On 2002-03-20 14:15, Sbarro wrote:
What I think:
Stalin was a totalitarian dictator.
But the capitalist dogs put Lenin in power in the first place to destroy Russia in World War I.
Russia became infected with revolution and was subsequently weakened.
Under Stalin Russia became stronger.
He killed too many people but he wasn't as evil as Hitler.
He opposed Nazi and fascist colonialism.
He also opposed American colonialism after World War II.

"He wasn't as evil as Hitler"?????!!!!!

Nonsense! Stalin's body count before WWII even starts is in the millions, perhaps even double digits. One historian calculates (it is difficult given the circumstances) that there may have been as many 12 million Ukrainians alone killed by Stalin before 1940.

Solzhenitsyn presents you with the spector of the hundreds of thousands of Russians who were trying to leave their own country with the defeated German army near the end of the war, the first time in known history that people tried to leave their land with a retreating enemy!

Do you forget that Stalin and Hitler were on the same side for several years?

In any case, there is nothing more ridiculous than "history by body count", i.e. is Hitler "not as bad" as Mao because his body count is lower? Are the leaders who massacred the French Huguenots "not as bad" as Hitler because they had religious motives and "only" massacred a "few" thousand?!

Evil is evil: the body count is irrelevant.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SJ on 2002-03-20 18:51 ]</font>

On 2002-03-20 18:49, SJ wrote:

On 2002-03-20 14:15, Sbarro wrote:
What I think:
Stalin was a totalitarian dictator.
But the capitalist dogs put Lenin in power in the first place to destroy Russia in World War I.
Russia became infected with revolution and was subsequently weakened.
Under Stalin Russia became stronger.
He killed too many people but he wasn't as evil as Hitler.
He opposed Nazi and fascist colonialism.
He also opposed American colonialism after World War II.

"He wasn't as evil as Hitler"?????!!!!!

Nonsense! Stalin's body count before WWII even starts is in the millions, perhaps even double digits. One historian calculates (it is difficult given the circumstances) that there may have been as many 12 million Ukrainians alone killed by Stalin before 1940.

Solzhenitsyn presents you with the spector of the hundreds of thousands of Russians who were trying to leave their own country with the defeated German army near the end of the war, the first time in known history that people tried to leave their land with a retreating enemy!

Do you forget that Stalin and Hitler were on the same side for several years?

In any case, there is nothing more ridiculous than "history by body count", i.e. is Hitler "not as bad" as Mao because his body count is lower? Are the leaders who massacred the French Huguenots "not as bad" as Hitler because they had religious motives and "only" massacred a "few" thousand?!

Evil is evil: the body count is irrelevant.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SJ on 2002-03-20 18:51 ]</font>

Amen and well said!

On 2002-03-20 19:01, HopefulCynic68 wrote:

On 2002-03-20 18:49, SJ wrote:

On 2002-03-20 14:15, Sbarro wrote:
What I think:
Stalin was a totalitarian dictator.
But the capitalist dogs put Lenin in power in the first place to destroy Russia in World War I.
Russia became infected with revolution and was subsequently weakened.
Under Stalin Russia became stronger.
He killed too many people but he wasn't as evil as Hitler.
He opposed Nazi and fascist colonialism.
He also opposed American colonialism after World War II.

"He wasn't as evil as Hitler"?????!!!!!

Nonsense! Stalin's body count before WWII even starts is in the millions, perhaps even double digits. One historian calculates (it is difficult given the circumstances) that there may have been as many 12 million Ukrainians alone killed by Stalin before 1940.

Solzhenitsyn presents you with the spector of the hundreds of thousands of Russians who were trying to leave their own country with the defeated German army near the end of the war, the first time in known history that people tried to leave their land with a retreating enemy!

Do you forget that Stalin and Hitler were on the same side for several years?

In any case, there is nothing more ridiculous than "history by body count", i.e. is Hitler "not as bad" as Mao because his body count is lower? Are the leaders who massacred the French Huguenots "not as bad" as Hitler because they had religious motives and "only" massacred a "few" thousand?!

