I made no general claim. I said French unions are broadly considered more to the left than others, and that their discourse still goes in tones more characteristic to the 19th century. I pointed at the case of CGT and SUD unions as quite ideological and politicized, even as I mentioned that the CGT now seems to have broken ties with the French extreme left.
That was quite precise. Any of the other points I made about balanced approaches were not proven mistaken for their purpose; you (and others, about nurses for instance) immediately flamed up, imagined some denial of discrimination, inequality, or sufference, and poured slogans creating ideologically charged sub-threads to no end. You didn't contradict my point about prisons, but started the same fiery arguing about human rights. linca earlier didn't note that my reference to nurses was only to show that you can't judge discrimination only by numbers, not to claim that they have some easy life. And that thread likewise was completely hijacked by ranting against nurse sufference and degrading status. I'm discussing details of policies, but only in the context of balance. My phrase about train drivers' condition was not even attacking the unions. All I said is that that has nothing to do with 100 years ago. Again, a whole sub-thread of ranting about how drivers must be very careful and wake up early, about how their pay is insufficient, and so on. Many common sense statements obviously drew certain people into an ideological gut reaction.
The content you bring up does not add anything at all either for or against my "claim" that ideology would be dying. Unless you try to show yourself very polarised, and so prove that the flame still lives on. I don't deny your data, I can ignore your slogans (that you admitted to be so), ok, passons. We agreed on certain policies, as you saw (when you managed to slow down a bit). But that wasn't the point. I don't care about discussing whose policies are true and better - left or right.
The point was, is utilitarianism and opportunism (as you call it, I think many of those politicians are actually sincere), are they pushing ideologies to the fringe of the democratic life? Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Downgrading the level of your discourse hardly helps your argumenting.
You want some cheese with that whine?
I have said before, and I will happily say again, that I would have no objection to going through the entire thread and look at who called whom names. I'm not sure that's a particularly productive way to spend our time, though.
Try and do that in real life, then watch the effects.
Because smug arrogance is such an endearing trait... Pot, meet Kettle. Kettle, permit me to introduce Pot.
I made no general claim. I said French unions are broadly considered more to the left than others, and that their discourse still goes in tones more characteristic to the 19th century.
And that's not a sweeping, general claim? Well, I can see why you might think that it's not. There's only what? fifty million people in France? And after all, they're only organised in some two score unions, plus the small change...
I pointed at the case of CGT and SUD unions as quite ideological and politicized, even as I mentioned that the CGT now seems to have broken ties with the French extreme left.
All the while studiously refusing to provide any actual evidence to back up your position. Not so much as an objectionable quote from one of their spokespeople.
Or maybe I missed a couple of links with damning proof that the French unions are run by dangerous revolutionary Marxists who are slavering at the thought of installing a dictatorship of the proletariat? If so, could you go to the slight bother of reposting them, or do you want me to go through the entire thread to find them?
Any of the other points I made about balanced approaches were not proven mistaken for their purpose; you (and others, about nurses for instance) immediately flamed up, imagined some denial of discrimination, inequality, or sufference, and poured slogans creating ideologically charged sub-threads to no end.
Bull. Shit. What was explained to you - at some length and in far greater detail than appears justified in retrospect - was how those slogans (not "approaches" - an approach contains an actual policy, which you never once presented, nevermind justified) are in fact ideologically charged. That you wilfully refuse to even consider the context and history in which public debate takes place, and refuse to acknowledge (not "accept," acknowledge) the substantiative reasons that people consider those slogans statements of ideology, hardly amounts to a resounding refutation of those reasons.
When racist skinheads and Catholic fundamentalists think that Sarkozy is the best French president since Pétain, and you think that he's a down-to-earth pragmatist who embraces common-sense policies that nobody in their right mind can doubt, then at least one of you must be wrong. Sure, you can claim that he's just using fundagelical and racist rhetoric to get the morons - sorry, values voters - into the fold. But you ain't no mind reader, Comrade Valentin, so how do you know that you're not the one being fooled. After all, at least one of you is...
You didn't contradict my point about prisons, but started the same fiery arguing about human rights.
Really? "Fiery arguing?" You wanna see "fiery arguing," you go to somewhere like DailyKos. I see no fiery arguing in this thread.
Rhetoric aside, you claimed that your slogan about prisons represented a balanced, pragmatic, middle-of-the-road approach - or words to that effect. When you elevate statements that challenge the right to privacy to the level of elementary truths that should not be questioned (for fear of appearing "ideological"), you should expect people to call bullshit on that.
