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On December 06 2016 05:19 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On December 06 2016 04:54 Hryul wrote:On December 05 2016 06:48 Big J wrote:On December 05 2016 06:23 Hryul wrote:On December 05 2016 05:38 Big J wrote:On December 05 2016 03:56 nojok wrote:On December 05 2016 03:31 Noizhende wrote:polls were 50-50 all the time since the last election, which was very close here's a summary of the polls: https://neuwal.com/wahlumfragen/btw we have the first green party president in the world now i think. woohoo! :D also this election for president was probably not as important as the upcoming one for parliament will be, and there the fpö is far ahead in the polls Good news for you but it's still surprising to me that Austria don't share the German approach towards far right given their relatively close experience from WW2. Austria is a strange case of a nation. We used to rule over Germany as a germanic state until Napoleon and Bismarck divided Germany and until the Austrian Empire failed in WW1. So the country was left with no real identity and wanted to join Germany which it did when the Nazis rose to power. After WW2 Austria had to rebuild its own identity which led to neutrality, the lie that we were the first victim of Hitler and therefore also a vastly different cultural approach to dealing with the Nazi past, although real Nazism with its symbols is forbidden just like in Germany. After a few tries to form a Naziesque party ultimately FPÖ suceeded in just being not openly Nazi enough to be forbidden, which at that time was an economic-liberal, germannational miniparty. End of the story is that a clever politician named Jörg Haider took over the right-winged, liberal FPÖ and transformed it into a people's party through right-winged populism. When he couldn't get rid of the Nazi parts of the party he formed a new right-winged party, but died soon after and his new party with him, leaving the field, the established brand FPÖ as "the thrid power" and his techniques of right-winged provocation to exactly those ultraright people he wanted to get rid of. So it is basically a story of making people get used to far-right ideas over a long time. Germany is probably going to take the same road over the longrun, although they have the advantage that AfD didn't take over an established label like FDP (germanys iberals), they have an existing left-wing protest voice (which Austria doesn't, which is why FPÖ is reaching far into the working classes whenever there is no good socialist alternative) and Bavarian conservatives CSU with a much more hardline profile to take on AfD's core topics, assuming there comes a time when this becomes necessary. Well if you're telling the story, you can't leave some parts out. b/c after WWI austria did indeed want to join Germany, but the allies prohibited it. Some years later a guy named Engelbert Dollfuss came to power and transformed Austria into a fascist country. (after a civil war but without genocide.) "Austria" was at that time allied with with Italy b/c they didn't want to join Germany. After a failed coup d'etat by the german nazi party Dollfuss died and Schuschnigg came to power. Hitler turned Italy to an ally of Germany and Austria was left alone. Hitler blackmailed Schuschnigg, but he in turn wanted to hold a referendum if Austria should join Germany or not. Germany invaded Austria two days before the referendum and forged the referendum for Austria to join. Now the water becomes muddy. B/c of the close historical ties with Germany, Schuschnigg ordered the Austrian military to not resist Germany. This resulted in "no bullet" fired while the German invasion. There are pictures published by the Nazi Party which show the Vienna "Heldenplatz" full of people cheering for Hitler while others exist that show that the Heldenplatz was partly empty. And during the war Austrians joined the SS and committed war crimes. During the war however and to ease the transistion there was a document by the allies (moscow declaration) which called "Austria the first victim of Hitler". Most austrian politicians used this as official stance of the country after the war to not look too closely on the war crimes committed by Austrians. it's a very grey subject. Only if you recognize Austro-fascism and their fight for an independent Austria as the legimate government of the people. Which I do not, they were murderers, fascists and surpressors and part of the reason why many Austrians welcomed Anschluss even harder. It's not a grey area, people used to fight with the Nazis in Germany as well. Hitler was put into jail, socialists and communists fought with them on the street and died for a democratic germany. If that was not enough to create a story of germany being a Nazivictim, ÖVP breaking the democratic powers of Austria before Hitler cannot be either. By the power of false analogy the Nazis didn't form the legitemate governemnt of Germany because they were murderers, fascists and surpressors . but maybe you start by telling us what a "legimate government" is and how it can come to power. I said "of the people". Nazis weren't a government of the people either eventually. Neither of which matters, what matters is how people behaved in that time. What I was saying is that Austria was no victim at all. Just because the Austro-fascists in the government were against Anschluss does not make Austria a victim. By no means was that government representative for the Austrian people, which they knew and why they didn't even try to "defend" the country. The vast majority of the Austrian people welcomed the Nazis or at least, were not opposed to them and Austria was fully integrated into Nazi Germany without any resistance. That's why I call the victimization of Austria a lie. Probably a necessary one to rebuild our own state, but if someone is asking why we have been dealing with our past differently than Germany it is important to understand that Austria was given a different conscience than Germany after the war.
Well then the term "legimate government of the people" changes its meaning basically to "undemocratic".
it also seems that you put people who wanted to join Germany because of the common history and people who thought Hitler was right into the same bag: "Nazi".
there's a big difference between welcoming the nazis and not offering any resistance.
but i can cherrypick, too: directly from wiki:
While historians concur that the votes were accurately counted, the process was neither free nor secret. Officials were present directly beside the voting booths and received the voting ballot by hand (in contrast to a secret vote where the voting ballot is inserted into a closed box). In some remote areas of Austria, people voted to preserve the independence of Austria on 13 March (in Schuschnigg's planned but cancelled plebiscite) despite the Wehrmacht's presence. For instance, in the village of Innervillgraten, a majority of 95% voted for Austria's independence. However, in the plebiscite on 10 April, 73.3% of votes in Innervillgraten were in favor of the Anschluss, which was still the lowest number of all Austrian municipalities.