Evil is evil: the body count is irrelevant.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SJ on 2002-03-20 18:51 ]</font>

Amen and well said!

Double Amen! Look out, Sbarro, Father SJ, our closet Jesuit, seems to be on the warpath again! Ask for forgiveness and straighten out thy wayward historical opinions! :smile:

On 2002-03-20 14:15, Sbarro wrote:

What I think:
Stalin was a totalitarian dictator.
But the capitalist dogs put Lenin in power in the first place to destroy Russia in World War I.

This is actually a half-truth. Lenin was assisted to get back to Russia, IIRC, by the Germans during WW I, in the hopes of destablitizing the Czardom and freeing up the German forces from the east to deal with the British and French in the west. It worked, as far as it went.

It should be kept in mind, though, that 1917 saw two revolutions in Russia, one in March (IIRC) and one in November. The March revolution attempted rather haplessly to replace the Czar with a Western-style liberal democracy. The Bolsheviks did not overthrow the Czar, they overthrew the would-be republicans (small 'r').

Russia became infected with revolution and was subsequently weakened.
Under Stalin Russia became stronger.
He killed too many people but he wasn't as evil as Hitler.

Yes, he was. They were, ultimately, two of a kind. Both were mass murderers ruthlessly prepared to slaughter millions in the interest of their respective ideologies, Nazism in the case of Hitler and Stalinism (I don't think Stalin gave a damn either way about theoretical Communism) in the case of Stalin.

However, a truth should be added here. Some Western intellectuals have tried to paint Lenin as a sympathetic character in retrospect, implying that Stalin was the real source of the mass horror.

Sorry, won't fly. Under Lenin, many of the very horrors that Stalin would later expand were set in motion. Lenin's hands were very nearly as bloodsoaked as those of his successor. The secret police, the mass (and quite intentional) starvations, the ruthless attempts to artificially compact a century of development into a few painful years, the systematic distortions of history, the roots of all these were under Lenin.

Incidentally, Lenin had a phrase for those sorts of Westerner who have tried to paint him as sympathetic. He called them useful idiots.

He opposed Nazi and fascist colonialism.
He also opposed American colonialism after World War II.

Yes, so that he could replace Euro-American colonialism with Russo-Communist colonialism.
Or did you imagine that Russia was aiding the Communist movements of other nations out of idealistic concern?

On 2002-03-20 17:00, Sbarro wrote:
If Europe wants to save itself it needs real socialism and not socialized capitalism which is becoming less social and more capitalist. Until then, it has the worst of both systems and the advantages of neither.

If Europe wants to be anything at all other than a satellary appendage of the United States, they are going to have to rework their who approach from the ground up.

Which, in fact, I think they will do.

On 2002-03-20 19:14, HopefulCynic68 wrote:

On 2002-03-20 14:15, Sbarro wrote:

What I think:
Stalin was a totalitarian dictator.
But the capitalist dogs put Lenin in power in the first place to destroy Russia in World War I.

This is actually a half-truth. Lenin was assisted to get back to Russia, IIRC, by the Germans during WW I, in the hopes of destablitizing the Czardom and freeing up the German forces from the east to deal with the British and French in the west. It worked, as far as it went.

It should be kept in mind, though, that 1917 saw two revolutions in Russia, one in March (IIRC) and one in November. The March revolution attempted rather haplessly to replace the Czar with a Western-style liberal democracy. The Bolsheviks did not overthrow the Czar, they overthrew the would-be republicans (small 'r').

Russia became infected with revolution and was subsequently weakened.
Under Stalin Russia became stronger.
He killed too many people but he wasn't as evil as Hitler.

Yes, he was. They were, ultimately, two of a kind. Both were mass murderers ruthlessly prepared to slaughter millions in the interest of their respective ideologies, Nazism in the case of Hitler and Stalinism (I don't think Stalin gave a damn either way about theoretical Communism) in the case of Stalin.

However, a truth should be added here. Some Western intellectuals have tried to paint Lenin as a sympathetic character in retrospect, implying that Stalin was the real source of the mass horror.

