If Hollande wins the French presidency, the move to impose higher taxes on the wealthy could get a boost in the U.S.

Nicolas Sarkozy … is in deep trouble and is looking, for now, as if he could be the first one-term French president since 1981

writes Steven Erlanger on the front page of the International Herald Tribune in an article the New York times calls With Vote Days Away, Outlook for Sarkozy Dims but which the IHT entitles, more upbeat-edly (for the French president), Which way will Sarkozy turn?

He appears to be running neck and neck with his main challenger, the Socialist candidate François Hollande, in the first round of voting on Sunday, when 10 candidates are competing. But all the opinion polls show Mr. Sarkozy losing to Mr. Hollande in a face-off two weeks later.

… His possible defeat carries implications that would radiate far beyond Paris. Mr. Sarkozy has had contentious but valuable relationships with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, a fellow conservative, on European and euro zone issues; with the British on defense issues, including the Libyan war; and with President Obama on issues involving Iran and Israel, NATO and Russia.

A victory by even a centrist Socialist like Mr. Hollande, who has advocated higher taxes on the rich and a greater emphasis on growth over austerity, would create immediate strains with Germany and rattle financial markets that are already nervous about the size of France’s debt. Mr. Hollande has also said that he wants to pull French troops out of Afghanistan sooner than NATO has agreed to do. Still, he says that his first visit abroad would be to Berlin, no matter how chilly the reception.

Mr. Sarkozy faces an electoral dilemma that is inherently tactical. Presuming he gets through to the runoff on May 6, does he continue to run to the right, or move to the center? And will it make enough of a difference anyway in a nation that admires what he promised at the beginning of his term five years ago — a “rupture” with the past — but not what he has delivered, which is a stagnant economy and unemployment at its highest level in 12 years?

Even more troubling for Mr. Sarkozy, the polls indicate that many French simply do not like him — his negative ratings are high — and that many of them will vote in the second round for the bland Mr. Hollande or simply stay home rather than see Mr. Sarkozy back in the Élysée Palace for another five years. [The Economist agrees that "All the signs point to a win for the Socialist François Hollande, chiefly because he is the anti-Sarkozy candidate".]

… Working to [the Socialist candidate's] advantage is the fact that the public has tired of the grim business of budget cutting and is yearning for a different approach. Mr. Hollande is providing that, in the form of higher taxes on the rich, more state spending and an assault on inequality, themes that could conceivably reverberate beyond the Continent in subsequent years, particularly if they succeed.

Growing inequality has become a hot-button topic across Europe, and if Mr. Hollande were to win, the move to impose higher taxes on the wealthy could get a boost elsewhere, even in the United States, where President Obama has already promoted the so-called Buffett Rule to impose a minimum tax rate on incomes in excess of $1 million a year.

A potential victory by Mr. Hollande is already making the markets nervous about the willingness of France, and perhaps other European countries, to stick with pledges of austerity. That is true even though he promises to balance France’s budget by 2017. That, in itself, would limit his policy choices, says a prominent economist, Nicolas Baverez. But the same is true for Mr. Sarkozy, he says.

“No matter who is elected, France will have a major confrontation with the markets,” Mr. Baverez said. “There is very low growth and a huge public debt, and a refusal of the French political class to deal with the necessary cuts in public spending.” But with Mr. Hollande, he said, the test from the markets would come sooner.

See also:
• As the French prepare to vote, a fog of financial uncertainty envelops France
• A Miserable Precedent? In France's 1st Election Round, Extremism’s Total Promises to Beat Either Mainstream Candidate
• The Coming Hollandaise Golden Age
• A Good Reason to Vote for the Left in France? More Sex Partners, More Fellatio, and More Sodomy

The Coming Hollandaise Golden Age

A pre-emptive visual overview:      We will be told that the seas will lower, the land will be healed, and so forth. Immediately thereafter, statements will be made to lower everyone’s expectations. Otherwise he will be pulled to the left by a unshakably large constituency of loons with Marxist fantasies and a propensity to make chaotic everything they try to manage.

As the French prepare to vote, a fog of financial uncertainty envelops France

To the list of worries about the euro zone, add one in bold

writes Liz Alderman on the front page of the International Herald Tribune:

the fate of France as it heads into the first round of a closely contested presidential election this weekend.

After a long stretch in which President Nicolas Sarkozy grappled with the euro crisis, investors are now wrestling with the implications of a potential victory by the Socialist candidate, François Hollande. Mr. Hollande’s pledges of higher taxes on the rich, and higher government spending, are luring voters disenchanted by the austerity medicine Mr. Sarkozy has administered in hopes of protecting France from financial contagion.

Many investors, though, are questioning what a government run by Mr. Hollande would mean for France’s economic competitiveness and its ability to keep clear of the financial turmoil that has once again lifted the borrowing costs of two other big euro zone countries, Spain and Italy.

… investors are already alarmed by what they see as an erosion of competitiveness among French companies, a widening current account deficit and declining exports.

As a result, investors say France is drifting away from the “core” of strong European economies that include Germany and the Nordic countries. Instead, it is increasingly being lumped together with the weak large economies of Spain and Italy, along Europe’s troubled southern rim.

… Mr. Hollande, in contrast, is pledging to increase taxes on the wealthy to pay for significant new spending intended to spur the economy. He promises to raise 29 billion euros (about $38 billion) in new revenue while lifting spending by 20 billion euros.

A main Hollande plank includes introducing a 75 percent marginal tax rate on individual income above 1 million euros and forgoing the planned increase in the value-added tax. And rather than cut the government payroll, he has pledged to expand it by hiring 60,000 civil servants and teachers. Mr. Hollande would also reverse changes to the pension system instituted under Mr. Sarkozy, by pushing the retirement age back to 60, from 62.

That platform, Mr. Lefeuvre said, is why many foreign investors are hoping for Mr. Hollande’s electoral defeat.

“If he does win, there will be a lot of concern,” Mr. Lefeuvre said.

A Good Reason to Vote for the Left in France? More Sex Partners, More Fellatio, and More Sodomy

Oh how wonderful it is to be a leftist, purrs Frédéric Joignot in Le Monde's weekly magazine M. He is speaking of Hot Vidéo magazine's IFOP poll, according to which voters on the left get more sex than voters on the right.

Leftists will have an average of 9 partners during their lifetime, while 23% of members of Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party will only have one.

You will make love 7.6 times per month if you vote for the Socialists' François Hollande, 6.7 times if you vote for Sarkozy, 5.9% if you vote for François Bayrou's center party.

92% of far-left women engage in fellatio, while only 69% of rightist women do so.

Of an average of 45% of Frenchmen who engage in sodomy, 48% are on the left, with 57% of Jean-Luc Mélenchon's Front de Gauche so engaged.

The poll concludes that voters on the right and in the center have a more "more stable" and a "less intense" sexual life than voters on the left. Still, they declare themselves to be satisfied. As do voters on the left…

They Prefer the Absent Conscience

I've known many Europeans who very nearly seem to masturbate to this type of political fiction – in this case it’s spun around the fantasy papalism of a “President Santorum”.

“But do you pray?” the president asked.
The director gritted his teeth.
“With all due respect, sir, that’s none of your business.”
“He is not a pharisee. He does not claim public adoration for his devotion,” the voice said.
The president nodded. Could it be that God was steering him towards an ally, a man so devout that he regarded public display, something which would advance his career in this administration, as sinful for that very reason?