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On December 07 2016 04:58 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Incognoto, that'll be because your question makes no sense. Nationalisation is not socialism. Russia and China is not Socialist. Nationalisation usually occurs because the company is deemed strategic.
I personally agree that taxes should not be used for "The pensions of political fat cats who parasite society while doing nothing for anyone else. That includes useless bureaucrats and public sector workers who retired when they're fifty fucking five" but throwing a strop because you are just angry isn't helpful.
Well let's break out some details then and you'll see where I'm coming from, as well as my incredulousness that anyone take Mélenchon seriously. Linked is his 2012 political project:
http://www.jean-luc-melenchon.fr/brochures/humain_dabord.pdf
I can't be fucked too translate too much since it's a load of garbage which makes me wanna puke but I'll snip out a bunch of stuff which is (a) against individual freedom and (b) communist horseshit. Pay particular attention to what's in bold.
Rétablissement des 35 heures
Droit à la retraite à 60 ans à taux plein
Smic à 1 700 euros brut par mois pour 35 heures
Instauration d’un salaire maximum pour toutes les entreprises
Augmentation immédiate des bourses d’études, élargissement des droits sociaux aux jeunes majeurs
Convocation d’assemblées régionales et nationale pour l’emploi, les qualifications et les salaires Remboursement à 100
% des dépenses de santé Abrogation de la loi Molle sur le logement
Blocage des loyers
Revenu maximum fixé à 360 000 euros par an
Arrêt de la RGPP
Abrogation de la réforme hospitalière, réintroduction des élections paritaires dans les caisses de gestion de la Sécurité
sociale Mesures immédiates contre la précarité et titularisation des 800 000 précaires de la fonction publique
Translated in bold: Maximum salary will be imposed for all companies, rent will be fixed, income will be fixed at no more than €360k/year.
Tell me how it isn't against individual economic freedom to pay the salaries you want to your employees, to not set the price you want as the landlord of a piece of property you own (it's yours, what the fuck) and why anyone shouldn't be allowed to make more than an arbitrary amount each year. That's communist bullshit right there. We should live in free societies, if Zuckerburg struck gold with his Facebook idea then he gets to reap the benefits of that. Should he pay taxes? Yes. Should he give up most of his annual income because a communist regime is in place and doesn't like it when people acquire money? Fuck no.
Let's continue.
Le mode de production actuel ne vise pas la satisfaction des besoins humains. Il donne la priorité au profit à court
terme, laisse de côté des besoins sociaux immenses parce que ceux-ci sont non rentables tout en encourageant les
productions inutiles au bénéfice de la surconsommation des plus riches. Il dégrade gravement les conditions de travail
et d’emploi. Nous lui opposons un nouveau mode de production dont la finalité sera le développement de toutes les
capacités humaines et l’épanouissement de chacun(e) plutôt que l’intérêt du capital.
Translated: Our actual production ways are not geared towards satisfying human needs. It prioritizes short term profit and leaves aside immense social needs because they are not profitable, all while encouraging useless production for the excessive consumption of the rich. It degrades our working conditions and employment. Against this, we will bring a new mode of production whose goal is the development of human capacity and the personal growth of each individual instead of the interest of money.
In other words, the state decides what is produced and what isn't. The state decides and apparently gets to shut down the production of "useless" products.
In other words, the state suddenly decides that Porsche is no longer allowed to exist. The state gets to arbitrarily decide to shut down certain companies because they work in the luxury business. Where's your freedom there? "We don't like your company so we're going to close it, you don't have a say". Why are doctors suddenly not allowed to buy Audi cars if that's what they want? Is Dacia going to become the only brand of cars allowed? This is absurd and completely anti-freedom.
Let's not pretend that these policies aren't extreme left. There's a ton of stuff in there that I could quote and translate to continue my point but I don't think that anyone would read it. Stuff like companies being forced to hire people for example. Mélenchon is a fucking communist nutcase. This is waaaaaaay over the top.
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Actually these income limits are absolutely terrible. Well paying CEO's and administrators are worth their weight in gold and given that there's so few of them reducing their income is nothing but a symbolic gesture anyway. There's a nice part about this in Lee Kuan Yew's biography where he compares Singapore's administrators that are paid competitive market rates with China's officials which are being paid capped rates to 'respect the worker'. The simple result was that Chinese officials are being reimbursed in shady ways, have countless expense accounts, and the inequality in China was still way higher than it was in Singapore. By not paying high wages you also encourage 'revolving door' politics where people only use public offices to make private connections. Term limits are a bad idea for this reason as well, public offices are well handled if they are a valid career path, not just a stepping stone into the private sector.
Just pay them competitive wages upfront, get the best qualified people (and make them stay) and get rid of the symbolic nonsense.
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They are 150% terrible ideas.
A competent CEO who can successfully run a very big company like Renault, Audi, Airbus, etc. are extremely valuable assets. A well run huge company is thousands of employees, lots of added wealth. It's very, very beneficial. Such people absolutely deserve large salaries to reflect that. They should pay taxes yes, but nor should they be punished for earning money.
Companies don't just run themselves. You need business strategies, proper management, decision making, risk assessment, etc. The list goes on. The issue is when (hardcore left wingers and communists alike) demonize such people instead of recognizing that they really do bring something to the table.
