The Le Pens, The French Political Gift that keeps on giving.

[Strike For The South]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/17/marine-le-pen-france

Some thoughts

1. I would
2. How long is it before me beloved France gives into instintiual tribalism and makes FN part of the republican qiult?

NON NON SAY I

[gaelic cowboy]

Papa Pen is part of the republican quilt he achieved his best result in years getting to the second round of the presidential election last time out.



Oh and I would agree with point 1

[Subotan]

They'll never get into power. Racist parties have trouble getting above the magic 15% in modern democracies, and the fiendishly designed electoral system for the legislature locks out the NF from Parliament.

That said, it doesn't exactly make France look good or give me good feelings about French society to see her being liked in modern France.

[HoreTore]

A reactionary group ruled by a hereditary leader with almost absolute rule.

Time to wheel out the guilloutine again?

[Peasant Phill]

That said, it doesn't exactly make France look good or give me good feelings about French society to see her being liked in modern France.

There has been a right-conservative wave rolling over Europe for some time now. Has it been the cause of many dramas? Not that I know of.

[HoreTore]

There has been a right-conservative wave rolling over Europe for some time now. Has it been the cause of many dramas? Not that I know of.

Do I really have to dig up that thread I made a week ago about Hungary's new, conservativevgovernmeny and its exploits?

[Louis VI the Fat]

2. How long is it before me beloved France gives into instintiual tribalism and makes FN part of the republican qiult?The Gaullist right has already adopted many of the elements of the FN. Gradually at first, before 2007, when the interior minister Sarkozy made some surprisingly rightwing statements, which helped get him elected in 2007, after which policies have been installed that are openly hardright. Burqa ban, the deportation of gypsies, a more resolute response to violence in the suburbs.


Mind that what is considered hardright differs from country to country. In France, anti-capitalism and anti-Americanism is as prevalent in segments of the extreme right as it is in America's extreme left. :laugh4:

Because there is also a constant exchange of ideas between the left and the extreme right. Anti-zionism, even anti-Semitism, anti-capitalism, anti-Americanism.



Fight the perfidious capitalism of the anglosaxons together with the poster child of the FN, Jeanne d'Arc:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l37EQGgUszg&feature=related

[Furunculus]

a thoughtful piece on the evolution and future prospects of the front national:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8261969/Marine-Le-Pen-becomes-Front-National-leader-A-pivotal-moment-for-French-politics.html

Marine Le Pen becomes Front National leader: A pivotal moment for French politics?
The election of Marine Le Pen as leader of the far-Right Front National could mark a watershed moment for French politics, writes Anne-Elisabeth Moutet.

By Anne-Elisabeth Moutet, Paris 7:30AM GMT 16 Jan 2011

It's a measure of the inroads Marine Le Pen has already made in the French political debate that she now splits opinion among the rarefied world of Parisian intellectuals.

On the one hand, the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy still thinks she reeks of sulphur: according to him, the youngest daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, 82, the longstanding Front National leader, is "even more dangerous than her father".

Yet on the other Elisabeth Lévy, the shrewd editor of Causeur magazine, the French answer to The Spectator, considers not only that Marine Le Pen "says nothing scandalous or morally unacceptable", but also that she might well "be truly breaking away from the old French extreme-Right, to create something new."

Sunday marks an extraordinary moment for Marine Le Pen, and a potentially pivotal moment for the politics of France.

On Sunday afternoon at a party conference in Tours she will be formally declared the comfortable winner of a postal ballot to elect a new leader of the Front National, the party created by her father and reviled for decades even among some of the most conservative of the French.

He is bowing out and giving way to his daughter, a twice-divorced single mother with an infectious laugh and a no-nonsense manner mitigated by charm, who represents a younger, more open-minded and more politically fleet of foot generation - and thus a far greater challenge to France's two main and traditional parties.

"I've taken risks to draw the Front National out of its old rut," she says. "I could have tried to pander to all the small groups who wanted no change at all. Instead, I have made my case that I was a secular republican and a democrat. Over 90 per cent of our members are with me."

Even though she kept to a gruelling schedule, criss-crossing France 51 times in the past few months to campaign for the leadership, she is in fine shape and cracking good humour. She favours tailored jeans which she wears with high-heeled boots, silk shirts and strict blazers, and told Paris Match she follows the high-protein Dukan diet.

Now the FN's undisputed leader, she has her sights firmly on the 2012 presidential election, in which she could prove as dangerous for Nicolas Sarkozy as her father was for the Socialist candidate, Lionel Jospin, in 2002: she firmly believes she can come in second, and slug it out in the runoff with whoever gets finally picked by the Socialist Party.

"Nicolas Sarkozy took many right-wing voters for a ride," she says. "He stole our slogans on security and order, promised a lot and delivered little. We won't be taken in twice."

Yet the latest polls show that her anti-globalisation, anti-Europe and anti-capitalist speeches make more inroads in the Left-wing electorate that on the Right.

It was in 1972 that her father created the Front National out of several even smaller right-wing factions, but the first-past-the-post system ensured that it remained outside parliamentary politics for its first 12 years.

