You're opposing and interpretting what you consider to be the "true meaning" of a governmental policy ("controlled immigration") that was made clear all along the electoral campaign,
You're saying we should believe a word of what a politician says during an election campaign? And not try to second-guess them based on their contacts, associates and voter demographics?
That's rich.
You can see things as right wing baiting, and someone else can reply it's calming down citizens indignated and worried about the savagery sometimes seen on public transport or certain immigrant ghettos TV.
There, fixed it for ya.
I'll take it once more for crown prince Knud: The people who actually live in the ghettos, and have first-hand experience with conditions there, do not, in the main, vote for right-wing politicians. The people who overwhelmingly vote for wingnut politicians are the ones whose only contact with the ghetto is through a TV screen.
You seem to assume that what the press reports bears a strong relationship to what actually goes on in the world. That's an assumption contrary to fact. I should know. I've been in a couple of "newsworthy" events and seen the reporting in the commercial press afterwards. You should try it too - it might be enlightening.
- Jake 640 kiloton should be enough for anybody
Anyway. As to what politicians are saying. Sarkozy made it a point to return people's interest to elections, indeed to democracy. Papers, think-tanks and poll centers keep an eye on his political program and its implementation. So I guess we'll see how it is. One thing's certain: everybody wants to believe in electoral promises. We are entitled to, and to hold those people accountable. This is the base of the democracy.
I have no official and reliable statistics as to the situation and reasons of the vote in poor neighbourhoods. I can only tell you that it is not the rich, the office employees or the youth who predominantly chose Sarkozy, but the poor, the workers, the elders - ie, the vulnerable categories. The "rich" in the fancy neighbourhoods voted left, as they always do. It is them who call the others racists and claim there is no problem in those suburbs except poverty, the rest being far-right rhetorics - and it is them who never go there. (I do speak about France)
Oh well. From your posts, I retain that politicians are not to be trusted, their programs are deceitful, democracy is flawed, press is on the rightwing's pay. My conclusion is: we need a REVOLUTION ! Sigh...
Someone needs to tell me if there's a quick way to put in those quotation boxes - I have no patience typing html code.
I will tell you instead of someone - who actually made the plugin do it.
European Tribune - Download ET's own Firefox add-on: TribExt
Do you browse the web on Firefox? Then you can download TribExt, a nifty little add-on, written by ET user someone, to navigate around European Tribune easier. It can also be used on Booman Tribune and Daily Kos.
That plugin allows to mark and copy not only the text, but the html-code and paste it as a qoute. Very nifty.
Sarkozy made it a point to return people's interest to elections, indeed to democracy.
Elections and democracy are not quite the same thing.
Papers, think-tanks and poll centers keep an eye on his political program and its implementation.
You clearly have more faith in both the neutrality and competence of poll centres and belief tanks than I do.
One thing's certain: everybody wants to believe in electoral promises. We are entitled to, and to hold those people accountable. This is the base of the democracy.
Holding people accountable involves distrusting their will to carry out their promises as a matter of principle. If we trusted the police, we wouldn't need the courts. But in a democracy, we have an institutional distrust of the police (for a variety of mostly excellent reasons). So we have courts.
Political philosophy aside, there is, I believe, a French saying that goes something along the lines of "look not at what you eat, but with whom you eat." If a politician who takes money from employers' unions says that he wants to make anti-trust laws more effective, I'd want to read the actual proposal line by line before agreeing with it. If a politician backed by the Catholic Church says that he wants to reform the health service to give easier access to reproductive health care, I'd check with a reputable local family planning NGO before endorsing his proposal. And if an avowedly creationist politician says that the sky is blue, I'd look out my window before agreeing.
Is that really so unreasonable? Or even particularly ideological?
From your posts, I retain that politicians are not to be trusted, their programs are deceitful, democracy is flawed, press is on the rightwing's pay. My conclusion is: we need a REVOLUTION ! Sigh...
Hyperbole much?
I rather like democracy, thank you very much. But I prefer a democracy of active, engaged citizens to a "democracy" of disengaged consumers for whom turning on the television for the nightly advertisements news shows represents the height of their engagement with the body politic.
