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Thank God for France
Whatever you think about Unions and resetting the retirement age, Mike Whitney zeros in on the larger, more important issue of who's running the country and whose interests are being served, and asks, indirectly, whether there is the will to do anything about it? - Ilene
Thank God for France
By MIKE WHITNEY, originally published at CounterPunch
Thank God for France. While American liberals tremble at the idea of sending an angry email to congress for fear that their name will appear on the State Department's list of terrorists, French workers are on the front lines choking on tear gas and fending off billyclubs in hand-to-hand combat with Sarkozy's Gendarmerie. That's because the French haven't forgotten their class roots. When the government gets too big for its britches, people pour out onto to the streets and Paris becomes a warzone replete with overturned Mercedes Benzs, smashed storefront windows, and stacks of smoldering tires issuing pillars of black smoke. This is what democracy looks like when it hasn't been emasculated by decades of propaganda and consumerism. Here's a blurp from the trenches:
Headline:
"French Energy Sector Crippled by Nationwide Strike... French energy facilities are close to total disruption in the wake of nationwide strike against the raise of the retirement age.....France has been hit by numerous protests across the country against a controversial pension reform that would rise the retirement age to 62 from 60....On October 22 morning 80 protesters blockaded Grandpuits oil refinery outside Paris, key supplier for Charles de Gaulle and Orly international airport." (The Financial)
Shut 'em down.
Take note, Tea Party crybabies who moan about restoring "our freedoms" while stuffing the backyard bunker with seed corn and ammo. Glenn Beck won't save you from the "mean old" gov'mint. Liberty isn't free anymore. If you want it, get out of the barko-lounger and organize. The amount of freedom that any nation enjoys is directly proportionate to the amount of blood its people spilled fighting the state. No more, no less. The man who is willing to accept the blunt force of a cop's truncheon on his back is infinitely more praiseworthy than the leftist/rightist scribe crooning from the bleachers. The state isn't moved by lyrical editorials or prosaic manifestos. It responds to force alone, which is why it takes people who are willing to "throw themselves on the gears" of the apparatus and stop it from moving forward. Unfortunately, most of those people appear to live in France.
The resistance is steadily building in France. The budding rebellion is cropping up everywhere---"secondary schools, train stations, refineries and highways have been blockaded, there have been occupations of public buildings, workplaces, commercial centers, directed cuts of electricity, and ransacking of electoral institutions and town halls..." And the big unions are calling for more strikes, more agitation, more ferment.
For more than a week, transportation has been blocked across the France due to the protests by students and workers. Sarkozy's popularity has plummeted. 65% of people surveyed don't like the way the French president is handling the strikes. 79% of the people would like to see Sarkozy negotiate with the Union on terms and conditions, but he won't budge. Thus, the cauldron continues to boil while the prospect of violence rises.
"STRIKE, BLOCKADE, SABOTAGE"
This is from an anonymous striker:
"In each city, these actions are intensifying the power struggle and demonstrate that many are no longer satisfied with the order imposed by the union leadership. In the Paris region, amongst the blockades of train stations and secondary schools, the strikes in the primary schools, the workers pickets in front of the factories, people create inter-professional meetings and collectives of struggle are founded to destroy categorical isolation and separation. Their starting point: self-organization to meet the need to take ownership over our struggles without the mediation of those who claim to speak for workers.
We decided Saturday to occupy the Opera Bastille. This was to disturb a presentation that was live on radio, to play the trouble makers in a place where the cultural merchandise circulates and to organize an assembly there. So we met with more than a thousand people at the “place de la nation”, with banners stating “the bosses understand only one language: Strike, blockade, sabotage." (end of communique)
The action was met with predictable police violence and mass arrests.
The pension turmoil is not limited to France either. US pension funds are underfunded by nearly $3 trillion. Will US workers be as willing as their French counterparts to face the beatings (to defend "what's theirs") or will they throw up their hands and appeal to Obama for help?
There's no question that Washington elites have joined with Wall Street to offload the massive debts from the financial meltdown onto workers and retirees. Nor is their any doubt that they will invoke (what Slavoj Zizek calls) a "permanent state of economic emergency" to justify their actions. That will allow them to move ahead with so-called "austerity measures" that are designed to impoverish workers and strip popular government programs of their funding. The trend towards "belt-tightening" merely masks the ongoing class war which is aimed at restoring a feudal system of royalty and serfs.
