, feeding on the growing popular discontent. Moderation here and now is reckless, it is radical, it is dangerous, and it is extreme, as will be its growing costs. Moderation now will kill the planet. Proposing reversing the course of neoliberal capitalism isn't extreme--it's deeply conservative, a retrenchment from an enormous failed, planet-killing economic experiment run awry and a return to good policies thrown away in haste. I, in fact, am not an extremist but a conservative trying to save--to conserve--what best there is remaining. |
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 15, 2017 4:48:19 GMT
While this discussion is quite interesting, it also displays the biggest problems with (far) leftist ideology.
Lack of humour is perhaps the most egregious. My little "ha ha" appears to have gone unnoticed, which leads to the second problem: enculage de mouches (sodomisation of flies)
The politically obsessed (of all persuasions, but mostly on the left) believe that a flood of esoteric words automatically proves their point and makes them unattackable. They will argue for hours over every little point, no matter how minor.
Problem is, by then nobody is listening anymore, and the majority have moved on out of (dangerous) boredom. That's pretty much how Macron got elected. The professionals on the right and left were so entangled in their own semantics, particularly disagreements in their own clans that have been going on for 50 or more years, that Macron just picked up the ball with simple words and ran across the goal line. What he will do with it still remains to be seen, but all of the losers are still in a state of stunned disbelief and have added yet another fly to fuck -- whose fault was it? Not mine, it must have been you, no you're wrong, you're the one who....
Just look at the fact that we have three Trotskyist political parties in France. No non-Trotskyist can see an iota of difference among them, but they absolutely refuse to merge because they claim to have irreconciliable differences, and so they are condemned to less than 1% of the vote in each election. And yet they keep doing it every time. Talk about Sisyphus! What is funny is that they have no trouble qualifying for the presidential election each time even though qualification requires a very complicated and relatively large cocktail of supporting signatures from elected officials (mayors, regional counsellors, MPs...). There are so many little independent mayors who understand nothing about politics but who are fed up with the "big guys" and want to feel important (?) for the first time in their life. Some of them will sign for the National Front one time and the Communist Revolutionary League the next. Doesn't make any difference to them.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 18, 2017 16:05:45 GMT
I have been trying to investigate why the four principal leftist parties (to the left of the Socialists) can't get along. They would have a huge amount of influence in France if they worked together.
First of all, why do the two principal Trotskyist parties hate each other? (I'm leaving out the even smaller Trotskyist grains of dust.)
So we have Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle) and the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA, formerly the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire).
1. LO does not accept the fact that the NPA has stopped using the word communist.
2. The NPA added antiracism, ecology and feminism to its goals. LO considers this to be bourgeois drivel that confuses the workers because those goals have to wait until after the revolution. (The NPA programme was to bring the country to 100% renewable energy by 2050, legalise cannabis, disarm the police and have equal salaries for men and women.)
3. LO prefers to wage its battles at the workplace while the NPA prefers to battle to help migrants and ecological militants whenever possible.
Meanwhile, Mélenchon's France Insoumise (which sprung from his 'Parti de Gauche') and the French Communist Party attempted some alliances, but none of them lasted very long. FI is outraged that the PCF sometimes has entered alliances with the Socialists or the Ecologists, his mortal enemies. The PCF did not present a candidate for the presidential election and supported Mélenchon, but the minute the election was finished, they started fighting again. Once again, it is mostly semantics -- the PCF reproaches the fact that Mélenchon always talks about "the people" and never mentions class stuggle.
Finally, the other three parties absolutely despise France Insoumise and Mélenchon for his nationalist obsessions. They are all completely internationalist, and they accuse FI of pitting countries against each other when the workers of the world should be uniting.
I myself started voting for LO in my early years before switching to the NPA -- of course that was in the first round of our two round elections. I will not ever vote for nationalists. My grandparents were refugees walking down the road with a suitcase twice in less than 40 years because of nationalism.
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Post by patricklondon on Jul 20, 2017 16:32:41 GMT
Finally, the other three parties absolutely despise France Insoumise and Mélenchon for his nationalist obsessions. And France, like other countries, does have some egregious examples from the past of leftist populists who went to the nationalist right (and given the circumstance of their times came to a sticky end). My blog | My photos | My video clips"too literate to be spam" |
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 20, 2017 16:49:12 GMT
 Perfect! |
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