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Where Is The Left?
In the fourth quarter U.S. sunk more than 5% annualized. (The headline number is smaller because it counts build up of inventory as positive) Unemployment is increasing rapidly and house prices are still in free fall.
But there is also good news. Exxon Mobile made $45 billion in profits last year and Obama may give another $2 to $4 trillion to insolvent bank owners and a tax cut to Exxon share owners.
The stimulus bill will include too little stimulus but lots of useless tax cuts and pork. Obama "compromised" with the Republicans over it so well that no Republican voted for it. The few liberals who understand that they got played hate it.
As Sterling Newberry points out
Obama isn't a Democrat giving things up to get Republican votes, he's a conservative mugging liberals for a conservative agenda that includes:
1. War in Afghanistan
2. Paulson's version of TARP where taxpayers buy all bad assets.
3. Slash social security and Medicare
4. Tax Cuts
5. No Comprehensive Health Care, but huge subsidies for Health Insurance companies instead.
Taken as a whole, Obama is offering small concessions to the left, in return for trillions of dollars that are coming directly out of the pockets and veins, of ordinary people.
In France the people at least go on strike and take to the streets. What goes as the "left" in the U.S. seems to stay bent over just waiting to get screwed again.
It's amazing.
Oh god I wasn’t gonna post on this because even here ar MoA we have the same disconnect between those who are leftists by experience and those who are leftists by some sort of intellectual process. On the surface nothing wrong with the method that takes you there, but in reality the ‘intellectual’ left have a poor or no understanding of a basic leftist tenet. SOLIDARITY.
That means that when a groups decides something you may be vehemently opposed to, you must become a vehement supporter of that which you previously opposed. Not because the left is centrist or that it is dictatorial, but because if you don’t support the decision, one more schism is created for the rich and their lackeys who make up the enemy, to exploit.
Solidarity is the only thing that prevents divide and rule and yet it is breached almost daily, with a casual nonchalance “oh whatthefuck Bernard’s wrong there – I’m gonna show him”.
The classic example being when B gets subjected to attack from an outsider, someone unknown to the mass of the posters. Sure often it is something quite minor but that doesn’t detract from the principle, and anyway we have seen these issues get blown up often enough to know that even the smallest things count.
It doesn’t matter if the new poster is genuine or a troll, if you don’t agree with b’s opinion you can shut the fuck up, but sadly, the fact that some regulars in here will join with the outsider, even against the bloke who is making the talkspace available, tells me that too many people have no real experience of leftist action.
We can see amerika turn shia against sunni in Iraq or cracker against african-american in amerika and say “see divide and rule why do the silly fuckers let it happen”, yet time and time again we enable exactly the same situation in here.
As far as the social issues – abortion, stem cell, gay marriage etc goes, most leftists I know support those positions, but not at the expense of a true change to society.
That is if the foundations of a new society have been properly built, all of the social issues which, some who hang on the left regard as “the most important’ will come to pass eventually, but if a few of those issues are introduced without the underlying social change required to ensure that everyone gets a fair shake, then that cosmetic change should not be supported. Why?
Because in many cases these seeming sops to interest groups haven’t been granted to advance ther cause anyhow.
All that has really happened is the current mob of crooks and greedheads have nodded to stem cells or gay marriage or whatever, precisely because they know it will divide their opposition.
Plus they get the added bonus of ‘energising their base’ getting even more people duped into going against their own best interests and spreading strauss’s noble lie. Look how the half assed cosmetic changes of the last 25 years or so, introduced by ‘liberals’ not leftists, has enervated the enemy and created a new generation of the duped prepared to sell their future to win an irrelevance.
Many of these issues aren’t just leftist issues, they are also the domain of liberal dilettantes, who the opposition is only to happy to carve off and turn against their former comrades.
Until leftists can comprehend that true change requires dedication and the sort of sacrifice that may require refusing something that feels like a personal victory, it will remain divided and leaderless.
But don’t be fooled by the corporate media, there are still many leftists about. Take a look at Counterpunch subscriptions and its circulation and you’ll see that it has a big following, primarily in amerika, but also around the planet. Counterpunch has survived chiefly, IMO, because it isn’t a blog, Cockburn and St Clair have been careful not to provide a venue for the destruction of any residual solidarity.
Yet they still carry opposing views! That type of forum is something that few other leftist publications have managed to pull off for a long long time.
