The results for Le Pen are certainly scary.

But no less scary is that the French Left was so divided they were willing to vote for any candidate other than Lionel Jospin.

While a lot of people rightly blame the 17 percent that voted for Le Pen not enough is being said to criticize the French left which abandoned Jospin. He may not be a perfect Socialist but he is far better than either Chirac or Le Pen. And he is an honest man of principle even though he has very little charisma.

Frankly, I won't lose too much sleep over the Le Pen thing, though. 83 percent of the electorate did vote against him and that is worth mentioning as well.

I also might say that this election in some respects reminds me of the elections of 1992 and 1994 in the United States when you had right wing insurgents Perot and Buchanan getting large amounts of the vote and Republicans taking the House and Senate. This is not to equate the moderate right of, say Bush, with the extreme right of Buchanan. But the nation as a whole did move rightward in the mid-Unraveling because of rising fears about crime and other social issues.

I'm not sure how far France is along the generational saeculum. Chirac and Le Pen are definitely Silents so that fits well with France still being in an Unraveling. You also have large demonstrations but they are not as massive as they might be. The students in French higher education might still be considered Xers I suppose. And you have the controversy over immigration which sounds a lot like an Unraveling era argument.

Frankly, a lot of this dates to the Algerian War and the large amounts of immigrants coming into France. And there should be a way to be for restricting immigration without being branded a racist. Countries want to uphold thier culture as well and this is not automatically racist. Frankly, it might be a wise idea for both right and left to examine a long held taboo and consider stricter limits on immigration in our own country. I'm not saying it should be stopped altogether. But we don't need over a million coming into this country both legally and illegally every year.

What I think scared me most about Le Pen is when I read that he wanted to prohibit the wearing of head scarves by Muslim women and religious caps by Jewish or Muslim men in French public school. I believe French Republic still upholds the Universal Rights of Man and will reject him for the rabble rouser he is.

On 2002-04-23 14:52, JayN wrote:
The results for Le Pen are certainly scary.

But no less scary is that the French Left was so divided they were willing to vote for any candidate other than Lionel Jospin.

While a lot of people rightly blame the 17 percent that voted for Le Pen not enough is being said to criticize the French left which abandoned Jospin. He may not be a perfect Socialist but he is far better than either Chirac or Le Pen. And he is an honest man of principle even though he has very little charisma.

Frankly, I won't lose too much sleep over the Le Pen thing, though. 83 percent of the electorate did vote against him and that is worth mentioning as well.

Would some of those more Progressively inclined explain why Trotsky (who exponded on the use of Terror) and his self-identified followers get no credit for being even slightly beyond the Pale?


Is Trotskyism a coherent set of ideas or just a grab bag of Progressive resentment? Does it still call for universalism, class warfare, scientific socialism? Just what kind of a left is this Trotskyite left. Please do advise or send along some links.

Are you referring to the United States or France? This may be true for those on the center-left or radical left in France. Although it is worth noting that the French Communist Party did vote in the 1950's to condemn Stalinism and the mass murders of the Stalin era. The French left has also disassociated itself from the USSR. Frankly, the Communists are not as Communist as they used to be.

I think in the US a lot of Progressives and those center-left would consider Trotskeyism beyond the pale. I once got into a big argument with a group of Communists on my college campus. I was and still am a reliable Democratic Party voter. I shouldn't have to defend them. And I don't. That's speaking personally. I have also spoken with other Democrats who are not fond of the radical left. I think even many on even the strong left, though, would dissent from Trotsky or Stalin. And words shouldn't always be taken literally. It's one thing to use "class warfare" rhetoric. Democrats and even some Republicans have done this in the past. McCain, when he protested Bush's tax cuts, almost sounded Marxian. I don't think anyone would accuse him of that.

Someone who is somewhat center-left in the US would be considered slightly center-right by most European standards. A think there was once an article in the New York Times a few years back about the New Dealers at City College in New York and the arguments they had with the Communists during the Depression days. Both sides always accused each other of betraying leftist principles. It was the New Dealers who won the day because they didn't have to justify massacres and oppression. The Commies lost.

And for the record. Even some radical leftists have denounced the likes of Stalin and Trotsky. Our very own Robert Reed, who professes to Marxian leanings, has unequivocally condemned Stalin and his ilk. Stalin and Trotsky were nothing more than left-wing fascists who used socialist sounding rhetoric to justify thier massacres and mass murders. I hope that closes the book on the subject.

On 2002-04-23 15:41, JayN wrote:
And for the record. Even some radical leftists have denounced the likes of Stalin and Trotsky. Our very own Robert Reed, who professes to Marxian leanings, has unequivocally condemned Stalin and his ilk. Stalin and Trotsky were nothing more than left-wing fascists who used socialist sounding rhetoric to justify thier massacres and mass murders. I hope that closes the book on the subject.

But, why were there multiple Trotskyite candidates in the French election, it doesn't seem that closed a book across the Atlantic; and, what is it in Trotsky that appeals at this late date in a fairly prosperous nation such as the Fifth Republic?

I think French politics is more complex than American politics. I can't speak for the French but they have had a much more chaotic history than we have had. The occupation of France, the Napoleonic wars, World War I, the Franco-Prussian War, The Second Empire, and Algeria all come to mind. The closest we have had in our history are the Civil War or the Vietnam era and even those can't match what the French have been through.

Frankly, the French had a lousy twentieth century run. They also had a lousy nineteenth century run. The last time they were on top was the eighteenth century. Napolean was their last hurrah. Like Hitler was the last hurrah of Germany.

