SARKOZY: France has a lot of advantages, a lot going for it. But I want to reconcile France with success. There is a moral crisis in France, that has a name, and that is the "crisis of labor (or work). What do you think of Chirac? Why are you opposed to full EU membership for Turkey? Why do you want to be the president? Whole interview at Google video.
What do you think of Chirac?
Why are you opposed to full EU membership for Turkey?
Why do you want to be the president?
Whole interview at Google video.
(In French)
Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
This man must be defeated.
And he says something like "one is liberated through work".
He also says the U.S. needs to get their shit together and join the rest of the world in protecting the environment.
And he is very firm about the "values of France", and if you want to live in French society, you need to respect those values and principles, or else you're not welcome. Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
In case that wasn't clear.
The man's a big pile of Bad News.
He's playing for the Le Pen vote in the second round and likely going to win.
I have no idea how to fight this culture war in the short term. My own experience is that this kind of bigotry subsides slowly over time. Things are a lot better in the UK than when I was young and I'd think that similar progress is being made in France.
But, the democratic process isn't able to constrain people like Sarkozy right now. When he wins it's going to be a fillip for the neo-cons and bigots everywhere.
Argh.
There must be a way to make it so that blatantly courting the "LePen vote" will be just as tainted and unpalatable and unacceptable as LePen himself is. We must not let the bigoted rhetoric of LePen and his ilk become "acceptable" just because it is being voiced by "mainstream" politicians.
How we do that is another question.
Actually maybe that is too tinfoil. I'm letting Jerome's impassioned defence of France blind me to the fact that there's just as large a reactionary faction there as anywhere.
Still, Aznar and other similar efforts to expand US influence are in full flow. Certainly Michael Gove is the centre of a US (Richard Perle) funded push to promote a "War on Islamism" in the UK.
Sarkozy is accused of holding racial views One of the heroes of France's World Cup-winning football team yesterday accused Nicolas Sarkozy, the Right's presidential candidate, of having a "racial" view of society's problems. [...] Recalling a meeting with Mr Sarkozy, the interior minister, following riots in the suburbs of Paris in late 2005, Mr [Lilian] Thuram, 35, said: "He told me, you know, it's the blacks and the Arabs who create the problems in the suburbs. "And I told him, it's not the blacks and the Arabs who create the problems in the suburbs, those who create the problems in the suburbs are called delinquents. "[Mr Sarkozy] has a racial vision of issues and people."
One of the heroes of France's World Cup-winning football team yesterday accused Nicolas Sarkozy, the Right's presidential candidate, of having a "racial" view of society's problems. [...] Recalling a meeting with Mr Sarkozy, the interior minister, following riots in the suburbs of Paris in late 2005, Mr [Lilian] Thuram, 35, said: "He told me, you know, it's the blacks and the Arabs who create the problems in the suburbs.
"And I told him, it's not the blacks and the Arabs who create the problems in the suburbs, those who create the problems in the suburbs are called delinquents.
"[Mr Sarkozy] has a racial vision of issues and people."
