France is teetering

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BoSoxGal
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France is teetering

Post by BoSoxGal »

Macron v. Le Pen round two is a terrifyingly close match with the future of the rules based world in the balance.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/n ... -election/


Is anyone else more than a little nervous about the prospect of a Le Pen victory?

Honestly, just think of a world order in 2025 led by Putin, Le Pen, Trump, and lessors all over the globe.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
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Gob
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Re: France is teetering

Post by Gob »

Go Le Pen!! Macron is a shitty little biddy fiddler....
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

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Re: France is teetering

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

I can't see Le Pen winning even if she has disowned her father. At least with him you got what you saw and he made no bones about being a racist asshole. Is she really a slightly gentler version of Jean-Marie or just a bit smarter about how she portrays herself?

Mind you I thought Trump had no chance of winning in 2016. So there's that . . .

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Re: France is teetering

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

BoSoxGal wrote:
Wed Apr 13, 2022 2:26 am
Honestly, just think of a world order in 2025 led by Putin, Le Pen, Trump, and lessors all over the globe.
I was trying to figure out what you meant and I had misread the word as 'lessons' and at the same time wondering why you didn't include such pretenders as Johnson in the UK and Modi in India not to mention Erdogan in Turkey and the guy whose name I have forgotten in Hungary. But then it struck me that you meant 'lessers' (probably Autocorrect) and you're right. Imagine a UN Security Council of which the five permanent members are headed by Trump, Le Pen, Putin, Johnson and Xi - they would regard Ukraine as being Russia's backyard problem and let them get on with it and please don't make too much noise because the rest of us are trying to sleep.

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Re: France is teetering

Post by BoSoxGal »

ex-khobar Andy wrote:
Wed Apr 13, 2022 12:10 pm
BoSoxGal wrote:
Wed Apr 13, 2022 2:26 am
Honestly, just think of a world order in 2025 led by Putin, Le Pen, Trump, and lessors all over the globe.
I was trying to figure out what you meant and I had misread the word as 'lessons' and at the same time wondering why you didn't include such pretenders as Johnson in the UK and Modi in India not to mention Erdogan in Turkey and the guy whose name I have forgotten in Hungary. But then it struck me that you meant 'lessers' (probably Autocorrect) and you're right. Imagine a UN Security Council of which the five permanent members are headed by Trump, Le Pen, Putin, Johnson and Xi - they would regard Ukraine as being Russia's backyard problem and let them get on with it and please don't make too much noise because the rest of us are trying to sleep.
Yes, this. Thanks for perfectly articulating my horror vision of the near future.

Fingers crossed for Macron.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Re: France is teetering

Post by BoSoxGal »

Thank goodness Macron pulls it out with the help of the anti-Le Pen vote, but she brings in a record vote just the same.
Le Pen called her score “a shining victory in itself”, adding: “The ideas we represent are reaching new heights.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... ed-results
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
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Re: France is teetering

Post by Burning Petard »

Calvin Trillin, Deadline Poet, in 'The Nation' for April 30. 2022:
You ran again and then you ran again,
And still the French did not elect Le Pen.
They knew you could have done a lot of harm
If number three turned out to be the charm.
We hope the fourth is something you don't do,
Because we're glad to see the back of you.

I hope to one day read something that carries the same essential meaning about Donald Trump. I became a news junkie while watching the McCarthy-Army hearings on tv. I was in uniform during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I watched Nixon put the busses around the White House. I listened as Bush 43 declared 'Mission Accomplished'.

I have never feared for my own life and everything of significant importance to me as I have ever since the Republican primaries of 2016. Like whistling past the cemetery, I shake as I hope my fears will not become reality.

snailgate

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Re: France is teetering

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Burning Petard wrote:
Sun May 01, 2022 4:38 pm
I have never feared for my own life and everything of significant importance to me as I have ever since the Republican primaries of 2016. Like whistling past the cemetery, I shake as I hope my fears will not become reality.

snailgate
Same here. We still have a two party system, but one party for all its flaws believes in democracy as the embodiment of America, while the other party now openly avows dismissing democracy entirely if the results of elections aren’t in their favor.

America is teetering. The future is very precarious.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
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Re: France is teetering

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

Yes. I'm really puzzled - how did we get here? It used to be that you could rely on the Ds and Rs to ignore their more out-there chums and get along somewhere in the middle. Every now and then they would shift the rudder a little to port and a little to starboard but basically the end - relative peace and relative prosperity for most people - stayed in sight. Even if I disagreed with them, I could generally see and understand what Republicans were getting at. Pretty much the same story in Britain.