I think a lot of French revere the past when they were considered a superpower. Even in the early twentieth century, France was still considered a first rank power by most countries. Today, it just qualifies as a second rate power and it is declining in relative terms when compared with the US, China, or even Great Britain. The only other great power that has fallen so far and so fast was Germany. Russia declined after the Cold War but it is getting up again. France never did.

A lot of French voters are channeling energy they once put into maintaining empire into maintaining socialism. Ideological purity is a kind of comforting substitute for empire. That's why all the European nations, whose empires we helped to dismantle, love to thumb thier noses at us and vote for socialist or communist candidates. They love it when they have an oppurtunity to paint us as imperialists. Some just can't get over the loss of empire.

A lot of it also has to do with the rigid class divisions of European history going back to Roman Empire days and the Middle Ages. Those on the left are more likely to be Trotskeyite because they are deathly afraid of a return to class divisions and those on the right are more likely to vote for the likes of Le Pen because they remain fond of those class divisions.

In sum, it's a real argument of class divsions and Empire versus the idea of a classless society and lack of empire.

Le Pen is incorrectly painted as a fascist. He is actually a strong nationalist who supports the Republic. Before World War II his opinions about immigration and the dress of religious minorities in public school might have been considered mainstream conservatism in France. England, or even the United States. Unfortunately, because of the large number of French Jews murdered in the Holocaust he is considered an extremist. He is, no doubt, a bigot. But he's far from being an advocate of Nuremberg laws. I don't think, in principle, he has a problem with a black or Jew or Muslim being a citizen of France. But he wants them to acknowledge France's Roman Catholic White heritage and agree to keep thier own heritages private with respect to the Catholic heritage in France. He is not talking about throwing all the Jews or Muslims out of France. That's an image you might get from the media. It's true he did make barbaric statements such as mentioning that gas chambers are a detail of history. But that has to be seen in the context of his other statements. In practice, he would probably be no worse than other far-right nationalists like Jorge Haider.

I mentioned before that the Communists, even when using the old fashioned rhetoric to rile up thier followers, are not as Communists as they used to be. The same goes for the Rightists who aren't as Rightist as they used to be. There really are few, if any, true Communists or Fascists anymore. There are still some who use the banner and rhetoric but even they know the clock can't be turned back. With the advent of freer market capitalism, Europe is moving away from extremes of both left and right and finding some virtue in greater moderation.

Here's the core of LePen's agenda as on p. A10 of today's NY Times:

Outlaw abortion and homosexual marriage...
Pay women more benefits who want to stay home with their children...
End legal immigration...
Deport illegal immigrants and eliminate dual nationality...
French citizens receive priority for all jobs and housing...
Separate medical benefit system for foreign workers...
Only French citizens can be teachers in French schools...
Morality classes in schools...
Outlaw both yarmulkes and Muslim headgear in schools...
Expand prisons by 20,000 beds...
Expand the police forces...

This was called an extreme rightist platform.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Stephen Pulaski on 2002-04-23 16:52 ]</font>

Here's the core of LePen's agenda as on p. A10 of today's NY Times:

Outlaw abortion and homosexual marriage...
Pay women more benefits who want to stay home with their children...
End legal immigration...
Deport illegal immigrants and eliminate dual nationality...
French citizens receive priority for all jobs and housing...
Separate medical benefit system for foreign workers...
Only French citizens can be teachers in French schools...
Morality classes in schools...
Outlaw both yarmulkes and Muslim headgear in schools...
Expand prisons by 20,000 beds...
Expand the police forces...

This was called an extreme rightist platform.

[ This Message was edited by: Stephen Pulaski on 2002-04-23 16:52 ]


Stephen

I'll agree with the core of what you are saying. Many of his ideas certainly are extreme and wrong and even fascist. But look at the details before automatically dismissing my hypothesis that Le Pen isn't going to turn back the clock to the days of Nuremberg Germany or Vichy France.

If you take a mainstream conservative in the United States like W. you will see that he would agree with many of the details of Le Pen's proposals.

Proposal 1)Outlaw abortion and homosexual marriage...
Last time I checked the Republican Party officially opposes abortion and gay marriage.

Proposal 2)Pay women more benefits who want to stay home with their children...
Remember when Republicans were debating welfare reform with the Democrats and they wanted to tie welfare benefits with a requirement to get married? As I recall some Republicans like JC Watts or Trent Lott still want that.

Proposal 3)End legal immigration...
Buchananites and even many Bush supporters quietly support this but refrain from saying it for fear of being branded as bigots. You don't have to be a bigot to be opposed to immigration.

Proposal 4)Deport illegal immigrants and eliminate dual nationality...
Now, everyone, even Democrats, support an end to illegal immigration. As for dual nationality, I recall that the US Constitution does prohibit taking an oath of allegiance to foreign monarchs. This rule is not entirely enforced in practice (some US citizens are also citizens of allies like UK, Canada, France, Israel, etc.) but when it comes to actual loyalty to an enemy nation it is enforced. Think of John Walker Lindh.

Proposal 5)French citizens receive priority for all jobs and housing...
This is wrong and discriminatory. But not entirely out of the mainstream either. Remember Prop. 187 and the movement to ban children of illegals in California from attending public schools, even if they were born here? Needless to say, we also have the welfare reform act of 1996 which prohibits foreigners, even ones here legally, from obtaining welfare. And you can't work in this country in most jobs (legally, anyway) unless you are either a citizen or at least a permanent resident.

Proposal 6)Separate medical benefit system for foreign workers...
This is wrong. By requiring foreign workers alone to pay for their healthcar we would limit help to those who can't afford health care on their own and we would insure the spread of communicable disease such as hepatitus or smallpox. As a practical matter it would never be implemented here or there. But even here, foreign workers are not eligible for Medicaid or Medicare if they are sick. They either pay the bill themselves or out of thier own insurance or the hospital has to pick up the costs of care.