It’s appeal is that it makes passiveness and incapacity on the part of the reader seem intelligent and noble – somehow.

A Miserable Precedent? In France's 1st Election Round, Extremism’s Total Promises to Beat Either Mainstream Candidate

The election in France on Sunday won’t decide its next president but will more likely offer a miserable precedent

notes John Vinocur in the International Herald Tribune:

a success for a “Rejection Front” that combines the bleak compatibility of the extreme left and right.

Notionally at least, with the Left Front and National Fronts scores added together, the beyond-the-mainstream candidates’ total share of the vote could beat the individual first-round scores of either President Nicolas Sarkozy or the Socialist, François Hollande.

That doesn’t change the near certainty that Marine Le Pen at the far right and Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the left’s distant shore get eliminated on April 22 while Hollande and Sarkozy advance to the final round two weeks later.

But if the Rejection Front (my designation) does as well as most polls suggest, France will have legitimized two political currents that spurn serious solutions for France’s economic grief, reject civility and common sense and variously propose regression through loony yet authoritarian economics, class warfare, class or racial prejudices, anti-Western instincts, and the politics of endless rage.

Sarkozy and Hollande are each projected to win between 26 and 29 percent of the votes cast in the first round among 10 contenders. That means that if parallel estimates hold for Le Pen (16 to 18 percent) and Mélenchon (around 15), extremism’s total beats either mainstream guy.

This isn’t a nerdy detail, but a miserable political signpost in an important and usually intelligent country struggling to retain influence in the world.

Mélenchon, who has Communist Party backing, infantilizes the French with promises of an “insurrection” that in the face of the country’s pledges of austerity would create 500,000 new places in public nurseries, 200,000 new low-rent apartments per year, total reimbursement of all individual health expenditure and tenured status for 800,000 public service workers now without permanent contracts. It is not clear how the Left Front would handle the costs (the health bill alone is estimated at €40 billion yearly), but Mélenchon has given a hint: confiscation of annual individual income above €360,000.

Mélenchon’s world-view goes hand in hand with his economics. He describes the United States as “the world’s primary problem” and wants the U.S. Sixth Fleet out of the Mediterranean. More: Hugo Chávez of Venezuela is a hero, the Chinese invasion of Tibet was justified, and Cuba isn’t a dictatorship.

More on Mélenchon's s worldview: A French Presidential Candidate Vows to Valiantly Fight the American Empire and Bring the World Out From Under Its Domineering Shadow.

In a French political universe where no one need tell a significant percentage of the truth, dealing in fantasy is an easy alternative. The problem with Mélenchon is that his routine is showing it works in 2012 France. As Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the left-wing ecologist politician, has said, “He’s succeeded in restoring national nostalgia for old-time class conflict and statist tradition.”

While Mélenchon’s role in the Rejection Front refuses reality, Marine Le Pen’s National Front summons French instincts in the direction of bigotry and spite.

Read the whole thing but be sure not to miss John Vinocur's conclusion:

Through their complaisant maneuvering, Sarkozy and Hollande have reduced the stature of responsible politics in France and with it given both halves of the Rejection Front enough momentum so that, side by side, they may enter the National Assembly in June legislative elections. Leaving this likely indelible (and repugnant) trace behind, the quality of the French presidential race and runoff round beginning Monday has no place to go but up.

Profound Superficiality: The French take “le talk show” very seriously

“Try to be polite,” [Jean-Luc] Gréau shouted. “It’s the least you can do.”

[Matthieu] Pigasse replied, “I am.”

“Then shut up!” Mr. Gréau said.

“Beautiful example,” Mr. Pigasse responded. “Thank you so much.”

“You’ll speak when I have finished!” Mr. Gréau roared.

The French take “le talk show” very seriously

writes Elaine Sciolino.

The clash of ideas has been part of France’s national identity for centuries, and the intellectual — almost anyone with an air of gravitas and the confidence to opine on any subject in three points — enjoys a special status in society and a place of prominence on television. Days before France’s presidential election, the country has gone into talk overload, with both serious debates and silly posturing.

“For you Americans the national sport is football; for us French, it’s talk,” said Philippe Labro, a columnist, novelist, essayist and screenwriter whose program “Don’t Lie to Us” is broadcast Wednesday nights on Direct 8. “We talk, we criticize, we argue. We ask you to share your story, and then we try to destroy you.”

There was a time when “le talk show” meant “Apostrophes,” a live prime-time chat between an author and the host Bernard Pivot. An appearance on his show, which ran for 15 years until 1990, could turn a literary loser into a best seller overnight.

Now more than a score of talk shows compete on national and cable networks and online, with vastly different levels of politesse and combativeness. Many put a premium on what Alain Minc, the consultant and sometime adviser to President Nicolas Sarkozy, calls the hallmark of a true intellectual: “profound superficiality.”

I’d Like you to Meet my Wife and Sister

While a European court upheld a German law keeping incest illegal might come as a shock to ‘Civil Rights’ types who like EUvian supersession in all things, it remains in the competence of the Member States to rule on.

From the weird, left-leaning Bild, titled “A Moral Crime”, exhibiting a surprising capacity to know what that is:

Incest can remain a punishable offence in Germany, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Thursday. The German Green politician Christian Ströbele wants to make sex between siblings and other close relatives legal, using the argument of the right to sexual self-determination. The German tabloid Bild attacks the initiative, calling it perfidious: "When for example an 18-year-old girl sleeps with her brother or her father, is this really something she does of her own free will? Is it not always the consequence of emotional blackmail? And isn't 'free will' the vile argument always used by perpetrators as an excuse? 'She went along with it of her own free will' - these words are sickening! Incest is a moral crime because it is almost always associated with abuse and dependency! Therefore it's good that the EU judges have now decided: It is and remains illegal!"

Competence of state or mega-state courts aside, incest remains legal in France, and as you might expect, in the Netherlands, but not in West Virginia, as people fancy imagining.

The proponent of removing that “monumental barrier to free will” is none other than a creepy old man who came from the former East and represents “Green” Party, the one that came about on the pretext that it’s single most important remit is the Environment to the exclusion of everything else that doesn’t matter.

Don’t ask them about your free will when it comes to NOT recycling, driving a real car of any sort, GMOs, generating affordable energy, or using it for that matter... the “unfairness” of incest beingt unlawful must be one of those things that “was gesagt werden muss” that German leftists just can’t hold in.

Outside of the usual desire to promote perversion, I guess it’s their way of supporting Europe’s cultural heritage.

How Marvelous: Thanks to Serguei, We Now Know Not to Confuse Peaceful Muslims with Violent Terrorists

Not to be confused,
writes Serguei about a devout (and peaceful) Muslim compared to (or contrasted with) a similarly-pose-striking terrorist — as if only "humanistic" leftists were intelligent (lucides) enough not to make an amalgamation of the two…

Curiously, the Word “Rendition” isn’t Being Used

At least not in the usual operant-conditioned dog-whistle negative reflex kind of way that Europeans are used to using the term “rendition”:

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ordered radical cleric Abu Hamza and four other terror suspects to be tried in the US, saying Britain would not violate EU human rights rules by extraditing the suspects.