I betcha they cop heaps over the Palestinian issue, especially from the ‘peaceniks everywhere but israel’ faction, but have mostly stood firm without the sort of nasty vituperation that has come to characterise division on the left.
Myself, I would prefer it if they didn’t carry articles from the israeli apologists like Uri Avnery, because deep down he still argues for a state of israel, and even if that state is far smaller and more benign that most of the other zionist models, by definition it would still be a racist state built on stolen land. However I know that arguing with Cockburn and st Clair on that issue would be futile and ultimately destructive. The likes of Uri Avnery is the price that Counterpunch must pay to ensure that Counterpunch cannot successfully be classed as ‘anti-semitic’ or Nazi or any of the other cliched pejoratives favoured by the jewish imperialists.
And destructive, because to attack Counterpunch on an editorial decision like that, would breach solidarity and be more of the usual – putting one’s personal views ahead of the interests of the group.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 30 2009 23:36 utc | 21
re the subject of identifying rights, since david harvey has come up in this thread, here is his “preferred short-list of universal rights worthy of attention” “as meaningful ideals upon which to let our imaginations roam as we go to work as insurgent architects of our future”:
1. The right to life chances
This entails a basic right to sustenance and to elemental economic securities. Food security would be the most basic manifestation of such rights, but a general system of entitlements — as Sen (1982) would call them — is also fundamental. This re-affirms the UN Declaration (Article 23, Section 3) that ‘everyone has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.’ The universal right to a ‘living wage’ and to adequate social security is one way to both demand and problematize such a universal package of rights.
2. The right to political association and ‘good’ governance
Individuals must have the right to associate in order to shape and control political institutions and cultural forms at a variety of scales (cf. Articles 20 and 21 of the UN Declaration). The presumption is that some adequate definition can be found for properly democratic procedures of association and that collective forms of action must offer reasonable protections to minority opinions. The presumption also exists that some definition of ‘good’ governance can be found, from the local to the global level. Here, too, the demand highlights problems and diferences (the definition of ‘good governance’ is far from homogeneous) at the same time as it takes up universalizing claims. But individuals plainly should have rights to produce their own spaces of community and inscribe their own rules therein, even as limitations on such rights become critical to restrict the narrow exclusions and the internal repressions to which communitarianism always tends.
3. The rights of the direct laborers in the process of production
The rights of those who labor to exercise some level of individual and collective control over labor processes (over what is produced as well as over how it shall be produced) is crucial to any conception of democracy and freedom. Long-standing concerns over the condition of labor and the right of redress in the event of unreasonable burdens or sufferings (such as those that result in shortened life expectancy) need to be reinforced on a more global scale. This entails a demand for the radical empowerment of the laborer in relation to the production system in general (no matter whether it is capitalist, communist, socialist, anarchist, or whatever). It also highlights respect for the dignity of labor and of the laborer within the global system of production, exchange, and consumption (on this point, at least, a variety of Papal Encyclicals as well as the UN Declaration provide supportive materials).
4. The right to the inviolability and integrity of the human body
The UN Declaration (Articles 1 to 10) insists on the rights to the dignity and integrity of the body and the political person. This presumes rights to be free from the tortures, incarcerations, killings, and other physical coercions that have so often been deployed in the past to accomplish narrow political objectives. The right of women to control their own reproductive functions and to live free of coercions and violence (domestic, cultural, and institutionalized) must also lie at the core of this conception. Violence against women and the subservience of women to patriarchal and paternalistic systems of domination has become a major issue for which universal rights claims have become deeply plausible and compelling.
5. Immunity/destabilization rights
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, according to the UN Declaration (Articles 18 and 19). On this point the Declaration is definitive and clear. But I here think Unger’s (1987b, 524-34) argument for a system of immunity rights that connects to a citizen’s rights to destabilize that which exists is even stronger, for it insists on the right to critical commentary and dispute without fear of retaliation or other loss. Is is only through the exercise of such rights that society can be both re-imagined and re-made (Unger’s arguments on this point are persuasive).
6. The right to a decent and healthy living environment
From time to time legislation in particular countries has predicated on the right of everyone to live in a decent and healthy living environment, one that is reasonably free from threats and dangers and from unnecessary hazards (particularly those produced through human activities, such as toxic wastes, dirty air, and polluted waters). The spreading cancers of environmental injustice throughout the world and the innumerable consequences for human health and well-being that flow from environmental degradations (both physical and social) indicate a terrain where the proper establishment of universal rights is imperative, even if it is surely evident that the meaning, interpretation, and application of such rights will be difficult to achieve.