No longer. My guess is that the rot really started with Reagan 1.0 and Reagan 2.0 (aka GHWBush) and his mantra that government was the problem and his myth - maybe from all those cowboy movies?? - that America was a land of rugged individualists who did not seek and did not accept help from the government. Bull, of course. And those of us who supported the very flawed Clinton probably didn't help. The Starr enquiry was originally to investigate the Whitewater thing which by all appearances was a little shoddy but which way predated his presidency. But because the independent counsel in those days could go where he liked, they wound up with Monica Lewinsky and W Clinton's apparent attempts to illegally scupper that aspect of the investigation.

There was never any suggestion that the relationship was non-consensual but any other boss in that situation would be out of a job. Given that the resulting impeachment trial was in January 1999, the politically smart thing would have been for Clinton to resign after Jan 20th and let Al Gore take over and Gore would have been able to run twice more, in 2000 and 2004. (If a VP takes over with less than 2 years left in the term, s/he can run twice more.). Clinton's behavior was appalling - I'm no prude but really! - and frankly I'm ashamed that I supported him at that point. Yes the Republicans seized on the Monica relations with glee and really the original focus - was Whitewater criminal in nature? - was totally lost. I think that if those of us who call ourselves liberals had not supported Clinton but had demanded his resignation, we would now be in a better place.

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Re: France is teetering

Post by Big RR »

Andy--I can't argue with much o what you wrote, but I think the seeds of the current situation were sown earlier; I recall in the 60s we had both fairly left leaning republicans (Sen Goodell of NY comes to mind) and very conservative democrats (notably the Dixiecrats) who provided some semblance of balance within each party. Certainly the republicans leaned more to the right and the democrats to the left, but the process of compromise was ingrained even within one's own party, and extended to the relationships among parties. However, this eventually proceeded to purging each party of the dissenting wings--sometimes well-intentioned, sometimes less so. Add to that the recognition that the "loyal opposition" could force the removal of the president (as we saw with Nixon), and the stage was set for a government where people would rather attack each other than do the hard work of compromise. IMHO, we saw something similar in the lead up to the civil war, when the parties gave up on the process of compromise from the previous decades and just attacked each other, sometimes physically. Personally, I think the Reagan and Clinton years were just cementing this more and more.

Add to this the blooming of the internet, which could be manipulated by marketing experts, and the recognition that a president could be elected with less votes than his/her opponent (yes, it happened once before--but look how many times it has happened in the last few decades as opposed to once in two centuries), and the parties retreated into stoking their base to getting the vote out. And, thus, we are in the terrible situation that we see today.

Your points re the Clinton impeachment trial are particularly telling; you are correct in saying most CEOs and/or highly placed executives would (and clearly should) be dismissed for such conduct, but people retreated int their camps and either supported or attacked him; there was really no middle ground; anyone who bucked their party's position were pretty much attacked, if not ignored. While I still am not certain he should have been removed from office by impeachment for what he did (I do think he could have been removed, but I am not sure if that would have been worse than what we saw after he was not), I do think he should have had the integrity to resign, but guys like Clinton (Trump either for that matter) never do that. If he had, maybe we wouldn't have seen a President W or Trump.

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Re: France is teetering

Post by BoSoxGal »

I believe America is teetering because both parties have effectively abandoned the working class as they have courted corporate donors and lobbyists for decades. The result is the worst wealth disparity in the country’s history with particularly egregious displays of conspicuous consumption more and more common, as the working poor struggle to stay housed the multi billionaires engage in a space race.

Take the anger of people who feel that no path to any degree of financial security exists for them and add social media, a tool for dissemination of propaganda the likes of which even Orwell couldn’t dream. Social media in nearly everyone’s pocket 24/7 - and for all the oldsters that don’t do social media, there is an entire major television network on offer as a bullhorn for one party’s agenda. As that party has been hijacked by the authoritarian set, the network has tracked right along.