Proposal 7)Only French citizens can be teachers in French schools...
Remember the movements for teaching "English Only" in our schools and abolishing Bilingual Education? It's not just right-wingers who support this one. Polls in California, no Dixieland, show vast majorities of HISPANIC parents support English only or primarily for thier children over Bilingual Education. As with everthing else, though, in California that gets passed in referendums the courts have held it up.

Proposal Morality classes in schools...
No problem there. Even President Clinton came out in support (sic) of teaching morality in schools. But what do you mean by "morality"? Many Republicans support mandatory Bible readings in our schools. And the official platform of the Republican Party does support school-based organized prayer, albeit "voluntary".

Proposal 9)Outlaw both yarmulkes and Muslim headgear in schools...
Bigoted? Yes. But before pointing a finger at the French recall liberals who went overboard on the Church-State thing and prohibited Bible readings after class. This required a Supreme Court ruling in 1984 before this practice was officially banned as discriminatory. And there are still some school district that allow Muslim prayer at lunchtime but would never think of allowing a Jew or Christian to pray in the cafeteria during lunchtime. Is discrimination against Christians any more laudable than discrimination against Jews or Muslims?

Proposal Expand prisons by 20,000 beds...
What about all the Republican-dominated state governorships and legistlatures that are building more and more prison cells to house nonviolent as well as violent criminals?
Proposal 9)Expand the police forces...
Many Republicans and some Democrats have supported this. Nuff said on this point.

Oh, the smiley faces above ended up there by accident. I was typing too fast.

JayN: Your points are quite correct. LePen's "extreme rightist" agenda does not seem so outlandish. To be frank, I was shocked that it actually seemed fairly reasonable when plunked into an American political debate. Nobody would laugh at these points as ridiculous...they could disagree of course, and probably many would.

Extreme? That's the opinion of NY Times.

On 2002-04-23 17:35, Stephen Pulaski wrote:
JayN: Your points are quite correct. LePen's "extreme rightist" agenda does not seem so outlandish. To be frank, I was shocked that it actually seemed fairly reasonable when plunked into an American political debate. Nobody would laugh at these points as ridiculous...they could disagree of course, and probably many would.

Extreme? That's the opinion of NY Times.

In the world as seen by the editorial staff at the New York Times, almost everyone is assumed to be already a centrist, the 'center' both nationally and globally being defined as the McGovern/Mondale/Clinton axis of the Democratic Party. Anyone to the right of G. Bush Senior becomes a radical rightist, anyone to the right of William Buckley is a fascist. In their world, that is.

I suppose if I were in France I would simply not vote.
Is there a difference between a racist fascist and a capitalist colonialist?

I suppose on paper but not much.

Let the French masses choose from the pain they have inflicted on themselves.

Lionel Jospin, "socialist" candidate, was defeated. He wasn't a real socialist but he at least had integrity and knew where he stood. He is also the most boring politician since Brezhnev. But at least hew knew the political climate of France and tried to get positive reforms accomplished.

France should not be condemned entirely. It has enough guts to stand up to US imperialism. It wisely refused to allow US warplans to fly over their airspace in 1986 so they could bomb innocent children in Tripoli.

It also refused to provide combat troops to assist the US in Afghanistan. Guess what?
They haven't had any terrorist attacks on the scope of OK City or WTC I, much less WTC II.

And that's with having one in ten Frenchman belonging to the Islamic faith. So much for the xenophobes who argue that Islam is the problem. How many French Arabs have flown planes into the Eiffel Tower or the Elysees or the Cathedral of Notre Dame? Why not? Might it be that the French government has a sensible policy on Palestine? And that's even with all the xenophobia and conflict between native Whites and African Moorish immigrants. Consider all that.

Some additional thoughts on LePen's agenda and Jay N's comments.

On 2002-04-23 17:27, JayN wrote:
Proposal 2)Pay women more benefits who want to stay home with their children...
Remember when Republicans were debating welfare reform with the Democrats and they wanted to tie welfare benefits with a requirement to get married? As I recall some Republicans like JC Watts or Trent Lott still want that.

Christian Conservatives want to give tax credits to women who stay home with their children (as long as they are married and economically dependent on a husband rather than the Government!) That's consistent with LePen. In the USA we try to engineer social policy through the tax system, whereas in France, they give actual handouts. But the idea is the same.

Proposal 3)End legal immigration...
Buchananites and even many Bush supporters quietly support this but refrain from saying it for fear of being branded as bigots. You don't have to be a bigot to be opposed to immigration.

This issue crosses party lines. Lots of liberals want to curtail legal immigration on the grounds that the huge recent increase in immigration has lowered wages for low-skilled native-born workers. Other liberals argue that native-born workers would not take many of the jobs that immigrants take and that immigrants add to overall economic growth, so high immigration is a good thing.

Likewise, conservatives are split between the "lets keep American culture pure" camp (Buchanan) and business interests who like having a large supply of low-wage workers (I believe our President falls in the latter group).

Proposal 5)French citizens receive priority for all jobs and housing...
This is wrong and discriminatory. But not entirely out of the mainstream either. Remember Prop. 187 and the movement to ban children of illegals in California from attending public schools, even if they were born here? Needless to say, we also have the welfare reform act of 1996 which prohibits foreigners, even ones here legally, from obtaining welfare. And you can't work in this country in most jobs (legally, anyway) unless you are either a citizen or at least a permanent resident.

I believe you have to be a U.S. citizen to work for the Federal Government. That may be true for many state and local government jobs. Of course, legal permanent residents can work indirectly for governments as paid contractors.