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On December 07 2016 03:23 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2016 00:43 TheDwf wrote:Do you think they'd have better chances of going to the second round alone, competing with a large number of other left-wing candidates and with each other, or with most of the left united behind their single candidacy (if they win the primary)? I believe the second to be true. There won't necessarily be more left-wing candidates than in the last election; the problem is not the amount of candidates, but the fact that Hollande and Valls' policies made left-wing electors flee and shifted the whole political spectrum to the right. “Most of the left” wouldn't be united beyond a single candidature, because by definition a single candidature cannot synthetize opposite options. If Mélenchon lost the primary, his voters would never vote Valls or vice versa. That's what people who plead for a single candidature don't want to admit or understand. People who were in the streets to protest against Hollande-Valls-Macron's labour reform won't ever vote for them. People who (mostly) agreed with that reform won't ever vote for Mélenchon (they would vote for a center-right candidate like Bayrou instead). You cannot possibly fathom how deep the fracture is between those orientations. One of the problems is the number of candidates. It allows for the policy/ideological fragmentation of the left to translate itself into a fragmentation of the votes cast. I agree with you that it can't be assumed that all of these voters would aggregate under a single banner if there was only one left-wing candidate instead of many -- that would most probably not be the case, since you'd find plenty to stay home for the first round or find a way to cast a protest vote. Yet you're deluding yourself if you think that it would not still translate into more votes for the main left-wing candidate than that candidate would receive if he or she was competing against many other left-wing candidates. I'm not saying that having a single left-wing candidate come out of the left primary would magically unite the left and heal all divisions. I'm saying that it would improve the left's chances to reach the second round.
The number of candidates isn't the problem, the overall score and the distribution are. In 2012, Hollande and Mélenchon gathered 90% of the left votes. In the current polls, Valls, Macron and Mélenchon gather 90% of the left votes. The fragmentation you refer to is, again, a PS problem: as of now, Hollande's votes get split between Valls and Macron. Both of them are Hollande's creatures and Hollande's legacy, so why would they be Mélenchon's problem? Not the same ideas, not the same electorate.
Yes, it won't happen because both Mélenchon and Macron are more interested in self-promotion than in having a left-wing candidate that may not be themselves reach the second round. They also probably believe they would not win the primary.
Yeah, except 95% of the non-PS left isn't participating in the PS primary; so either all other candidates are more interested in self-promotion than the holy PS (which of course thinks only about Common Good, and isn't trying at all to save his old ass in a desperate move), or they have too many divergences, ideologically and/or strategically. Macron is probably on an ego trip, but Mélenchon is simply following the same line since 2008.
(Also lol @ blaming others for “self-promotion” when Valls literally pushed Hollande aside to take control of the party after the announced defeat next year.)
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incognoto, taking from the translation, you are interpreting way too much into what melenchon actually said, he's talking about giving incentives to couple individual economic interest with the common good.
yes, that's taking away freedoms necessarily, but what he's talking about is more a case of regulating markets in a way they work more for society as a whole instead of the individual, so he just gave a very general view of left wing economic ideas.
but the thing is, right from this you can't really take a lot, what the actual policies will be, and that's where it gets interesting, because the question is not what you want, but how you are gonna achieve it, and that's not easy, anyway no point in painting the devil on the wall.
edit: lol, sry, i overread the numbers part, hm, interesting things, but those things have a way of working out differently as expected, i think in switzerland they had a debate about fixing maximum wage to ten times the lowest wage in the same company, which was an interesting approach, but i think they didn't do it, although that would have been an interesting experiment.
i don't know anything about the housing situation in france but public housing projects would be a better way to influence housing prices i guess
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On December 07 2016 06:13 Noizhende wrote:
incognoto, taking from the translation, you are interpreting way too much into what melenchon actually said, he's talking about giving incentives to couple individual economic interest with the common good.
yes, that's taking away freedoms necessarily, but what he's talking about is more a case of regulating markets in a way they work more for society as a whole instead of the individual, so he just gave a very general view of left wing economic ideas.
but the thing is, right from this you can't really take a lot, what the actual policies will be, and that's where it gets interesting, because the question is not what you want, but how you are gonna achieve it, and that's not easy, anyway no point in painting the devil on the wall.
It's possible my translation is poor, I kind of half assed it because I didn't really want to spend too much time on this.
However there is no interpreting what the political program says, this guy is a full bown communist. It clearly stipulates many things such as:
- Salary ceiling,
- Income ceiling,
- Rent fixing,
- Closing down companies producing "non-state approved" luxuries,
- Forcing companies to hire people, regardless of whether or not it is appropriate,
- Outlawing hiring temporary workers, interims, interns, etc.
I am not painting any devil on any wall, I am literally taking the 2012 political project which Mélenchon had, translating it and sharing it with everyone else. There is no beating around the bush, these policies are absolutely detrimental to freedom. You don't get to shut down companies because their products are not deemed as "useful to humanity" by the government. You do not force companies to hire people for the sake of hiring them. You do not fix salaries with an arbitrary limit because it is not the government's business to do that.
The government should not be micromanaging the country at a level proposed by this document. People are saying that Mélenchon is just a "true left-winger" and that his policies are not communist. I would like to prove those people wrong, since I can find several very cringe-inducing, extremist policies taken out of the official 2012 pamphlet. Concrete examples of how over the top this guy is. It is unacceptable that people say this person is acceptable; we live in FREE societies.
If left-wingers want to deplore that there are no good left wing parties or politicians, that's fine. However Mélenchon is an extremist and deserves to be treated as such, just like Le Pen.