Strangely enough, the British lefties defending Hamza likely convinced themselves “9/11 was an inside job,” while Hamza was rather proud of it being a “Martyrdom” Operation, as if murdering innocent, unsuspecting civilians made one a martyr on the level of those who have been murdered for their beliefs.

Ignore the revision and tortured logic employed by Jihadists and their (puzzlingly still active) “Truther” faNboyZ.
A Martyr is someone who loses their life as a result of religious persecution. As their desire was to kill anyone in America not supportive of al Qaida’s dream of a theocratic dictatorship, the VICTIMS of the attacks on 9-11 were made martyrs, not those who planned, executed, and cheered on their murder.

The Diplomad Is Back

Welcome to The Diplomad 2.0
(thanks to Instapundit)

The Wisdom of Men with Unruly Hair

The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.

Albert Einstein

Europe's Humanistic Lesson-Givers to Build a Wall to Keep Illegal Immigrants Out of Europe

While Europeans never cease giving Americans lessons on racism, and on generosity, and on tolerance, along with the meaning of hospitality, Guillaume Perrier has a story on Greece planning to build a wall on its border with Turkey to prevent illegal immigrants from coming into the EU. With 55,000 people arrested at that 12-km breach of the Greek-Turkish border, the part not covered by the river Evros (Meriç) — meaning perhaps three times more crossed successfully, without detection by the authorities — that spot has become by far the nº 1 spot of entry for illegals' entry into the Schengen zone.

Un mur va s'élever à la frontière orientale de l'Union européenne (UE), entre la Grèce et la Turquie. Plus exactement, une clôture anti-migrants : deux rangées de barbelés hautes de 3 m et longues de 12 km, surmontées de caméras, devraient être plantées d'ici l'été entre la bourgade grecque de Nea Vyssa et la ville turque qui lui fait face, Edirne. Le chantier de cette barrière, similaire à celle qui avait été installée autour des enclaves espagnoles de Ceuta et Melilla, au nord du Maroc, vient d'être lancé, en dépit des nombreuses critiques.

Car au-delà de l'image négative d'une Europe qui se barricade, une telle mesure a peu de chances de réduire effectivement les flux migratoires. L'initiative controversée du gouvernement d'Athènes, qui coûtera environ 3 millions d'euros au contribuable grec, est censée fermer l'accès à la zone Schengen pour les clandestins qui, en nombre croissant, franchissent la frontière depuis la Turquie.

Mais la Commission européenne, sollicitée par la Grèce, a refusé de financer la construction d'une barrière jugée " plutôt inutile " par la commissaire suédoise chargée des affaires intérieures, Cecilia Malmström. Début février, la Commission a fait valoir qu'Athènes ferait mieux de consacrer cet argent à l'accueil des migrants, hébergés dans des conditions déplorables depuis des années. La France et l'Allemagne, au contraire, militent en faveur de cette clôture symbolique.

Le mur viendra calfeutrer une brèche de 12 km dans la frontière. Sur les 200 km restants, le fleuve Evros (Meriç en turc) fait office de séparation, mais à cet endroit il fait un coude et entre en territoire turc, formant un couloir naturel par lequel s'engouffrent chaque année des dizaines de milliers de voyageurs clandestins. Un point sensible découvert en 2010 : cette année-là, environ 55 000 personnes ont été arrêtées, côté grec, après avoir franchi illégalement la frontière, à pied, à travers champs, soit une hausse de 415 % sur un an ! Combien sont entrées sans être détectées ? Peut-être trois fois plus. La frontière gréco-turque est devenue, de très loin, le premier point d'entrée des clandestins dans la zone Schengen.

Mission de police européenne

En novembre 2010, l'agence Frontex, chargée de la surveillance des frontières extérieures de l'Union européenne, a donc décidé de déployer pour la première fois une mission de police (baptisée " Rabit "), rassemblant des représentants des 27 pays membres. Cette mission a été étendue avec le dispositif européen " Poséidon ". En 2011, les passages dans la région d'Edirne ont quasiment baissé de moitié. L'agence européenne se félicite d'une diminution de 41 % des interpellations au nord de la zone frontalière.

" La situation s'améliore. La mission Frontex a eu un effet, estime Jean-Noël Magnin, l'un des officiers de la police aux frontières française (PAF) détaché à Alexandroupolis, à l'ouest de l'Evros. Des moyens ont été mis en oeuvre avec, par exemple, un hélicoptère équipé de caméras thermiques qui survole la région. Aujourd'hui, on arrive à briser des maillons de la chaîne. Mais quoi qu'il arrive, cette frontière restera toujours un point sensible. " Selon ce policier, spécialiste des faux papiers, 130 " facilitateurs " (des passeurs) ont été arrêtés en 2011.

En réalité, les routes d'accès à la Grèce se sont déplacées vers le sud. Le nombre d'entrées a été multiplié par trois dans la province grecque d'Alexandroupolis. Environ 60 000 illégaux ont été interceptés en provenance de Turquie en 2011, un nombre en augmentation par rapport à 2010. Et, chaque nuit, des dizaines parviennent à entrer sans être pris. Les migrants traversent désormais le fleuve Evros, en barque ou en Zodiac, sur des chambres à air de camion, parfois même en s'accrochant à une corde tendue entre les deux rives.

" Ils peuvent construire toutes les clôtures qu'ils veulent, nous passerons toujours ", fanfaronne Ali, un contrebandier turc du village de Karaagaç. Les réseaux de passeurs, mouvants et de mieux en mieux organisés, se jouent des obstacles. En 2012, le rythme s'est accéléré : plus de 5 000 passages ont été " détectés " sur les deux premiers mois, soit une hausse de 30 % par rapport à l'année précédente.

Sur le quai de la gare d'Alexandroupolis, un couple de Syriens et leurs quatre enfants attendent le train pour Athènes. Partie d'Alep, entrée légalement en Turquie, cette famille a été prise en charge par des passeurs contre plusieurs milliers d'euros. " Avec la situation politique, cela devenait trop dangereux ", soupire la femme, un bébé dans les bras.

Après Istanbul, puis une traversée périlleuse de l'Evros et, enfin, deux jours passés dans la cellule crasseuse d'un centre de rétention de la police grecque, ils peuvent poursuivre leur route. Une fois enregistrés par les policiers de Frontex dans le fichier Schengen, ils repartent, comme les autres migrants, avec une injonction de quitter le territoire grec dans les trente jours. C'est plus qu'il n'en faut. A peine quelques jours plus tard, ils seront en Allemagne.

Des passeurs qui s'adaptent

Les Syriens comme eux sont de plus en plus nombreux à parvenir jusqu'à la frontière grecque : au moins 1 500 l'ont traversée clandestinement en janvier et février. Conséquence directe des violences qui frappent la Syrie depuis un an. Sur le quai de la gare, les Syriens croisent des Afghans, des Pakistanais, des Iraniens, des Somaliens, des Algériens, ainsi que des Dominicains. Et tous ont emprunté la même route.

Chaque fois que l'Europe renforce ses contrôles, les réseaux de passeurs s'adaptent à la nouvelle donne, estime Piril Erçoban, responsable d'une association turque de solidarité avec les réfugiés (Multeci-Der), basée à Izmir. " Hier, les migrants passaient par la mer Egée, aujourd'hui par le fleuve Evros, demain, ce sera par la frontière bulgare ", dit-elle.