Proposal 6)Separate medical benefit system for foreign workers...
This is wrong. By requiring foreign workers alone to pay for their healthcar we would limit help to those who can't afford health care on their own and we would insure the spread of communicable disease such as hepatitus or smallpox. As a practical matter it would never be implemented here or there.

But even here, foreign workers are not eligible for Medicaid or Medicare if they are sick. They either pay the bill themselves or out of thier own insurance or the hospital has to pick up the costs of care.

Not quite true. Legal Permanent Residents who have resided in the United States for five years qualify for Medicaid. Any U.S. born child of an immigrant, legal or illegal, also qualifies for Medicaid. And even illegals qualify for emergency medical assistance, as well as immunizations and the like (public good argument).

The Meaning of Le Pen by Mr. Justin Raimondo at Antiwar.com of 24 April 2002. Poujadisme lives...for a short while at least.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Virgil K. Saari on 2002-04-24 15:58 ]</font>

On 2002-04-24 10:01, Jenny Genser wrote:


Christian Conservatives want to give tax credits to women who stay home with their children (as long as they are married and economically dependent on a husband rather than the Government!) That's consistent with LePen. In the USA we try to engineer social policy through the tax system, whereas in France, they give actual handouts. But the idea is the same.

That's not universal, speaking as a Christian conservative myself. Quite a few of us would prefer to go to a flat income tax in part precisely to prevent social engineering by tax manipulation.

The attitude of Christian Traditionalists (which might be a better name than Christian Conservative for a more specific subgroup) toward gender roles in society and marriage is more complex than it is usually caricatured.

Here is a interesting article on the aims of the European far right, in some ways these parties are like One Nation was in Australia in other ways different to One Nation. (One Nation was anti-globalisation and anti-immigrant in it's policies, One Nation publically advocated for Australia to readopt massive levels of protectionism.

Austria Ostracized
From the February 28, 2000 issue: Jorg Haider presaged Le Pen. One reporter saw it coming.
by Anne Applebaum
04/23/2002 12:00:00 AM


WE ARE ALREADY more than a week into Europe's boycott of the Austrian government, but the Sturm und Drang show no sign of blowing over.

For one, all 14 of the European Union members who have frozen high-level bilateral contacts with Austria now face a whole series of deeply traumatic protocol crises. Is the Austrian ambassador to be invited to the meeting, not invited to the meeting, or invited to the meeting but not to drinks afterwards? Can the Austrian minister be received at the level of department chief, at the level of deputy minister, or should he not be received at all? Nor has public interest flagged. Press coverage, television debates, and anxious dinner party chat continues, even in London, where events on the continent rarely raise eyebrows, let alone interest.

And no wonder: In its swift action against Jorg Haider and his Freedom party, now a partner in Austria's new coalition government, Europe has acted with more unanimity than it has shown in years. This, after all, is the same European Union that behaved chaotically in Bosnia, was deeply divided by Kosovo, and has always been unhappy about the denunciation of military dictators anywhere in the world.

Collectively, the EU has never been known to condemn Polish and Russian, or even French and Italian, Communists--people who actively participated in or openly supported totalitarian regimes, as opposed to expressing heavily camouflaged sympathy for them. Nor did it ever dare to ostracize Francois Mitterrand, an actual member of the Vichy government. Yet in the past two weeks, EU members have found themselves able to agree, vehemently, about Haider. "I am used to reading communiques condemning events in Indonesia, Africa, or Chechnya," admitted one EU diplomat, speaking of the union's letter to the Austrian president, "but this took me aback: The language was in a different league." So different is the language, in fact, that it is a touch suspect.

For those who can't quite believe that all of this diplomatic handwringing was really about what it claimed to be about, a quick glance at the website of Jorg Haider's Freedom party is an educational experience. Immediately, one is stopped short: There aren't any swastikas. There aren't any Nazi slogans. There aren't even any little buttons you can click to see a film of the Nuremberg rally. There are, rather prominently displayed, quotations from leading Austrian Jews, testifying to the fact that neither Haider nor his party has ever said or done anything that could be construed as anti-Semitic.

Admittedly, some of these comments are a bit foreshortened. Simon Wiesenthal is (correctly) quoted saying, "Haider never said anything against Israel and has never said anything anti-Semitic." The rest of this quote, not mentioned on the Freedom party website, goes like this:

"His parents were out-and-out Nazis. Haider was educated by them. Much of what he says that is so uncontrolled he heard as a child at home. His party is a Fuhrer party, and he is a dictator in democratic disguise."

That omission aside, much of the website is otherwise void of sensation, being dedicated not to discussions of Austria's past, but rather to Austria's future, and in particular to Haider's 20-point "Contract With Austria." The points include cutting Austria's national debt ("every newborn child comes into the world with debts amounting to the cost of a medium-range car"), reducing the immense bureaucracy, ending state television and radio monopolies by granting private licenses, cutting taxes, fighting crime, and increasing home ownership at the expense of state-run housing associations.

He doesn't, of course, leave out his two best-known policies: fighting immigration and preventing Austria from "losing more of its rights" to the European Union, not surprising since he fought against accession to the EU in 1995. Yet it is striking that most of his agenda, including immigration restrictions, would sit comfortably in the center of the American Republican party, especially its Pete Wilson wing, or even of the British Labour party, particularly its Tony Blair wing, which has itself been publicly toying with the idea of forcing all people entering Great Britain from the Indian subcontinent to pay a deposit of L 10,000 to be forfeited if they fail to return home.

But on the rest of the European continent, Haider's rhetoric--and I'm not talking about the nods and winks to Wehrmacht veterans--is indeed new, radical, and deeply upsetting to the entrenched political elite.