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On December 07 2016 06:13 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2016 03:23 kwizach wrote:On December 07 2016 00:43 TheDwf wrote:Do you think they'd have better chances of going to the second round alone, competing with a large number of other left-wing candidates and with each other, or with most of the left united behind their single candidacy (if they win the primary)? I believe the second to be true. There won't necessarily be more left-wing candidates than in the last election; the problem is not the amount of candidates, but the fact that Hollande and Valls' policies made left-wing electors flee and shifted the whole political spectrum to the right. “Most of the left” wouldn't be united beyond a single candidature, because by definition a single candidature cannot synthetize opposite options. If Mélenchon lost the primary, his voters would never vote Valls or vice versa. That's what people who plead for a single candidature don't want to admit or understand. People who were in the streets to protest against Hollande-Valls-Macron's labour reform won't ever vote for them. People who (mostly) agreed with that reform won't ever vote for Mélenchon (they would vote for a center-right candidate like Bayrou instead). You cannot possibly fathom how deep the fracture is between those orientations. One of the problems is the number of candidates. It allows for the policy/ideological fragmentation of the left to translate itself into a fragmentation of the votes cast. I agree with you that it can't be assumed that all of these voters would aggregate under a single banner if there was only one left-wing candidate instead of many -- that would most probably not be the case, since you'd find plenty to stay home for the first round or find a way to cast a protest vote. Yet you're deluding yourself if you think that it would not still translate into more votes for the main left-wing candidate than that candidate would receive if he or she was competing against many other left-wing candidates. I'm not saying that having a single left-wing candidate come out of the left primary would magically unite the left and heal all divisions. I'm saying that it would improve the left's chances to reach the second round. The number of candidates isn't the problem, the overall score and the distribution are. In 2012, Hollande and Mélenchon gathered 90% of the left votes. In the current polls, Valls, Macron and Mélenchon gather 90% of the left votes. The fragmentation you refer to is, again, a PS problem: as of now, Hollande's votes get split between Valls and Macron. Both of them are Hollande's creatures and Hollande's legacy, so why would they be Mélenchon's problem? Not the same ideas, not the same electorate.
Firstly, last time I checked, "two" was a different number than "one". So if you admit yourself that Hollande's 2012 votes are mostly split between Valls and Macron, you just agreed with me: the number of left-wing candidates splitting the left-wing vote (in this case the PS vote specifically) is an issue. Secondly, the fact that Mélenchon was already there in the first round of the 2012 election to split the left-wing vote doesn't change the fact that having only one left-wing candidate would increase that candidate's share of the vote. It's obvious that many Mélenchon voters would vote for the winner of the left wing primary if Mélenchon supported him or her, just like it's obvious that many Valls voter would do the same if Mélenchon won the primary. What do you think happened to many of the people who voted for Mélenchon in the first round of the 2012 election? Did they all abstain from voting in the second round, or did many of them vote for Hollande? "Not the same ideas, not the same electorate" is meaningless: idea-wise and policy-wise, Mélenchon has a lot more in common with the PS than with Fillon, and Mélenchon voters prefer the PS to Fillon as well, just like they preferred Hollande to Sarkozy. And vice-versa: most PS voters would likely prefer Mélenchon to Fillon.
On December 07 2016 06:13 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +Yes, it won't happen because both Mélenchon and Macron are more interested in self-promotion than in having a left-wing candidate that may not be themselves reach the second round. They also probably believe they would not win the primary. Yeah, except 95% of the non-PS left isn't participating in the PS primary; so either all other candidates are more interested in self-promotion than the holy PS (which of course thinks only about Common Good, and isn't trying at all to save his old ass in a desperate move), or they have too many divergences, ideologically and/or strategically. Macron is probably on an ego trip, but Mélenchon is simply following the same line since 2008. (Also lol @ blaming others for “self-promotion” when Valls literally pushed Hollande aside to take control of the party after the announced defeat next year.)
The fact that Mélenchon has been following the same line since 2008 doesn't make that line any less of an ego trip. And who's claiming that Valls is selfless? The simple point I'm making is that the best chance the left has of reaching the second round is by uniting behind a single candidate, the winner of the left's primary. That's why all of those more interested in seeing the left in power rather than Le Pen or Fillon should participate in the primary and support its winner -- whether it is Mélenchon, Macron, Valls or someone else.
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On December 07 2016 08:05 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2016 06:13 TheDwf wrote:On December 07 2016 03:23 kwizach wrote:On December 07 2016 00:43 TheDwf wrote:Do you think they'd have better chances of going to the second round alone, competing with a large number of other left-wing candidates and with each other, or with most of the left united behind their single candidacy (if they win the primary)? I believe the second to be true. There won't necessarily be more left-wing candidates than in the last election; the problem is not the amount of candidates, but the fact that Hollande and Valls' policies made left-wing electors flee and shifted the whole political spectrum to the right. “Most of the left” wouldn't be united beyond a single candidature, because by definition a single candidature cannot synthetize opposite options. If Mélenchon lost the primary, his voters would never vote Valls or vice versa. That's what people who plead for a single candidature don't want to admit or understand. People who were in the streets to protest against Hollande-Valls-Macron's labour reform won't ever vote for them. People who (mostly) agreed with that reform won't ever vote for Mélenchon (they would vote for a center-right candidate like Bayrou instead). You cannot possibly fathom how deep the fracture is between those orientations. One of the problems is the number of candidates. It allows for the policy/ideological fragmentation of the left to translate itself into a fragmentation of the votes cast. I agree with you that it can't be assumed that all of these voters would aggregate under a single banner if there was only one left-wing candidate instead of many -- that would most probably not be the case, since you'd find plenty to stay home for the first round or find a way to cast a protest vote. Yet you're deluding yourself if you think that it would not still translate into more votes for the main left-wing candidate than that candidate would receive if he or she was competing against many other left-wing candidates. I'm not saying that having a single left-wing candidate come out of the left primary would magically unite the left and heal all divisions. I'm saying that it would improve the left's chances to reach the second round. The number of candidates isn't the problem, the overall score and the distribution are. In 2012, Hollande and Mélenchon gathered 90% of the left votes. In the current polls, Valls, Macron and Mélenchon gather 90% of the left votes. The fragmentation you refer to is, again, a PS problem: as of now, Hollande's votes get split between Valls and Macron. Both of them are Hollande's creatures and Hollande's legacy, so why would they be Mélenchon's problem? Not the same ideas, not the same electorate. Firstly, last time I checked, "two" was a different number than "one". So if you admit yourself that Hollande's 2012 votes are mostly split between Valls and Macron, you just agreed with me: the number of left-wing candidates splitting the left-wing vote (in this case the PS vote specifically) is an issue.
