France is f@cked.
You'll notice that the Macron-friendly Toronto Star is quick to point out that this is more or less in line with the amount that his two immediate predecessors spent on personal grooming. That's the point though, isn't it?
Wasn't Macron supposed to be a breath of fresh air?
Whether it's Sarko or Hollande the Conqueror or this icon of a supposedly new neither left nor right politics, Macron demonstrates his contempt for the average citizen by spending more on makeup in three months than the average citizen takes home in a year.
That's politics, and Macron is just another politician.
Showing posts with label Hollande. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hollande. Show all posts
Friday, August 25, 2017
Saturday, December 3, 2016
Propornot?
Made a point of getting into town bright and early, in hope of avoiding last Saturday's debacle.
It worked! I got my weekend newspaper for ten bucks minus a handful of change... and there was nothing in it!
Well, that's not quite true. Mark MacKinnon had pretty much the entirety of the "Focus" section to himself for a major, and I mean major, effort about the origins of the Syrian "civil war." Most of his salient points about the actual origins were spelled out well over four years ago in this story, but he did have some original insights into what's become of the protagonists since then.
I was cheered to see a little less Trump this week. That's almost unfortunate after Trump moots a guy nick-named "Mad Dog" for SecDef.
I'm gonna have to re-see "Idiocracy" again before I make up my mind on that one... introducing your new Secretary of Defence, Mad Dog Mattis!
Get the fuck outta here!
But my actual propornot moment came when I read a story by Paul Waldie, who is apparently the Globe's "European correspondent." That's in addition to MacKinnon traipsing around Europe for months updating a story from 2012.
No wonder I'm paying over five bucks for my newspaper!
Anyway, Waldie gets pretty much a whole page in the first section to pontificate on what's wrong with France. Seems the French are mightily pissed with those gosh-darned socialists who have ruled the roost since 2012. They are yearning for the freedom and prosperity that only a right-wing government can bring.
I know this because nowhere in the story is there any hint whatsoever that there exists a substantial polity to the left of the so-called Socialists of Hollande.
Hollande and his party are "left" in the same sense that Hillary's Democratic Party is "left." As in, not really.
In the last French election the Left Front and a couple of fringe left parties garnered about 15% of the popular vote. By now, anybody who expected "left" policies from the centre-rightist "socialist" Hollande will be thoroughly disillusioned.
Will those voters swing right or swing to the real left? I'm guessing most of them will go to the left.
Even if only half of the ten million voters who marked their ballots for Hollande on the last go-round retreat to the real left, the real left becomes a real threat in the upcoming election.
Not a hint of that in Mr. Waldie's story.
Why? I'm guessing it's because the billionaires who own popular media world-wide would rather not broadcast the fact that there is such a thing as a "real" left.
And Waldie correctly surmises that it's better to tell half the story and keep a full paycheque, than to tell the whole story and have no paycheque.
It worked! I got my weekend newspaper for ten bucks minus a handful of change... and there was nothing in it!
Well, that's not quite true. Mark MacKinnon had pretty much the entirety of the "Focus" section to himself for a major, and I mean major, effort about the origins of the Syrian "civil war." Most of his salient points about the actual origins were spelled out well over four years ago in this story, but he did have some original insights into what's become of the protagonists since then.
I was cheered to see a little less Trump this week. That's almost unfortunate after Trump moots a guy nick-named "Mad Dog" for SecDef.
I'm gonna have to re-see "Idiocracy" again before I make up my mind on that one... introducing your new Secretary of Defence, Mad Dog Mattis!
Get the fuck outta here!
But my actual propornot moment came when I read a story by Paul Waldie, who is apparently the Globe's "European correspondent." That's in addition to MacKinnon traipsing around Europe for months updating a story from 2012.
No wonder I'm paying over five bucks for my newspaper!
Anyway, Waldie gets pretty much a whole page in the first section to pontificate on what's wrong with France. Seems the French are mightily pissed with those gosh-darned socialists who have ruled the roost since 2012. They are yearning for the freedom and prosperity that only a right-wing government can bring.
I know this because nowhere in the story is there any hint whatsoever that there exists a substantial polity to the left of the so-called Socialists of Hollande.
Hollande and his party are "left" in the same sense that Hillary's Democratic Party is "left." As in, not really.
In the last French election the Left Front and a couple of fringe left parties garnered about 15% of the popular vote. By now, anybody who expected "left" policies from the centre-rightist "socialist" Hollande will be thoroughly disillusioned.
Will those voters swing right or swing to the real left? I'm guessing most of them will go to the left.
Even if only half of the ten million voters who marked their ballots for Hollande on the last go-round retreat to the real left, the real left becomes a real threat in the upcoming election.
Not a hint of that in Mr. Waldie's story.
Why? I'm guessing it's because the billionaires who own popular media world-wide would rather not broadcast the fact that there is such a thing as a "real" left.
And Waldie correctly surmises that it's better to tell half the story and keep a full paycheque, than to tell the whole story and have no paycheque.