Jusqu'en 2005, les côtes espagnoles et italiennes étaient les plus abordables. Puis les routes migratoires se sont détournées vers la frontière gréco-turque : de 2006 à 2009, les migrants tentaient de rejoindre les îles de la mer Egée, Samos, Lesbos, Kos, entassés sur des barques de pêche.

La Turquie est facilement accessible, et Istanbul, carrefour de tous les trafics, à trois heures de la frontière grecque, est devenue une plaque tournante pour l'immigration clandestine vers les pays de l'UE. Mais la Bulgarie et la Roumanie, dont l'adhésion à la zone de libre circulation de Schengen a été reportée, commencent à voir débarquer de plus en plus de clandestins.

" Pour les candidats à l'émigration, peu importe le temps, les murs, les grilles, qu'il y ait Frontex ou non... déclare Mme Erçoban. Ils ne sont pas en visite touristique, ils fuient des violations des droits de l'homme, des guerres. Il y a toujours un chemin... Cela va continuer mais il faudra payer de plus en plus cher, et de plus en plus de gens vont mourir en tentant de traverser. "

En 2011, environ 80 corps ont été retrouvés sur les rives grecques. Une cinquantaine côté turc, selon le gouvernorat d'Edirne. L'hiver, les noyades dans l'Evros et les cas d'hypothermie sont courants. En janvier, onze Algériens sont morts après avoir chaviré dans les eaux du fleuve en crue.

Dans ces conditions, le ticket pour un aller vers Schengen se monnaie à partir de 500 euros à la frontière. Les voyageurs paient parfois jusqu'à 8 000 euros pour une prise en charge depuis leur pays d'origine, jusqu'à leur destination finale, faisant la fortune des réseaux mafieux.

Guillaume Perrier

Republicans are playing golf while the Democrats are playing ice hockey

Bernie Marcus, Home Depot co-founder, explains "the rules of the game" (0:41):

…the Republicans play the rules of … golf. In golf, if you miss a putt or you touch the ball, you call a shot on yourself. We're playing the game of golf. The Democrats are playing ice hockey. It's a killer game. And that's the difference in politics.

Foreigners of every race know that the U.S. is the least racist country in the world but most black Americans and the entire left deny it

In light of the tragic killing of black teenager Trayvon Martin — and the manufactured hysteria surrounding it — one thing needs to be stated as clearly and as often as possible

writes Dennis Prager:

The United States is the least racist and least xenophobic country in the world.
Foreigners of every race, ethnicity, and religion know this.

Most Americans suspect this.

Most black Americans and the entire left deny this.

Black Africans know this. That is why so many seek to live in the United States. Decades ago, the number of black Africans who had immigrated to the United States had already surpassed the number of black Africans who were forcibly shipped to America as slaves.

And members of other races and nationalities know this. Even Muslim and Arab writers have noted that nowhere in the Arab or larger Muslim world does an Arab or any other Muslim have the individual rights, liberty, and dignity that a Muslim living in America has. As for Latinos and Asians, vast numbers of them from El Salvador to Korea regard America as the land of opportunity.

And when any of these people come here — from anywhere, speaking any language, looking like a member of any race — they are accepted as Americans the moment they identify as such. He or she will be regarded as fully American. This is not true elsewhere. A third-generation Turkish-German, whose German is indistinguishable from the German spoken by an indigenous German, will still be regarded by most Germans as a Turk. The same holds true elsewhere in Europe.

… Xenophobic? It is probably fair to say that most Americans are xenophiles.

… The left-wing drumbeat about America as racist is a combination of politics and black memory.

The political aspect is this: The Democrats and the left recognize that if blacks cease viewing themselves as victims of racism, the Democratic Party can no longer offer itself as black America's savior. And if only one out of three black Americans ceases to regard to himself as a victim of racism, and votes accordingly, it will be very difficult for Democrats to win any national election.

The other issue is black memory. Apparently, most blacks either cannot or refuse to believe that the vast majority of whites are no longer racist. Most Americans were hopeful that the election of a black president — thereby making America the first white society in history to choose a black leader — would finally put to rest the myth of a racist America. More than three years later it seems not to have accomplished a thing. I now suspect that if the president, the vice-president, the entire cabinet, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and all nine justices on the Supreme Court were black, it would have no impact on blacks who believe America is a racist society — or on the left-wing depiction of America as racist.

One can only conclude that the smearing of America's good name is one of the things at which the left has been most proficient.

Update: Katie Pavlich: Look around the world and you’ll find that America is the most tolerant and open society on earth

Somewhere in a little town in Belgium…

Somewhere in a little town in Belgium.
On a square where nothing really happens. never.
we placed a button.
push to add drama and see what happens!

(Dank U wel to Duncan)

Family Law Gone Berserk: A Kennedy Arrested for Wanting to Hold His Son and Take Him Out of Daycare

Even a member of the powerful Kennedy clan (one who, interestingly enough, turns out to be a Fox News reporter) is not immune to being victimized by the feminists' radical child "protection" laws. As José Martinez tells it in the New York Post,

The son of slain Sen. Robert Kennedy … was arrested in February after grappling with nurses who tried to stop him from taking the 2-day-old infant from the maternity ward at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco.

… Douglas Kennedy … was charged with harassment and endangering the welfare of a child after his Jan. 7 run-in with nurses. The hospital also reported Kennedy to the state’s Child Protective Services.

“Our lives have been turned upside down simply because my husband wanted to take a walk with our son,” said his wife, Molly Kennedy.

Kennedy’s lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, blasted the prosecution as a “disgrace” and claimed two nurses have retained lawyers in a cash grab.

Arrested for being with your own son?! Charged with harassment and endangering the welfare of a child — one's own child?!

As Stephen Baskerville points out in his book, Taken Into Custody (The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family), which we referenced only a couple of days ago,

What is taking place here should be made very clear: Citizens who are completely innocent of any legal wrongdoing and simply minding their own business — not seeking any litigation and neither convicted nor accused of any legal infraction, criminal or civil — are ordered into court and told to write checks to officials of the court or they will be summarily arrested and jailed. Judges also order citizens to sell their houses and other property and turn proceeds over to lawyers and other cronies they never hired. Summoning legally unimpeachable citizens to court and forcing them to empty their bank accounts to people they have neither hired for services they have requested nor received on threat of physical punishment is what most people would call a protection racket. Were any other public officials to use their position of public trust to coerce money out of private citizens, they would likely face indictment. Yet family court judges do this as a matter of routine. This is by far the clearest example I have ever encountered in my professional research of what we political scientists term a "kleptocracy," or government by thieves.

…The regime of involuntary divorce, forcible removal of children, coerced child support, and knowingly false accusations is now warping our entire legal system, undermining and overturning principles of common law that have protected individual rights for centuries. The presumption of innocence has been inverted

…It is always tempting to dismiss such violations as aberrations, the result of excess by a few overzealous officials, since civil and human rights are violated be every government, even in democracies. Yet considered in the light of constitutional principle, the destruction of ancient protections is clearly systematic with the nation's family courts and endemic to a governmental regime whose very existence is predicated and dependent on the power to remove children from their parents. Far from simple violations of particular constitutional clauses, these practices and powers are undermining constitutional government in its most fundamental principles. The power to take children from their parents for no reason is arbitrary government at its most intrusive, since it invades and obliterates all of private life. Yet we have created a governmental machinery that exists for no other purpose.