This is from an article by economist Mark Weisbrot:
"If the French want to keep the retirement age as is, there are plenty of ways to finance future pension costs without necessarily raising the retirement age. One of them, which has support among the French left – and which Sarkozy claims to support at the international level -- would be a tax on financial transactions. Such a “speculation tax” could raise billions of dollars of revenue – as it currently does in the U.K. – while simultaneously discouraging speculative trading in financial assets and derivatives. The French unions and protesters are demanding that the government consider some of these more progressive alternatives."
But the retirement age is not really the issue at all. This is about union busting and "putting people in their place." It's about "who will call-the-shots" and in whose interests will society be run.
The French are fighting back against this "oligarchy of racketeers" and the ripoff system they represent, while, namby-pamby Americans are neutralized by signing their umpteenth petition or venting their spleen at a Palin rally.
Vive la France. Vive la Résistance.
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The concept of the courageous French seem so well, oxymoronic, so cliche ridden, sovaliant, so existentially philosophical.
Google "French Military Victories"
You've participated in your Ten Minute Hates well, citizen. Ever since those in France refused to join your country's former Hero's "Coalition of the Willing" you've stood at attention and dutifully swallowed all the "Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey" rote; you have earned a gol...er, Paper Star. Just head straight over to your soon to be erected local FEMA 'fun camp' to collect your prize.
Entirely OT I am sure: Speaking of 'google'; I never willingly use that search engine, so how come my firewall keeps getting asked to allow it to update?
Yeah, those pansy-assed French! I think it was no less than Founding Father George Washington who said "Fuck those snail eaters! Who needs 'em?" Or maybe he said "Oh my God, we would have so gotten our ass handed to us if it hadn't been for that heroic band of French Liberty Lovers stepping in and helping me seal the freaking deal here at Yorktown!" Either way, not important. Yeah! Fuck France! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A...
Since we're talking Google, perhaps the Surrender Monkey Gang here can search for a little place called Austerlitz. I wonder if the Russians and Austrians thought the French were soft...
I would be hard pressed to write so many incorrect stereotypes in so few sentences.
I would be hard pressed to find another topic
that elicits so many ignorant cliche-ridden responses. And I dont want to try because Im sure I would be successful... Okay, how about Hugo Chavez? For those left leaning this .... When asked what he thought about the Chavez remark about Bush and the Devil, Rafael Correa replied that it was insult to the devil. For anyone interested in intelligent commentary about socialism, etc., check out James Petras.
I call dibs on Evo Morales!
Best Regards
I was very disappointed about Morales after reading James Petras assessment of the so-called 21st century socialists which pointed out that Morales has all the rhetoric of the left but is doing far less than others like Correa. I also talked with an indigenuous Ecuadorian recently who thinks that Morales is just another thieving, self interested politician ... that puzzled me until I read the Petras article which details what Morales has and mostly hasnt done.
Sorry but the rioters in France and in Greece are all communists. They are not freedom seekers but the installers of authoritarianism who wish to rip off and gain power over the very same people that are getting screwed now.
When I see real Frenchmen fighting in the streets against the unions and against the state then I'll be impressed.
When that fight comes here, and it will, it will be awfully nice that so many of my like minded fellow citizens are armed with those nasty, dangerous assault weapons.
weapons don't assault people, keynesians do. i prefer to call them "defense tools". "assault weapons" is a neurolinguistic programming term designed to infer that a gun owner is assaulting. This rhetoric is coined by the usual elitist scumbags who wish to dominate our lives and/or lead us to our "centrally planned" deaths.
GUN RIGHTS, BITCHEZ!
Hunh. Interesting. Where do you get your innue... I mean facts, 'Miss information'?
RE: France. Some polls say otherwise, IE support for the actions is WIDESPREAD
“Another opinion poll by polling company CSA shows that 71% support the national day of action on October 19, including 89% of public sector workers and 76% of private sector workers. These figures have been steadily increasing since the beginning of the movement, but particularly since September, when 62% expressed their support.”
There was once a time for unions. Unions are now about their own power and extortion of funds from the taxpayers.
Comparing the tea party to unions?? This is the biggest piece of shit I have read in a long time.
Look at the donation page statement on this POS website:
CounterPunch writers file regularly from Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Afghanistan, Iraq, Venezuela, South Africa, India. On the Middle East, indeed, no site offers more resolute, consistent coverage of the monstrous war waged by Israel, the U.S. and Europe on Palestinians’ just demands.