Thursday, March 24, 2016
The unspoken option in the Muslim migrant emergency
That migrant emergency is hogging the headlines these days.
Trump is gonna build a wall.
But that leaves Europe defenceless.
Europe, the beating heart of Christianity.
Muslim migrants are groping and raping their way across Europe.
Groping and raping the Christian Frauleins...
If they're not groping and raping, they're blowing up airports and subway stations...
Everybody from Hollande to Merkel to Trump has the answer; bomb them more and bomb them harder and for God's sake, build bigger walls!
Here's the unspoken option.
Maybe we should stop bombing them.
Trump is gonna build a wall.
But that leaves Europe defenceless.
Europe, the beating heart of Christianity.
Muslim migrants are groping and raping their way across Europe.
Groping and raping the Christian Frauleins...
If they're not groping and raping, they're blowing up airports and subway stations...
Everybody from Hollande to Merkel to Trump has the answer; bomb them more and bomb them harder and for God's sake, build bigger walls!
Here's the unspoken option.
Maybe we should stop bombing them.
Friday, November 13, 2015
Hate and Terror
Mainstream news platforms across the Western world were still crowing about the death of "Jihadi John" by US drone strike when reports began to filter in about the Paris terror attacks.
And while the blood on the sidewalks of Paris was still congealing, President Hollande was vowing "ruthless retaliation" for these "barbaric" attacks.
So what good can possibly come from Hollande's ruthless retaliation? Does he not recognize that what happened in Paris today was also retaliation? Does he not recognize that the "barbaric" assault on Paris today was nothing more than a response to the barbaric assaults that the Nations of Virtue have inflicted on the Islamic world non-stop for decades?
Is he entirely ignorant of the barbaric conduct of France in its war on Algeria?
Western leaders seem to suffer from a plague of memory loss and simple-mindedness.
We have for generations been bullying and humiliating the Arab people. We have destroyed entire societies, cultures, and nation states. Millions in those states have died resisting our efforts to teach them the niceties of "freedom and democracy."
So another bit of the inevitable blowback bites hard in the heart of one of the Nations of Virtue, and yet again we are treated to the totally predictable over-reaction.
"Ruthless retaliation" will accomplish what?
Tevye had it right all those years ago; if you persist in going down the eye-for-an-eye road, pretty soon it's just gonna be a bunch of hate-filled blind fucks firing missiles at each other.
There must be a better way.
And while the blood on the sidewalks of Paris was still congealing, President Hollande was vowing "ruthless retaliation" for these "barbaric" attacks.
So what good can possibly come from Hollande's ruthless retaliation? Does he not recognize that what happened in Paris today was also retaliation? Does he not recognize that the "barbaric" assault on Paris today was nothing more than a response to the barbaric assaults that the Nations of Virtue have inflicted on the Islamic world non-stop for decades?
Is he entirely ignorant of the barbaric conduct of France in its war on Algeria?
Western leaders seem to suffer from a plague of memory loss and simple-mindedness.
We have for generations been bullying and humiliating the Arab people. We have destroyed entire societies, cultures, and nation states. Millions in those states have died resisting our efforts to teach them the niceties of "freedom and democracy."
So another bit of the inevitable blowback bites hard in the heart of one of the Nations of Virtue, and yet again we are treated to the totally predictable over-reaction.
"Ruthless retaliation" will accomplish what?
Tevye had it right all those years ago; if you persist in going down the eye-for-an-eye road, pretty soon it's just gonna be a bunch of hate-filled blind fucks firing missiles at each other.
There must be a better way.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Putin the Pariah
The establishment lefties at Slate have Putin isolated, shunned, ignored, and more dangerous than ever.
Well, one thing he isn't is "ignored." You can't find a news site anywhere in the Nations of Virtue where Putin's name does not appear on the home page.
That leaves "isolated, shunned, and more dangerous than ever."
If Putin is now more dangerous than ever, one must enquire as to how dangerous he was before.
While the bold activists of Pussy Riot may disagree, having spent 18 months hard time in the gulag for defiling a church, (and being sprung prematurely by the great ogre himself) it is exceedingly difficult to find where Putin has been a danger to anyone.
There was the bloodless reclamation of Crimea, which has unsettled those aforementioned Nations of Virtue no end. This seems to have gone over rather swimmingly with the citizens of Crimea. They tend to see Putin as a saviour rather than a pariah.
As for isolated and shunned, the record speaks for itself. While there is certainly no question that the self-anointed "International Community," ie the US and the usual me-too states, have done their level best and then some to isolate and shun Putin, there is no evidence whatsoever that isolation and shunning has come to pass.
Not only does Putin enjoy approval rates in Russia that are totally unthinkable among the hapless dolts who are doing the shunning... Hollande, Harper, Obama, Cameron... but he has far more credibility in the world beyond NATO than any of his detractors.
Which seems to drive the animus of his detractors... when there is nothing to say, shout louder.