Then came the first European elections of 1984, and a decision by the embattled Socialist president, François Mitterrand, to revert to the system of proportional representation that General de Gaulle had previously repudiated.

That year, when Ms Le Pen was just 15, the Front National celebrated the election of 10 MEPs - and two years later, with a similar electoral system introduced in national elections, 35 Front députés were elected. That split the Right enough to help keep the Socialists in power - and gave the party a new legitimacy.

It was a wily manoeuvre by Mitterrand: no alliances were possible on the Right with the toxic Front, seen, not entirely without reason, as a motley alliance of Vichy nostalgics, football hooligans, Algérie française colonial carryovers, and dyed-in-the-surplice Traditionalist Catholics. Yet without their number, the Right could not attain a majority.

Since then, PR has been again excised from the electoral system, but the Front National has never returned to complete obscurity.

It is difficult to overstate the weight of France's historical past in her present political life. The scars left by the French Revolution, the great original sin of the Occupation, and the bitter Algerian war of decolonisation still fester, just under the surface of almost any debate.

Le Pen, an orphaned Breton fisherman's son, tried to join the Résistance in 1944, and later fought in Algeria and in the Suez expedition.

But he made his indelible mark in French politics by obsessively picking at the scabs of the country's dark past. He boasted of using torture in Algeria to combat terrorism; called the gas chambers "a point of detail" of the Second World War; used time-and-motion calculations to dispute the number of Auschwitz victims; and described France's German occupiers as "very civilised".

He was several times condemned under French incitement laws - all of which he used to paint himself as a larger-than-life pariah in the too-tame, self-referential world of French politics.

This history, of which she is acutely aware, Marine Le Pen has actively tried to put behind her. She has disavowed her father on several points, not least in references to the Second World War. She goes further in private, say her friends, "but she doesn't want to attack her father in public."

At 42, a handsome, single working mother of three, she presents herself as the young, modern face of the Front National, in sharp contrast to her defeated opponent in the Party leadership contest, the 60-year-old academic Bruno Gollnisch, under whose banner the Party's residual hardliners had sought an increasingly exiguous shelter.

In the Gollnisch camp gather the "tradis", the traditionalist Catholics who are horrified by Marine's support of gay rights - short of gay marriage - and refusal to support abolition of the 1975 law permitting abortion. (She says she only wants all provisions of the law strictly applied, so that women are first offered "alternatives" such as pre-natal adoption.)

No-one in France will admit to anti-Semitism, which is actionable by law, but campaign rumours from the Gollnisch camp included descriptions of Marine's entourage as "full of Jews, queers and Arabs".

It's an exaggeration, but it's true that her inner circle includes types not hitherto much seen at Le Paquebot, the old FN headquarters in Saint Cloud, West Paris.

But mostly, her appeal is her undeniable charisma. Photographs don't entirely do her justice: she is tall, broad-shouldered but slender, with an easy self-deprecating manner that is especially unusual in France. A barrister, she is a good public speaker, capable like her father of delivering a structured speech for an hour without notes.

If she feels her instinctive pugnacious style, modelled on her father, is making the wrong impression on her audience, she is capable of stopping in mid-sentence to address a contradictor with a smile and a joke.

She was far mellower when I asked her last week if, being divorced and raising her three children alone, she had become a new, unlikely emblem of French feminism. She gave a spontaneous belly laugh.

"Well, I'm not especially proud of this failure, you know, but I've had to deal with it and it's taught me a lot," she replied.

She supports a parental salary for young mothers and a number of Scandinavian-type measures to help women work and raise children.

"I wouldn't call myself a feminist, because I don't think relations between men and women should necessarily be confrontational; and I don't want to be reduced to my gender; and yes, I think we should find other solutions than affirmative action to break the glass ceiling. You never know if you were hired because of your competence or because a woman had to take the job, do you?"

It is interesting that two personalities she quoted positively during a half-hour conversation were two Jews: Simone Veil, the former health minister and European Parliament president, who first introduced the abortion bill, and Elisabeth Badinter, the left-wing feminist author.

On television, she is a redoubtable debater, having honed her bruiser's skills in numerous panels in which most of the other participants seemed to gang up against her. This, of course, has helped her: the Front National always made a meal of representing the citizens left without a voice.

The thrust of her political discourse is a mix of protectionism, almost Leftist social welfare economics and French nationalism that seems tailored to the present post-crisis Zeitgeist in France.

Following her father, she has built a strong nationwide support by opposing unchecked immigration, but insists this has nothing to do with racism and is only about proper assimilation into the French culture.

Almost alone of the French political class, she has jumped on the European anti-Islamist bandwagon, and makes approving reference to Geert Wilders of the Netherlands and Oskar Freysiger of Switzerland.

The latest polls give her good reason to look forward to the coming year.

In recent weeks, Le Monde and Marianne, the news weekly, published figures showing that close to one quarter of the Gaullist electorate sympathises with her views; and that almost half of all French voters agree with her on insecurity and crime.