Macron isn't really a left candidate, so technically it's still one + one centrist who gets some of the center-left votes. Anyway I stand by what's I said, it's the distribution. Their problem is that they neutralize each other since the split is roughly 35:65 (as of now). If it was 20:80 or even 70:30 the PS wouldn't be begging Macron to come to their congress. I mean, if you add 3-4 small candidates who score individually 0.5 to 1%, you multiply candidatures but that's no issue. The problem is less the number of candidates than their relative weight.
Secondly, the fact that Mélenchon was already there in the first round of the 2012 election to split the left-wing vote doesn't change the fact that having only one left-wing candidate would increase that candidate's share of the vote. It's obvious that many Mélenchon voters would vote for the winner of the left wing primary if Mélenchon supported him or her, just like it's obvious that many Valls voter would do the same if Mélenchon won the primary. What do you think happened to many of the people who voted for Mélenchon in the first round of the 2012 election? Did they all abstain from voting in the second round, or did many of them vote for Hollande?
Why are you comparing a second round scenario, in which you're de facto in a “lesser of two evils” logic (with null or abstention as the third choice) if your candidate didn't make it to the second round, with the refusal to be part of the PS primary? Plus the difference between 2012 and now is, well, that Hollande's term happened in between?
Sorry, but you're simply deluded if you think that more than a marginal proportion of Valls' voters would vote for Mélenchon if he won the primary. They would massively fly to any center-left to center-right candidate. Vote transfers can happen from the antiliberal left to the liberal left (80+% from Mélenchon to Hollande in the second round in 2012), but not vice versa in the first round.
"Not the same ideas, not the same electorate" is meaningless: idea-wise and policy-wise, Mélenchon has a lot more in common with the PS than with Fillon, and Mélenchon voters prefer the PS to Fillon as well, just like they preferred Hollande to Sarkozy. And vice-versa: most PS voters would likely prefer Mélenchon to Fillon.
Nope, most of them would vote for a centrist instead. Mélenchon can find some common ground with the left wing of the PS, but not with the right wing (which was hegemonic in this mandate). If the left wing of the PS actually wins this primary, talks can happen. If Valls does, nope. We'll see the actual power balances in January.
The fact that Mélenchon has been following the same line since 2008 doesn't make that line any less of an ego trip.
If you say so!
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On December 07 2016 08:58 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2016 08:05 kwizach wrote:On December 07 2016 06:13 TheDwf wrote:On December 07 2016 03:23 kwizach wrote:On December 07 2016 00:43 TheDwf wrote:Do you think they'd have better chances of going to the second round alone, competing with a large number of other left-wing candidates and with each other, or with most of the left united behind their single candidacy (if they win the primary)? I believe the second to be true. There won't necessarily be more left-wing candidates than in the last election; the problem is not the amount of candidates, but the fact that Hollande and Valls' policies made left-wing electors flee and shifted the whole political spectrum to the right. “Most of the left” wouldn't be united beyond a single candidature, because by definition a single candidature cannot synthetize opposite options. If Mélenchon lost the primary, his voters would never vote Valls or vice versa. That's what people who plead for a single candidature don't want to admit or understand. People who were in the streets to protest against Hollande-Valls-Macron's labour reform won't ever vote for them. People who (mostly) agreed with that reform won't ever vote for Mélenchon (they would vote for a center-right candidate like Bayrou instead). You cannot possibly fathom how deep the fracture is between those orientations. One of the problems is the number of candidates. It allows for the policy/ideological fragmentation of the left to translate itself into a fragmentation of the votes cast. I agree with you that it can't be assumed that all of these voters would aggregate under a single banner if there was only one left-wing candidate instead of many -- that would most probably not be the case, since you'd find plenty to stay home for the first round or find a way to cast a protest vote. Yet you're deluding yourself if you think that it would not still translate into more votes for the main left-wing candidate than that candidate would receive if he or she was competing against many other left-wing candidates. I'm not saying that having a single left-wing candidate come out of the left primary would magically unite the left and heal all divisions. I'm saying that it would improve the left's chances to reach the second round. The number of candidates isn't the problem, the overall score and the distribution are. In 2012, Hollande and Mélenchon gathered 90% of the left votes. In the current polls, Valls, Macron and Mélenchon gather 90% of the left votes. The fragmentation you refer to is, again, a PS problem: as of now, Hollande's votes get split between Valls and Macron. Both of them are Hollande's creatures and Hollande's legacy, so why would they be Mélenchon's problem? Not the same ideas, not the same electorate. Firstly, last time I checked, "two" was a different number than "one". So if you admit yourself that Hollande's 2012 votes are mostly split between Valls and Macron, you just agreed with me: the number of left-wing candidates splitting the left-wing vote (in this case the PS vote specifically) is an issue. Macron isn't really a left candidate, so technically it's still one + one centrist who gets some of the center-left votes. Anyway I stand by what's I said, it's the distribution. Their problem is that they neutralize each other since the split is roughly 35:65 (as of now). If it was 20:80 or even 70:30 the PS wouldn't be begging Macron to come to their congress. I mean, if you add 3-4 small candidates who score individually 0.5 to 1%, you multiply candidatures but that's no issue. The problem is less the number of candidates than their relative weight.