As long as the wealthy are waging a class war against the working class then we need unions.
midtowng, you are, without a doubt, one of the most one-dimensional morons to ever post on these message boards. you are (unknowingly, of course) part of the problem, and you lack an original thought in your infant mind. i feel sorry for the folks with whom you keep company daily. that said, i wish you would spend more time with them and less time with us.
sincerely,
chopper
And I feel exactly the same way, except about you.
come and get some, pussy. what are you made of? man or mouse? i'm sure we can work something out where we both get a chance at the other's throat. i'm looking forward to it. I would absolutely love to release the wrath of pain on you that your ideas have caused others. my pleasure. let me know. i'm sure we can work something out. where there is a will there is a way! :)
"I would absolutely love to release the wrath of pain on you that your ideas have caused others. "
Hahahahaha! That's not bad! Complete and utter bollocks, of course, but you should write for soap operas with your sense for the melodramatic. Honestly, I'm flattered that you think I have so much influence, but I assure you you're exaggerating.
Thanks for the laughs, though.
Hey, are you the real 'Chopper Reid'? Or are you just dressing up?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unkIVvjZc9Y
did you like that? can you believe i just thought of that on the spot with just a few glasses of wine in me? I must have sat for hours and admired that line after i wrote it. do you really think i could make it as a soap opera writer? thanks, bud. :)
anyway, GoinFawr. its no less dramatic than your:
how ambiguously cryptic. gave me shivers.
i'm a little hurt that you didn't comment on my "you thick-headed grasshopper" insult. I've got to tell you, telling off socialist scum like you brings out some old favorites of mine. thanks for the memories.
Yep, 'Coronation Street' called: they need you pal.
Still, you have yet to answer my question about how Norway's economy faired in late 2008, which underpins your inability to correctly define 'socialism', scummy or otherwise.
I would just love to see you ponce around in an Oslo bar spouting your blather, I bet they'd laugh you out into the street with your tail between your legs.
is this your 'data set' for 'socialism'? do they teach statistics in Oslo?
Do you know National Cash Register's earnings in Q3 of 1994? if you do not, this underpins your inability to correctly define 'capitalism', scummy or otherwise. ha, ha. you really are a turkey.
get a clue, monkey. you can fuck off now.
Shit, no I don't know. Have anything remotely relevant to offer?
On the other hand: late 2008; not quite so long ago. Also, last time I checked Norway was a country, not a company.
Don't worry, I understand: You being an American, I can certainly see how those two entirely separate things might be easily conflated by you.
Something happened late that year, something you'd think would stick in the mind of a dramatic guy like yourself; yet Norway, a brazenly 'socialist' country (well, by your standards anyway: really simply more of a democracy than anything else, like most of its ilk)... how did they do?
Really don't want to check it out, hey?
PS
I recommend that in future you refrain from labelling all Norwegians, Finlanders, Dutch, Swedes, Germans et al '"scum" or "scummy". Sweeping gereralisations tend to damage your 'credibility'. <stifles laugh> "Data set"...
i refer to you personally as 'socialist scum', and you make a sweeping generalization about my comment and bring in all Norwegians, Finlanders, Dutch, Swedes, and Germans?
are you sure they all agree with you?
judging by the suicide rate in Norway, apparently they do not.
If the problems are as you describe, then unions are not the solution. Unions that lack power can't help the members, and unions that have the power help only to preserve the very wealthy that you rail against, in both cases leading to their ultimate doom; the former because it's toothless, and the latter because it became the oppressive beast against which it purported to fight.
The current form that labor unions take in this country isn't much help, I must admit. The problem is that they set politics aside in the 1950's and decide that incrimental change via buying political influence was the way to go. It was a stupid and self-defeating idea, and now they are mostly defunct because of it.
However, that does not address the concept of whether we need unions or not. We do, without a doubt.
BULLSHIT
+ 14.5 Trillion
No-one is having a "class war" against anyone, so clearly we don't need Unions. The concept of a class war is part of the world view of Karl Marx, who single-handedly managed to get almost everything completely wrong in his absurdly over simplified picture of economics.
Bull. The class war is ongoing. Just because you aren't aware of it doesn't mean it isn't happening.
I have a feeling IQ'145' is unaware of a lot more than he knows...
Double post, sorry.
And one of the interesting points made by Taleb of black swam fame is that many people of 145 and higher IQ quotients are unaware of a lot more, especially regardink risk, than they know. And these are economists and the other financial professionals. I wonder how many people who reference Taleb have read him.
DOW weekly chart shows the rising wedge contained within the megaphone pattern. This remains a very bearish picture and we should
get a breakout soon.
http://stockmarket618.wordpress.com
What the hell does this have to do with anything?
Blog spam whore. Or blog whore spam, I don't know which.