Like many European nations, Austria has been run for the past 50 years by alternating Christian Democrat (soft right) and Social Democrat (soft left) governments whose policies have, over time, become virtually indistinguishable, particularly in the wake of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, which removed the one foreign policy issue that divided them. For the past 13 years, Austria has in fact been run by the most extreme version of this political system: an actual left-right, Social Democrat-Christian Democrat grand coalition whose policies were not only indistinguishable, but identical.

In an economy still dominated by heavy-handed government control, this meant that all appointments--down, according to one observer, "to the level of school headmasters"--were carved up between the two parties. To get ahead in the enormous state sector, you had to first get ahead in one or the other of the political parties. In the years of the grand coalition, they locked up thousands of jobs between them.

This system didn't create corruption on the Russian or Nigerian scale, but it did create a stifling, bureaucratic, undemocratic society, and a stifling, bureaucratic, undemocratic political class which had absolutely no motivation to reform either itself or its country. The obvious solutions to Austria's high unemployment and general sluggishness--cut taxes, cut red tape, cut burdens on employers--were inadmissible, as they would mean fewer jobs for the coalition's members.

Unfortunately, only Jorg Haider was willing to challenge this political monopoly. According to just about every intelligent observer of the Austrian system, his supporters are largely voting not for his bursts of Anschluss nostalgia, but for his anti-establishment, anti-status quo, tax-cutting and red-tape-slashing appeal, and for the youth and outsider status of the ministers he has just appointed to government. No doubt that it is this, just as much as those suggestive phrases about Adolf Hitler and his employment policies, that has made the rest of Europe so nervous.

I first became suspicious of the anti-Haider movement upon realizing that it was being pushed and organized by the Belgians, whose foreign minister, Louis Michels, not only has described the Freedom party's victory as the equivalent of "a resurgence of fascist ideas in Europe," but has called for the cancellation of school trips to Vienna and a boycott on skiing holidays. This is the same Michels who is a member of a Belgian coalition government no less stuffy than the one in Austria.

The Belgian political elite has of late been severely challenged by the swift rise of its own home-grown anti-establishment party, the Flemish Nationalists (yes, there is such a thing), known as Vlaams Blok. According to Frans Crols, the editor of Belgium's leading business magazine Trends, the "puffed-up things the Belgians are doing" in response to the Freedom party's success are "completely for home consumption." Michels, in other words, is trying to prevent any of Belgium's political parties from making similar power-sharing arrangements when, as expected, the good people of Flanders give the Vlaams Blok a third of their vote in national elections next October.

The situations aren't exactly analogous, but they are close enough for discomfort, both in Belgium and elsewhere in Europe: certainly in France, with its National Front, or in Italy, with its Northern League of Piedmontese nationalists, or in Germany, where none of the leading parties, with their interchangeable policies, seems able to come up with real solutions to the country's economic malaise. None of which is to say that Europe is ripe for a rejection of the status quo. Everyone is too comfortable these days to waste time on that kind of nastiness. But Europe is very ripe for a revival of democracy, a rejection of the status quo, and the arrival of anti-establishment political parties and Ross Perot figures, some of whom may turn out to be unpleasant.

In fact, for all of their loud rhetoric in the past few days about the protection of democracy in Europe, the members of the European Union are, as a group, doing their best to suppress it, creating precisely the sort of situation in which Haider and his ilk will flourish. With every passing year, the European Union's own bureaucracy tightens its grip on the internal politics of its members, giving their politicians and their voters less control over their own economic and social policies.

The logic of having a single European currency leads inevitably not only to a single monetary policy but to a single tax policy and a single fiscal policy: Over time, it will become simply impossible for anybody's budget to be way out of line. For better or for worse, depending on your national point of view (many Italians are quite pleased about it), economic decisions will increasingly be taken by bureaucrats in Brussels rather than politicians in national capitals. As the reality of this sinks in, nationalist revivals, complete with anti-EU and anti-foreigner rhetoric, will be unavoidable. Yet the public's concern about European integration--much like its concern about high levels of immigration--are routinely suppressed by the European political elite, which shouts down every objection to the new Greater Europe. The result is an undemocratic European leadership falling all over itself to protect the undemocratic Austrian status quo.

Of course, Haider himself isn't really worth defending in any way or for any reason. Although he hotly insists he has been misinterpreted, Haider is undoubtedly a master of the suggestive phrase, well-designed to appeal to those to whom it is meant to appeal, and equally well-designed for its worst interpretation to be unclear or deniable to outsiders: hence the praise, when speaking to a group of veterans, for those Austrian soldiers who had fought for "order, justice and decency." Bland, empty words to some, meaningful phrases to others.

How sad that he was unable to find another form of patriotism to which he could appeal. And how much sadder that no one from within the system, from the mainstream right or even mainstream left, had the courage to push for the political and economic reforms the country desperately needed years back. And how worrying that outside of Britain and Margaret Thatcher, no one else in Europe has had the nerve to do so either.


A journalist based in Warsaw and London, Anne Applebaum is writing a history of Soviet concentration camps.

Some interesting commentary by Steve Stirling in light of the French Presidental Election.

Le Pen's group, like those who've scored recent successes in Austria, Norway,
Denmark, the Netherlands, and Italy, is a reminder to a certain element in
Europe that they don't get to define the limits of the permissible, nor set
the boundaries of what can be said and what political issues can be raised.

Europe in general and most European countries in particular have a "deficit
in democracy" compared to, say, the United States. The political elite can freeze out people they disapprove of. (Eg., most European countries would have the death penalty if it were put to a popular vote -- most by large majorities.)

This phenomenon is coming to an end, however, and it's about time.


-- I'm more concerned with the appalling moral collapse and spiritual fatigue prevalent in Europe, the defeatism and instinctive appeasment shown in reactions post 9/11 and over current events in the Middle East. Or for that matter in the Balkans over the past decade. Sheer gutlessness and decadence.