Sorry, won't fly. Under Lenin, many of the very horrors that Stalin would later expand were set in motion. Lenin's hands were very nearly as bloodsoaked as those of his successor. The secret police, the mass (and quite intentional) starvations, the ruthless attempts to artificially compact a century of development into a few painful years, the systematic distortions of history, the roots of all these were under Lenin.

Incidentally, Lenin had a phrase for those sorts of Westerner who have tried to paint him as sympathetic. He called them useful idiots.

He opposed Nazi and fascist colonialism.
He also opposed American colonialism after World War II.

Yes, so that he could replace Euro-American colonialism with Russo-Communist colonialism.
Or did you imagine that Russia was aiding the Communist movements of other nations out of idealistic concern?

To quote Fozzie Bear: Wocka Wocka Wocka! :lol:

Thanks for the addendum! And let me add a comment: I have had a theory for years that there are 2 main reasons why we still tend not to notice Stalin's monstrousness. The first is obvious: he switched to the Allied side, of course, after Hitler turned on him. Our own propagandists turned him into "Uncle Joe" Stalin.

The second is the lack of pictures: we have no newsreel shots of the GULAG, no pictures of the millions of bodies in mass graves in Siberia (and elsewhere), but with the Nazis we have all of those Auschwitz-Buchenwald movies, the staring hollow faces, the corpses being bulldozed, etc.

In an increasingly illiterate age, the picture has become king, and so without similar horrifying images from Siberia, Stalin does not seem "so bad".

"One death might be a tragedy, a million deaths is simply a statistic." Attributed to Stalin

On 2002-03-20 19:27, SJ wrote:
[

To quote Fozzie Bear: Wocka Wocka Wocka! :lol:

Thanks for the addendum! And let me add a comment: I have had a theory for years that there are 2 main reasons why we still tend not to notice Stalin's monstrousness. The first is obvious: he switched to the Allied side, of course, after Hitler turned on him. Our own propagandists turned him into "Uncle Joe" Stalin.

No kidding! I happen to have in my possession a few old propaganda films made by Uncle Sam during World War II, and they are a hoot to watch today. The Russians became the 'peace-loving, freedom-loving, etc' allies against the monstrous Germans.

From my cynical Xer viewpoint today, it's hard to credit that those films were ever taken seriously by their G.I. audience, even at that age.

Or were they? I have also been told, by people who were there, that the G.I.s on the fronts were very cynical about the propaganda machine, and that the main credulous target of the films was not the soldiers, but their Missionary parents and G.I. girlfriends and wives back home.

I wonder how many home-front Lost bought into any of it?

(Not that the Nazi's weren't every bit as bad as the propaganda people were saying! If anything, the reality was worse than the propaganda. But some of the rest of what they were putting out was almost laughable.)

The second is the lack of pictures: we have no newsreel shots of the GULAG, no pictures of the millions of bodies in mass graves in Siberia (and elsewhere), but with the Nazis we have all of those Auschwitz-Buchenwald movies, the staring hollow faces, the corpses being bulldozed, etc.

Very VERY good point, SJ.

Of course, it helps that the American mass media didn't like the anti-Communists in America and the West, and didn't want what they were saying to be true. It's not so much that they lied about the Soviets, as that they wanted the USSR to be something other than what it was so bad that it tended to distort their vision when they looked at it.

On 2002-03-20 19:48, HopefulCynic68 wrote:
It's not so much that they lied about the Soviets....

Take a look at the work of the Pulitzer Prize winning Mr. Walter Duranty of the New York Times. He makes Janet Cooke look like the fountain of TRUTH. HTH

On 2002-03-20 19:48, HopefulCynic68 wrote:

No kidding! I happen to have in my possession a few old propaganda films made by Uncle Sam during World War II, and they are a hoot to watch today. The Russians became the 'peace-loving, freedom-loving, etc' allies against the monstrous Germans.

-snip-

The second is the lack of pictures: we have no newsreel shots of the GULAG, no pictures of the millions of bodies in mass graves in Siberia (and elsewhere), but with the Nazis we have all of those Auschwitz-Buchenwald movies, the staring hollow faces, the corpses being bulldozed, etc.