7. The right to collective control of common property resources
The system of property rights by which capitalism has typically asserted its universalizing claims (actively supported in Article 17 of the UN Declaration) is widely understood as both defective and in some instances destructive with respect to our physical and social world. This is nowhere more apparent than in instances of common property resources (everything from genetic materials in tropical rain forests to air, water, and other environmental qualities including, incidentally, the rights to control built environments for historical, cultural, or aesthetic reasons). The definition of such resources and the determination of who is the ‘collective’ in whose name rights of control will be vested are all deeply controversial issues. But there are widespread arguments now for alternative systems of property rights to those implied in a narrowly self-serving and myopic structure of private property rights that fail to acknowledge any other form of public or collective interest to that given through a pervasive market (and corporation-dominated) individualism.
8. The rights of those yet unborn
Future generations have a claim upon us, preferably to live in a world of open possibilities rather than of foreclosed options. The whole rhetoric of sustainable environmental development rests on some sense (however vague and undefined) of responsibilities and obligations that stretch beyond the ken of our own immediate interests. In extremis, this right also recognizes our volitional role in the evolutionary process and our responsibilities not only to our own species but also to the innumerable others whose prospects for survival depend upon our actions (see Item 11).
9. The right to the production of space
The ability of individuals and collectivities to ‘vote with their feet’ and perpetually seek the fulfillments of their needs and desires elsewhere is probably the most radical of all proposals. Yet without it there is nothing to stop the relative incarceration of captive populations within particular territories. If, for example, labor had the same right of mobility as capital, if political persecution could be resisted (as the affluent and privileged have proven) by geographical movement, and if individuals and collectivites had the right to change their locations at will, then the kind of world we live in would change dramatically (this principle is stated in Article 14 of the UN Declaration). But the production of space means more than merely the ability to circulate within a pre-ordained spatially structured world. Is also means the right to reconstruct spatial relations (territorial forms, communicative capacities, and rules) in ways that turn space from an absolute framework of action into a more malleable relative and relational aspect of social life.
10. The right to difference including that of uneven geographical development
The UN Declaration (Articles 22 and 27) states that everyone should be accorded ‘the economic, social and cultural rights indispensible for his dignity and free development of his personality’ while also pointing to the importance of the right ‘freely to participate in the cultural life of the community’ and the receive protection of ‘the moral and material interests resulting from scientific, literary or artistic production.’ This implies the right to be different, to explore differnces in the realms of culture, sexuality, religious beliefs, and the like. But it also implies the right for different group or collective explorations of such differences and, as a consequence, the right to pursue development on some territorial and collective basis that departs from established norms. Uneven geographical development should also be thought of as a right rather than as a capitalistically imposed necessity that diminishes life chances in one place in order to enhance them elsewhere. Again, the application of such a principle in such a way that it does not infringe upon others in negative ways will have to be fought over, but the statement of such a principle, like that of a living wage, provides a clear basis for argument. The recent UN extension of cultural rights (particularly those specified in Article 27 of the original UN Declaration) to encompass those of minorities (cf. Phillips and Rosas, 1995) provides an initial opening in this direction.
11. Our rights as species beings
This is, perhaps, the vaguest and least easily specifiable of all rights. Yet it is perhaps the most important of them all. It must become central to debate. If we review our position in the long history of biological and social evolution, then plainly we have been and continue to be powerful evolutionary agents. If we are now entering a phase of volitional and conscious interventions in evolutionary processes (interventions that carry with them enormous risks and dangers), then we must necessarily construe certain universals to both promote and regulate the way we might engage upon such interventions. We all should have the right to freely explore the relation to nature and the transformative possibilites inherent in our species being in creative ways. This means the right to explore the possibility of different combinations of our evolutionary repertoire — the powers of cooperation, diversification, competition, the production of nature and of different dimesionalities to space and time. But that right to free experimentation (made much of by Unger) must also be tempered by duties, responsibilities, and obligations to others, both human and non-human, and it most certainly must accord strong protections against the potential powers of a non-democratic elite (or a capitalist class) to push us down technological, social, and evolutionary pathways that represent narrow class interests rather than human interests in general. Any concept of ‘species interests’ will inevitably be riven by rampant divisions of class, gender, religion, culture, and geography. But without some sense of where our common interests as species might lie, it becomes impossible to construct any ‘family of meanings’ to connect or ground the incredible variety of partial claims and demands that make our social world such an interestingly divided place. On this point Naess and Rothenberg (1989, 164-70) have much to offer, by insisting that ‘the universal right to self-unfolding’ is related to the recognition of that same right across all species, and that ‘the unfolding of life’ in general is as important as the unfolding of our own personal trajectories of self-discovery and development.