A little brutal self-confidence and self-assertion is welcome, even from questionable sources. You can't oppose a sword with a piece of limp pasta. I'd prefer seeing the energy come from more traditional center-right sources, but they seem to lack any sense of collective survival instinct, not to mention mere backbone.

For that matter, Le Pen was and is quite right about the utter, imbecilic folly of letting large numbers of Muslim immigrants establish themselves in Europe, through a combination of dumb short-sighted greed on the right and political correctitude on the left.

It's a problem even in the US, where they're far fewer, where most immigrants come from Western groups like the Latin Americans or easily assimilable ones like the East Asians, and where the native population is demographically more vital with a rising birth rate.

In Europe... sheer, absolute criminal recklessness.

My two cents on the aftermath of the French presidental election.

The suprising thing is not Le Pen; the vote for the far right in France is only slightly up from last presidential election. The suprising thing is that the vote for the Far left skyrocketed, 10% of voters in the presidential election supported the two Trotskyites on the ballot.

This is not like Denmark, Austria or the Netherlands where the far right did make huge gains and the far left made little. Because France has a political and intellectual culture different from the rest of Europe, in the rest of Europe the intellectual and political elite is at odds with most of the population over a wide range of issues. The intellectual and political elite in Europe model themselves on French lines, in France this elite is on their home turf and enjoy reasonable levels of support among the public at large.

In France we should not concern ourselves with the National Front or Le Pen, instead we should concern ourselves with the forces of the far left.

These thoughts came to me in a usenet conversion I had a few weeks back.

Larry Tate?s post on humanities.philosophy.objectivism

As I said before, the political and intellectual leaders of Western Europe, especially France, are decadent and evil. It isn't just that they support the PLO over Israel, they also hate Taiwan, Ireland, the United States, and liberalism in general. They hate America, hate Jews, distrust their citizens, love not just the PLO, but every terrorist group and two-bit anti-American dictator, no matter how odious. There have been strong popular reactions against this elite in Italy, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, Austria, and Denmark. Hopefully this will spread, though I think France, the worst of the countries, the country where Pol Pot was educated, is irredeemable so strong is its national inferiority complex.

My reply

As I said before, the political and intellectual leaders of Western Europe,
especially France, are decadent and evil.

France is the trend setter for Western European intellectuals, there is something whacko about French intellectuals and this is ironically the country which gave the world rationalism. For a group of people
who pride on human rights, French intellectuals are hypocrites. They should be supporting the Israeli's not the PLO, if they use their princples.

It isn't just that they support the PLO over Israel, they also hate Taiwan, Ireland, the United States, and liberalism in general. They hate America, hate Jews, distrust their citizens, love not just the PLO, but every terrorist group and two-bit anti-American dictator, no matter how odious.

Our left-wing (Australian) intellectuals envy the European set, they want so much to be like them.

There have been strong popular reactions against this elite in Italy, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, Austria, and Denmark. Hopefully this will spread, though I think France, the worst of the countries, the country where Pol Pot was educated, is irredeemable so strong is its national inferiority complex.

Same thing is happening in Australia, our intellectual and moral elite
are being discredited to the point, that a government can get extra
votes by bashing them.



_________________
For those about to die, we salute you!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Tristan Jones on 2002-04-25 04:16 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Tristan Jones on 2002-04-25 16:34 ]</font>

Here is a interesting article from the New Republic on why the USA never produced a 'Le Pen'. We Australians did her name was Pauline Hanson.

Quiet Time
by Peter Beinart

In the short story "Silver Blaze," Sherlock Holmes draws Inspector Gregory's attention to "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." "The dog did nothing in the night-time," insists the confused Inspector. "That," Holmes responds, "was the curious incident."

Last month in France, a dog barked at the top of its lungs: Jean-Marie Le Pen placed second in the first round of vot- ing for the French presidency. But while Le Pen's second-place showing was a surprise, his growing popularity wasn't. After all, far-right parties have been gaining steam in Europe for several years now. In 1999 the Vlaams Bloc--whose leader describes himself and Le Pen as "brothers in arms"--won 10 percent of the vote in Belgium. In 2000 Joerg Haider's Freedom Party won 27 percent in Austria. Last September the Progress Party--which wants to cut immigration to 1,000 people per year--won 15 percent in Norway. That same month Germany's Law and Order Offensive--which would deport all asylum seekers--won 19 percent in Hamburg. Two months later the Danish People's Party--whose leader has called for a "holy war" against Islam--won 12 percent in Denmark. And in March the Livable Netherlands Party--which wants to ban all Muslim immigration--became the largest party in Rotterdam. In giving Le Pen 17 percent of the vote, France was simply catching up.

The "curious incident"--the dog that hasn't barked--is the United States. Americans sometimes say that as a country of immigrants we are congenitally immune to the xenophobia that periodically erupts in nations that define themselves in ethnic terms. But that's a historical fallacy-- and I'm not talking about the 1920s. Less than a decade ago the United States would have fit perfectly into the grim litany described above. In 1994, 59 percent of Californians voted to deny health and education services to illegal immigrants. Two years later Pat Buchanan--America's Le Pen--won the Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire. That summer the GOP adopted a positively Buchananesque platform declaring that children born in the United States to foreign parents should no longer automatically become citizens. And in August Bill Clinton signed a welfare bill that denied food stamps to legal immigrants. In the mid-1990s the United States was as nativist as France is now--perhaps more so.