Both of my Mom's parents came over here from Lithuania around the biginning of 'uncle Joe's' reign. I may have no TV clips, but I will never forget my great-granddad (grandma's side)-- whose first name I bear proudly -- telling me about how the oceanfront 'restaurant' he operated out of his family's dining room got him on a list for liquidation. He hid out in the forest for three years, until the chaos of the war provided him an opportunity ot get his family out. Friends of his who weren't as quick got caught, tortured, and killed. Then there was my grandfather, who at age 11 was 'pressed into the Russian army as a, let us say, 'mine sweeper' -- using, of course his feet to sweep with.



No, Stalin was not nearly as bad as Hitler...
:lol: :lol:

I'm in Stockholm, now, trying to post from a keyboard which is way different from what I'm used to (has umlats and other Scandanavian characters and I have to do a alt 2 to get the "@" sign.

The flight was superbly uneventful -- no delays, glitches, etc... I did have a half-hour wait for my security check and there were lots of Army men stationed near the check point, but once I got past that, things were pretty lax. :smile:

I'll post in a few days on the mood in Stockholm. I haven't hazarded a political discussion with my sister, because I suspect that we have very different views on Israel.

There is a museum of the provinces [Skansen] (sp?) north of town (you can get there by subway) with many old buildings up to the 19th Century. I really enjoyed that but not all the buildings are open in the winter season. HTH

On 2002-03-23 20:04, Virgil K. Saari wrote:
There is a museum of the provinces [Skansen] (sp?) north of town (you can get there by subway) with many old buildings up to the 19th Century. I really enjoyed that but not all the buildings are open in the winter season. HTH

Yesterday was sunny so we went to Skansen. True, many of the buildings were closed, but it was a charming place. It is an open air museum, like you say, with lots of old buildings, as well as animals native to Sweden. My daughter loved the pony ride.

Today, we went to the Pippi Longstocking museum and the Wasa warship. Talk about a farce -- in 1628, the Swedes built a big magnificent warship, set it out to sea on a nice warm summer day with a breeze, and the boat tips over and sinks right in Stockholm harbor. The sinking of the Wasa was the great scandal of Sweden 400 years ago. Anyway, they made a museum into it.

Since I don't speak Swedish, I haven't been able to follow the news or read the newspapers, but my superficial impression is that things are pretty 3T over here. I asked my sister how people reacted to 911. She said that she was terrified when it happened that it might turn into WWWIII, but so far, she has been pleased that its been handled in a much more low-key fashion than she feared. And like me, she is one feminist who hated the Taliban and was glad to see them go! :smile:

Well, tomorrow, its off to see the Royal Castle.

A "What If" by Mr. End of History at the Wall Street Journal of 31 December 1999. The Last Century Could Have Been a German One. The West would have done as well or better with a Kaiser Bill in Euroland.

_________________
"I often think it odd that [History] should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention." Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey, Chapter XIV

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Virgil K. Saari on 2002-03-27 06:48 ]</font>

On 2002-03-27 06:47, Virgil K. Saari wrote:
A "What If" by Mr. End of History at the Wall Street Journal of 31 December 1999. The Last Century Could Have Been a German One. The West would have done as well or better with a Kaiser Bill in Euroland.

_________________
"I often think it odd that [History] should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention." Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey, Chapter XIV

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Virgil K. Saari on 2002-03-27 06:48 ]</font>

Or a confrontation between an Anglo-American alliance against a Europe dominated by Imperial Germany could have provided an alternate scenario for the last 4T. Albeit one with fewer atrocities than what the Nazis committed, as I don't believe the Kaisers would have stood for the sort of cruelties the Nazis were notorious for. (Wilhelm II died in 1941, his son, the Wilhelm III of this scenario, in 1951.) How such an alternate 4T might have turned out would, I feel, have depended greatly on whether the Tsar of that time kept Imperial Russia out of the war, came in on Germany's side, or came in on the side of the Anglo-Americans.

