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On October 09 2016 20:40 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2016 06:49 WhiteDog wrote:On October 08 2016 01:47 TheDwf wrote:On October 08 2016 01:22 Nyxisto wrote:
I have questions for the French people here, there's a few constellations in the elections in 2017, who makes it when Juppe runs against Sarkozy? Has Melenchon a chance to beat Hollande, and what happens when the second round ends up being Sarkozy/Hollande or Melenchon/Juppe? What about Macron? And is it safe to assume that Le Pen is voted out in the second round if she wins the first regardless who she runs against? In polls, Juppé is slightly favored vs Sarkozy as of now (53/47 for the lastest). It will depend on who comes to vote, some left-wingers might specifically come to eliminate Sarkozy at the second round. Mélenchon has good chances to surpass the candidate of the PS, yes. Those scenarios were not tested. Juppé would beat Mélenchon for sure, don't know for Sarkozy vs Hollande. Macron would probably beat most candidates in the second round, but he won't get there. Too many candidates would compete for the center-left to center-right electorate. Le Pen would probably lose to anyone, yes; though there was a poll in which she would beat Hollande 52/48, but should this unlikely scenario really happen I think he would edge her out. (Even if she wins she would not have the parliamentarian majority afterwards.) One thing for sure, I'll not vote for anybody, except maybe Mélenchon. Why? Whichever the 2nd round candidates will be, surely you can find some difference between them. I can't think of any election where I've disliked the candidates equally
You ask me to chose the more likable executor from where I stand, I won't chose between pest and cholera.
Either way, it's the people that will force itself on the politics one day or another in France, that's how it always worked.
On October 09 2016 20:46 Artisreal wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2016 20:38 corumjhaelen wrote:
And Jospin not getting to the second turn in 2002 yadayadayada... French don't care that much, rightfully so. Was that an answer to my point? How is it not scary to have Le Pen as president? Parlamentary powers shift over the course of time. While she might not have a majority at the start, it can happen over time, right? I'd imagine that to be as if Germany would have a chancellor made of a fusion between Seehofer and Petry. ugh.
Le Pen is like a bomb, and all the other candidates are like cyanure. Yeah shit change faster, and makes more noises, with Le Pen, but in the end everybody dies either way.
Any kind of political debate in France or anywhere in germania (the piece of land that we call europe for some reasons) is determined by the european question anyway : how much power do we have to change anything as a nation if most of our politics is determined at the european level ?
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On October 09 2016 11:39 Nyxisto wrote:
Isn't Mélenchon very far on the left including NATO exit, complete overhaul of EU institutions etc.. basically an even more leftish version of Corbyn? Can this win in France?
Fairly sure it's Corbyn who was/is even more left-leaning than Mélenchon on some themes. Corbyn voted no to Maastricht, for instance (Mélenchon voted yes, and now says it was a mistake). Mélenchon is simply a textbook socialist (more precisely he can be labelled as an ecosocialist republican), he's only seen as “very far on the left” because we're stuck in the neoliberal dystopia.
So far, the main points of his program are to:
• call for a Constituent assembly in order to establish a new Republic (he's very critical of the personal, presidential power of our current regime);
• redistributing wealth (fiscal reform, setting up a maximum salary, regulating finance, etc.);
• environmental planing with public investment (he wants to put a “green rule” in the Constitution, i. e. the country must not take more than what the environment can replenish each year); he also wants to abandon nuclear energy;
• renegotiating european treaties so they're no longer enforcing austerity and antidemocratic (and should negotiations fail, he would propose a Frexit referendum);
• leave NATO, yes (he's very critical of the US imperialism, for him the NATO is a war machine which threatens peace);
• he's against free trade treaties like TTIP/CETA and has protectionnist views (for social and environmental reasons; he wants to relocate some agricultural and industrial activities in France).
Mélenchon is more in line with the left-wing electorate than Hollande's right-wing policies, but obviously this stuff is polarizing, so the right (and the pseudo-left governing) would basically depict him as, you know, a “leftist extremist”.
The difference with Corbyn is also that he left the PS, and considers it irreformable from the inside.
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On October 09 2016 20:34 Artisreal wrote:
Provocatively speaking, diddn't that attitude lead to Gore loosing vs. Bush?
Yeah, we have the “lesser of two evils” blackmail here too; here the pseudo-left calls it vote utile (useful vote), basically saying that all voices for other candidates are voices for the right or the far-right. But since Hollande led a right-wing policy, the argument lost much of its strength. Since they pretty much failed in everything, this is literally the only argument they can come up with: OH MY GOD LOOK, THE RIGHT IS WORSE! This is quite pathetic.