If you think that support for a fundamental, inalienable human right to privacy is an ideological position... well, you'd be completely correct. It is.
But for all your bloviating on the death of ideology, I can't really picture you coming right out and stating that you oppose universal, inalienable human rights - to privacy or otherwise - in quite so many words.
I'm discussing details of policies, but only in the context of balance.
No, you don't discuss details of policy. In this thread alone there are some three hundred posts. Around a third of them are from you. Less than ten percent of them even mention policy, other than to claim that further details are irrelevant to the subject at hand. Let's be really, really generous and call it ten posts in this entire thread where you discuss actual policy. If you can find eleven, I'm paying you a dinner next time you get to Copenhagen.
My phrase about train drivers' condition was not even attacking the unions. All I said is that that has nothing to do with 100 years ago. Again, a whole sub-thread of ranting about how drivers must be very careful and wake up early, about how their pay is insufficient, and so on. Many common sense statements obviously drew certain people into an ideological gut reaction.
You keep ignoring relevant context. I've pointed out the relevance of context to you already.
Most poignantly, I asked you upthread whether you would evaluate the slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei" solely on its isolated truth value and the degree to which it corresponded to your understanding of "common sense," or you would be persuaded to consider its history as well.
Then the crickets started chirping.
The content you bring up does not add anything at all either for or against my "claim" that ideology would be dying.
Except point out that you never actually made a case at the policy level. Which is the level that matters - the level that everybody here, including yourself agrees is the level that matters.
I don't care about discussing whose policies are true and better
Truer words are not found in the rest of the post.
I think many of those politicians are actually sincere
Well, I guess you can fool some of the people all of the time...
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
You do sound utterly ignorant both about France's religious situation, France's unions, or its government. I did provide proof when I said that well in the 90s one of CGT's leaders was a member of the communist party's leadership. You won't hear it because you act like a sophistic debater, as usual.
I'll make yet another sweeping generalisation and say that the French leftwing parties are in general clearly more to the left than those in other countries. Feel free to demand links.
Again, there is absolutely no sloganeering in asking that certain French unions give up the proletarian tone and also that the importance and contribution of unions be enforced; or in asking that we stop using simplist statistics to justify anti-discrimination laws or quota laws, and instead accept here and there that discrepancies are not due to any discrimination.
And so on. I provided lots of examples of balanced approaches, that you won't make disappear by posting dramas on imagined slogans or on the war against the oppressing fatcats. You think anyone is capable to reply to any bit of contorted reasoning in which you hairsplit an issue to exhaustion? You act like the living proof of what I meant: stretching reality to fit ideology. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Your original claim was in fact that CGT got radicalised in recent years, something on which I showed you as completely ignorant of CGT's opposed movement. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
On my own diary, I said:
"The French trade unions (and particularly so the likes of CGT, FO or Sud), are considered amongst the most leftwing unions in Europe. Until not so long ago still in the "class warfare" mode, it was only in the '90s that the CGT started to take their distance from the communism (amongst other things, quitting the communist inspired World Federation of Trade Unions in 1995; leader Louis Vianet resigning from the political bureau of the French Communist Party; accepting certain negotiations rather than downright going on strike and so on). Even so, the tone for most French trade unions remains proletarian-inspired even today (some might say this is just PR, and still!)
You never showed me anything at all, want me to make a collection of all instances where I showed you to be wrong? You didn't even know what a propagandist means :)) Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
The CGT has been radicaliezd for a long longt time and has moderated a bit just last year.
Nineties, last year; Nagy vs. 1956...
You never showed me anything at all, want me to make a collection of all instances where I showed you to be wrong? You didn't even know what a propagandist means. QED. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
You seem to be an expert in getting things exactly the opposite of how they really are. Makes me wonder whether your whole political framework is based on the same kind of mind gymnastics :) Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Now, as invective goes, that's pretty mild, and not even directed at your person...
Meanwhile, several places in the thread, you have insinuated that I relativise the crimes of the Soviet Union out of some ideological sympathy with Stalin. Do you remember that, or shall I go find some quotes? How's that for not proffering insult?
You do sound utterly ignorant both about France's religious situation, France's unions, or its government.
I'm still learning. But I'm in what was traditionally the German (and subsequently Anglo-American) sphere of influence, so my handle on German, British and American issues is somewhat better than French ones. Now, can you provide some actual references that a non-Francophone can read, or am I just going to have to take your word for the situation in France?