This 4 T will be about European integration, Muslim immigration, and attempts at "labor reform" for Europe. As capital in Europe has become oversaturated and it has run out of new pruchasing power with which to sell its products, European capital is exporting itself to the Third World to reduce its costs
with the labor there and then reexports itself back to Europe for the consumer. I favor globalization because it cheapens both cost of labor in Europe and raises up exploitation in the Third World with new potential to create advanced economies there.
The cost of capital becomes vastly cheaper and the higher economic capacity produces more goods than workers can buy. This produces a vst devaluation and forces the overthrow of capitalist-installed regimes in favor of socialist ones. This occurred in Europe after the last 4th Turning and the cycle is repeating again with a global economy instead of a continent wide one. The great thing about trade is that it produces more wealth needed to raise living standards in the long run.

This is an example of revolutionary fervor in Europe.

U.S. Warns of Easter Terror Threats in
Italy
Wed Mar 27, 2:16 PM ET

ROME (Reuters) - U.S. citizens could be targeted in "terrorist actions"
in four Italian cities on Easter Sunday, March 31, the U.S. government
warned Wednesday.

Washington's embassy in Italy said in a statement the U.S. government
had received "credible reports" that extremist groups were planning
attacks in Venice, Florence, Milan or Verona.

"The reports were specific and credible enough for us to feel that we
had to share them with our citizens living in Italy," a U.S. official told
Reuters, adding that the information had been developed jointly with
Italian officials.

Among possible targets mentioned were places of worship, restaurants,
schools and outdoor events.

The embassy did not specify which extremist groups might be involved
but warned its citizens to "increase their security awareness and avoid
large crowds."

"These (extremist) groups do not distinguish between official and civilian
targets," the embassy said.

Italy sees a huge influx of tourists every year during Easter week. Police
were stepping up security across the country "to prevent any terrorist
action," the public security department told reporters Wednesday night.

A local Florence official also said that the city had taken measures to
prevent any "Middle East" terrorist attacks there.

It is not the first time that the U.S. government has issued such a warning
in Italy.

Following the September 11 attacks, Washington said its citizens in Italy
were particularly vulnerable to terror strikes and investigators earlier this
year said they had uncovered an apparent plot against the U.S. embassy
in Rome.

OSAMA BIN LADEN (news - web sites)'S EUROPE BASE?

A group of Moroccans was arrested with maps of the embassy and a
cyanide compound that police suspect could have been turned into a
lethal chemical bomb. A hole was later found carved into underground
utility tunnels near the facility.

U.S. officials have said they believe Italy is home to the European
headquarters of Osama bin Laden's organization, which they blame for
the September 11 strikes.

Italy has arrested around 30 people on suspicion of links to extremist
Islamic groups since last year's attacks on New York and Washington.

The U.S. government issued a "Worldwide Caution" on March 17,
warning of "credible reports that extremist individuals are planning
additional terrorist actions against U.S. interests."

"Such actions may be imminent and include suicide operations," the
State Department said in a statement. The government did not give
information about specific targets, timing or method of attack.

That warning was issued on the same day a Christian church in
Islamabad was attacked, killing five people and injuring 42. A U.S.
diplomat's wife and daughter were killed in the grenade attack and at
least 14 Americans were among the injured.

Last week an Italian government official was killed in the city of Bologna
by an extremist left wing offshoot of the Red Brigades guerrilla group.
The attack was seen as an internal affair at a time of social tension over
planned labor reform.

Across the country, Italians held candle-lit vigils on Wednesday night to
protest against terrorism.

Well Britain seems to be still in a 3T.

Children face TV trial in the jungle

Amelia Hill
Sunday March 31, 2002
The Observer

Children as young as 12 could be pitted against crocodiles, bears and rhinos in a new BBC project: a Castaway-style docusoap for young people.
In a quest to reintroduce rescued orang-utans to the wild, the young stars of Serious Jungle will learn how to survive in the depths of Borneo's virgin rainforest alongside dangerous animals, forage for food among poisonous plants and build their own shelter.

After a week of intensive survival training by a former Royal Marine, the group will make a gruelling two-day trek into the jungle to build the base in which they will live for two weeks.