It doesn't matter how you want to qualify Macron, the point stands that he's contributing to splitting the left vote with his candidacy, by drawing some center-left votes to him. And what you mention with regards to the distribution of the vote still boils down to the fact that there are various candidates splitting the vote, because if you had only one candidate instead of many, with the others would-be candidates backing him or her, that candidate would have a broader coalition of voters behind him or her and a higher chance of reaching the second round.
On December 07 2016 08:58 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +Secondly, the fact that Mélenchon was already there in the first round of the 2012 election to split the left-wing vote doesn't change the fact that having only one left-wing candidate would increase that candidate's share of the vote. It's obvious that many Mélenchon voters would vote for the winner of the left wing primary if Mélenchon supported him or her, just like it's obvious that many Valls voter would do the same if Mélenchon won the primary. What do you think happened to many of the people who voted for Mélenchon in the first round of the 2012 election? Did they all abstain from voting in the second round, or did many of them vote for Hollande? Why are you comparing a second round scenario, in which you're de facto in a “lesser of two evils” logic (with null or abstention as the third choice) if your candidate didn't make it to the second round, with the refusal to be part of the PS primary? Plus the difference between 2012 and now is, well, that Hollande's term happened in between? Sorry, but you're simply deluded if you think that more than a marginal proportion of Valls' voters would vote for Mélenchon if he won the primary. They would massively fly to any center-left to center-right candidate. Vote transfers can happen from the antiliberal left to the liberal left (80+% from Mélenchon to Hollande in the second round in 2012), but not vice versa in the first round. On December 07 2016 08:58 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +"Not the same ideas, not the same electorate" is meaningless: idea-wise and policy-wise, Mélenchon has a lot more in common with the PS than with Fillon, and Mélenchon voters prefer the PS to Fillon as well, just like they preferred Hollande to Sarkozy. And vice-versa: most PS voters would likely prefer Mélenchon to Fillon. Nope, most of them would vote for a centrist instead. Mélenchon can find some common ground with the left wing of the PS, but not with the right wing (which was hegemonic in this mandate). If the left wing of the PS actually wins this primary, talks can happen. If Valls does, nope. We'll see the actual power balances in January.
I'm comparing the two because the second round is what happens when there are no alternatives to vote for -- most people who vote tend to vote for the candidate closest to their views, even if he or she is not their ideal candidate. The same would be true if the left had a comprehensive primary which would lead it to only have one main candidate in the first round instead of many.
If both Macron and Mélenchon participated in the primary against the current PS candidates, and if every primary candidate accepted to strongly support the eventual winner (with the winner also accepting to defend a compromise platform to include policy ideas from the other camps), that candidate would without a doubt receive the support of a far from insignificant share of the currently fragmented voters. And even if you were right that it would be only a "marginal proportion" of the voters currently supporting other candidates, that is still better than zero.
Seriously, how can you not acknowledge that Mélenchon would do better in the first round if Valls/Montebourg/Hamon, Macron, possibly Jadot and others were not running and instead supporting his candidacy? And the same is true of Valls alone, of Macron alone, etc. I'm not saying that every supporter of the other candidates would automatically support the winner of the primary, but simply that the winner of the primary would be in a better situation than if he or she was facing other prominent left wing/center-left candidates in the first round.
On December 07 2016 08:58 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +The fact that Mélenchon has been following the same line since 2008 doesn't make that line any less of an ego trip. If you say so!
He's more interested in getting the bragging rights of finishing in front of the PS candidate than in making sure that someone from the left reaches the second round. And he doesn't participate in the left's primary because he's not sure he'd win it. If that doesn't involve ego, I don't know what does.
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Once again, so called primaries are just a trick by 2 parties to try to lock the election. Primaries went from a selection inside a party to open to all (undercover you're with us or against us). I dont know why people should be blame for refusing this...
So much for the credibility of a choice between melenchon and macron in a "left" primary. What a joke.
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kwizach and TheDwf are funny. from where i'm sitting kwizach is trying to americanize the options.
for TheDwf, voting is about the issues but kwizach is trying to make it about the sides. humans don't care about sides dude, they care about issues.
you don't vote for a side, you vote for an issue.
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On December 07 2016 17:03 xM(Z wrote:
kwizach and TheDwf are funny. from where i'm sitting kwizach is trying to americanize the options.
for TheDwf, voting is about the issues but kwizach is trying to make it about the sides. humans don't care about sides dude, they care about issues.
you don't vote for a side, you vote for an issue.
I'm not sure what "Americanizing the options" is supposed to mean, but you're missing the point: as I explicitly stated, Mélenchon and Valls have more in common on the issues than Mélenchon and Fillon. If you're a left-wing voter who cares about the kind of policy that will be enacted by the next government, you should largely prefer Mélenchon, Valls, Montebourg, Hamon and even Macron to Fillon.
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On December 07 2016 17:58 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2016 17:03 xM(Z wrote:
kwizach and TheDwf are funny. from where i'm sitting kwizach is trying to americanize the options.
for TheDwf, voting is about the issues but kwizach is trying to make it about the sides. humans don't care about sides dude, they care about issues.
you don't vote for a side, you vote for an issue. I'm not sure what "Americanizing the options" is supposed to mean, but you're missing the point: as I explicitly stated, Mélenchon and Valls have more in common on the issues than Mélenchon and Fillon. If you're a left-wing voter who cares about the kind of policy that will be enacted by the next government, you should largely prefer Mélenchon, Valls, Montebourg, Hamon and even Macron to Fillon.
You should open your eyes... And btw, history speaks: PS did worst for workers than did the previous government. Oh, and guess who was prime minister? Speaking loudly never made laws.