Another Reason to Be Against Obamacare?

MSM & Double Standards: NYT Obit Describes Committed French Marxist as a Student "participating in left-wing politics"

In that part of the double standards department where every person on the right is an extremist, if not a far-right extremist, while every leftist, however extreme, is nothing but a regular good ol' guy (or gal) — and a principled one at that — we can add Douglas Martin's New York Times obituary for "a storied leader of the resistance effort in Nazi-occupied France during World War II." Here is the way Raymond Aubrac's 1930s activism is described (or rather, the way it is hardly referred to):

Raymond Aubrac … born Raymond Samuel … met Lucie Bernard while participating in left-wing politics in Paris.

As noted in No Pasarán's obituary of Raymond Aubrac, what Douglas Martin glosses over as simply "participating in left-wing politics" (and what Maïa de la Baume, in the International Herald Tribune, describes, just as hurriedly, as being "involved in leftist wing politics before the war") refers in fact to being an unapologetic Marxist. ("Leftist wing politics" instead of, simply, "left-wing"? Might that be an euphemism for the more extremist variety?)

It should in no way take away from Aubrac's World War II heroics against the Nazis to point out that in the 1930s, this student of Harvard's Joseph Schumpeter was a Marxist — which is confirmed by the fact that, in an interview with Le Monde's Philippe Dagen and Thomas Wieder last year, he spends long parts detailing his Marxist leanings, both before and after the war.

I was very influenced by Marxism. It was a big help, because Marxism explained both society in the present and the sense of history.

This, at a time when Joseph Stalin was at the helm of the Soviet Union — and of the international communist movement. Later, Aubrac claims that he lost faith in "Marxism in general" (albeit not "certain points of Marxism", like "Marxist analyses" of the repartition of profits). Still, that did not prevent him from calling a mass murderer his "friend", as — to his credit — Douglas Martin acknowledges later in the obit (although at the same time he seems to be totally unfazed by the Vietnam connection; wonder if the New York Times would have reacted the same ho-hum way if some VIP had claimed Augusto Pinochet to be his friend and the godfather of his child…).

When Ho Chi Minh, the North Vietnamese leader, came to Paris in 1946 to negotiate independence, he stayed in Mr. Aubrac’s home, explaining that he would have missed having a garden if he had stayed in a hotel. In 1967, as was later widely reported, the United States secretly enlisted Mr. Aubrac to travel to Hanoi to negotiate an agreement to end the Vietnam War. He failed, but an agreement similar to the one he helped fashion led to peace talks.

… De Gaulle was the godfather of Mr. Aubrac’s daughter Catherine Vallade, while Ho Chi Minh was godfather of his other daughter, Elisabeth Helfer Aubrac. (Ho, an atheist, was said to prefer the term sponsor.)

Interestingly, after telling Le Monde's Philippe Dagen and Thomas Wieder that "Marxism explained both society in the present and the sense of history", Raymond Aubrac adds that

Today, things are infinitely more complicated and anguishing, because no system allows the present to be decoded and the future to be imagined.

Doesn't that sound like a leftist (extreme or other) bowing to reality (while realizing it or not)? The reality that not everything can be explained by simplistic fairy tales, à la Karl Marx et al, and by other similar "narratives"…

Tal der Ahnungslosen

Swiss valley proudly turns down the prospect of finding more than a billion dollars’ worth of gold under the feet of its’ inbred villagers. Why bother when you can pick the pockets of the world's poor whose dictators and cleptocrats have left their stolen goods in your banks?

There are no ski lifts or chalets and the only tourists who come here are fishermen, cross-country skiers and hunters in search of red deer and chamois.

"The mine would have been very positive. Look at this picture," he said, pointing at a black and white print of the village from 60 years ago, showing two children in grubby smocks playing in an unpaved back alley lined with wooden-tiled houses.

"If nothing new happens here, the valley will go back to how it was then. There'll be no future for young people. The village is dying but people here are only thinking from one day to the next," said Mr Boehm, a German who has lived in Switzerland for 18 years.

How very romantic. Look, the Swiss are different. The "Culture" page of the paper is the business section, and vice versa, despite the 3 or 4 people still living the rural existence. Despite this, their lethargy is rife. It seems that only out of habit do they use the term “for our children” when the once otherwise enthusiastic womenfolk themselves are aiding in their demographic decline by not popping out that many future bankers and hedge fund managers anyway.

"The population is declining – there were 850 people living here in the 1960s – so we are looking for new opportunities. The mine would have brought fresh blood. We cannot stay as a museum – we need a future for our young people. To do nothing is not an option – that way we will just continue to die as a community."

Such arguments failed to sway the majority of the valley's inhabitants.

So it would seem.

Look Who's Really Waging War on Women: Phyllis Schlafly Demands that Hilary Rosen Apologize to Ann Romney

Pointing out that if anyone is waging war on women, it is the Obama administration and the feminists — "who just don't like full-time homemakers" — Phyllis Schlafly calls on Hilary Rosen to make an apology — a real one — to Ann Romney…

Meanwhile, Barack Obama feels compelled to join the fray, while Politico's Donovan Slack twists the story to benefit the White House ("Republicans … slamming Dems relentlessly") and, not wishing to relinquish for a second the war on (for?) women imagery, ends his piece with a dire warning:

don't expect the GOP to give up its foothold any time soon in the battle over women voters.

Uh, Donovan, a couple of quick questions: who started it in the first place?! And doesn't that matter at all?!

As for the Huffington Post, it is in full damage control mood, with Jennifer Bendery taking Hilary Rosen's (self-serving) description of the uproar as fact — i.e., describing the scandal as a "faux war" against stay-at-home moms — all the while belittling it further by declaring that "Less than 24 hours after it started," it "appears to be coming to an end." And all this in the very first sentence!

Much more on Phyllis Schlafly here…

Memory Lane

It wasn't stunningly foul, but tasted oddly familiar in a deliciously grim sort of way.



Ikea's bottled "Swedish Festive Easter Soft Drink"

It has kind of a mild malt flavor. The reason the DDR-licensed Pepsi tasted this way, was because the eastern licence-users refused to pay Pepsi to import the syrup, and wanted the formula. Naturally, the licencees of products such as this didn't see the past behaviour of the COMECON crowd as terribly honest in these matters, and refused.

Nonetheless, even in the worker's paradise, a corporate logo's appeal was even understood by the Nannies-in-Chief of the people.

“The respondent is unreasonably demanding sex every night from the petitioner, which is causing friction between the parties”

Because of a lack of no-fault divorce laws in England, writes Sarah Lyall in the New York Times, spouses desiring to part ways must come up with all sorts of inventive faults to blame upon the other party.

“It’s insane,” Ms. Lloyd Platt said. “These things should not have any part in the procedure.”

But they come up all the time in England, which unlike every state in America does not have a no-fault divorce law.

… Under current English law, divorces are granted only under one of five categories, including adultery and abandonment. About half of the cases fall under the heading of a broad category called unreasonable behavior, in which one party has to accuse the other of acting so unreasonably that living together has become intolerable.