from spaces of hope, 2000, pp. 248-52
Posted by: b real | Jan 31 2009 21:13 utc | 62
I went away from here yesterday precisely because I didn’t want to get involved in the usual stuff but I was disturbed to see that DoS interpreted solidarity to mean ‘being a blind follower’ when I said “when a group decides something you may be vehemently opposed to, you must become a vehement supporter of that which you previously opposed. I also went on to say that the group wasn’t centrist or dictatorial, hoping I guess, that most would infer that a leftist group in the tradition of most leftist groups, ranging from some of the great trade unions to the smallest most pedantic collection of trotskyists, use democratic practises to arrive at their decisions.
My statement was that once the decison has been arrived at, solidarity proscribes that all members of the group should follow the decision, even if they voted against it.
Now this to me seems to be so self-evident as to require no explanation, for this is exactly the model that most societies require. I have a lot of issues with the way that most democratic nation states have perverted democratic practises, but the fact remains most societies depend on people following rules they don’t always agree with.
Until leftists can demonstrate that same self discipline, they are effectively little more than dilettantes.
If one joins an organisation voluntarily, reaps whatever benefits accrue with belonging, then one should be prepared to abide by the organisation’s decisions, yet I have wasted many hours of my life which I will never get back, explaining to people that just as they would have expected others to support their position had it got up, they must support decisions they don’t like.
If there is one issue that has wrecked the labour movement it is this. The trouble can start with the fact that ‘intellectual leftists’ who often have little real experience of deprivation end up in the professional positions in a union and they sometimes create a divisive atmosphere when workplaces who are roused about a particular issue are causing them difficulties with some other ‘big picture’ issue such as a union merger or industry wide settlement.
This divisiveness, corrupts solidarity and creates a feeling within some workplaces particularly bourgois ones, that majority decisions need not be supported, for example that one can choose not to withdraw one’s labour if a mortgage payment is due.
The notion of bourgeois organised workplaces appears contradictory but let’s face facts, few members of the working class still have active and strong unions in ‘western democracies’ any more – unionised workplaces are the province of nurses, teachers, or other technically skilled workers. Unfortunately the notion of solidarity appears an anathema to many bourgeois members. Yet every time humanity has ‘won’ – made an advance against the oppressor it has been precisely because they have all stuck together.
There is nothing sheeplike in agreeing to work together to achieve common goals and yet so many seem to think there is.
I used the example of b. because there are issues b and I don’t see eye to eye on, and if there is no danger to the underlying solidarity of the site I do engage with b about those issues. On the other hand if b has just put a mob of work into a post, has put it up for us to discuss, but before we do some passing anon, troll or newbie to MoA, drops an invective filled response at the top of the comments section, there is only one thing to do – whether or not I agree with b.
That is to climb into that poster boots and all. I will do the same if I find other regulars under attack although not perhaps with the same energy.
Yet there are others who sometimes seem to me, to regard these threads as being about ‘winning’ some long running competition over who is the most right or something. I don’t know, what I do know is that joining in with a stranger on often personal attacks against someone that is known, if only virtually, does not indicate that the poster would be able to stand firm if there was a real struggle.
We all have our moments where passion overtakes civility, but solidarity isn’t about civility, it is about survival, that means basic no go areas have to be fixed in the minds of anyone who really wants to effect change.
This exact same issue used to occur at the Whisky bar and there were many more differences in my opijnion and billmon’s but that didn’t give me the right to flame him, yet others seem to believe they had that right. They put their need to ‘win’ even if it meant using personal attacks, ahead of the group’s need for a forum to develop and express ideas.
I have tried not to make this post seem like it is directed at any individual, because it isn’t. From time to time I noticed that a range of different posters allowed their views to become more important than they should have, probably myself included and that is despite a conscious effort for that not to happen.
I’m not surprised that some cannot agree on the need for solidarity because so many have had their minds filled with pap about individuality being the most important attribute of humanity.