One third agree on immigration, one third on "secularism" - code in France for disagreeing with the encroachment of Islam on society - and one quarter on leaving the euro.

Fascinatingly, 74 per cent of the French would describe her as "courageous". (Meanwhile 59 per cent consider her "racist", 47 per cent "modern" and 42 per cent "close to people's concerns.")

Such figures would make her France's most electable politician if she weren't called Le Pen.

But if she weren't called Le Pen, would she be where she is now?

[Brenus]

Marine Le Pen will have now to make a choice. Her speech after the handing-over of the party to her by her father (in the best military tradition, la relève de la garde) spread a kind of none-understanding in the mass of the supporters.

The extreme right movement is not a monolith but a federation (or even confederation) of various streams from Royalist who hate the Republic and various anti (Semitic, Arabs, US, Red, Green, etc) whatever to old former Pieds Noirs (French from Algeria), nostalgic of the Empire, some admirers of the III Reich or the Fascist Italy.
These one didn’t like what they heard.
She will have now to hunt on Sarkozy lands. This was made easy by the past policy enforced by the actual president and his lackeys. He destroyed France and her identity. Thanks to his allegiance to the Market, he sold all what my ancestors paid for to allow his friends and relatives to make money.
He is not the only culprit. The Social Traitors under the label of Socialists, betraying 100 years of Social Fight, are near to choose as future opponent to him a man actually the boss of the IMF, a so-called left wing who just hammered the Greek and Irish populations to save the Banks.
So, we will have the same programme with two different labels.

Marine Le Pen will play her role. It will be the call for the Useful Vote. The 2 majors parties will play the fear of a Le Pen at the second round of election to try to rally people like me.
It won’t work. Not with me. They got me once; I learnt my lesson.

No pasaran, que se vayan todos…

I hope that like in Tunisia, the people will raise and all these corrupters leaders will flee to a foreign country. They have French only the names, and if I forgive the Right wing as it is what they are, patriots with the blood of my people and interested only on their money, I won’t do so to the ones who betrayed Victor Hugo, Jaures and Clemenceau.
Their resistance to Capitalism being equal to a piece of paper in a Forest Fire in July on the Brava del Sol, their betraying of a popular referendum destroyed the trust in Democracy.

Marine Le pen will be defeated if the right question are asked. If the questions will be on the ideology, her position towards the Market, Secularism, Laicite and Workers Rights, she will be exposed for what she is and she will not attract the votes.
If they try again the fear, I am not sure of the result.

I will not vote, never ever, for one of these clowns and Social traitors. Dosta. Enough. Assez. Ralas.

[Furunculus]

question for our esteemed French compatriots; does the article above succeed as a dispassionate reading of the front-nationals prospects (both opportunity and pitfall), even if we assume that we disagree with the platform the party markets itself upon (including the change in direction she seems likely to impose)?

[Louis VI the Fat]

question for our esteemed French compatriots; does the article above succeed as a dispassionate reading of the front-nationals prospects (both opportunity and pitfall), even if we assume that we disagree with the platform the party markets itself upon (including the change in direction she seems likely to impose)?Yes, a fine, succinct article.

It points to that most difficult, but poignant question: if the extreme right becomes more mainstream, does that make it more dangerous and sinister, or less? Everywhere in Europe, the extreme right has adopted policies not previously associated with the extreme right: gay rights, social rights, feminism.

I once was in a café with a staunch, proudly socialist friend. At one point, he said: 'at some point in the distant future, we may have to choose between gay rights or etnic minority rights'. Naturally I protested that I was not in the least willing to give up even the slightest gay rights, or any progressive right for that matter.

It is this disconnect that peculiarly has made the extreme right the champion of the rights of Jews, gays and women. Add in the betrayal of the left to neoliberalism, and the extreme right can incorporate the protection of social rights too. Soon, the FN will be the protector of 1968.
The past two decades or so really has seen everybody else set up the political stage for the extreme right. All that is needed, anywhere in Europe, is for a clean-cut, non-violent, non-hatemongering extreme right politician to understand the potential. Voters come pouring in from all directions. Marine Le Pen could prove to be very succesful indeed.



She will have now to hunt on Sarkozy lands.And she'll hunt in leftist territory. There are far more potential votes for her there than the left cares to admit, or even contemplate about. :yes:

[Brenus]

“There are far more potential votes for her there than the left cares to admit”
Rightist propaganda.
How a leftist believing in the Human Rights and Internationalism, being anti-capitalist, can vote for a millionaire apprentice fascist?
If the debate is base not on person (face) but on programme, political or economical, the usual leftist electorate won’t be lured in the extreme-right program.

But having so-called socialist and Zarkozists (or affiliated) who are de facto agree on 90 % of the Marketist Programme give a avenue to the Le Pen.
When the French vote to the Right, they got the Right.
When they vote for the left, they’ve got the Right.
And this is not only valid from France.