'Nothing about this trip is going to be easy,' said Marshall Corwin, a BBC producer who has taken children to Africa and Brazil to report on environmental issues for the youth-orientated current affairs programme Newsround. 'It's going to be the toughest, most testing experience of these children's lives: that's the drama of it.'

Bruce Parry, a Marines' physical trainer who undertook a series of rigorous tests of endurance for the BBC Extreme Lives programme, will spend the first week in Borneo with the children, hardening them for the trials.

The volunteers will also be taught about the plight of the endangered orang-utan at the Sepilok sanctuary in Borneo's Sabah Province.

The idea for the programme came to Corwin while watching Survivor, ITV's rival to Castaway. 'It struck me that because there was no genuine point to it, viewers lost the chance of seeing what it was really like to be in that environment,' he said. ' Serious Jungle has a serious point to it, and because it is focused on children, the viewers will see very clear and honest reactions to their experiences.'

Corwin says the children will be protected, with a doctor and nurse travelling with the group and a helicopter on standby to airlift the children to a hospital within two hours.

'It will feel like the middle of nowhere to the children but in reality there is no way we are going to let them suffer and make big mistakes,' Corwin said.

If the six-part documentary - due to start filming in August and to be screened in December - is a success, Corwin hopes to follow it up with two similar programmes: Serious Arctic and Serious Desert.

The organiser of the trip, Trekforce Expeditions' Alex Paterson, said: 'For the first time these children will be forging relationships that are no longer about what music they like or what trainers they wear. They will change so much during these few weeks that going home to their old friends could be quite difficult for them.'

The search for volunteers is now on, with children invited to apply via the BBC website. The closing date is the end of May, after which 500 children will be selected from the anticipated 8,000 replies.

After telephone interviews, 120 children will be invited to auditions in London, Manchester and Glasgow, and 16 will be selected to attend a final training weekend in the Lake District before the final eight are selected.

'We're not looking for eight future SAS leaders, but we are looking for children with adventurous personalities,' said Corwin.

On 2002-03-31 23:04, Tristan Jones wrote:
Well Britain seems to be still in a 3T.

Children face TV trial in the jungle

Amelia Hill
Sunday March 31, 2002
The Observer

Children as young as 12 could be pitted against crocodiles, bears and rhinos in a new BBC project: a Castaway-style docusoap for young people.
In a quest to reintroduce rescued orang-utans to the wild, the young stars of Serious Jungle will learn how to survive in the depths of Borneo's virgin rainforest alongside dangerous animals, forage for food among poisonous plants and build their own shelter.

After a week of intensive survival training by a former Royal Marine, the group will make a gruelling two-day trek into the jungle to build the base in which they will live for two weeks.

'Nothing about this trip is going to be easy,' said Marshall Corwin, a BBC producer who has taken children to Africa and Brazil to report on environmental issues for the youth-orientated current affairs programme Newsround. 'It's going to be the toughest, most testing experience of these children's lives: that's the drama of it.'

Bruce Parry, a Marines' physical trainer who undertook a series of rigorous tests of endurance for the BBC Extreme Lives programme, will spend the first week in Borneo with the children, hardening them for the trials.

The volunteers will also be taught about the plight of the endangered orang-utan at the Sepilok sanctuary in Borneo's Sabah Province.

The idea for the programme came to Corwin while watching Survivor, ITV's rival to Castaway. 'It struck me that because there was no genuine point to it, viewers lost the chance of seeing what it was really like to be in that environment,' he said. ' Serious Jungle has a serious point to it, and because it is focused on children, the viewers will see very clear and honest reactions to their experiences.'

Corwin says the children will be protected, with a doctor and nurse travelling with the group and a helicopter on standby to airlift the children to a hospital within two hours.

'It will feel like the middle of nowhere to the children but in reality there is no way we are going to let them suffer and make big mistakes,' Corwin said.

If the six-part documentary - due to start filming in August and to be screened in December - is a success, Corwin hopes to follow it up with two similar programmes: Serious Arctic and Serious Desert.