So what happened? The answer is a happy and bipartisan story of political leadership by two men: Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Clinton did not fight xenophobia on principle; after all, he signed the virulently anti-immigrant welfare bill. But he cut off the political oxygen on which nativism relies. Nativism is fueled--in part--by irresponsible left-liberalism. Inthe European Union, excessive regulation and high taxation have contributed to an unemployment rate that today exceeds 8 percent. Such widespread joblessness has not only made native-born Europeans fearful that immigrants will take their jobs; it has also contributed to epidemic levels of unemployment among immigrants themselves (unemployment estimates reach as high as 20 percent among Turkish immigrants in Germany and 35 percent to 40 percent among Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands). And that has fueled racist stereotypes of newcomers as lazy and parasitic.

The same dynamic was starting to play out in the United States. In the four years preceding Proposition 187, California lost 600,000 jobs--many in industries devastated by the cold war's end. California's unemployment rate topped 8 percent, and among Hispanics it topped 11 percent. Had Clinton not broken with left-liberal orthodoxy and cut government spending to reduce the deficit, the United States might never have experienced the '90s boom that banished those economic anxieties--and the resulting racial resentments--in California and across the country.

But Clinton didn't only undermine xenophobia by ensuring that would-be nativists had secure jobs; he undermined it by signing welfare reform, which destroyed the racist belief that immigrants were receiving handouts for doing nothing. Europe's growing anti-immigrant backlash is stoked by the perception that left-liberal political elites are allowing immigrants to play hard-working native Europeans for suckers. But the welfare bill--whatever its moral flaws-- demolished that perception in the United States.

And Clinton undermined anti-immigrant racism in another way as well: He cracked down on crime. The European Union's crime rate grew 6 percent between 1989 and 1999. And just as growing lawlessness--and the perception that the police were too politically correct or too incompetent to stop it--sparked racially tinged anger in American cities in the 1970s, it is doing the same in cities like Paris and Hamburg today. America's 18 percent decline in crime during the '90s, by contrast, has reduced racial tension--not only between whites and blacks but, especially in the West, between whites and immigrant Hispanics. And while Clinton is not directly responsible for that drop in crime, it could not have happened had he not sharply increased the number of police, and the number of prison cells, despite howls from the civil libertarian left.

But if Clinton fought nativism by changing liberalism, George W. Bush has changed conservatism--thus ensuring that nativism's lingering appeal goes unexploited. In the mid-'90s, with Pete Wilson and Pat Buchanan riding high, many commentators assumed that the GOP would use immigration the way it had used affirmative action--to cement the allegiance of the middle- and working-class whites who formed the party's base. To some degree, it is big business--with its thirst for immigrant labor--that has kept that from happening. But it is also the historical accident that in 2000 the party chose as its standard-bearer one of its most committed supporters of immigration. Running for governor in 1994--a year when Proposition 187 was so popular that even California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein didn't speak out against it until three weeks before Election Day--Bush said he would fight any such effort in Texas. When Buchanan spoke in Dallas in August 1995, Bush went after him personally, declaring, "It is easy for some to pick on our friends from the South ... and I don't like it." He even opposed the repeal of bilingual education.

Today many pundits consider Bush's support for immigration a matter of political survival--he's courting a Hispanic vote Republicans desperately need. But that calculus is still by no means received wisdom in the Republican Party. Before September 11, when Bush flirted with an amnesty for Mexican immigrants, many in the congressional GOP expressed concern. And last month, when Bush tried to restore food stamps to some legal immigrants who lost them in the 1996welfare bill, most House Republicans opposed him.

In truth, there remains a reservoir of anti-immigrant sentiment among the GOP base--and in the country at large. But with a popular, pro-immigration Republican in the White House, and without high unemployment or high crime as a spark, nativism has been silenced as a political force. The dog has not barked. And the sound is glorious.

Some comments on the New Republic article that Tristan Jones cited, since I know just a little bit about food stamps and immigrants. :smile:

Quiet Time
by Peter Beinart

(snip)

Clinton did not fight xenophobia on principle; after all, he signed the virulently anti-immigrant welfare bill.

President Clinton signed that welfare reform bill under pressure -- he had vetoed two previous versions and was under the gun to show by the November 1996 election that he fulfilled his campaign promise to "end welfare as we know it". He was adamently opposed to the immigrant restrictions and pointed that out in a statement he released when he signed the bill. He then fought to repeal them and achieved partial success in 1998 legislation that restored food stamps to children, elderly, and disabled who were living legally in the United States when welfare reform was passed.

But if Clinton fought nativism by changing liberalism, George W. Bush has changed conservatism--thus ensuring that nativism's lingering appeal goes unexploited. In the mid-'90s, with Pete Wilson and Pat Buchanan riding high, many commentators assumed that the GOP would use immigration the way it had used affirmative action--to cement the allegiance of the middle- and working-class whites who formed the party's base. To some degree, it is big business--with its thirst for immigrant labor--that has kept that from happening. But it is also the historical accident that in 2000 the party chose as its standard-bearer one of its most committed supporters of immigration. Running for governor in 1994--a year when Proposition 187 was so popular that even California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein didn't speak out against it until three weeks before Election Day--Bush said he would fight any such effort in Texas. When Buchanan spoke in Dallas in August 1995, Bush went after him personally, declaring, "It is easy for some to pick on our friends from the South ... and I don't like it." He even opposed the repeal of bilingual education.

Today many pundits consider Bush's support for immigration a matter of political survival--he's courting a Hispanic vote Republicans desperately need. But that calculus is still by no means received wisdom in the Republican Party. Before September 11, when Bush flirted with an amnesty for Mexican immigrants, many in the congressional GOP expressed concern. And last month, when Bush tried to restore food stamps to some legal immigrants who lost them in the 1996 welfare bill, most House Republicans opposed him.