When the left will stop to believe that the Free Market is a natural law and go back to the real Leftist agenda the voters who have nowhere to go to see their right properly by who should do it, they will turn to the one opponent the most vocal.
If the left goes for its values, Le Pen dynasty had no choice than to go on the traditional market of the extreme right…

I find the article very kind to the Le Pen, and unfortunately focus on the facade.
They are ultra-conservative in all the fields and it is where Marine is aiming at. They leave the social aspect in the shadows to attract the popular masses in the hate of the others, and pretend to be the defender or laicite only against Muslim but are protecting the extreme catholics…

[Furunculus]

thank you both.

[Fragony]

@Brenus, it's certainly happening here though, PVV is no FN, but a lot of it's voters come from alienated labour and ethnic minority's. Louis is right the rightwing party's adopted themes that used to belong to the left, the left have abandoned these themes in favour of diversity. Money must be of secondary importance to these voters.

[Furunculus]

@Brenus, it's certainly happening here though, PVV is no FN, but a lot of it's voters come from alienated labour and ethnic minority's. Louis is right the rightwing party's adopted themes that used to belong to the left, the left have abandoned these themes in favour of diversity. Money must be of secondary importance to these voters.

certainly the BNP's vastly expanded demographic comes from disenchanted labour voters, rather than Tory voters.

[Brenus]

I agree.
The Left betrayed the Dream. They abandoned the Cause and left the workers. They stopped to be the voice of the poorest. From concession to compromise they lost their soul.
In deserting the field of the people, they ignored their daily problem, more interested in higher debates and goals.
They left the terrain to another opponent and he came. And this opponent was the extreme Right with a clear message: all is the immigrants’ fault.
And because the Left lost their soul they couldn’t give the appropriate answer.
If the population facing unemployment was blaming immigration they were racist. No, they were worried… And to ignore this and not treating the problem of these worries just in pretending it was just racism exacerbated the problem and open a gap that became bigger and bigger between the population in distress and the alleged representatives. And hundred of exemplars as this one happened.
Then they tried to negotiate with the Conservatives and try to accommodate them. Some fall to the songs of the money and power. They became Social Democrats or New Labour, so yet right wing.
Logically, the people who vote Right want a Right Government and the ones who vote Left want a Left Government. The Righties are never disappointed, the lefties almost always.
So the only way to express a discontent was to frighten the men in power. So to vote for somebody else…

The only way for the left to come back to power and to fight the Extreme Right is to be trustful to the lefties values and goals. Not to accommodate with the laws of the Market Economies that are in fact no law at all.
The real left has to put the ideas confrontation on the right filed and demonstrate that the Extreme Right is and only Extreme and Right wing.

The fight will be hard because of course the Social Traitors and the Conservative will push hard to try, first to convince that the Left and the Extreme Right are in fact the same, two to vote “useful”.
But there are only two sides in a barricade. Will the Social traitors come back to their youth or as many of them did yet, will they join the Palaces of the Power and the Temples of the Money?
I think they will go for the money. Poor Judah who betrayed Jesus for a so small amount of money… Our Former Lefties are doing much much better (see Tony B…).
But they still pretend to be lefties, even the one managing the IMF.

I spit (morally) on them. They dance on my glorious dead graveyard. They kill Gavroche again and again

“Je suis tombé par terre,
C’est la faute à Voltaire
Le nez dans le ruisseau,
C’est la faute à Rousseau”

Victor Hugo
Les Misérables.

[rory_20_uk]

Interesting narrative.

To put it another way, whenever the Left got to power the country took a nosedive. The country was so shellshocked that the only way they could come back was to charge towards the centre.

When did the left ever work in power? Ever at all? Anywhere?

It seems you are equally keen to head to the uplands of grandoise phases rather than solutions. Yes, I know it's a lot easier.

~:smoking:

[HoreTore]

When and where?

Norway, Sweden and Denmark, 1945 to the present. Working wonderfully, and all our political parties have adopted social democracy as its foundation.

[rory_20_uk]

Norway: the population of a small town floating on Oil. Any method would be fine.

Sweden and Denmark. Better, better. That's a statistically insignificant number...

~:smoking:

[Peasant Phill]

Do I really have to dig up that thread I made a week ago about Hungary's new, conservativevgovernmeny and its exploits?

Touché, I have to admit that that one slipped my mind.

[Brenus]

:laugh4:
The other question is “When did the right ever work in power? Ever at all? Anywhere?”

It seems you are keen to print money to pay the debts created by your system than to go to reality and realise that these bank notes are just worth of the ink and paper they are made of.:book:
Or perhaps you are keen in massive Bonuses for bankers who are the best and were so successful in a recent past? Or you still considered that the money they made for themselves was deserved, as they never reimbursed the bonuses they claimed on lies and deception?:inquisitive:
Or do you prefer the USA buying back from China the debts by printing money?:dizzy2:
Or perhaps the return of Exploitation of the poorest and the return to daily labourers re-named Self Employed?:no:
Or perhaps you prefer the confiscation by and for the profit of a minority of all resources and means built by your ancestors that should be in favour of the population?:oops:
Or the Disappearance of the all values but money in a Elite who pretend to defend the Families but destroy Education, to respect and demand Patriotism but never sent their children in war, or perhaps the need of freedom in a country covered by Cameras?

