Chirac Trounces Extremist!

LOL! BTA

We definitely need to hear what our newest mod has been getting up to.


[This message has been edited by Wildfire (edited May 08, 2002).]

 

Hehe, you really should start reading the whole article. I think that Extremist resents being taken for the special extremist that headlines considers.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, rascist right wing extremist that considers the holocaus as a minor thing lost severly to corruption accused Chirac. European politics are even worse than American

 

I have a theory (note tongue firmly in cheek here) that Le Pen's brief surge in popularity was engineered by art teachers. Never have French youth been so interested in making colourful banners, and coming up with unique ways to deface the posters of others.

When I was still living in France the NF was running in a local election, and every day the Le Pen billboard at the end of my street was defaced in a new and interesting way. In the night, his supporters or someone would remove the chewing-gum warts etc and put a fresh poster up. Finally someone torched the wretched thing and that was the end of that.

 

ROTFL!

Before this thread proceeds with bashing on worldwide politics let me just say that there are different kinds of extremists, but this one who is posting right now is not in any connection with Le Pen nor his "concentration camps revival" ideas.


[This message has been edited by Extremist (edited May 07, 2002).]

 

but there can be only one!

[This message has been edited by the god (edited May 07, 2002).]

 

Another Extremist was murdered yesterday, the dutch right winger Pim Furtyun. Murders of politicans are never good, no matter how wicked they may be. The will of the people should be expressed at the election not by the barrel of a gun.

 

Will of the people is a wonderful thing, but we should remember that, to quote Pratchett, the IQ of a group of people is inversly proportional to their number.

Also, stupidity is the most common thing in the Universe after Hydrogen.

Ara
(*Insert witty spam*)

 

Yes, the papers are full with the murder on Pim Fortuyn (which means fortune in Dutch as well).

The last time this happened in Holland was when Willem van Oranje was murdered...in 1584...or 1684, I forgot.

Although I didn't agree with much he said, he stirred up Dutch politics a lot. And NOBODY deserves to be murdered for the expression of his ideas.

 

Indeed... Fortuyn had some bad ideas and some good... but the guy who killed him really was a bad extremist....

/me is shocked.... that such thing happens in my small peaceful country...

Extremist is not a bad extremist... he just has sometimes some extreme ideas about movies and games

 

Our Extremist is an extremist because he covers all moods. The other one is just stuck somewhere far out to one side. hmmm, the english language needs more words...

 

I found this whole incident rather disturbing, although I joked about it a lot.

All I heard was people yelling that Le Pen was a huge racist, the new Hitler, a right-wing extremist. Very little (and I read a lot of news on Le Pen after he beat out Jospin) substantial dialogue was offered. I heard of precisely one anti-Semitic remark he made many years ago. But Chirac wouldn't debate him (not criticizing here -- it was a brilliant move politically), and I heard very little reasoned dialogue arguing against Le Pen's ideas. Just a lot of name-calling. True, labelling can be a very effective and just way to respond to poor arguments, but I was nevertheless disappointed that no one took on Le Pen's arguments head-on.

In order to defeat him properly, one should show exactly why it's better to have open borders than Le Pen's ideas of "France for the French," by which he seems to mean white French. Not just for some nebulous idea like "diversity," but how it benefits the country economically, culturally, etc. When there is simply a lot of mindless name-calling (as seemed to be the case with every non-French political leader who chimed in, even Jorg Haider), then you have done nothing to erode his base of support.

Allow me to predict something: The National Front will have a huge showing in the next French election if they field someone other than Le Pen. The countryside is ticked off at the way their nation is being run, and they're going to make more protest votes like this one unless someone can defeat the National Front's ideas.

You may think that saying, "hey, that's racism, and racism has been discredited" is enough. But the National Front's platforms are crafted well enough that they don't appear to be blatant "We hate Jews and brown people" statements, so those who resent having anti-Jewish riots (whether or not they themselves are anti-Semitic) or don't like the EU can allow themselves some wiggle room.

[This message has been edited by Shralp (edited May 07, 2002).]

 

ArchAngel - the english language has more words than any other.

Anyway, I was just pleased to see the people of France unite against a common enemy and I was also pleased to note that hindsight DOES exist.

 

Pim Fortuyn's death can't be good for democraty. People will start seeing him as a martyr, when really he had some very extreme thoughts.

 

I remember LePen, he visited Belgrade 4-5 years ago and left an impression of a brilliant speaker, good politician and a sick bastard. Saw nothing to change my opinion since.

 

Shralp,

I'm responding to your point, "In order to defeat him properly, one should show exactly why it's better to have open borders than Le Pen's ideas of "France for the French," by which he seems to mean white French. Not just for some nebulous idea like "diversity," but how it benefits the country economically, culturally, etc."