I did provide proof when I said that well in the 90s one of CGT's leaders was a member of the communist party's leadership [citation needed].
That was supposed to prove that France's labour unions are considerably to the left of the rest of Europe's. Even if that were true (several Danish unions maintain close ties with parties that most would call communist), that still wouldn't be saying much. The British unions have been all but destroyed. The Italian unions never got off the ground (in no small part thanks to American support for the fascist remnant, thanks to which it holds seats in the Italian parliament to this day). Poland's never had widespread unionisation, apart from Solidarnost which has drifted so far right over the years that it's barely recognisable as a union any more.
So which unions are you comparing to anyway? The German? The Spanish? The Scandinavian?
I'll make yet another sweeping generalisation and say that the French leftwing parties are in general clearly more to the left than those in other countries.
Given that left-wing political parties essentially don't exist in many countries in the Union (UK, Denmark, much of Eastern Europe, (AFAIK) Portugal, Italy), that doesn't really say all that much.
Again, there is absolutely no sloganeering in asking that certain French unions give up the proletarian tone
Such as? Examples here, sil vous plait. Your previous examples of "slogans" vs. "slogan-free" headlines doesn't precisely inspire me with a lot of confidence that I can trust your judgement on that.
and also that the importance and contribution of unions be enforced;
This is some kind of turn of phrase translated from French, right? As already mentioned, I'm not Francophone, so I'm afraid you'll have to give me the long version. What precisely does "the importance and contribution of unions" mean and how is it "enforced?"
Does it mean that something similar to the Danish Hovedaftale is hashed out and an arbitration system set up to enforce it? Then I see little problem. Does it mean that unions must contribute to keeping production running in an orderly fashion by sitting down and shutting up without getting major and significant (and irrevocable) concessions in return? Then I'd be very much against.
As it stands, though, it could read as both.
And just to make my nasty, suspicious mind even more suspicious, there's no mention of the other side of the table at all. What happened to the fact that there are always two sides to any strike: The striking workers and the employer who wan't give in to their demands. What "importance and contribution" will be "enforced" against employers?
or in asking that we stop using simplist [citation needed] statistics to justify anti-discrimination laws
Here you mean affirmative action programmes rather than anti-discrimination laws, correct?
And so on. I provided lots of examples of balanced approaches
Approaches contain policy.
Yes, a French turn of phrase. The union role being enforced means IMO that France has things a bit more similar to, say, Germany. OTOH employers shouldn't be treated like the enemy class, just like money shouldn't be regarded as dirty, I'd dare add :) We could debate this and likely reach a pragmatic compromise (no I'm not contradicting myself, please don't go off on yet another ranting) like in the case of media anti-trust laws.
I mean those other discriminatory programmes, yes.
Approaches do contain policy. And proof must be provided. The only problem is you ask for "proof" on details where it's completely superflue, and that your approach to policy looks more like hyper-biased ranting. Proletarian stuff was so pervasive in demonstrations, strikes, press conferences and interviews of those unions, that I can't even be bothered proving that to someone only because he's in Denmark and suspicious.
As for my statements not inspiring confidence, they certainly remain way way behind your own.
You said several times that you entered details of policies because you had to show my examples where not sloganeering, but substantive, and to bring forth the context, which was important too in showing that.
You made a good point about deregulation, neoliberalism etc. But this was one my targets too when I mentioned ideologies being on their way out. They too abused ideology, and this crisis will push them out of society and into history books.
But you mostly chose to do that 'substantification' like this:
the wholesale assault on labour unions, fiscal policy, unemployment and disability benefits Sarko surrounds himself with LePen apparatchiks and assumes his slogans and rhetoric for his own, the assumption must be that he will act in the interests of LePen's apparatchiks. The history of unions in the US shows that systematic union-busting works exceedingly well. privatisation of health care, price hikes for railroad tickets, cutbacks in unemployment subsidies, outright theft of workers' pensions, below-inflation indexing of public pension schemes, below-inflation indexing of unemployment subsidies...... it was the top 10 % of the wealth distribution that was waging class war on everybody else. Or perhaps you think unions are at fault for actually fighting the war that the fatcats started instead of rolling over and playing dead like the so-called social democratic parties I want to ban billionaires, by confiscatory taxation of wealth above half a billion €.
Sarko surrounds himself with LePen apparatchiks and assumes his slogans and rhetoric for his own, the assumption must be that he will act in the interests of LePen's apparatchiks.