The organiser of the trip, Trekforce Expeditions' Alex Paterson, said: 'For the first time these children will be forging relationships that are no longer about what music they like or what trainers they wear. They will change so much during these few weeks that going home to their old friends could be quite difficult for them.'

The search for volunteers is now on, with children invited to apply via the BBC website. The closing date is the end of May, after which 500 children will be selected from the anticipated 8,000 replies.

After telephone interviews, 120 children will be invited to auditions in London, Manchester and Glasgow, and 16 will be selected to attend a final training weekend in the Lake District before the final eight are selected.

'We're not looking for eight future SAS leaders, but we are looking for children with adventurous personalities,' said Corwin.

I believe it was the old host of Let's Make A Deal who said that the ultimate game show will be one where someone dies.

I believe it was the old host of Let's Make A Deal who said that the ultimate game show will be one where someone dies.

Was that not the premise of Paddy Chayefsky's satire Network with Peter Finch and William Holden and Faye Dunaway? The finale of the movie is a TV show called "The Mao Tse-Tung Hour" which featured an on-air assassination.

This situation follows my belief (unfortunately) that modern life cannot be satirized: we are already living
in a satire in my opinion.

On 2002-04-02 16:10, SJ wrote:


This situation follows my belief (unfortunately) that modern life cannot be satirized: we are already living
in a satire in my opinion.

That's actually a fairly common impression of middle-to-late Third Turning periods, if S&H are to be believed.

Mid to late Unravelings are satires? Definitely. Recall South Park.

Is France still in 3 T mood? Chirac is accused of exploiting race and crime for his reelection campaign. Seems sort of reminiscient of the Republicans circa 1994.

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe...p?story=284444

Also from the UK Independent.

Chirac does seem a bit, well....stiff.

Maybe he has a bit of Bob Dole in him.

He really acts 3T.


Doddery, deceitful, a dead loss: vote Chirac!
He's done all he can to lose the presidency. But it's still not enough
By John Lichfield
14 April 2002
There is a myth that Jacques Chirac is a great campaign performer. He is not. Not this year, anyway. In Rouen last week, the President of the Republic came to the podium before a large, invited crowd of local politicians and supporters. Just as he was about to speak, someone shouted: "Chirac, President." It was a perfect moment to respond off the cuff, to make a joke, to milk the enthusiasm of a captive audience.

President Chirac barely even smiled. He launched mechanically into a long, grinding speech about local government reform, recited comma for comma from the text on his tele-prompters.

A couple of weeks ago, Mr Chirac's main rival, the Socialist Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin got into trouble for describing the President as "old and worn down by power". It was a foolish thing to say. Mr Chirac immediately began to stump around the country with renewed vigour, accompanied as ever by his younger daughter, Claude, who works as his communications chief. She plots his every move, from his choice of tie to fine-tuning his speeches.

Yet Mr Jospin was right. In this bad-tempered, almost moribund French presidential campaign, Mr Chirac, 69, is looking old, even doddery. He was never a great orator but he was always a great exponent of politics as a contact sport, matched only by Bill Clinton among modern politicians in his capacity to charm people at short range. But this year, the charm is wearing thin.

And yet, if you believe the most recent opinion polls (all but one), Mr Chirac is getting away with it. He is getting away, as he has got away with so many things for so many years, with the dip in his once prodigious levels of seductive energy.

It is forecast that he will top the poll in the first round of the presidential election a week today and go on to defeat Mr Jospin narrowly in the two-candidate run-off a fortnight later.

Leave aside the latest, almost risible, allegations that the President fiddled his grocery bills when he was mayor of Paris. Leave aside the far more serious allegations that he was at the centre of a web of corruption at the Paris town hall which harvested millions of pounds in kickbacks for party funds (and, possibly, private holidays). Leave aside the persuasive evidence that Mr Chirac rigged the voting lists in Paris over many years. Leave aside the fact that he has consistently campaigned on family values and conducted scores of extramarital affairs. Leave aside the fact that he has professed belief in everything and its opposite in 35 years as a front-rank politician (anti-Europe, pro-Europe, market values, social values). Even leaving aside all that, Mr Chirac's long career has been a series of political disasters. Other than making the Paris bin collections work on time, it is difficult to point to any significant achievement.