On October 09 2016 20:46 Artisreal wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2016 20:38 corumjhaelen wrote:
And Jospin not getting to the second turn in 2002 yadayadayada... French don't care that much, rightfully so. Was that an answer to my point? How is it not scary to have Le Pen as president? Parlamentary powers shift over the course of time. While she might not have a majority at the start, it can happen over time, right? I'd imagine that to be as if Germany would have a chancellor made of a fusion between Seehofer and Petry. ugh.
The neoliberal statu quo is what's scary. Le Pen is merely the monstruous creature of a monstruous order. Had Hollande respected his own promises instead of betraying, she whouldn't be so high in the polls. Their fault for giving up.
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On October 09 2016 21:33 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2016 20:40 Dan HH wrote:On October 09 2016 06:49 WhiteDog wrote:On October 08 2016 01:47 TheDwf wrote:On October 08 2016 01:22 Nyxisto wrote:
I have questions for the French people here, there's a few constellations in the elections in 2017, who makes it when Juppe runs against Sarkozy? Has Melenchon a chance to beat Hollande, and what happens when the second round ends up being Sarkozy/Hollande or Melenchon/Juppe? What about Macron? And is it safe to assume that Le Pen is voted out in the second round if she wins the first regardless who she runs against? In polls, Juppé is slightly favored vs Sarkozy as of now (53/47 for the lastest). It will depend on who comes to vote, some left-wingers might specifically come to eliminate Sarkozy at the second round. Mélenchon has good chances to surpass the candidate of the PS, yes. Those scenarios were not tested. Juppé would beat Mélenchon for sure, don't know for Sarkozy vs Hollande. Macron would probably beat most candidates in the second round, but he won't get there. Too many candidates would compete for the center-left to center-right electorate. Le Pen would probably lose to anyone, yes; though there was a poll in which she would beat Hollande 52/48, but should this unlikely scenario really happen I think he would edge her out. (Even if she wins she would not have the parliamentarian majority afterwards.) One thing for sure, I'll not vote for anybody, except maybe Mélenchon. Why? Whichever the 2nd round candidates will be, surely you can find some difference between them. I can't think of any election where I've disliked the candidates equally You ask me to chose the more likable executor from where I stand, I won't chose between pest and cholera. Either way, it's the people that will force itself on the politics one day or another in France, that's how it always worked.
That's still a choice, I tend to go with cholera over Turkish fatalism
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On October 09 2016 22:26 TheDwf wrote:
Yeah, we have the “lesser of two evils” blackmail here too; here the pseudo-left calls it vote utile (useful vote), basically saying that all voices for other candidates are voices for the right or the far-right. But since Hollande led a right-wing policy, the argument lost much of its strength. Since they pretty much failed in everything, this is literally the only argument they can come up with: OH MY GOD LOOK, THE RIGHT IS WORSE! This is quite pathetic.
But it's a real argument, this "ughh, filthy liberals" finger pointing is completely paralysing the left. It's destroying any ability to govern. Just look at the UK, Cameron just blew his own referendum, the whole leadership had to step down and they'll still absolutely crush Labour in the next election. That's completely hilarious. Social Democracy in Europe isn't exactly doing well so the parties need to consolidate if they actually want to win at some point in the future. In most European countries they could if they'd do that. Is it really worth to give people like Sarkozy or Le Pen a chance again because you desperately need to fight some kind of ideological turf war right now?
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On October 10 2016 01:09 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2016 22:26 TheDwf wrote:
Yeah, we have the “lesser of two evils” blackmail here too; here the pseudo-left calls it vote utile (useful vote), basically saying that all voices for other candidates are voices for the right or the far-right. But since Hollande led a right-wing policy, the argument lost much of its strength. Since they pretty much failed in everything, this is literally the only argument they can come up with: OH MY GOD LOOK, THE RIGHT IS WORSE! This is quite pathetic.
But it's a real argument, this "ughh, filthy liberals" finger pointing is completely paralysing the left. It's destroying any ability to govern. Just look at the UK, Cameron just blew his own referendum, the whole leadership had to step down and they'll still absolutely crush Labour in the next election. That's completely hilarious. Social Democracy in Europe isn't exactly doing well so the parties need to consolidate if they actually want to win at some point in the future. In most European countries they could if they'd do that. Is it really worth to give people like Sarkozy or Le Pen a chance again because you desperately need to fight some kind of ideological turf war right now?