… Ms. Lloyd Platt compiled a list in The Times of London of some of the odder accusations of fault she and other lawyers have come across in divorce petitions.

In addition to the Klingon man [the wife who sued for divorce because her husband insisted she dress in a Klingon costume and speak to him in Klingon], there was a woman who said her husband had not spoken to her for 15 years, communicating only by Post-it note. And there was the man whose wife “would without justification flirt with any builder or tradesman, inappropriately touching them and declaring that she could not stop herself.”

One petition read: “The respondent insisted that his pet tarantula, Timmy, slept in a glass case next to the matrimonial bed,” even though his wife requested “that Timmy sleep elsewhere.”

There were complaints about husbands with atrocious body odor and others who changed the channels too fast. “The respondent husband repeatedly took charge of the remote television controller, endlessly flicking through channels and failing to stop at any channel requested by the petitioner,” one petition read.

… Sometimes, Ms. Lloyd Platt said, it is hard to keep a straight face, as in the case of the petition claiming “the respondent is unreasonably demanding sex every night from the petitioner, which is causing friction between the parties.”

In another moment of unintended hilarity, a client complained that her husband was dressing up in her clothes and “stretching all her best outfits,” Ms. Lloyd Platt said. “When the gentleman came in and he was 6-3 — I found that particularly hard to deal with,” she said.

Beyond the laughs, of course — and forgive us for breaking the jovial mood — we should not lose sight of the fact that no-fault divorce is hardly harmless, contrary to what leftists like the New York Times seem to claim ("If the government had enacted past proposals to allow no-fault divorce, … “there would have been no need for these painful investigations, which seem to represent the social values of a bygone age” ; In a speech last month, Justice Nicholas Wall, president of the family division of England’s high court, said that “I see no good arguments against no-fault divorce” ").

Indeed, no-fault divorce is the source of great hardship and has caused the deliberate administration of injustice, along with the rise of a divorce industry filled with parasites, as Stephen Baskerville points out in his book, Taken Into Custody (The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family).

… Contrary to popular belief (and centuries of common-law precedent), child support today has nothing to do with fathers abandoning their children, reneging on their marital vows, of even agreeing to a divorce. It is automatically assessed on all non-custodial parents, even those divorced over their objections and who lose their children through no legal fault or agreement of their own. It is an entitlement, in short, for all divorcing mothers…

… The regime of involuntary divorce, forcible removal of children, coerced child support, and knowingly false accusations is now warping our entire legal system, undermining and overturning principles of common law that have protected individual rights for centuries. The presumption of innocence has been inverted

… The federal funding also supplies an added incentive to make guidelines as onerous as possible and to squeeze every dollar from every parent available (as well as to turn as many parents as possible into payers by providing financial incentives for mothers to divorce)…

“Resets,” “Smart Diplomacy”, and other Hopelessly Pathetic Amateurisms

Everything was supposed to be different. The earth was supposed to be healed by dint of Obama’s very being. Europeans thought they had a man in the White House who would make the United States do their bidding. The “Reset” button, like some icon or fetish, was taken on a pilgrimage to Mockba’s as yet un-renamed Red Square.

And the Russians and those Europreans previously so passive-aggressive with the US laughed at their good fortune of finding people they could chump at Foggy Bottom and the White House. Then, like in the stages of grief, came to the realization that the world’s governments are not there to serve their fake and irrelevant policy objectives, or the notion that it remain the rest of the world’s obligation to secure their stability and well-being.

In the last few months anti-American propaganda made forceful comeback in the Russian media. Many thought it was just electioneering in the run-up to the March presidential elections. But that was too optimistic, it seems. In the last few weeks things became even more heated. NTV, a Russian TV channel owned by Gazprom Media, has been following US ambassador Michael McFaul pretty much everywhere, which lead to an outburst of indignation from McFaul, as well as accusations that his phone (and therefore calendar) is hacked, and a formal US State Department protest over the harassment of the US ambassador. McFaul also claimed that upon arrival to Moscow last January he felt like he was back in the Cold War and that ’it has been surprising that there was so much anti-Americanism, because we thought we were building a different kind of relationship, and it makes some people nervous that it could so quickly and reflexively go back to – in terms of rhetoric – an era that we thought was behind us’. Then, on a different occasion, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called McFaul ‘arrogant’. In other words, the dismantlement of what was considered a key achivement of the reset is well advanced.

What’s painfully obvious is that it’s the Russian, not the America of either George Bush or Barack Obama that remains stuck in a cold-war mentality.

Obama's "Space", "Flexibility", and Concessions in Relation to Syria During an Election Year: "Iran has won the round and Russia was its accomplice”

Last week, John Vinocur asked the French defense minister how he now would describe the circumstances in Syria.

[Gérard Longuet's] frankness was startling: “Iran has won the round and Russia was its accomplice.”

… As little as a month ago, the Obama administration was talking about the imminent departure of Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s leader. His ouster would have been a vast blow to Iran, which regards Assad as its closest ally and buffer.

But the West buckled in the face of Russian and Chinese resistance, withdrawing its U.N. Security Council draft resolution that demanded that Assad leave and that Russia halt its supply of arms to Syria. No substantive Western action followed. Assad remains. This is a terrible precedent.

The most conservative commentator working for the New York Times has a column in the International Herald Tribune that is far from optimistic and that can be called another pronouncement on Barack Obama's Smart Diplomacy as well as on the O's subsuming all initiatives, foreign as well as domestic, to that most important of measures for the American nation, Obama's campaign for a second term.

Bad news: the Obama administration and the West hold a lousy hand as they go into talks with Iran.

In a world of dreams and miracles, the conversations, starting Saturday, would end with the mullahs renouncing their drive toward nuclear weapons, and the disappearance of a thunderhead of foreboding and grief.

Reality says otherwise, three ways.

It demonstrates that the Iranians are emboldened by the West’s backing off in Syria. It acknowledges that some of the allies have serious concerns about Barack Obama’s willingness to make concessions and stretch out the talks, playing for time, Iranian-style, until after the U.S. presidential election. And it imposes the conclusion that there is no visible way these so-called confidence building exchanges (don’t call them negotiations) can produce confidence solid enough for the United States, Britain, France and Germany to believe that Iran is willing to cast aside the nuclear military program they accuse it of running.

… the Obama administration has left its European counterparts with a virtual certainty: that it wants the talks to extend until Election Day, Nov. 4. This is based on the flimsy premise that Israel will be reluctant to strike Iran as long as the talks continue.

Yet the administration’s approach to the conversations does not include a clear exit strategy, which intensifies the likelihood of their dawdling futility.

The French, in this context, are describing themselves as “guardians of the temple,” meaning that they have suspicions of U.S. concessions that would bend or skirt the Security Council’s requirements for the mullahs to prove their total disengagement from pursuing nukes. (Think, in the worst case, of a triangular deal with Russia and Iran reflecting Mr. Obama’s on-mike appeal to Vladimir Putin for “space” in exchange for “flexibility” on missile defense.)

Petty Tyrant Menaces Toothless “Mega State”

Syrian intelligence accused of threatening people in EU capital

No. They really have nothing that can stop them.

To Our Readers: Thanks to Google and to the French Government, I Can No Longer Read Your Comments

This is to let you know that I am currently in Switzerland for my Easter holiday…

Why would you care, you ask?