But yesterday, when the House approved the Farm Bill, they voted to restore food stamp benefits to immigrants who were in the U.S. for five years -- the President's proposal. Assuming the Senate signs off next week, President Bush will have succeeded.

Ann Coulter that same woman who suggested we mass convert the Islamic world to Christianity wrote a very delicious article on why the USA should attack France :lol

Attack France!

FrontPageMagazine.com | December 20, 2001

AS PUNDITS MULL whether America's next target in the war on terrorism should be Iraq or a smaller quarry first ? such as the Sudan or Somalia ? it's time to consider another petri dish of ferocious anti-American hatred and terrorist activity. The Bush doctrine is: We are at war not only with the terrorists, but also with those who harbor them.


Make Comments
View Comments
Printable Article
Email Article



We've got to attack France.

Having exhausted itself in a spirited fight with the Nazis in the last war, France cannot work up the energy to oppose terrorism. For decades now, France has nurtured, coddled and funded Islamic terrorists. (Moreover, the Great Satan is getting a little sick of our McDonald's franchises being attacked on behalf of notoriously inefficient French dairy farmers.)

At the 1972 Olympics, Muslim terrorists assassinated 11 Israeli athletes and one German policeman. Five years later, acting on intelligence from Israeli secret police, French counterespionage agents arrested the reputed mastermind of the massacre, Abu Daoud. Both Israel and West Germany sought the extradition of Daoud. Afraid of upsetting Muslim terrorists, France refused on technical grounds and set him free.

In 1986, Libyan agents of Moammar Gadhafi planted a bomb in a West Berlin discotheque, killing an American serviceman and a Turkish woman. Hundreds more were injured. President Reagan retaliated with air strikes against Libyan military targets ? including Gadhafi's living quarters.

Quaking in the face of this show of manly force, France denied America the use of its airspace. As a consequence, American pilots were required to begin their missions from airbases in Britain. When the pilots finally made it to Tripoli, tired from the long flights and showing a puckish sense of humor, they bombed the French embassy by mistake. POW! So sorry, our mistake.

France has repeatedly decried economic sanctions against Iraq and has accused the United Nations of manufacturing evidence against Saddam Hussein. The U.N., not even the Great Satan. The French U.N. ambassador dismissed aerial photographs of Iraqi military trucks fleeing inspection sites just before U.N. weapons inspectors arrived as ? quote ? "perhaps a truckers' picnic."

Along with the rest of the European Union, France sends millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority every year. Sucking up to the P.A. has really paid dividends to the craven butterbellies. While visiting Arafat in Gaza last year to announce several million more dollars in aid, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin was attacked by angry, stone-throwing Palestinian students.

Earlier this year, France connived with human-rights champions China and Cuba to toss the United States off the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Sudan took America's place, and, if its diplomats are not too bogged down with human torture and slave trading, they are very much looking forward to attending the meetings.

This summer, Paris made Mumia Abu-Jamal an honorary citizen of Paris. In America's cowboy, bloodlust, rush-to-judgment approach to the death penalty, this convicted Philadelphia cop-killer has been sitting on death row ? and giving radio interviews and college commencement addresses ? for 20 years. Since "Mumia" sounds like a Muslim terrorist, Parisians can use the same bumper stickers for the war.

Two weeks into America's war on terrorism, Le Figaro began calling for "American restraint." In polls, 47 percent of the French said they believed the U.S. military action was failing. Seventeen percent thought it was working (which was ? admittedly ? 17 percent more than on the New York Times editorial page). Flaunting France's well-established reputation as a fearsome fighting machine, the French foreign minister, Hubert Vedrine, immediately advised the United States to stop bombing Afghanistan.

The first indictment to come out of the Sept. 11 attacks was of a French national, Zacarias Moussaoui. He is believed to be the intended 20th hijacker on Bloody Tuesday. France quickly moved to extend consular protection for Moussaoui. Intriguingly, French Justice Minister Marylise Lebranchu has demanded that Moussaoui not be executed.

Mlle. Lebranchu seems to have forgotten, but WE ARE THE GREAT SATAN! We also have Moussaoui. It's annoying enough when these celebrated Nazi slayers refuse to extradite terrorists on the grounds that America does not observe the pristine judicial formalities of their pals, China, Cuba and the Sudan. But under what zany theory of international law does France think it can tell us what to do with a terrorist we caught right here on U.S. soil?

The Great Satan is wearying of this reverse hegemony, in which little pipsqueak nations try to impose their pipsqueak values on us. Aren't we the ones who should be arrogantly oppressing countries that unaccountably do not have the death penalty?

And now, as America goes about building support for an attack on Iraq ? guess who's complaining? The turtlenecked chickens are terrified of offending fanatical Muslims and inviting a terrorist attack, but Arab leaders are supposed to face down the vastly larger populations of crazies living in their own countries. While France whines, Turkey ? a predominantly Muslim country, I note ? is preparing its airstrips for a possible U.S. attack on Iraq.

If this is a war against terrorism and not a Eurocentric war against Islam, the conclusion is ineluctable: We must attack France. What are they going to do? Fight us?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ann Coulter is a bestselling author and syndicated columnist. Her latest book is High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton.

Here's hoping the Socialists do well in the French elections on June 16.

Between Chirac and Le Pen I've had enough rightism for a lifetime.

Autumn 2002 | Vol. 12, No. 4 City Journal

The Barbarians at
the Gates of Paris

by Mr. Theodore Dalrymple

http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_...arbarians.html

Jay,
I believe that the LePen phenomenon is analogous to George Wallace during the last American High period. It is probably portending an awakening in progress in France. See my other posts for the reasons why I believe that France is 180 degrees out of phase with the Anglo American seculeum.
Cheers, Chris