Slouching Towards Oblivion

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Say What?



So this seems like a big thing.  Lots of us (me too) got kinda puckered when the Paris attacks went down, and it looked like it would play into the hands of the French equivalent of the Right Radicals.

 But then they headed out to the polls on election day and the Nationalist Front kinda got their butts kicked.  

 Shading back towards Nicolas Sarkozy isn't exactly the best of all possible worlds, but it ain't Marine Le Pen, and that's important.  

 In fact this development is so important the American Press Poodles will absolutely be totally forced to ignore it completely.

 Until of course the GOP reboots the French Surrender Monkeys thing (or some such), which can translate back to Dems Are Soft On Terrorism or whatever, and then we can look forward to round after round of Red vs Blue Horse Race bullshit back here in USAmerica Inc.

 Too much of this is all about the Ad Revenue, kids. Too many MBAs and PR Flacks got too much ridin' on a business model totally dependent on selling a Political Soap Opera.  They can't afford to let too many of us agree on much of anything.
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7 comments:

  1. ZapPow12/15/2015 11:07 AM

    Well, it's not exactly a defeat for the Front National. Marine Le Pen didn't get what she wanted, but her party (a prosperous family firm) got more votes, and has more prople elected than ever. And, since the gouvernment, the Parti Socialiste (which isn't much a leftist party, a socialist party anymore), and Les Républicains won't change anything in their politic, the FN will probably going on prospering in the future.

    In fact, it's not a defeat for any party, except, maybe, the most leftists; and the ecologists. For the Parti Socialiste, the spanking was much less than expected, and Les Rpublicains, Sarkozy's party, got more than expected. But it's not a win for any either : it was still a spanking for the Socialists, and Sarkozy's strategy is contested, his party is divided, and, as a leader, he is toasted (most of the Les Républicains' candidates didn't want him campaigning for them). Sarkozy is now trying to rally his faithful followers in the party, ejected Nathalie Kosziusko-Morizet, the number 2, who publicly disagreed with his strategy, and try to turn the party in a monolithic machine behind him.

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  2. eVille Mike12/16/2015 4:05 PM

    OK then - seems a little 'spinny' because when ya don't win as expected, that's a lot like gettin' beat, isn't it?
    Thanks for stoppin' by though.

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  3. ZapPow12/17/2015 7:23 AM

    Spinny? I don't know. It's a reality : the PS lost, but less than expected, LR (Sarkozy & co) won, but less than expected, and with the help of the PS (in most regions where they came third, the solialist candidates withdraw and called to vote for LR for the 2nd turn to block the FN, a pretty stupid move) and the FN got zero region, when it expected 5 before the first round, 2 before the 2nd round, but it got more votes than ever and tripled its number of "conseillers" (elected representants in the regional assemblies).

    If, by your definition, LR and the FN got beaten, since they didn't win as expected, what to make of the PS, not beaten as expected, but losing half the territory, and an impressibe number of regional representants? The PS certainly is not a winner here. LR? Got more regions than previously, but the party is divided, and has an internal war going on. The FN? Didn't get the presidency of any region, but is continuing its progression, is united behind MLP, and finally isn't really a loser.

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  4. eVille Mike12/17/2015 9:19 AM

    I'll defer to you on the details, and the various flips and turns, etc. My thing is that there seems to be a pretty hard slide towards hyper-nationalism going on in too many places in the world. And when voters push back against that, I think it's generally a good thing.

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    Replies
    1. ZapPow12/17/2015 5:21 PM

      I totally agree.

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    2. eVille Mike12/17/2015 8:32 PM

      You seem to be pretty well up on this stuff. Is there a good source for decent reporting on politics in the EU? One that an average American yahoo like me can understand?

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    3. ZapPow12/18/2015 5:56 AM

      Well, I'm French and I'm intesrested in politics, french, american, european… I'm what "an average American yahoo" would call an extreme-left wacko, and I think I may well be, even by european standards (what passes for extreme left in the USA is just mildly center left in Europe).

      French sources in english:
      https://www.mediapart.fr/en/english
      http://www.thelocal.fr/

      A list of sources:
      http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/france.htm

      English sources about France:
      http://www.theguardian.com/world/france
      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/

      Delete

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