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On December 07 2016 17:58 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2016 17:03 xM(Z wrote:
kwizach and TheDwf are funny. from where i'm sitting kwizach is trying to americanize the options.
for TheDwf, voting is about the issues but kwizach is trying to make it about the sides. humans don't care about sides dude, they care about issues.
you don't vote for a side, you vote for an issue. I'm not sure what "Americanizing the options" is supposed to mean, but you're missing the point: as I explicitly stated, Mélenchon and Valls have more in common on the issues than Mélenchon and Fillon. If you're a left-wing voter who cares about the kind of policy that will be enacted by the next government, you should largely prefer Mélenchon, Valls, Montebourg, Hamon and even Macron to Fillon. a left-wing voter does not exist.
people listen to words, (try to)understand issues then make a choice based on what issues are real to them(it immediately affects them) vs the degree of trust put in the politician ushering in said words.
you could then later(after the vote) split the voters into categories/sides and add definitions as you see fit, but that is inconsequential to them. they will, time and time again, vote on issues and not on sides.
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On December 07 2016 19:12 Furikawari wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2016 17:58 kwizach wrote:On December 07 2016 17:03 xM(Z wrote:
kwizach and TheDwf are funny. from where i'm sitting kwizach is trying to americanize the options.
for TheDwf, voting is about the issues but kwizach is trying to make it about the sides. humans don't care about sides dude, they care about issues.
you don't vote for a side, you vote for an issue. I'm not sure what "Americanizing the options" is supposed to mean, but you're missing the point: as I explicitly stated, Mélenchon and Valls have more in common on the issues than Mélenchon and Fillon. If you're a left-wing voter who cares about the kind of policy that will be enacted by the next government, you should largely prefer Mélenchon, Valls, Montebourg, Hamon and even Macron to Fillon. You should open your eyes... And btw, history speaks: PS did worst for workers than did the previous government. Oh, and guess who was prime minister? Speaking loudly never made laws.
They're wide open, thanks, and while I'm more than critical of Hollande's presidency, Fillon is still going to push way more deleterious reforms of the welfare state and of the social acquis than Valls and Macron.
On December 07 2016 20:08 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2016 17:58 kwizach wrote:On December 07 2016 17:03 xM(Z wrote:
kwizach and TheDwf are funny. from where i'm sitting kwizach is trying to americanize the options.
for TheDwf, voting is about the issues but kwizach is trying to make it about the sides. humans don't care about sides dude, they care about issues.
you don't vote for a side, you vote for an issue. I'm not sure what "Americanizing the options" is supposed to mean, but you're missing the point: as I explicitly stated, Mélenchon and Valls have more in common on the issues than Mélenchon and Fillon. If you're a left-wing voter who cares about the kind of policy that will be enacted by the next government, you should largely prefer Mélenchon, Valls, Montebourg, Hamon and even Macron to Fillon. a left-wing voter does not exist. people listen to words, (try to)understand issues then make a choice based on what issues are real to them(it immediately affects them) vs the degree of trust put in the politician ushering in said words. you could then later(after the vote) split the voters into categories/sides and add definitions as you see fit, but that is inconsequential to them. they will, time and time again, vote on issues and not on sides.
You're not addressing what I'm writing, so I'll just refer you to my previous posts.
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On December 07 2016 20:15 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2016 19:12 Furikawari wrote:On December 07 2016 17:58 kwizach wrote:On December 07 2016 17:03 xM(Z wrote:
kwizach and TheDwf are funny. from where i'm sitting kwizach is trying to americanize the options.
for TheDwf, voting is about the issues but kwizach is trying to make it about the sides. humans don't care about sides dude, they care about issues.
you don't vote for a side, you vote for an issue. I'm not sure what "Americanizing the options" is supposed to mean, but you're missing the point: as I explicitly stated, Mélenchon and Valls have more in common on the issues than Mélenchon and Fillon. If you're a left-wing voter who cares about the kind of policy that will be enacted by the next government, you should largely prefer Mélenchon, Valls, Montebourg, Hamon and even Macron to Fillon. You should open your eyes... And btw, history speaks: PS did worst for workers than did the previous government. Oh, and guess who was prime minister? Speaking loudly never made laws. They're wide open, thanks, and while I'm more than critical of Hollande's presidency, Fillon is still going to push way more deleterious reforms of the welfare state and of the social acquis than Valls and Macron. QUOTE] On December 07 2016 20:08 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2016 17:58 kwizach wrote:On December 07 2016 17:03 xM(Z wrote:
kwizach and TheDwf are funny. from where i'm sitting kwizach is trying to americanize the options.
for TheDwf, voting is about the issues but kwizach is trying to make it about the sides. humans don't care about sides dude, they care about issues.
you don't vote for a side, you vote for an issue. I'm not sure what "Americanizing the options" is supposed to mean, but you're missing the point: as I explicitly stated, Mélenchon and Valls have more in common on the issues than Mélenchon and Fillon. If you're a left-wing voter who cares about the kind of policy that will be enacted by the next government, you should largely prefer Mélenchon, Valls, Montebourg, Hamon and even Macron to Fillon. a left-wing voter does not exist. people listen to words, (try to)understand issues then make a choice based on what issues are real to them(it immediately affects them) vs the degree of trust put in the politician ushering in said words. you could then later(after the vote) split the voters into categories/sides and add definitions as you see fit, but that is inconsequential to them. they will, time and time again, vote on issues and not on sides.
You're not addressing what I'm writing. [/QUOTE]
These are assumptions based on nothing. He has been prime minister for 5 years and did almost nothing. Yeah, maybe he has "change" like all people that claim they have changed... On the other hand, Valls and Macron did a lot. "Etat d'urgence" (emergency state), "loi travail" (working rules right wing only dreamt about). And that's only for the concrete part.