I have to start by saying I *totally agree* with you that no one has demonstrated that his ideas are not for the good of the "country", and that the reaction towards the FN's platform is one of moral repugnance rather than rational thought. I am not disagreeing with you in any way. But I wanted to point out some of the factors that contribute, especially in France and Europe, towards that moral repugnance:

- France has never really shouldered much guilt for the actions of the Vichy (collaborationist) government during the second world war. Like Japan, it tends to shrug off the war crimes committed by the citizens and government of the time and focus instead on the (very real!) suffering of its populace. The "legend" of World War II is one of brave resistance fighters, not of a government that surrendered to, and collaborated with, the Nazis. This can lead to a general sense that maybe France and the French do not sufficiently repudiate the evils and excesses of the Third Reich and might even be willing to repeat them. Therefore, anything that reminds anyone in any way of Naziism (as the NF platform and Le Pen's rhetoric can hardly help doing)tends to be slapped down fast.

- "France for the French" is, in fact, not even white French- which means that many of the potential voters in the election faced being disenfranchised if the NF had won. Even if the platform had been good for "the country", that country would have been a small elite rather than the citizenry of France as we know it today. Part of the NF's platform is that only "Four fourths" French are "Real" French. All four grandparents must have been of French citizenship, born in France, and not Muslim (exceptions are made for Muslim parents or grandparents who fought the Nazis as French citizens). Interestingly- I bring it up because of your reference to "white French"- Anglo-Saxon ancestry is one of the factors singled out as proving someone is "not real French" regardless of whether the person can otherwise fulfill the four-fourths rule.

- The platform goes far beyond just not celebrating diversity- it takes an approach to dealing with "Paper French" (e.g. anyone not fulfilling the "four fourths" rule) that violates most 1st-world precepts of human rights. Specifically:
- Putting Paper-French and all immigrants on a train to get them out of France (this has been getting a lot of press lately, since Le Pen joked about sending the immigrants to Tony Blair)
- Forbidding foreign students from studying at French universities
- Limiting tourism in France to citizens of countries which are allies of France
- Forbidding the practice of Islam
- Destroying any suburb or city with enough of a "Paper-French" population to be considered a ghetto (this would be truly terrifying to those who remember the "cleansing of the ghettoes" - i.e. pogroms- in Vichy France)
- Limiting all social services to "Real French" (as France is an extremely socialist country, "social services" currently includes all access to health care)
- Forbidding access to any political information related to other countries (God knows how they'd manage it, but it's in their platform. I suppose they'd ban the Wall Street Journal?)

And in case anyone is offended and wishes to express it- please don't flame me for sharing this information. I am genuinely trying to be helpful. I recognize that the fact that 30% of French voters voted for Le Pen in the first election indicates that the French as a people do not find the above points sufficiently repugnant. I accept that this shame reflects badly on me even though I am just "Paper French" (having evil British parents... ).

 

Do not believe everything that you see on television!
Pim Fortuyn was not an extremist. He was a bigmouth and sometimes quite shocking but that doesn't make him an extremist.

'Dutch extremist shot dead'
'Dutch racist assassinated'
That's what foreign media make of it and so that's what foreign people think of it.

When media/journals don't know the facts, they seem to make funny stories.

 

Sir Yerril, that may be true that the english lanuage has more words, but most of the words are spoken, and nothing is said.

 

Shralp,
I think Le Pens sucess is basically a result of the dominance of Paris in cenered France and the reaction of the provincials on it, who felt neglected by distant paris. Additionally it was a protest election, people voted for Le Pen to scare the gaullists and the socialists.

Le Pen indeed wants to drive out all the arabs from France (just about 10 million), putting them into labor camps first, he wants to allow random controls of arabs on the streets - a great move to fight criminality since they are all criminal to him.
This becomes clear when you look about his ideas about how to gain the french nationality: Even foreigners can get a french passeport - if they can show that they have the right "french spirit" (whatever that means) - but of course they'd be second class - they wouldn't have been allowed to participate in elections for years. And they would immediately loose the french nationality when showing their non-french nature: When they do a criminal act like rape, murder, theft, bombing, kidnapping and drug trading/ trafficing (the things all arabs and foreigners spend their living with ... )

Le Pen also wants to have an obligation for all foreigners to register with the police - funny considering the 40 million tourists visiting paris each year. He wants isolated 2nd class social and health insurance for the arabs, he wants to get out of EU and the Euro (just madness), more nukes (YEAH!) , he wants support for families (I don't know if he intends to go that far do decorate multiple mothers (and steadfast fathers ) like the nazis did - they gave the "mother cross" for 4-plus children , iirc - I'm only unsure about the number).
Le Pen wants to kick out all non-french from universities, hospitals (this sort of idea to remove competitors from business also was one base of support for the nazis).

I've read all that about Le Pen in the Le Monde from the day before the election. They were pointing out his "ideas" - just commenting them like that: "Of course, Le Pen has nothing announced how to finance this approach". It seems to me that in france lots of Le Pens adversaries just don't see a need to discuss the moronic ideas of this punk - since their nature is so obvious.

I wouldn't worry too much that the europeans are going to the right - even Le Pens ideas are relatively harmless, compared to whats legally posted among US nationalist extremists on the internet. The sucess of right wingers usually is a reaction of the people feeling neglected by the reigning governments, in europe these are mostly social-democrats at the moment.

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited May 08, 2002).]