Yet those who exploit that culture of individuality they have helped inculcate, never baulk at subsuming personal goals if it advances their cause long term. If I say cartels or monopolies many will let the cliche fly past unconsidered. How about this then?
Yesterday afternoon I decided to read up on the machinations that went on amongst the bankers of amerika and europe in order to found the amerikan Federal Reserve, as I read, I learned about the two week meeting of the 7 or 8 people who at the time, owned at least 20% of the assets of the entire planet. Many will be more familiar with this than I. These powers met at Jekyll Island, which is off the coast of Georgia, I think.
Google and read up on that yourself. Discover how it was that some of the leading spruikers of individuality such as the Rockerfellers, Warbergs and Rothschilds have stuck together in great solidarity, from 1911 until today.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 1 2009 1:18 utc | 68
David, I appreciate your lines, and I think I know where you are coming from. I even agree with you on many of your stated opinions, this being one of them:
The big problem with resources is that they are miss-managed and wasted.
But from where I am standing, in order for this miss-management of resources to come to an end, we the consumers in the west must be prepared to do our bit, which includes readjusting our expectations.
A pound of coffee at fair trade value would cost more than what we currently get it for. If we care about the people breaking their backs in the plantations, wish for them to have the same standards of education, healthcare and big screen TVs as we claim for our days work, then brother we have to pay for the goods they produce a decent amount of money, enough to generate the revenue for those third and second world communities to eventually reach our levels (if they so desire, but that’s beside the point).
Exploitation means that someone is gaining unfairly at the loss of someone else, and I am afraid to tell you, but that’s what is happening every time we go shopping or fill up our cars. I am not sure how much you are earning an hour, but imagine for a second the child working in Ecuador’s banana fields getting as much. How much would we have to pay for a bunch?
I feel it is an important point, in trying to win public opinion, to not paint a picture of scarcity, not to make the average guy feel like he’s got to lose so some other poor guy can win.
If we want to address the global imbalance of wealth in a meaningful way, the average guy you’re referring to, the one you reckon ought not to be scared with notions of him having to tighten the belt somewhat to help his poor cousin in the developing world, will have to pay more, and do so willingly. And it’s not the scarcity of resources that would cause the price increase; it is the fair value that must be paid for human labour and the compensation for loss of land and people’s environment.
The western Left is largely up in arms (if only 🙂 about how the rich in their own country exploit them, the workers and taxpayers. But it is us, us who feel we are getting shafted, who are the rich, at least compared to the 90% or so of the rest of this world who live in squalor and hopelessness.
Every time we are calling on our filthy rich elites to share their spoils more fairly with the rest of us, every time we create pressure for the rort in our countries to stop, we better not forget that for someone else, somewhere else, it is you and I that are the rich bastards benefiting from their suffering, clinging to our treasures and don’t want to share.
Please don’t get me wrong David, I know that we are on the same side of the fence, but to bring about a fairer world, it is not just the CEOs and wealthy magnates that need to redistribute their wealth, in the scheme of things its us as well.
Posted by: Juan Moment | Feb 1 2009 9:38 utc | 74
My statement was that once the decision has been arrived at, solidarity proscribes that all members of the group should follow the decision, even if they voted against it.
Dangerous.
By inference, because the majority of people voted for George Bush, the entire nation should have supported him, even those who voted against him.
The same with the Democrats, if I am a member of the party and find the leadership sucks, and is allowed to suck because the majority of party members agrees, then I better be a good sport and hop along for the suck.
No can do. It’s not that I can’t compromise, or have problems accepting the results of a vote, but on matters of principle and elementary issues I am not willing to sing along for harmony sake. I understand that solidarity is paramount in people’s fight against injustice, all for one and one for all, but for me that means first of all solidarity with the victims, not a particular advocacy group. Stemming from that, I believe that should I get the impression the leadership of a group I belong to acts contraire to what I deep down feel is right, then I have no choice but to temporarily leave the organisation until such time when the leadership’s and my ideas are back on common ground.
I hope I am not misconstruing your argument Debs, as I feel we are not that far apart in our persuasions. Running the chance of being at odds with what I wrote in my earlier comment, that I do also see the Left’s weakness partially being due to splintering and needless infighting, I am firmly in the camp of believers who think that as potentially destabilizing this internal quarrelling can be, it’s also healthy to the democratic process and debate within and has kept us on our feet. From my largely frustrating experiences with parties and large scale political organisations, dissent and room for opting out of contributing must be allowed for the group to be worth supporting in the first place.