Although Cameron lost, almost all the prominent Brexiteers were also in the Conservative party. Cameron lost the referendum, Labour lost the referendum, the Conservatives won the referendum. It would make no sense to support Brexit and then turn away from the Conservatives because of Cameron, when every other party except UKIP is far more anti-Brexit. Also, Labour are not liberals. If they were, they'd be a lot more popular. The problem in the UK. the EU and the US is a refusal by the left to acknowledge concerns held by the majority of their populations as legitimate, particularly on immigration.
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It wouldn't make sense for the Brexit supporters to turn away from the Conservative party, sure. But it would make sense for every voter in the centre who did not support the Brexit to look for a centre-left alternative, if such an alternative existed. The only demographic that supported the Brexit unanimously was English workers outside of London. Due to the fracture on the left and centre this group for some reason gets to dominate British politics.
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On October 10 2016 01:09 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2016 22:26 TheDwf wrote:
Yeah, we have the “lesser of two evils” blackmail here too; here the pseudo-left calls it vote utile (useful vote), basically saying that all voices for other candidates are voices for the right or the far-right. But since Hollande led a right-wing policy, the argument lost much of its strength. Since they pretty much failed in everything, this is literally the only argument they can come up with: OH MY GOD LOOK, THE RIGHT IS WORSE! This is quite pathetic.
But it's a real argument, this "ughh, filthy liberals" finger pointing is completely paralysing the left. It's destroying any ability to govern. Just look at the UK, Cameron just blew his own referendum, the whole leadership had to step down and they'll still absolutely crush Labour in the next election. That's completely hilarious. Social Democracy in Europe isn't exactly doing well so the parties need to consolidate if they actually want to win at some point in the future. In most European countries they could if they'd do that. Is it really worth to give people like Sarkozy or Le Pen a chance again because you desperately need to fight some kind of ideological turf war right now?
The UK is not a good exemple, if you want an exemple of what the left can do, take an european exemple with the euro, like Syriza. Result is they got roflstomped by the EU elite.
Governing is useless if you can't do anything that contredict what the top tells you to do.
For years the "left" had the exact position that you want it to keep now : they were "responsible" and all. Result is we elected Hollande and he did nothing but textbook liberal policies, which further empowered the FN because reality again proved them to be right : as they were saying for years the left and the right were "the same".
Winning elections is not the end of politics. The left need to build a reasonable opposition before going into power.
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Of course not losing your base is an important issue and one that most Left-Wing parties neglected (the SPD after Schröder lost hundreds of thousands of members), but you also need to have an eye on how broad your appeal among the general population is. You can't just try to energise a small base of dedicated supporters because there's simply a ceiling to how much people you can theoretically reach. I know that anti-NATO and more radical left positions are more popular in France than in other countries, but the goal needs to be at some point to be popular and unified enough to win.
And of course you can say that socialists/SD's across Europe lost appeal after the shift to Third Way politics in the 90's but they made that shift in the first place because they couldn't win with socialist policies in the twenty years before. So this alone doesn't really point in any direction. So maybe the better way to go about things is to again look for a third way to the current conflict rather than going into radical opposition.
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On October 10 2016 05:17 Nyxisto wrote:
And of course you can say that socialists/SD's across Europe lost appeal after the shift to Third Way politics in the 90's but they made that shift in the first place because they couldn't win with socialist policies in the twenty years before. So this alone doesn't really point in any direction. So maybe the better way to go about things is to again look for a third way to the current conflict rather than going into radical opposition.
What are you talking about ? Mitterand was president from 81 to 95 ... And he was elected with the support of communists (who had 30 % of the votes in France, and who have now 2%).
They made that shift because they decided to defend the interests of the rich and people voted for them because the growth that existed from 1950 to 1975 tempered the conflicts of class.
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Didn't Mitterand himself turn economic policies around fairly soon and went from a far-left position to a more moderate one once in office? In many ways it seems like France is going through the same situation Germany went through with a ten year time lag. Mitterand looked like Schmidt(at least in terms of base appeal), Kohl like Chiraq, Hollande is essentially Schröder and if that holds true you're going to get a centre right politician next.
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On October 10 2016 06:08 Nyxisto wrote:
Didn't Mitterand himself turn economic policies around fairly soon and went from a far-left position to a more moderate one once in office? In many ways it seems like France is going through the same situation Germany went through with a ten year time lag. Mitterand looked like Schmidt(at least in terms of base appeal), Kohl like Chiraq, Hollande is essentially Schröder and if that holds true you're going to get a centre right politician next.