When was the last success of a Right wing Government?:balloon2:

Now, the Communist Regime of Hanoi succeeded in defeating the French (not really a big deal for some) but as well the USA for the Country Independence… Not bad…:sweatdrop:
The South and Central America is full of countries expelling their “liberal” master thanks to Communism or Socialist Guerrillas (e.g. Nicaragua)…
And when they obey the rules of democracy after loosing an election it looks like if it a victory for the Righties!!!…:beam:
Do you want to discuss about the liberation from colonialism?

Now, I will be a little bit more daring: In term of social welfare, the South and Central America, including the Caribbean Islands are better off with a Leftist Government than a Rightists.:sweatdrop::sweatdrop::sweatdrop:
In term of democracy it can be equal…

[HoreTore]

Norway: the population of a small town floating on Oil. Any method would be fine.

Sweden and Denmark. Better, better. That's a statistically insignificant number...

~:smoking:

I could add finland, germany, china, usa and a bunch of other countries to that list and also explain why your stqtement is sp wrong, but I know that your mind is already made up so I don't see how this can be an interesting debate, and so I don't care anymore.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Social democracy has been one of the dominan political forces in Europe since 1945. Much more than in North and South America, or elsewhere. This explains why Europe in this period saw the development of the most humane, most civilised societies the world has ever seen.

Now it is being dismantled. Europe is turned into some sort of Brazil. Violent. Superficial. A few rich, living behind high walls. Fun and vibrant perhaps, but not profound in its culture nor humane in its conduct.


The world our grandparents build is evaporating before our eyes. It is not (just) the immigrants. Not Chinese competition, nor the Americans. It is us ourselves who fail to see what is precious about Europe: egalitarianism, culture, humanitarianism, soft and gentleness, meritocracy, social justice, social peace.

[rory_20_uk]

Disagreeing suddenly meant I'm a proponent of Banker's bonuses... I think that this is a complex issue and I don't have any cut-and-paste answers to this. I think that a complex system of long term options is required and an inability of trading these in turn.
I'm keen to print money (a policy in part due to profligate spending over the last decade or so)? If we had some spare after the Boom we might not have required this.
Destroying education (I loose count of the number of times I've stated I'm a proponent of Grammar schools and free university places based on ability)
CCTV cameras? Placed by Labour and more of a Totalitarian rather than Left / Right issue

America defends Right-Wing Dictators as part of the Munroe Doctrine... Great. But I've no idea what relevance that is. Am I now a proponent of America all of a sudden?
In WW1, officers generally came from the middle classes - the more educated ones. The casualty rate was a lot higher. Patriots who did die for their

Perhaps wiping the spittle off your face and taking a few deep breaths would be a good idea. The ranting isn't good for your blood pressure. I'd use the term strawman but that seems insufficient for the legions you've created.

I never said there is a Right Wing Utopia that we should be aiming for. You were the one waxing lyrical about the Left.

~:smoking:

[HoreTore]

History has show us that leftist, rightist and centrist policies are all capable of forming functioning economies.

History has also shown us that the societies created will be quite different. Some will find a conservative society appealing. Some will find a social democracy appealing. Some might even find a centrist society appealing.

Its great that we can all find something we like, isn't it?

[Brenus]

You were the one waxing lyrical about the Left. I was just saying they betrayed their ideal... So they lost because to follow a rightist policy it is better to have Rightist Politicians.
And I was saying that f the left want to defeat an Extreme Rightist Party, they have to return to the roots and re-invent a Humanism, an Ideal where Humans are the Centre, not making as much profit as you are able to do...
whenever the Left got to power the country took a nosedive
You are the one questioning the reality of successful Left Governments so I just question what are your Criteria to define a success. And I just listed some successes of some Right Wing Governments.

And I don’t put the New Labour in the side of the left… Social Democrats, maximum…

[Greyblades]

I'm keen to print money (a policy in part due to profligate spending over the last decade or so)? If we had some spare after the Boom we might not have required this.

I dont think that would have worked unless they were very careful about how often they churned out the money, too much printed and the dollar could be worth less than the japanese yen.

[Strike For The South]

The world our grandparents build is evaporating before our eyes. It is not (just) the immigrants. Not Chinese competition, nor the Americans. It is us ourselves who fail to see what is precious about Europe: egalitarianism, culture, humanitarianism, soft and gentleness, meritocracy, social justice, social peace.