Just remember the catchy avatar for future junking, as spam is all I've seen in his comments.
Also, the retirement age is not age 62. It was 40 years from the first FULL TIME job, not the first apprenticeship, paid internship, or part time employment. Since the average French kid is first employed around age 25 at a full time job, they were already looking at 65. Now it is 68.
The older generation came into a hot job market in the 70s and early 80s and were able to get their career started earlier in France. However, Sarkozy's attempts at pitching young against old didn't work well, since the Media in France provides context, unlike US Soundbite media.
Think of all the wealth somebody produces in 40 years, even if they flip hamburgers.
Sucks to be a 65 year old Roofer. It's easy to be a 65 year old economist or algo programmer eating doughnuts at a desk.
(Edit: Clarified youth vs. old part)
Hey, friend, dont bother the right wingers with information that is hard to mix with their cliches. Was that from a Counterpunch article recently?
So that's the real deal. Do you have a link?
Sorry, I don't remember the source, it was a few days back. It's called caisonment or something like that. I do remember the clock doesn't start ticking until you start full time employment...
Hear, hear! Once in a while, you have to remind the powers that be who actually gets things done.
A million dollars or even a few pounds of gold locked up in a Vault doesn't produce additional wealth, Labor and Entrepreneurship makes wealth by physical and mental action. Capital is inferior to Labor and Entrepreneurship, and sometimes has to learn it's place when it gets too uppity.
Our society is far too biased in favor of Capital at the expense of Manufacturing and Ideas.
How does the Entrepreneur function without the dollars or the gold ? Who pays the Laborer ? There are exactly two things standing in between you and a miserable death after exsting for 33 years in a mud hut; The Capitilist System, and Technology. Nothing else.
Note that I did NOT say "Capital is useless and should be abolished". I said the system is too favorable to Capital, mostly at the expense of labor and entrepreneurship.
Ideas and Labor make wealth. Capital is helpful, an economic multiplier, a storehouse of wealth. But if you are on a desert island, it's Ideas and Labor that make life livable, not trading seashells back and forth. If you do trade fish for coconuts, it's still the act of fishing and getting coconuts, and the idea of making a rude net or rope ladder that gets them, that's the key. Not trading, which only helps them become more efficient in the long term. If everybody only traded fish and coconuts, then eventually there would be nothing to trade.
And whatever the woo balderdash of Keynesian or Neoliberal economics says, all actors are not equal and possessed of equally perfect knowledge. Any model that rests on those assumptions is nice on the blackboard, intimidating in the boardroom, but total crap in reality. Dressing it up with outdated 1930's era Physics equilibrium models doesn't make it fact. I'm sure one could make some BS models to prove that Miss Cleo really does have psychic powers, just like there are formulas that prove I'm writing this from Botswana right now.
Bull. There are plenty of systems that have money without our version of capitalism. Plus, plenty of people in the world die miserable deaths in mud huts are living in the exact type of Capitalism system that you worship.
Corporatism <> Capitalism!
Capitalism is nothing more than individuals consuming less wealth than they produce, then using the excess (savings) to invest in (own) further means of production to create even more wealth. Communism, on the other hand, does not allow for the private ownership of the means of production, but rather the state is the owner.
++
You forgot to mention that Cuba is a workingman's paradise.
Nor do you know shit about Cuba. What a specialist in ignorance.
Please tell us shit about Cuba.
Please!
How about that Cuba has one of the best medical systems in the world, that they graduate thousands of doctors yearly who work and teach all over this continent, that they train thousands from other countries every year, gratis, including some from poor families in the US. It´s hard to know about Cuba because our own government prohibts most of us from visiting and our totally prostitute press only bad mouths any country not following the neo-conservative agenda.
lawrence1, you do not have a monopoly on the truth, but you may actually have one on utterly useless posts.
when it all comes crumbling down, it will be very nice to finally cut you into ribbons (as blood runs red in the revolutionary streets) for all the pain and hardships your tired viewpoints have caused the hard-working people in America and Europe.
I truly despise assholes like you. sincerely.
Chopstick, witless loyalists like you are some of the first to go in any forradalom. Fair warning.
dude, i will gladly reveal my identity and challenge you in the octagon for $10k. "fair warning"? against you? ha, ha. you have no fucking clue who i am. bitch, i would wipe my ass with your head. "fair warning", he says.
GoinFawr, I'm not kidding. i'm happy to make this personal. "fair warning". ha!
that sounds like a challenge. okay, i accept, pussy. how do you want to do this?