Mitterand sacrificed his policies - which were anticapitalist - for the european union (because his policies created a lot of inflation and increased the deficit of the current account due to the european monetary system - they argued to stay or to get out of the european european monetary system and implement protectionism to pursue their policies, and decided to stay). There's not time lag (you forgot the FN in your little scenario, it does not exist in modern germany), just two entirely different economies / countries.
A country that profitted from the euro - the "sick man of europe" who used the cheap euro to ride on the under evaluated currency and accumulate massive amount of surplus thanks to it - and a country that sacrificed everything it wanted for the euro - out of sheer stupidity and fear for the reunification of the old ennemy.
I don't exactly understand your point. Deep down, you seem to believe, like the third way, that there is only one good economic policies, one reasonable, one efficient economic policies, which is the liberalism and that the left, whatever its tendancy, has to accept that to govern. You're a TINA defender or what ?
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On October 10 2016 01:09 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2016 22:26 TheDwf wrote:
Yeah, we have the “lesser of two evils” blackmail here too; here the pseudo-left calls it vote utile (useful vote), basically saying that all voices for other candidates are voices for the right or the far-right. But since Hollande led a right-wing policy, the argument lost much of its strength. Since they pretty much failed in everything, this is literally the only argument they can come up with: OH MY GOD LOOK, THE RIGHT IS WORSE! This is quite pathetic.
But it's a real argument, this "ughh, filthy liberals" finger pointing is completely paralysing the left. It's destroying any ability to govern. Just look at the UK, Cameron just blew his own referendum, the whole leadership had to step down and they'll still absolutely crush Labour in the next election. That's completely hilarious. Social Democracy in Europe isn't exactly doing well so the parties need to consolidate if they actually want to win at some point in the future. In most European countries they could if they'd do that. Is it really worth to give people like Sarkozy or Le Pen a chance again because you desperately need to fight some kind of ideological turf war right now?
There's a reason social democracy is in crisis or dying in many countries: it failed. Social democratic policies are not even viable within the euro zone. You must change the institutional framework in order to conduct a left-wing policy. Refusal or failure to do so simply results in capitulation: austerity, race to the bottom regarding social rights in order to close the gap with other countries, etc.
But even beyond that, there is a massive shift to the right from the PS. In 2011, Manuel Valls was like an outlier in the primary, scoring only 5% with his bizarre right-wing program. Today, he's Prime Minister and polls put him at 45% if he replaces Hollande as the government candidate for the primary. The party isn't even social democratic anymore (only ~30% of them at the last internal congress), it is held by authoritarian, neoliberal conservatives which are virtually indistinguishable from historical right. They claim to be part of the left, but when you look at what they did—not what they say—it's objectively not the case anymore; at best they are centrists. Thus there can be no “turf war” with those people, they are from the other side.
Plus their “useful vote” blackmail only worked because they were the first force of the left. Now that's not even the case anymore since Mélenchon has strong chances to surpass them. So if they truly believe in their own “useful vote” propaganda, they are the one who should withdraw and endorse him! But of course they will never ever do that; and if they were forced to choose between their left and the official right, they would actually choose the latter.
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On October 10 2016 05:17 Nyxisto wrote:
Of course not losing your base is an important issue and one that most Left-Wing parties neglected (the SPD after Schröder lost hundreds of thousands of members), but you also need to have an eye on how broad your appeal among the general population is. You can't just try to energise a small base of dedicated supporters because there's simply a ceiling to how much people you can theoretically reach. I know that anti-NATO and more radical left positions are more popular in France than in other countries, but the goal needs to be at some point to be popular and unified enough to win.
And of course you can say that socialists/SD's across Europe lost appeal after the shift to Third Way politics in the 90's but they made that shift in the first place because they couldn't win with socialist policies in the twenty years before. So this alone doesn't really point in any direction. So maybe the better way to go about things is to again look for a third way to the current conflict rather than going into radical opposition.
A new Third Way between what and what? Either you maintain the neoliberal order, or you terminate it. What's the possible middle ground here?
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On October 10 2016 07:15 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2016 05:17 Nyxisto wrote:
Of course not losing your base is an important issue and one that most Left-Wing parties neglected (the SPD after Schröder lost hundreds of thousands of members), but you also need to have an eye on how broad your appeal among the general population is. You can't just try to energise a small base of dedicated supporters because there's simply a ceiling to how much people you can theoretically reach. I know that anti-NATO and more radical left positions are more popular in France than in other countries, but the goal needs to be at some point to be popular and unified enough to win.