Mr Chirac epitomises a self-serving generation of French politicians that is already giving way at regional and local level to a new generation which is more honest, pragmatic and transparent. And yet, it seems, in a year in which the French public says it is hungry for "change" and disgusted with political mendacity and selfishness, a majority of French people may again vote for Mr Chirac.

I put this seeming conundrum to a number of Mr Chirac's own supporters after the Rouen meeting. It was a conservative, provincial, mostly middle-class, mostly white audience, law-abiding and God-fearing. How could they still vote for this man? The response was angry, defiant, tribal. All the allegations were "relentless dirty tricks by the Socialists". It was the media which "create these things and then call them scandals". Mr Chirac was "a man of the terrain, a man of contact and conviction ... a man of heart". "Chirac has so much charisma, women love him."

These were hard-core Chirac supporters. If you put the same question to the floating and undecided, you find that the President's reputation has been tarnished but the repeated scandals have equally reinforced a widespread and easy conviction that "all politics is rotten".

You would think that the earnest, plodding, competent, broadly honest Mr Jospin, 64, would benefit from this mood. He may yet. The polls are still fluid and notoriously unreliable. So far, however, Mr Jospin has utterly failed to fire the imagination of his left-wing base or build any momentum with swing voters.

This is partly down to Mr Jospin's failings as a candidate. But there is something more to it than that. Normally, it is politicians who lie to the electors. In this bizarre election, the French voters are lying to the politicians.

The first lie is that the French people want "change". Everywhere I have travelled in France, people of left and right have told me they want leaders who will push France forward. On the right, people say that they want less taxation (without being willing to give up much in the way of public services). On the left, people say that they want to improve public services and welfare benefits (without explaining how France will compete in the world if its tax burden is increased even more). People say they want solutions to the growing problems with education, health and state pensions.

But every sensible attempt to address these problems in the past 10 years ? both on the right and the left ? has been resisted successfully by special interest groups, supported by the wider public. The public says it wants change, but it is terrified of it, for fear of losing the many privileges it already has.

The second lie is that the French electorate wants leaders who will be honest and uncomplicated and will do what they promise to do. That may appeal to them at a local or even a prime ministerial level, but not when choosing a president.

With Fran?ois Mitterrand twice and now, maybe, Jacques Chirac twice, the electorate has shown a consistent, presidential preference over two decades for the baroque over the straightforward, for the ageing and roguish, for the marinated in intrigue and shadowed with complexity, rather than the managerial, the predictable, the young or the well-meaning.

There is a French dictum: "Politicians should be like andouillettes [chitterling sausages]. They should smell of shit, though not too much." Mr Chirac has committed the sin of smelling too much: Mr Jospin, it seems, has committed the worse sin of not smelling of anything much at all.

Also from

Millions on strike in Italy.

Italian workers and proletariat are waking up to thier true class interest.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...u/italy_strike

I recently spoke with a professor of science from Germany. Born right after the war, he was raised on pacifism, on the idea that anything military could no longer include Germany, that the military by definition was evil, etc. He was a "68er", the term used in Germany to identify their Baby Boomers involved in the 1968 protests against the Establishment.

But he said quite openly that Germany and all of Europe need the U.S., not vice versa. He has been here several times for extended stays, and sees the U.S. remaining dominant over Europe. That there are now German soldiers involved with Americans against the terrorists: that is an idea that he had to get used to, given his intellectual background. Yet he says he has accepted this, and supports it. The Germans, he says, were quite shocked to discover that some of the 9/11 terrorists used Germany as a training area, one of them even buzzing the cathedral in Cologne in a private plane.

The comment that Europe needs America I found most interesting. And he meant this across the board: economically, politically, militarily. The fear was that America would see Europe as an area of declining influence and importance.

Plane crashed into a skyscraper in Milan belonging to a famous tire company. Is this the start of TFT in Europe?+