All the pieces are in place for this country to fall to autocracy. Only a very passionately concerned citizenry rising up in great numbers can save us. So many factors stand in the way of that happening. I don’t have a lot of hope for the good guys winning this one.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Re: France is teetering

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

BoSoxGal wrote:
Mon May 02, 2022 4:36 pm
All the pieces are in place for this country to fall to autocracy. Only a very passionately concerned citizenry rising up in great numbers can save us. So many factors stand in the way of that happening. I don’t have a lot of hope for the good guys winning this one.
Well they have the weapons of course which I am sure is one of your 'many factors.' In the same way I think many of us are pinning our hopes on some oligarch with access and a weapon putting some lead into Putin and saner heads - they exist, but maybe not for long - prevailing. But the chances of that happening are unfortunately minimal.

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Re: France is teetering

Post by Gob »

I believe the USA is teetering due to your fucked system....
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

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Re: France is teetering

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Gob wrote:
Tue May 03, 2022 6:55 am
I believe the USA is teetering due to your fucked system....
I don't think the system here in the USA is necessarily fucked; it's the same system we've been using for over two hundred years.  The problem is that people have had enough time to find the flaws, loopholes, and other weak spots that can be — and are — exploited to their own advantage.

So it's the fucked-up people who have lost their sense of purpose.  Rather than acting in the best interest of the country as a whole, the modern-day politician's personal credo/motto/driving principle is, "What's in it for me?"  They know that they're in a position of power (and potential for great wealth), and will do whatever is necessary to keep that position.  And right now, if sucking Donald Trump's dick — in person, on stage at a political rally, with TV and cellphone cameras rolling — is what it takes, there's enough of them out there who are willing to do it.
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Re: France is teetering

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

Gob wrote:
Tue May 03, 2022 6:55 am
I believe the USA is teetering due to your fucked system....
How many parties has Boris denied attending?
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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Gob
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Re: France is teetering

Post by Gob »

Lots. But it hasn't affected the political process though.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

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Re: France is teetering

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

There is an interesting story about Kurt Gödel, the Austrian mathematician/logician who fled to Princeton NJ after the Anschluss. Eventually he decided to apply for US citizenship and one of his sponsors was his good buddy Einstein. Gödel being Gödel he went at this as only the world's premier logician would: he studied and studied all aspects of US politics and the constitution and peppered his colleagues and Einstein with arcane questions. Despite Einstein - who had done this a few years previously - telling him to take it easy and 'They are never going to ask you that!' he persisted. When he got to the hearing and the judge started asking him questions about the Constitution, he told the judge that he had found this massive logical hole in the Constitution. Einstein tried fervently to tell his friend to shut the fuck up and eventually sanity prevailed and the judge, who had officiated at Einstein's own hearing, let it go and OK'd Gödel's citizenship. (One of those world events I truly wish I had been at.)

There have been various theories about Gödel's objection to the logic of the constitution and even the participants, writing about it (mostly) long afterwards, differed. I think it was the procedure for amending the Constitution which requires two thirds of the states to approve the amendment. The composition of the Senate which approves all major executive appointments - cabinet level and judges etc - gives every state the same heft which means that California with 40 million people has the same vote as Wyoming with half a million. And the Electoral College which chooses the President is also way out of balance if you look at population. Smaller states will never vote to reduce their own influence and any proposed amendment designed to redress this imbalance will need some of the smaller states like Mississippi, Kansas, Nebraska, Idaho etc to sign on. They have way outsized influence already and will NEVER vote to commit electoral suicide.

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Re: France is teetering

Post by Econoline »

Two-thirds of the House *AND* two-thirds of the Senate *AND* THREE-FOURTHS of the states' legislatures have to approve an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

It's a wonder that it's ever been amended, amirite?
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Re: France is teetering

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

If that was Godel's "logical hole", he was neither a thinker (pish now!) nor a historian. The decision to allow a minority the same level of authority as a majority was exactly the reason for the system adopted - not by mistake but on purpose.

Theory is that there can never be a tyranny of the majority (at least as far as Constitutional scrutiny goes). One can object to the notion and posit some other regulation - but it's bootless to call it a "logical hole". Given the purpose, it is logical as all get-out.

At least, that's what I understood of the reason for the weightings. Maybe I'm neither a thinker nor a historian nor do I play one in film, stage and televisualization.
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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Gob
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Re: France is teetering

Post by Gob »

MajGenl.Meade wrote:
Wed May 04, 2022 7:19 am
If that was Godel's "logical hole", he was neither a thinker (pish now!) nor a historian.
Was he describing the US's style of government?
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

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