Well, for the first time in weeks, I can read your comments (and have been going back to try and read them all).

The thing is: When I am in France, the name, or address, of the blog — http://no-pasaran.blogspot.com/ — changes automatically to http://no-pasaran.blogspot.fr/

Apparently (if my understanding is correct), Blogger, or Google, has a deal with the French government (maybe imposed by Paris) that .com blogs will automatically transfer to .fr blogs (and that for reasons of content control and the ability to take action against law-breakers?). The Swiss, to their credit, have not (yet?) done so.

Offhand, nothing has changed, the blog appears (to me) exactly as normal, except — that the comments section doesn't show up anymore. To the right is a screenshot of what I — invariably — see (when in France, that is). Rather than, say, the usual "Comments (4)" link, I see "Echo 0 items" and "Leave a Comment" (which is a dead link). Readers who have tried changing .com to .fr in the location bar (try it yourself if you have time) might get the word "Comments" but never followed by a number, i.e., never with any actual remarks, because it is a dead link and clicking the link will not do anything or take you anywhere.

(No Pasarán's Joe lives stateside, so he can read your comments without problems.)

What is odd is that the blog-publishing service, blogger.com, remains the same, i.e., it has not become blogger.fr, so the original template has not changed, nor has the means of making the post. But, somehow, for some reason (to guard against hate speech?), whatever Hal 9000 in France is perusing the content of the template is blocking the part where the Echo html appears.

In August, Echo retires anyway, but I assume that any change will still be subject to French government restrictions and that because they have little estomac for comments sections not controlled by them, little will change. If any reader has any comments or suggestions, we are open to them (I am open to them, that is, for the next couple of days!), but I suppose the solution will be a letters section made in France (or at least controlled by France).

French World War II Resistance Hero Raymond Aubrac Is Dead

One of the leading figures of the French resistance against the Nazis has died, the BBC and Le Monde report. Raymond Aubrac was 97.

Last year, the man born Raymond Samuel on July 31, 1914, was interviewed by Philippe Dagen and Thomas Wieder. Among other things, this "friend" of Ho Chi Minh had the following to say about Marxism and the Vietnam War:

Vous aviez 20ans quand Hitler est arrivé au pouvoir. C'était une période très sombre, celle de la Grande dépression consécutive au krach de 1929. Aviez-vous alors le sentiment d'appartenir à une génération sans espoir ?

C'était très différent. Nous étions inquiets, bien sûr, mais nous avions le sentiment de comprendre à peu près la façon dont fonctionnait lemonde. Pour ma part, j'ai été très influencé par le marxisme. Cela m'a beaucoup aidé, car le marxisme nous expliquait à la fois la société présente et le sens de l'histoire. Aujourd'hui, les choses sont infiniment plus compliquées et angoissantes, car aucun système ne permet plus de déchiffrer le présent et d'imaginer l'avenir.

Le marxisme vous aide-t-il encore à penser le monde ?

Le marxisme en général, non. Mais certains points du marxisme, oui. Je pense au partage de la plus-value résultant de la production des biens et des services. La question de la répartition des profits entre les salaires des travailleurs, les investissements des entreprises et les dividendes des actionnaires n'a rien perdu de son actualité et, sur ce point, les analyses marxistes me semblent toujours pertinentes.

Puisque vous me parlez des théories qui peuvent nous aider à penser le monde, laissez-moi aussi vous dire un mot de Joseph Schumpeter. J'ai eu la chance, quand j'étais étudiant à Harvard, à la fin des années 1930, de suivre son séminaire. L'une des idées de ce grand économiste était que les changements technologiques majeurs n'influent pas seulement sur l'économie, mais qu'ils ont aussi un effet sur la civilisation. Il nous parlait bien sûr de la machine à vapeur et de l'électricité. Aujourd'hui, nous vivons la même chose avec l'informatisation et Internet. Je ne sais pas s'il y a assez de gens pour réfléchir aux conséquences de ces phénomènes sur le devenir de notre civilisation.

… En 1996, vous avez publié vos souvenirs sous le titre Où la mémoire s'attarde (éd. Odile Jacob). Aujourd'hui, Pascal Convert vous consacre une biographie. Qu'avez-vous ressenti à sa lecture ?

J'ai appris beaucoup de choses en lisant ce livre. Je vous donnerai un exemple, sur un épisode qui se situe pendant la guerre du Vietnam. En 1967, j'ai servi de porteur de messages entre les Américains et les Nord-Vietnamiens. Je ne savais pas, à l'époque, que Lyndon Johnson, le président des Etats-Unis, avait créé un petit comité chargé d'étudier le résultat de cette mission. Grâce à ses recherches dans les archives américaines, Pascal a reconstitué cette partie de l'histoire. Il donne des informations qui complètent ce que l'on sait du rôle joué à l'époque par le secrétaire à la défense, Robert McNamara, en faveur de l'ouverture de négociations avec les Nord-Vietnamiens. C'était ce qu'on appelait la filière "Pennsylvania".

Des années plus tard, McNamara m'a offert son livre sur la guerre du Vietnam avec la dédicace: "Si nous avions été suivis, des millions d'hommes auraient été sauvés…"

Smart Diplomacy: A French Presidential Candidate Vows to Valiantly Fight the American Empire and Bring the World Out From Under Its Domineering Shadow

It's not much longer than a filler, but the Le Monde piece by Gilles Paris has a chilling description of the foreign views of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose "leftist" (communistic) front, le Front de Gauche, may surpass Marine Le Pen's Front National during the first round of the French presidential elections to become the third-largest party in France.

A new Internationale, an "Internationale of the pavement", is the diplomatic project of Mélenchon, whose world vision begins (and ends) with the United States, "the primary problem in the world", what with "their 700,000 troops present on five continents". With the fight against terrorism or the cause of Tibet being only — deliberate — distractions to distract the populace (for in Mélenchon's viewpoint, only Palestine is a worthy cause), it is against America's "multiform" domination — from the Chicago School to NATO — that he wants to go into battle and take the world out from under the shadow of the United Statesian Empire.

(Oh, and keep in mind — this is during the friendly, peaceful reign of Barack the Redeemer, aka He Who Would Repair the Mistakes of Bush the Clueless and Make the World Come Together Thanks to His Smart Diplomacy.)

The New York Times' Maïa de la Baume and Steven Erlanger have a report on Mélenchon on the front page of the International Herald Tribune:

They sang “The Internationale,” carried red flags and shouted “Resistance!” They booed whenever the word “rich” was pronounced, and they applauded when their leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, called the far right “professional racists” and the Socialist candidate “a pedal-boat captain.”

… Mr. Mélenchon is now running third in many polls for the French presidential elections this month.

With the first round of voting two weeks away, the far left is running just ahead of the far right of the National Front and its candidate, Marine Le Pen. Together, those on both wings of the French spectrum, who share strong criticism of globalization and the European Union, could take 30 percent or more of the vote in a race with 10 candidates, which would be more than either President Nicolas Sarkozy or the Socialist candidate, François Hollande, the two front-runners.

And how the voters on the so-called fringe choose to cast their ballots in the second-round runoff on May 6 is likely to decide the race.

… He once confessed that he was bored in Brussels and dreamed of creating a French equivalent of the German Die Linke, a hard-left party rooted in the old East German Communist party. He has defended the Chinese repression over Tibet, admires Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and has called the United States “the first problem of the world,” criticizing what he considers to be America’s malign military hegemony.