Reverting to a Hobbsiean state

Alas all good things must come to an end :sad:

[Furunculus]

I agree.
The Left betrayed the Dream. They abandoned the Cause and left the workers. They stopped to be the voice of the poorest. From concession to compromise they lost their soul.
In deserting the field of the people, they ignored their daily problem, more interested in higher debates and goals.
They left the terrain to another opponent and he came. And this opponent was the extreme Right with a clear message: all is the immigrants’ fault.
And because the Left lost their soul they couldn’t give the appropriate answer.
If the population facing unemployment was blaming immigration they were racist. No, they were worried… And to ignore this and not treating the problem of these worries just in pretending it was just racism exacerbated the problem and open a gap that became bigger and bigger between the population in distress and the alleged representatives. And hundred of exemplars as this one happened.
Then they tried to negotiate with the Conservatives and try to accommodate them. Some fall to the songs of the money and power. They became Social Democrats or New Labour, so yet right wing.
Logically, the people who vote Right want a Right Government and the ones who vote Left want a Left Government. The Righties are never disappointed, the lefties almost always.
So the only way to express a discontent was to frighten the men in power. So to vote for somebody else…

The only way for the left to come back to power and to fight the Extreme Right is to be trustful to the lefties values and goals. Not to accommodate with the laws of the Market Economies that are in fact no law at all.
The real left has to put the ideas confrontation on the right filed and demonstrate that the Extreme Right is and only Extreme and Right wing.

i accept the narrative of how the ideological left see's its plight, but i don't accept that this is a problem.

the ideological left seems disappointed that the electorate is such a fair-weather friend, however, the electorate owes the left (or the right) nothing and rather its is the job of political movements to reflect the will of the electorate.

to be representative in short.

to complain that the left of politics has betrayed its roots is irrelevant, it is moving to occupy an electable position, the alternative is to not be elected.

[Furunculus]

:laugh4:
It seems you are keen to print money to pay the debts created by your system than to go to reality and realise that these bank notes are just worth of the ink and paper they are made of.:book:

nope, there is nothing right-wing about encouraging banks to be too big to fail, and then being forced to prop up those banks precisely because they are too big to fail.

Or perhaps you are keen in massive Bonuses for bankers who are the best and were so successful in a recent past? Or you still considered that the money they made for themselves was deserved, as they never reimbursed the bonuses they claimed on lies and deception?:inquisitive:
i don't care about bankers bonuses, they are not (generally) on the public payroll and exist through private means, if they want to be paid in private islands populated by dancing girls that is fine by me. i choose not to work as hard as they do, and as such i do not expect the same rewward.


Or do you prefer the USA buying back from China the debts by printing money?:dizzy2:
america can do as it pleases, there is always a price to be paid, and continueing to print money only accelerates the point where the renimbi becomes the reserve currency, and when america has to buy oil priced in renimbi rather than dollars it will hurt!

Or perhaps the return of Exploitation of the poorest and the return to daily labourers re-named Self Employed?:no:
hmmm, i've been self-employed and it was just fine, i'm not sure what good reason you have to be intrinsically against it.........?

Or perhaps you prefer the confiscation by and for the profit of a minority of all resources and means built by your ancestors that should be in favour of the population?:oops:
sounds like a complicated way of saying that you don't like property law when it doesn't give you the result you want, again, not my problem.

Or the Disappearance of the all values but money in a Elite who pretend to defend the Families but destroy Education, to respect and demand Patriotism but never sent their children in war, or perhaps the need of freedom in a country covered by Cameras?
in the case of britain at least i dispute the above, because no-one owes us a living and the wealth necessary to preserve those fine social benefits like education will deteriorate along with our competitive advantage.

When was the last success of a Right wing Government?:balloon2:
thatcher, eighties.

[Fragony]

The left did betray it's values, they used to on the barricades for women and gay rights, now they go on the barricades for the right to wear a tent, completely uninterested in the hidden misery behind it, makes them feel good about themselves. Progressives catering the ultra-conservative all the while congratulating theirselves and eachother on their cosmopolitism. The left is hopelessly lost and will not recover, they are the orchestra on the Titanic.

[gaelic cowboy]

nope, there is nothing right-wing about encouraging banks to be too big to fail, and then being forced to prop up those banks precisely because they are too big to fail.

There is nothing rightwing about it, but it was an excessive belief in the "freemarkets beauty" which allowed these particular banks to get too big, so the blame is at the door of rightwing financial theory this time.


i don't care about bankers bonuses, they are not (generally) on the public payroll and exist through private means, if they want to be paid in private islands populated by dancing girls that is fine by me. i choose not to work as hard as they do, and as such i do not expect the same rewward.

They may not be on the public payroll theoretically but they benefiting from the governments investment in the public. Most western nations far as I can tell invest in things like education, healthcare and law and order etc this creates a society where a large scale financial business can operate safely. Shareholders who are the most mobile stakeholder of a bank seem to have no problem with bankers pay likely cos it encourages high share prices which benefits them.

We know short term thinking allied with complete ignorance of the financial products bankers were selling was at the heart of this last crisis therefore pay needs reforming. The bonus culture of the banks in a so called free banking market leads one to the conclusion they are somehow protecting entry to the financial market.

Seeing as rampant financialism was at the heart of this crisis we need to do one of two things. We either enable easier entry to the market for banks or we restrict there ability to gorge themselves on credit and pay.

[Furunculus]

There is nothing rightwing about it, but it was an excessive belief in the "freemarkets beauty" which allowed these particular banks to get too big, so the blame is at the door of rightwing financial theory this time.