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On December 07 2016 20:20 Furikawari wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2016 20:15 kwizach wrote:On December 07 2016 19:12 Furikawari wrote:On December 07 2016 17:58 kwizach wrote:On December 07 2016 17:03 xM(Z wrote:
kwizach and TheDwf are funny. from where i'm sitting kwizach is trying to americanize the options.
for TheDwf, voting is about the issues but kwizach is trying to make it about the sides. humans don't care about sides dude, they care about issues.
you don't vote for a side, you vote for an issue. I'm not sure what "Americanizing the options" is supposed to mean, but you're missing the point: as I explicitly stated, Mélenchon and Valls have more in common on the issues than Mélenchon and Fillon. If you're a left-wing voter who cares about the kind of policy that will be enacted by the next government, you should largely prefer Mélenchon, Valls, Montebourg, Hamon and even Macron to Fillon. You should open your eyes... And btw, history speaks: PS did worst for workers than did the previous government. Oh, and guess who was prime minister? Speaking loudly never made laws. They're wide open, thanks, and while I'm more than critical of Hollande's presidency, Fillon is still going to push way more deleterious reforms of the welfare state and of the social acquis than Valls and Macron. On December 07 2016 20:08 xM(Z wrote:On December 07 2016 17:58 kwizach wrote:On December 07 2016 17:03 xM(Z wrote:
kwizach and TheDwf are funny. from where i'm sitting kwizach is trying to americanize the options.
for TheDwf, voting is about the issues but kwizach is trying to make it about the sides. humans don't care about sides dude, they care about issues.
you don't vote for a side, you vote for an issue. I'm not sure what "Americanizing the options" is supposed to mean, but you're missing the point: as I explicitly stated, Mélenchon and Valls have more in common on the issues than Mélenchon and Fillon. If you're a left-wing voter who cares about the kind of policy that will be enacted by the next government, you should largely prefer Mélenchon, Valls, Montebourg, Hamon and even Macron to Fillon. a left-wing voter does not exist. people listen to words, (try to)understand issues then make a choice based on what issues are real to them(it immediately affects them) vs the degree of trust put in the politician ushering in said words. you could then later(after the vote) split the voters into categories/sides and add definitions as you see fit, but that is inconsequential to them. they will, time and time again, vote on issues and not on sides. You're not addressing what I'm writing. These are assumptions based on nothing. He has been prime minister for 5 years and did almost nothing. Yeah, maybe he has "change" like all people that claim they have changed... On the other hand, Valls and Macron did a lot. "Etat d'urgence" (emergency state), "loi travail" (working rules right wing only dreamt about). And that's only for the concrete part.
How is my comment based on "nothing" when it's based on Fillon's record as prime minister for five years and on his current policy platform, which he defends himself as Thatcherite?
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On December 07 2016 21:17 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2016 20:20 Furikawari wrote:On December 07 2016 20:15 kwizach wrote:On December 07 2016 19:12 Furikawari wrote:On December 07 2016 17:58 kwizach wrote:On December 07 2016 17:03 xM(Z wrote:
kwizach and TheDwf are funny. from where i'm sitting kwizach is trying to americanize the options.
for TheDwf, voting is about the issues but kwizach is trying to make it about the sides. humans don't care about sides dude, they care about issues.
you don't vote for a side, you vote for an issue. I'm not sure what "Americanizing the options" is supposed to mean, but you're missing the point: as I explicitly stated, Mélenchon and Valls have more in common on the issues than Mélenchon and Fillon. If you're a left-wing voter who cares about the kind of policy that will be enacted by the next government, you should largely prefer Mélenchon, Valls, Montebourg, Hamon and even Macron to Fillon. You should open your eyes... And btw, history speaks: PS did worst for workers than did the previous government. Oh, and guess who was prime minister? Speaking loudly never made laws. They're wide open, thanks, and while I'm more than critical of Hollande's presidency, Fillon is still going to push way more deleterious reforms of the welfare state and of the social acquis than Valls and Macron. On December 07 2016 20:08 xM(Z wrote:On December 07 2016 17:58 kwizach wrote:On December 07 2016 17:03 xM(Z wrote:
kwizach and TheDwf are funny. from where i'm sitting kwizach is trying to americanize the options.
for TheDwf, voting is about the issues but kwizach is trying to make it about the sides. humans don't care about sides dude, they care about issues.
you don't vote for a side, you vote for an issue. I'm not sure what "Americanizing the options" is supposed to mean, but you're missing the point: as I explicitly stated, Mélenchon and Valls have more in common on the issues than Mélenchon and Fillon. If you're a left-wing voter who cares about the kind of policy that will be enacted by the next government, you should largely prefer Mélenchon, Valls, Montebourg, Hamon and even Macron to Fillon. a left-wing voter does not exist. people listen to words, (try to)understand issues then make a choice based on what issues are real to them(it immediately affects them) vs the degree of trust put in the politician ushering in said words. you could then later(after the vote) split the voters into categories/sides and add definitions as you see fit, but that is inconsequential to them. they will, time and time again, vote on issues and not on sides. You're not addressing what I'm writing. These are assumptions based on nothing. He has been prime minister for 5 years and did almost nothing. Yeah, maybe he has "change" like all people that claim they have changed... On the other hand, Valls and Macron did a lot. "Etat d'urgence" (emergency state), "loi travail" (working rules right wing only dreamt about). And that's only for the concrete part. How is my comment based on "nothing" when it's based on Fillon's record as prime minister for five years and on his current policy platform, which he defends himself as Thatcherite?
Start by reading what I wrote...
His record is close to empty, and yeah, speaking loudly made records, for sure.
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On December 07 2016 20:20 Furikawari wrote:"loi travail" (working rules right wing only dreamt about)
Can you please tell me which articles in the text were bad?
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EPT