And of course you can say that socialists/SD's across Europe lost appeal after the shift to Third Way politics in the 90's but they made that shift in the first place because they couldn't win with socialist policies in the twenty years before. So this alone doesn't really point in any direction. So maybe the better way to go about things is to again look for a third way to the current conflict rather than going into radical opposition. A new Third Way between what and what? Either you maintain the neoliberal order, or you terminate it. What's the possible middle ground here?
A new third way between social justice/inequality issues in the developed world and the global economy on the other side, who is a giant wealth creator that's not going to go away any more. Just like twenty years ago when Third Way politics became popular The Left should be asking how the the market economy and issues of social justice can be reconciled rather than trying to fall back to some reactionary localism or the state. The nation state is not a holy grail and it's a bad tool to combat most international problems. It's a useful tool to solve problems on a certain level but it's no more infallible than any other organisation.
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Social justice is a joke. Your biggest concerns are built on lies and you even had the president of the USA repeat some of those lies. Go back to the drawing board with that shit.
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You think social justice is a joke because of social justice warriors who hijacked the term. It doesn't have to be a joke if you let more reasonable people define it. I think it's better to avoid that word now because using it can lead to pointless arguments about what is or isn't social justice.
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It really doesn't help that the major points I've come across after disseminating them have been proven to be subversive lies with no real content behind them except very carefully selected studies. So the anger towards it is rather visceral. Rather than spouting a meaningless platitude like social justice, it's much better to say exactly the major points it encompasses. that's something you can debate.
What I've found for the most part is they take what seems unjust, and then used that to spear forward saying that it is proof of injustice that needs correcting. You're absolutely correct that I'd like the loose language defined so that each proposition is up for debate. Because now that I know where some of these ideas are born and they are not tested through rigorous debate with uncontrolled free speech, but collaborative efforts to build a narrative to push forward an agenda. And that's my major gripe with it, if it couldn't handle debate with unfettered free speech it was probably a terrible idea that wasn't truly tested or worth doing.
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Nyxisto the globalization is not an economic phenomena only but a set of regulation that change the sovereignty in the world. If you accept it, you are bound to pursue a certain set of policies, in finance for exemple, and any kind of socialist policies is impossible.
That and capitalist does not work like you seem to believe. Look at the world - redistribution leads to fiscal evasion and increasing debts.
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On October 10 2016 07:15 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2016 05:17 Nyxisto wrote:
Of course not losing your base is an important issue and one that most Left-Wing parties neglected (the SPD after Schröder lost hundreds of thousands of members), but you also need to have an eye on how broad your appeal among the general population is. You can't just try to energise a small base of dedicated supporters because there's simply a ceiling to how much people you can theoretically reach. I know that anti-NATO and more radical left positions are more popular in France than in other countries, but the goal needs to be at some point to be popular and unified enough to win.
And of course you can say that socialists/SD's across Europe lost appeal after the shift to Third Way politics in the 90's but they made that shift in the first place because they couldn't win with socialist policies in the twenty years before. So this alone doesn't really point in any direction. So maybe the better way to go about things is to again look for a third way to the current conflict rather than going into radical opposition. A new Third Way between what and what? Either you maintain the neoliberal order, or you terminate it. What's the possible middle ground here?
What is this so-called "Neoliberal Order" you keep referring to? Considering the fact that government spending and regulation keeps increasing across the EU (which is the opposite of what liberals would advocate), you can hardly say that we are in some kind of era of renewed 19th century industrial liberalism.
What is happening, however, is three things. One, technology and automisation making it possible for owners of capital to make money without having to hire small armies of low-educated workers. A single programmer can come up with an app that can earn him hundreds of thousands. Second, the rise of East Asia as an economic powerhouse, specifically China as the "production plant of the world". Again, this is mainly a problem for low-educated workers because all production that can be moved there, eventually will. After all, people like cheap stuff (a year ago I saw some trade unionists in Brussels who, while taking a break between protesting social injustice, went shopping at Primark). Back in the "Trentes Glorieuses" Europe and the US did not really have any competition when it came to industrial production capacity, and the owners of the production plants ("capitalists") pretty much had nowhere to go so they were forced into social negotiations. Finally, a rapidly aging population, whose healthcare and retirment costs are skyrocketing year on year, while the tax base (the people who pay taxes to be able to fund all this), is getting smaller year on year. By 2050, Belgium will have only 2 working people for every retired one, while the ideal ratio is about 6 to 1.
Then there are also the issues of corrupt and clientelistic government and inefficient, politicised public services, both which are very, very costly to the tax payer.
It would be a lot more constructive if the European left would focus on these issues rather than blaming all of society's woes on an imaginary global conspiracy. Then again, these issues are a bit harder to put into oneliners, making them a lot less appealing to voters.
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EPT