They may not be on the public payroll theoretically but they benefiting from the governments investment in the public. Most western nations far as I can tell invest in things like education, healthcare and law and order etc this creates a society where a large scale financial business can operate safely. Shareholders who are the most mobile stakeholder of a bank seem to have no problem with bankers pay likely cos it encourages high share prices which benefits them.
We know short term thinking allied with complete ignorance of the financial products bankers were selling was at the heart of this last crisis therefore pay needs reforming. The bonus culture of the banks in a so called free banking market leads one to the conclusion they are somehow protecting entry to the financial market.
Seeing as rampant financialism was at the heart of this crisis we need to do one of two things. We either enable easier entry to the market for banks or we restrict there ability to gorge themselves on credit and pay.

in my opinion the problem of banks being too big to fail was the result of poor regulation and not a lack of regulation, but i can appreciate how the mud would stick.

likewise, i accept that the current bonus system did encourage short-termism that was bad for both the bank and the wider economy, and i am happy to see it reformed, i just reject the emotional diarrhoea of 'fairness' that justifies the removal of bonuses for moral reasons. the they-have-too-much-money brigade need to taken round the back of the shed and quietly shot.

[Subotan]

To be fair to the left, it's not as if left-leaning politicians suddenly became delusional en masse and abandoned their core vote; their core vote abandoned them. As people, including the working class, have got richer and moved up in social status, their ties to their old ideologies have weakened and eventually broken. Surely that shows a huge success of the social democratic left in Europe, by lifting millions and millions out of what was basically poverty or menial labour and into higher standards of living, all whilst retaining their compassion and democratic principles, as opposed to what China is doing now.

[Furunculus]

To be fair to the left, it's not as if left-leaning politicians suddenly became delusional en masse and abandoned their core vote; their core vote abandoned them. As people, including the working class, have got richer and moved up in social status, their ties to their old ideologies have weakened and eventually broken. Surely that shows a huge success of the social democratic left in Europe, by lifting millions and millions out of what was basically poverty or menial labour and into higher standards of living, all whilst retaining their compassion and democratic principles, as opposed to what China is doing now.
even if i were to accept what you say the question would still remain: is the left going to evolve to meet a political need of today, or say "job done" and then wither away to nothing as its stunted evolution becomes ever less relevant to a the wider electorate?

[Subotan]

It has evolved to meet the political need of today, which I support, as opposed to withering away to redundancy, which Brenus seems to support.

[Fragony]

To be fair to the left, it's not as if left-leaning politicians suddenly became delusional en masse and abandoned their core vote; their core vote abandoned them. As people, including the working class, have got richer and moved up in social status, their ties to their old ideologies have weakened and eventually broken. Surely that shows a huge success of the social democratic left in Europe, by lifting millions and millions out of what was basically poverty or menial labour and into higher standards of living, all whilst retaining their compassion and democratic principles, as opposed to what China is doing now.

But the core vote didn't abandoned them then, they are abandoning them now, this is not about economy it's about immigration; that's why they flock to the FN and BNP. The left has become a sectarian aristocracy who know what's best for you, 'do as we say not as we do', they themselves live in 100% white upper class neighborhoods and expect you to shut up.

[gaelic cowboy]

TBH Frag it is even more complicated than that much of what the Left campaigned for like workers rights education health blah blah is just seen as part of normal society now and pretty much all rightwing european parties see it as a benefit to the economy.

I see the real problem for the Left being it's reliance on state employees as voters, once they start to agitate for what ever reason it affects us all and it annoys the hell out of people.

[Furunculus]

indeed, the client state has always been a problem with labour.

[rory_20_uk]

Yes, what used to be a matter for Parliament is now a matter for the Judiciary as demands have become laws. You can't campaign on preventing 18 hour days for 12 year old children, most forms of discrimination or dangers in the workplace as most of this is routinely taken care of, with the few issues not covered are overseen by a governmental agency.

So, what's left?

Protecting jobs. Except that that is Protectionism, is against International law and generally fails to work.
Protecting people's rights? Oh, but then we also have to be open to all cultures who often discriminate on gender and religion as a matter of course. Better leave that one alone.
Protecting the countryside? Well, maybe. Except we need loads more houses for the poor, and the Rich generally own the land so building loads of houses is a good idea... but it isn't green so it is a bad idea...
Education? Most studies have shown that improving the standing of teachers and teacher salaries makes more of a difference than reducing class sizes... but that will increase income disparity which is bad and will stop us becoming a classless utopia.
Law and order? Clearly that is a bad thing. Police are by definition Right Wing and thus need sorting out. More minorities... except that it's discrimination to do so, and so technically against the law...
Encouraging Industry? Tough one that. Clearly we need more Industry as it provides people with jobs, but this will only encourage Industrialists who are also a Bad Thing as they earn too much. Nationalised companies like in the 1960's / 70's? Except that it was probably on average cheaper to have people on the dole.
Helping Farmers? We could do. As long as they're not too rich. Else they are suspiciously like Landed Gentry who are Bad. and we can't pay them to make the countryside look like as this only benefits the Middle / Upper classes, not the working classes who can't be bothered to go to the countryside. But protecting the countryside is a good Green thing to do, and producing food locally is also good. Perhaps we could have a department to ensure only farmers earning below a certain threshold and with farms below a certain size get assistance.
Armed Forces? Definitely Bad. Class-based. Although people do seem to support their local regiments. The people are clearly Wrong in this and need to be Re-Educated.