The history of unions in the US shows that systematic union-busting works exceedingly well.
privatisation of health care, price hikes for railroad tickets, cutbacks in unemployment subsidies, outright theft of workers' pensions, below-inflation indexing of public pension schemes, below-inflation indexing of unemployment subsidies......
it was the top 10 % of the wealth distribution that was waging class war on everybody else.
Or perhaps you think unions are at fault for actually fighting the war that the fatcats started instead of rolling over and playing dead like the so-called social democratic parties
I want to ban billionaires, by confiscatory taxation of wealth above half a billion €.
And so on and so forth. This is what I call fiery talk, fist to the sky, eyes towards a better world up there somewhere. This is no "discussion of policies", this is polarised talk, ideological ranting, that many can nod to, but no one will enter in a debate with you about.
Which is why I answered to one of Lily's posts:
This is the problem I had with Jake the whole time. I could hardly reply to his posts, because to me it looked like fiery ideologic activism. I'm not passing judgement, just telling how it looked from here. Lines like these: are unions at fault for actually fighting the war that the fatcats started instead of rolling over and playing dead or stealing train drivers' pensions or dismantling of civilised society by people who want to throw us back to the 19th century to me are ideology, sloganeering (no offense, Jake, I just say how it looks for me), and I can't bring myself to even comment on it, which, to Jake or DoDo, looks like I would be eluding the subject. And Jake's discourse (which I don't judge) is filled with this kind of stuff.
Lines like these: are unions at fault for actually fighting the war that the fatcats started instead of rolling over and playing dead or stealing train drivers' pensions or dismantling of civilised society by people who want to throw us back to the 19th century
to me are ideology, sloganeering (no offense, Jake, I just say how it looks for me), and I can't bring myself to even comment on it, which, to Jake or DoDo, looks like I would be eluding the subject.
And Jake's discourse (which I don't judge) is filled with this kind of stuff.
In short, even as you discuss policies, even when you 'try' to be reasonable (at least to me you look as you do try), you sound very much like our most leftwing extremists in France (which means, in the world). Just look for Besancenot, or Jean-Luc Mélenchon, I bet you will experience a reflex sympathy for them. But I cannot debate pragmatism with such ideologically -charged characters. It's like you'd try to prove to a muslim fundamentalist the benefits of secularism.
See you around, Jake. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
The main difference between France and many other countries is that while other communist parties and organizations were shattered after the fall of the communism (which proved it a failure and an utopia as a system, breeding genocidal dictatorships) Soviet Union, the French ones still kept on the proletarian / class warfare rhetoric.
You have a really shaky grasp on the history of Western Europe.
The British left was shattered by Thatcher. The American left has never really existed, and what little there was of it was purged by Ronnie Raygun. Scandinavia has never had influential communist movements, but it's true that the Overton Window was dragged right over the past thirty years. That started in the late seventies and early 80s, so the only way that could have anything to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union would be if effect could precede cause. In Germany you might have a case. Anywhere else... not so much.
Yes, a French turn of phrase. The union role being enforced means IMO that France has things a bit more similar to, say, Germany.
I didn't ask your opinion on what it ought to mean. You say it's a slogan used by the French right wing. I asked what the French right wing thought it meant. Seeing as they're the ones who get to actually implement their interpretation of their slogan, not you.
OTOH employers shouldn't be treated like the enemy class, just like money shouldn't be regarded as dirty, I'd dare add :)
So basically unions get to make concessions and get diddly-squat in return. I think we're starting to get a pretty good picture of your sense of pragmatism here...
Proletarian stuff was so pervasive in demonstrations, strikes, press conferences and interviews of those unions, that I can't even be bothered proving that to someone only because he's in Denmark and suspicious.
You sound like you think a red flag is a symbol of militant, revolutionary proletarianism. Being from Eastern Europe, that's more or less understandable, of course. But weren't you the one who argued that immigrants should learn a bit about the culture of their new country? Or does that only apply to brown people?