And the original text from the Le Monde article by Gilles Paris:

LE BILLET

L'ombre de l'empire américain

Jeter à la rivière le clivage classique entre atlantistes et gaullo-mitterrandistes, au profit d'une " Internationale du pavé " - celui qui finit par voler après avoir été longtemps battu -, tel est le projet diplomatique de Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Sa vision du monde part des Etats-Unis, " premier problème du monde " avec " leurs 700 000 hommes de troupes présents sur cinq continents ". C'est contre leur domination multiforme - de l'Ecole de Chicago à l'OTAN -, étendue à une Europe conservatrice et libérale, qu'il appelle au combat. La lutte contre le terrorisme ou la cause du Tibet ne sont, pour lui, que des acouphènes de nature à distraire le populo. Seule la cause palestinienne mérite quand même, selon lui, qu'on s'y intéresse. L'ombre portée de l'empire " étasunien " explique aussi l'attirance de M. Mélenchon pour les pays de l'Alliance bolivarienne, préférés aux émergents : l'Equateur de Rafael Correa plus encore que le Venezuela de Hugo Chavez, qui fait traduire Victor Hugo, ou Cuba, qu'il se refuse à qualifier de dictature. Cuba, où un autre internationaliste, vêtu de blanc, vient de remporter une victoire symbolique propre à désespérer le candidat du Front de gauche, en obtenant que le Vendredi Saint y soit désormais chômé.

par Gilles Paris

FG poster: "Seize power: Let's make the banks pay, not the peoples"
(that's the "peoples" — i.e., the peoples of the Earth — not the "people")

We Can Learn from the Germans

In more than one German State (Länder) that I’m familiar with, you need not just a phot ID to vote, but a photo VOTER ID to demonstrate you’re an eligible voter.

In Obama’s America, though...:

When the French flics broke up a pro-Algerian demonstration with their high-power water hoses, they were as vicious as the redneck cops in Birmingham

Needless to say, what with the Trayvon Martin case, the French have been all over themselves concerning alleged racism in the United States, suggesting cold-blooded 007s and other professional assassins running around with licenses to kill and gunning innocent people down.

In that perspective, it is interesting to read Dwight Garner's New York Times book review of Dreaming in French, Alice Kaplan’s tome about "the formative year that three ambitious and striking American women — Jacqueline Bouvier, Susan Sontag and Angela Davis — spent in Paris while in their 20s."

Angela Davis … was in Paris during the Birmingham church bombings in 1963, combing the European edition of The New York Herald Tribune for news. She saw hints of racism in France, a country where black American artists had traditionally fled to escape the oppression they felt in the United States.

About a pro-Algerian demonstration she saw on the Place de la Sorbonne, Ms. Davis wrote: “When the flics broke it up with their high-power water hoses, they were as vicious as the redneck cops in Birmingham.”

After Ms. Davis was charged with murder, conspiracy and kidnapping for her role in the 1970 kidnapping and death of a California judge (she had purchased the weapons used in the crime), her case became a cause célèbre among French writers and intellectuals like Jean Genet and Michel Foucault. They considered her one of their own. There was celebration in Paris when she was acquitted.

Requiring all citizens to purchase something, regardless of how worthy the cause, is a tax imposed on all the living

A reader of the International Herald Tribune puts one of the New York Times' star columnists straight:

Regarding Broccoli and bad faith (Views, March 31): Paul Krugman fears certain Supreme Court justices don’t understand how insurance works. I fear Mr. Krugman doesn’t understand how taxation works. It is not people who are taxed; rather, it is their income and their taxable assets. Someone with no income and no assets cannot be taxed merely for existing. Requiring all citizens to purchase something, regardless of how worthy the cause being funded, is a tax imposed on all the living, regardless of their circumstances. This cannot be compared to any principle of taxation.

Stanislas Yassukovich,
Oppède, France

And while you're at the IHT link, check the letter below his for one leftist European's proud tirade — he claims to "speak for many millions of Europeans" no less — against that terrible danger to humanity and to civilization, I am speaking (or Peter ten Hoopen is, rather) of… Starbucks!

House Organ run by Stasi Early-Retirees Blames Jews for being Insulted by Anti-Israeli Comment

This cartoon appeared in Neues Deutschland, which was the house organ of the SED, the east German Communist party. Following the collapse of the regime it’s been owned by its successor, the Democratic Socialism Party (PDS), which is part of the unctuous Die Linke



Bat: "what must be said". That Grass meant by this, has to do with his notion that Israel is to be balmed for Iranians seeking nukes.

Wow! And to think that I believed their apologists who insist that the Iranians just want "peaceful atomic science" !

They are the only German party today to run a daily newspaper. So this defense of, and apologia for Gűnter Grass by these jokers.

I’m going to make an Exception to my Usual Respect for the Aged

Günter Grass is a douchebag.

Observing Hermann illucidates:

But what we do do is regularly transform a little imaginary something we call “collective guilt” (World War II guilt, there is no such thing as Communist East Germany guilt) into new products (poems) with new perpetrators (Israel) which we market at irregular intervals to cover our countrymen’s never-ending demand for ritual redemption which of course will never be satisfied, or so we lead them (and us) to believe.

Having watched Grass' strange attempt to make things better on the Tagesschau has not been as entertaining as much as it has been a confirmation of his arrogance and detatchment from human morilaty.

AP: Elementary My Dear Watson — This Is How You Can Tell If a Criminal Is Black

Two young women are dead, first tortured, and then murdered, in atrocious conditions, and we know that the perpetrators are black or members of a minority.

How the devil do you know that, Holmes? Given that there is no mention of the alleged murderers' race in the Associated Press article?

Five men have been charged in the abduction and slayings of two Michigan women who were kidnapped and stuffed in a car trunk at gunpoint …

Brandon Cain, 26, Miguel Rodriguez, 24, Reginald Brown, 24, Jeremy Brown, 19, and Brian Lee, 25, all of Detroit, are charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of felony murder, two counts of torture and two counts of unlawful imprisonment.

Elementary, my dear Watson: both women are members of minorities, at least one is definitely black (am I guilty of racial profiling for pointing this out, Lestrade?), probably both are or identify as such, and… there has been no uproar over racism among the élites and in the mainstream media (including this very article by the Associated Press).

Ergo — the killers are black, or at least members of minorities, and this is a story that should blow over much more quickly than the one of a violent male nearly as old as they, killed during a one-to-one struggle down in Florida.

No mention of the killers' premeditation, not to mention their likely larger body weight (and few references to the cowardly group's numerical superiority along with — am I guilty of sexism for pointing the following out, Lestrade? — the outnumbered females' natural physical inferiority), and little chance of a statement from the White House pointing out that if Barack Obama had a third, elder, daughter, at least one of the women, and possibly both, would look like her… ("If I had two elder daughters, they would look like Abreeya and Ashley"?)

And let's not even get into the fact that the situation could have turned out differently if either Abreeya Brown, 18, or Ashley Conaway, 22, had had a gun in their purse and had had the time — and the training — to use it…

Related: Regarding the Trayvon Case, Le Monde Suggests America as a Place Where James Bonds with Licenses to Kill Run Around, Gunning Innocent People Down