I reckon for any opposition to be effective it must be outer-parliamentary, free of organisational bureaucracy, and endorsed by its supporters not because they feel obligated to the group or are just following peer pressure, but because they want to support the cause. People need to put their hearts and money into it, supporting direct action wherever possible, which in the long run will only be possible if they feel they have a choice and say in the matter.
Let there be many causes, animal rights activists, anti-war protesters, people marching the streets for workers rights, anti-globalisation demonstrators, you name it. I’ve been saying this before, but if 3% of the US population, or roughly 10 million people, found the will and cash to donate a mere $100 to any prolific and fair dinkum group in the workers rights movement, than there is a one billion dollar fund to run campaigns. Now the next 3% might not identify with that particular cause, but see their purpose in looking out for the wellbeing of our animal friends and put their 100 bucks into organisations which aim at addressing our inhumanity in that department, and the next 3% fund the anti-war faction and activists, and so on. Never will we be able to unite all these people and causes under one party or group’s umbrella, and yet when all is said and done, they are all fighting the same dark philosophy and its proponents, like the ones which met at Jekyll Island.
By allowing every person to decide for themselves what’s worth fighting for, it is much easier to engage the population, but still confront the system. As dan of steele wrote, trying to bring all of these people with all of their diverse issues is really like herding cats.More likely than not none of the above percentage of people in my example would have joined some mega party, meaning a result of zero, while giving each of our potential allies in the fight against the shady fat cat oligarchs their own pet issue, allowing for identification with the goal and the consequent heartfelt support, would have mobilised 30 million people and contributed 3 billion to the badly needed revolution.
So the question in my eyes is less on how to unify the supposed Left behind a single powerful organisation, but how to get them to do something at all. And quite frankly, as much as I am leaving myself open for ridicule, we have to create a revolution with the population we have, not the one we want. This thread in itself made it pretty clear that in today’s western societies majorities are made up of people who cherish their individualism and right to choose. If we want to connect with our fellow lefties, we need to bring them out of the closet and with the justified cynicism in regards to party politics being as widespread as it is, political groups requiring absolute loyalty will not do so.
To sum up my spiel, I agree with you all that solidarity is required if we want to have a fighting chance, not as much with a particular organisation though, but the greater cause as such. And if people choose to do their bit via less organised channels and means, so be it, as long as we do something.
Posted by: Juan Moment | Feb 1 2009 12:30 utc | 77
So, there is no left in the US, or: the left has been tricked into polarizing on BS cultural issues, identity politics – which in itself defines ppl as parts of groups and is divisive.
Beware of admiring France though.
There is some left left, if I may, in the form of Left political parties and movements, contrary to the US. They are, however, quite marginal. The French Socialists, particularly as incarnated by the Prez Candidate, the pretty, traditional authoritarian Segolène Royal, or even now, Head of Party Aubry (daughter of Jacques Delors), party mainstay, cadre, top bottle washer, are neo-liberals, through and through.
One might compare the oppo between the UMP (Sarkozy) and the Socialists to the team red – team blue in the US, but that wouldn’t be quite right. In F the positions taken are more ideologically grounded, and are judged as such; in the US, it is a vacuous show for the sheeples and simultaneously a true struggle for power – read money, influence, position, control, etc; the need for fake politics creates a simple struggle which leads to allegiance, loyalty; naive belief on the part of the spectators.
In F, slightly more subtle, complex. One of the reasons the Socialists hate Sarkozy is that he has revealed to the public that ideological differences are trivial (see Obama: “If it works”…) – the Sark nominated top ‘socialists’ (Kouchner, Strauss-Khan) stole the left’s mantra of diversité – nominating minority ppl in the form Rama Yade, Rachida Dati, etc. (Bush did better here than Obama,..) and took up some long standing left demands, such as publicity free TV, is also a traditional Gaullist, etc. The top of the State apparatus was exposed…and the Socialist opposition appeared dubious at best…
The demos, social strife, etc. in F stem from other forces: historical, etc. also from weak unions and hyper centralization, there is nowhere to negotiate, complain, etc. Add in an adversial culture, the most strongly so in the OECD for the work place.
Left? I think not. More than 2/3 of local Gvmts. in France are in the hands of the Socialist party.
Posted by: Tangerine | Feb 1 2009 15:11 utc | 81
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