Well, one thing he isn't is "ignored." You can't find a news site anywhere in the Nations of Virtue where Putin's name does not appear on the home page.
That leaves "isolated, shunned, and more dangerous than ever."
If Putin is now more dangerous than ever, one must enquire as to how dangerous he was before.
While the bold activists of Pussy Riot may disagree, having spent 18 months hard time in the gulag for defiling a church, (and being sprung prematurely by the great ogre himself) it is exceedingly difficult to find where Putin has been a danger to anyone.
There was the bloodless reclamation of Crimea, which has unsettled those aforementioned Nations of Virtue no end. This seems to have gone over rather swimmingly with the citizens of Crimea. They tend to see Putin as a saviour rather than a pariah.
As for isolated and shunned, the record speaks for itself. While there is certainly no question that the self-anointed "International Community," ie the US and the usual me-too states, have done their level best and then some to isolate and shun Putin, there is no evidence whatsoever that isolation and shunning has come to pass.
Not only does Putin enjoy approval rates in Russia that are totally unthinkable among the hapless dolts who are doing the shunning... Hollande, Harper, Obama, Cameron... but he has far more credibility in the world beyond NATO than any of his detractors.
Which seems to drive the animus of his detractors... when there is nothing to say, shout louder.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Quenelle fever
Must say the "quenelle" controversy was below my radar till about a week ago.
Strikes me as a too-subtle version of a rude gesture widely interpreted as meaning "up yours" or "fuck you" when I was coming up. Popularized mostly by my Italian friends, if I remember correctly. Usually accompanied by a "fungula" or a "batcha mi coula."
Aye, but there's controversy a-plenty. No less an authority than the professional antisemitism spotters at the Simon Wiesenthal Center have declared the gesture "Nazi-like". (See # 10 in the top-ten antisemitic trends of 2013)
Diane Johnstone has an excellent rebuttal on view at Counterpunch.
I suspect the Hollande gang may have plenty of other beefs with Dieudonne than his alleged antisemitism. I further suspect that Dieudonne might have more first-person experience with racism in contemporary France than most of his critics.
Strikes me as a bit of a distraction, a make-work project for fear-mongers. There's more than enough racism in the world without resorting to making shit up.
Strikes me as a too-subtle version of a rude gesture widely interpreted as meaning "up yours" or "fuck you" when I was coming up. Popularized mostly by my Italian friends, if I remember correctly. Usually accompanied by a "fungula" or a "batcha mi coula."
Aye, but there's controversy a-plenty. No less an authority than the professional antisemitism spotters at the Simon Wiesenthal Center have declared the gesture "Nazi-like". (See # 10 in the top-ten antisemitic trends of 2013)
Diane Johnstone has an excellent rebuttal on view at Counterpunch.
I suspect the Hollande gang may have plenty of other beefs with Dieudonne than his alleged antisemitism. I further suspect that Dieudonne might have more first-person experience with racism in contemporary France than most of his critics.
Strikes me as a bit of a distraction, a make-work project for fear-mongers. There's more than enough racism in the world without resorting to making shit up.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
From punch line to "government in waiting" in 48 hours
So a capitalist and a communist and a feminist and an Imam walk into a bar in Doha...
And two days later France has recognized them as Syria's "government in waiting"!
Things sure do move quickly when the big dogs decide to get 'r done, don't they? It was barely two weeks ago that Hillary called for a shake-up of the Syrian opposition, and here we are; not only is the opposition "shaken-up", it has been totally remade to Washington's liking. Every one of the four leadership figures is a person comfortable taking orders from Washington, and not a one of them commands a single armed fighter in the country.
Yet they are the government in waiting, and were recognized as such yesterday by the GCC and the Arab League, and today by France. Hollande and France's master humanitarian BHL have been eager to get the humanitarian bombs dropping as in Libya. It won't be long now.
And while in the immediate post-election blush of goodwill it was almost thinkable that America might sit this invasion/occupation out, a higher profile for the butcher Assad and the noble efforts of the Nations of Virtue to save the people of Syria might just be what's needed to get America's horny Generals off the evening news.
And two days later France has recognized them as Syria's "government in waiting"!
Things sure do move quickly when the big dogs decide to get 'r done, don't they? It was barely two weeks ago that Hillary called for a shake-up of the Syrian opposition, and here we are; not only is the opposition "shaken-up", it has been totally remade to Washington's liking. Every one of the four leadership figures is a person comfortable taking orders from Washington, and not a one of them commands a single armed fighter in the country.
Yet they are the government in waiting, and were recognized as such yesterday by the GCC and the Arab League, and today by France. Hollande and France's master humanitarian BHL have been eager to get the humanitarian bombs dropping as in Libya. It won't be long now.
And while in the immediate post-election blush of goodwill it was almost thinkable that America might sit this invasion/occupation out, a higher profile for the butcher Assad and the noble efforts of the Nations of Virtue to save the people of Syria might just be what's needed to get America's horny Generals off the evening news.
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