Huge victory predicted tomorrow for Socialists in France

[heli]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8563232.stm

Sarkozy's party faces Socialist drubbing
By Emma Jane Kirby
BBC News, Paris

"There's a big problem in France," grumbled President Nicolas Sarkozy on a visit to eastern France this week. "The mixing up of issues all the time." The French leader was referring to this Sunday's regional election, the first of two rounds of voting.

The ballot is meant to be about regional issues such as local transport provision and economic initiatives. But with unemployment now soaring above 10% and the president's popularity ratings sinking to just 36%, voters are bound to use this opportunity to punish the central government. "Regional elections, regional consequences. National elections, national consequences," President Sarkozy insisted. But he must know that his words will fall on deaf ears.

This is the last time the French people will go to the polls before the presidential elections in 2012. And analysts will be studying the results carefully for clues as to which party looks likely to win the race to the Elysee. Every indication points to a massive defeat for the ruling, right-wing UMP party and a huge victory for the Socialist opposition.

On a national level the Socialists are still in disarray over leadership struggles, but regionally they are extremely strong. They currently hold every mainland region in France except Corsica and the eastern region of Alsace, and this time they are hoping to turn the whole of the country pink. Olivier Ferrand of the left-wing think tank Terra Nova believes the French political landscape is changing in their favour...

[MannyGoldstein]

1. WTF is France's Problem?

When they get boned by their politicians, their politicians are removed from office.

How un-American.

[starsky9]

3. They used to remove their politicians from office, and then removed the politicians' heads

just to make sure!

[dana_b]

18. well, let's hope they keep the guillotines

in the closet this time.

Welcome to DU!

[Tesha]

36. I'd rather they loaned them to us, maybe as a sort of "Lend-Lease" program to save the world...

...from the crash of our empire.

Tesha

[mix]

2. A bad day for Sarkozy

is a great day indeed.

Jean Jaurès, early leader and founder of the French Socialist Party and anti-militarist. Assassinated in 1914.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. If only we had an actual left party.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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[MannyGoldstein]

6. We're All Socialists - You Are Too

Virtually everyone agrees that some things should be socialized - roads, military, etc. We just disagree on where to draw the line.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

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[mix]

10. You are confusing social democracy and the state socialism of the Soviet era.

Two entirely different things.

[newspeak]

27. maybe you could read FDR's "second bill of rights"

Socialism with regulated capitalism probably works the best. There is not one country who has pure socialism and that includes the old USSR.

[mix]

29. and that is the same objective of the French Socialist Party

New Deal Democrats are the closest approximation of the non-revolutionary Left in France.

:thumbsup:

[loudsue]

30. The Soviets weren't socialists, they were communists.

Communism is where the GOVERNMENT owns the capital means of production. Socialism is where the taxes of the masses pay for functions for the betterment of the entire society. Capitalism is where corporations own the capital means of production, and the government in the case of the United States.

[mix]

32. The USSR: The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Communism was the objective, socialism was the stage before.

"Actually Existing Socialism," or the attempts (however flawed and corrupt) to build communist societies in the Soviet Union and its client states in Cuba and Eastern Europe, was driven by Marxist ideology--or a unique voluntarist reading of Marx--that saw history as progressing in stages, roughly capitalism to socialism to communism. After capitalism, according to this interpretation of Marx, the state--under the direction of a vanguard communist party--had to guide society through an intermediary socialist stage of economic development to communism. The state would then whither away, as would the communist party.

Socialism has two main historical traditions. The USSR and the Eastern Bloc countries are examples of the revolutionary strand of socialism. The other is reformist and approximates the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and the French Socialist Party.

Another important distinction within socialism's rich history is between those who believe in decentralized power, i.e workers' councils and local government with as little bureaucracy as possible, and those who prefer bureaucratic centralized power, i.e state socialism.

Trotsky v. Stalin, in other words.

[MannyGoldstein]

11. Have it your way

We all agree that infrastrcture should be public, but we disagree on what Counts as infrastructure.

Remember, 100 years ago fire fighting was private in most parts.

We're talking Socialism here, not Communism.

[Lothrop]

21. No he isn't

Look into it.

[mix]

9. The French Socialist Party is also moderate and committed

to non-revolutionary change...it always has been...the New Deal, civil rights and progressive wings of the Democratic Party would be analogous.

[frebrd]

12. I am a real Democrat.......

who has voted exclusively Democratic for fifty-two years.

I am also an ardent socialist.

:hi:

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

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[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

19. So what is a Democrat? What makes one different from a Republican?

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

24. Easy. The middle one is an utter asshole. -nt

[Lothrop]

26. Better to place this action in an institutional context

The forces placed on the elected person by the state machinery and pressures from big business dictate the outcome. We can argue all we want that "We need to keep up the pressure to demand Politician______ needs to listen to ordinary citizens, not to business" and you will rot on the vine as your words disappear into the indifferent air.

There is a difference between the state and government. The state is the permanent collection of institutions that have entrenched power structures and interests. The government is made up of various politicians. It is the institutions that have power in the state due to their permanence, not the representatives who come and go. We cannot expect different politicians to act in different ways to the same pressures. However, this is all ignored by the average political consumer who wishes Politician______ was more a socialist, green, populist etc. and could ignore the demands of the dominant class in society while in charge of one part of its protector and creature, the state.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

14. So, what makes you a Democrat as opposed to being a Republican?

For you, what's the difference?

(I hope the pizza button is held enough for you to reply)

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

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[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

17. I know very well which is which. Now answer my question, please. -nt

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

25. So your answer is "none". How precious. That may even hold true for politicians.

But what about the common folk? What about YOU? Why are you not a Republican? (If -- very big if -- you're telling the truth.)

[dana_b]

28. I'm sure they aren't heartbroken either

I LOVE my socialist library, my socialist police force, my socialist firehouses, my sociialist county hospitals, my socialist public schools (although they are dwindling :( ), my socialist roads, my socialist parks, etc.

[old mark]

8. "As France goes, so goes the USA".....except our socialist party

is about 5,000 people,the Democrats have no guts, and the republicans are all insane.

mark

[frebrd]

13. Well, it's nice to hear some good news from somewhere! eom

[agent46]

20. What?

Rapacious neocon freebasing capitalist greed really is for big time idiot losers after all? Say it ain't so!

:wow:

[Kingofalldems]

31. Sarkozy's DU buddy won't like this one bit

K and R

[mix]

33. I do not understand this American fascination with Sarkozy.

The Huffington Post has got it bad for him and his wife.

Sarkozy is an outright neoliberal reactionary.

[Greyhound]

34. More good news!

[bvar22]

35. That is good news....for the French.

We are stuck with NeoLiberal Conservatives masquerading as "Democrats".

The Giant Free Hand will save us all!
All Hail Free Markets!!

And people say the Democrats are anti-religion!

[Echo In Light]

37. k/r

[Joe Chi Minh]

38. I think it will be replicated in the UK in the general election in 2012,

despite what the pundits of the media and the bookmakers are peddling. I think NuLab(c) will walk it. They're not quite as brutish knuckle-draggers as the Tories.