So, we're left with increasing the size of government as that is a Good Thing as who can argue against more support workers for every disadvantaged group, and it helps soak up unemployment at the same time.
NHS. Aaaah, the NHS. Like an infinite sponge, it can absorb almost all money that is thrown at it. We can campaign to throw more money at it.

~:smoking:

[Fragony]

TBH Frag it is even more complicated than that much of what the Left campaigned for like workers rights education health blah blah is just seen as part of normal society now and pretty much all rightwing european parties see it as a benefit to the economy.

I see the real problem for the Left being it's reliance on state employees as voters, once they start to agitate for what ever reason it affects us all and it annoys the hell out of people.

I think it's safe to assume that for those going to the right immigration is priority, if you are a social-democrate the likes like FN or BNP are a big step. Immigration used to be a problem only for the lower classes but middle-class is now starting to notice it as well, it's really the middle class they are losing, that is always byebye. And you are right about dependence on the vote of goverment workers, the guys who inform you your shed is 20 cm too high

[gaelic cowboy]

To take an example of relative decline of the left we will know the extreme right has evolved into a new force if it is capable in the UK of making common cause between the native english and the first and second generation Irish. Many Irish still have ties to the homeland through family even to third generation thats a huge demographic of potential voters who are naturally rural conservative. I see it more and more that BNP and extreme types talk of more hazy concepts like judeo-christainity blah blah and allowing people from the "Home Islands" as they style them to stay.

[Furunculus]

Yes, what used to be a matter for Parliament is now a matter for the Judiciary as demands have become laws. You can't campaign on preventing 18 hour days for 12 year old children, most forms of discrimination or dangers in the workplace as most of this is routinely taken care of, with the few issues not covered are overseen by a governmental agency.

So, what's left?

Protecting jobs. Except that that is Protectionism, is against International law and generally fails to work.
Protecting people's rights? Oh, but then we also have to be open to all cultures who often discriminate on gender and religion as a matter of course. Better leave that one alone.
Protecting the countryside? Well, maybe. Except we need loads more houses for the poor, and the Rich generally own the land so building loads of houses is a good idea... but it isn't green so it is a bad idea...
Education? Most studies have shown that improving the standing of teachers and teacher salaries makes more of a difference than reducing class sizes... but that will increase income disparity which is bad and will stop us becoming a classless utopia.
Law and order? Clearly that is a bad thing. Police are by definition Right Wing and thus need sorting out. More minorities... except that it's discrimination to do so, and so technically against the law...
Encouraging Industry? Tough one that. Clearly we need more Industry as it provides people with jobs, but this will only encourage Industrialists who are also a Bad Thing as they earn too much. Nationalised companies like in the 1960's / 70's? Except that it was probably on average cheaper to have people on the dole.
Helping Farmers? We could do. As long as they're not too rich. Else they are suspiciously like Landed Gentry who are Bad. and we can't pay them to make the countryside look like as this only benefits the Middle / Upper classes, not the working classes who can't be bothered to go to the countryside. But protecting the countryside is a good Green thing to do, and producing food locally is also good. Perhaps we could have a department to ensure only farmers earning below a certain threshold and with farms below a certain size get assistance.
Armed Forces? Definitely Bad. Class-based. Although people do seem to support their local regiments. The people are clearly Wrong in this and need to be Re-Educated.

So, we're left with increasing the size of government as that is a Good Thing as who can argue against more support workers for every disadvantaged group, and it helps soak up unemployment at the same time.
NHS. Aaaah, the NHS. Like an infinite sponge, it can absorb almost all money that is thrown at it. We can campaign to throw more money at it.

~:smoking:

lulz, that made me giggle. nice·

can anyone tell me how i accidental made that hovering dot at the end of "nice"?

[Fragony]

To take an example of relative decline of the left we will know the extreme right has evolved into a new force if it is capable in the UK of making common cause between the native english and the first and second generation Irish. Many Irish still have ties to the homeland through family even to third generation thats a huge demographic of potential voters who are naturally rural conservative. I see it more and more that BNP and extreme types talk of more hazy concepts like judeo-christainity blah blah and allowing people from the "Home Islands" as they style them to stay.

FN and BNP are absolute scum they blame immigrants for poor policy, that is wrong and stupid, but labour is like a mammoth-tanker heading to an iceberg with almost empty tanks but it's too costly to divert direction as it costs even more fuel. If they want to get back to their values they would have to kthxbye their new ones.

[Louis VI the Fat]

can anyone tell me how i accidental made that hovering dot at the end of "nice"?




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You mean floating dots, like this '· · ·' ?


Nah, I couldn't tell you ·



.·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·. · .·'·.

[Furunculus]

damn you!

[Vladimir]

I know how: '·.·' · '·.·'

Copy/paste

[Rhyfelwyr]

It's in Word, type 2219 then alt+x.