That's not what I said. I said that your slogans were right-wing slogans (as opposed to unideological statements of fact). That you apparently fail to distinguish between wingnut sloganeering and objective statements of fact should give a little pause for thought.
the wholesale assault on labour unions, fiscal policy, unemployment and disability benefits
An executive summary of points made in the other thread. The one you actually chose to challenge:
In 1980, tertiary education was free France, the UK, all of Scandinavia and all of Germany. In 2000, the UK and more than half of all German länder charge "tuition fees." To take just one very concrete example. The list goes on with privatisation of health care, price hikes for railroad tickets, cutbacks in unemployment subsidies, outright theft of workers' pensions, below-inflation indexing of public pension schemes, below-inflation indexing of unemployment subsidies, tighter applicability requirements for unemployment subsidies, cutbacks in prescription drug subsidies, cutbacks in essential public services (railroads, schools, water, sewage, electricity).
The list goes on with privatisation of health care, price hikes for railroad tickets, cutbacks in unemployment subsidies, outright theft of workers' pensions, below-inflation indexing of public pension schemes, below-inflation indexing of unemployment subsidies, tighter applicability requirements for unemployment subsidies, cutbacks in prescription drug subsidies, cutbacks in essential public services (railroads, schools, water, sewage, electricity).
Are you disputing any of the facts here? Or are you just playing games?
Slogan + Substance => Policy Slogan - Substance => Bullshit
Well, LePen certainly seems to think so.
Sarko broke a tradition of not meeting with LePen.
He also calls to debate an issue of science as if was a matter of policy - a little trick he inherited from George "The jury is still out on how God created the Earth" Bush.
Then you can go here in the comment thread (#25 in particular). An American neocon (and his friends/sock puppets) show up and run out essentially the same line you have here. They/he get their asses handed to them.
You should, I think, complete that quote:
The history of unions in the US shows that systematic union-busting works exceedingly well. The US unions were systematically persecuted at the federal, state and local level. Through legislation, through a concerted propaganda effort, through workplace-level union-busting, by deliberately race- and religion-baiting at every political level. That was a case of deliberate, ideological activism by right-wing extremists.
The US unions were systematically persecuted at the federal, state and local level. Through legislation, through a concerted propaganda effort, through workplace-level union-busting, by deliberately race- and religion-baiting at every political level. That was a case of deliberate, ideological activism by right-wing extremists.
Do you actually dispute any of this? Do you really want me to go to the trouble of digging out the legal and political history of US union busting over the past quarter century? In that case, you can start here.
privatisation of health care, price hikes for railroad tickets, cutbacks in unemployment subsidies, outright theft of workers' pensions, below-inflation indexing of public pension schemes, below-inflation indexing of unemployment subsidies...
You gonna actually dispute that this happens systematically? I was not aware that any of this was disputed in your part of reality.
Health Care.
Public transit.
Sub-inflation transfer increases.
You gonna actually dispute that? You gonna claim that this isn't class war by the rich?
That's actually an example of a policy that can be implemented as it stands, right off the shelf. The legal technicalities were hashed out by the West German government during the de-nazification period, when they needed to confiscate all the fortunes that had been made in ways that were not - quite - meriting a full war crimes trial.
Are you telling me that you can't tell the difference between a slogan and a policy? The shock. The horror. The surprise.
You can argue the merits of this policy (and get your ass handed to you - removing billionaires from the political equation would remove much of the concern about media power and corruption, and it wouldn't do any harm to anybody, because it's not like anybody actually needs a billion €... all in all, a very pragmatic approach to a very concrete corruption problem).
Indeed. I should note that someone from both Eastern Europe and France should be aware of similar views about liberalism as failed utopia two centuries ago, after the terror of the French Revolution and the rise and fall of Napoleon. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Last week I think I heard at least half dozen people on different televised interviews or debates claiming themselves un-ideological. Mere consistent use of careful argumenting seems to drive faith out once again (and ideologists out of themselves).
Or maybe it is just a fashion afterall. It just looks like it's gonna be a dam'd hard one to fight against :) Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
To claim one self un-ideological is like pretending to be objective. Objectivity claims to be truthful. This introduction is very persuasive. The masses don't want to hear the bias of clearly defined ideologies but they want objectivity. So, they get to hear what they want to hear. Politics is all neutral, objective, ...
These are good times for those who don't want to take sides or take on responsibility for a decision. Let's all trust the un-ideologists which feels like trust into a neutral, objective and truth-bearing entity and we'll see where this will lead us.
"Consistent use of careful argumenting" - ...aiming for what? with what baseline? defending whose interests? ...
Asking these questions will lead you to an agenda that, too, is based on some sort of ideology.
Communism manipulates through open repression. This, however, is the kind of manipulation that must be dealt with in democracies, i.e. the free world. To ignore this amounts to opportunism; it is naïve at best.
