PopularFrontRevisitedVille
Yesterday, we noted how the French Left rose to the occasion electorally on Sunday in a way that seems to have stymied, at least for now, the rise of the racists who are pretending they aren't.
But now that the French Left has a chance to do something, what should they do?
One of the original members of Left Blogistan, Ian Welsh, a guy who is still as prolific as ever, has a few ideas:
Yesterday, we noted how the French Left rose to the occasion electorally on Sunday in a way that seems to have stymied, at least for now, the rise of the racists who are pretending they aren't.
But now that the French Left has a chance to do something, what should they do?
One of the original members of Left Blogistan, Ian Welsh, a guy who is still as prolific as ever, has a few ideas:
...For the Left to take over in the next election they need to deliver at least a bit. It may not be impossible: the right might vote with them on some issues, such as rolling back the pension age increase (which they opposed) and they may be able to convince the center to vote with them on other issues.In addition, when they are stopped from pursuing popular policies like taxing the rich to pay for social programs, they need to scream to high heavens and make the case that with a majority they will be able to deliver their entire program.Much of the problem in France has been that when Neoliberals want to do the right thing, like fight climate change, they do it in the most regressive way possible, hurting workers and farmers, rather than making the rich pay. Outlawing private jets and taxing the rich, then using the money to pay farmers to make necessary changes rather than forcing farmers to take the hit is a winning policy...
In other words, Ian is saying that the French Left now has a chance to step on the proverbial CO2-free gas pedal and that they should do so rather than triangulating away into the non-productive nothingness of half measures that has become the dominant NeoLib way.
But can that possibly work?
Stay tuned for the next post...
.
.
1 comment:
France has had two Socialist governments in my lifetime, first Mitterand )1981-1995), then Hollande (2012-2017): neither governed anything like a real socialist entity, generally making nice with the economic paradigm of our times with a little social window-dressing on the side, such that there was no lasting legacy of a better life for the bulk of the population. Hollande brought Macron into the governing circle as a special economic advisor towards the end of his mandate, and while he was, in some ways, outside the mold of the run of French politicians, his economics were/are pure trickle down, austerity, don't touch the rich edicts, many of which were passed with the invocation, a dozen times, of article 49,3 of the constitution which allows the executive to enact legislation without debate, without a vote. Hence, it is not a surprise that the general population of France has become jaded to politics and moved to the extreme right, in many cases, is search of an exit from the gridlock of the centrist parties and the traditional left, all of whom over promise and under deliver. We have seen something similar with the advent of the Trudeau “Sunny Days, Sunny Ways” rhetoric, seemingly heralding a new era distinctly different from the years of Chrétien, Martin, and Harper, none of whom deviated from the least in terms of economic fundamentals from the Mulroney years that eventually lead to the almost total disappearance of the Conservative brand from our House of Commons in 1993. The federal NDP, when they were in opposition in the Jack Layton era, looked a lot like a Liberal Lite party, and under Singh, they often look like a prop for the Liberals. In all of this, the steady diet of “information” coming from our press and general media has ensured that our view of anything left of Liberal is a fear of Stalinist Communism, and the rapacity of our current economy has continued apace, in many cases accelerating the slide into environmental, social and economic collapse. We witnessed a similar hiccup when Barack Obama was elected and, were we to believe his Grant Park victory speech, laid out a vision of a sparkling future where the watchword was “Yes we can!” It turned out that none of the promises were within reach and it became abundantly clear when the banking crisis tanked the economy, that there would be no break with the past as trillions of dollars were shovelled into the maw of Wall Street so that we could wander off in the vision of Normal without addressing the root causes of such an abject failure. Not surprisingly, this created fertile ground, through frustration and anger, for the rise of the Tea Party, Christian fascism, and Donald Trump. Is it a sign of something really out of kilter that American voters are confronted with a choice between a convicted felon and a doddering pawn? That Canadians get the same options with a smarmy corporate creature posing as a thoughtful friend to the downtrodden facing off against a viscious mendacious corporate-religious shill speaks volumes about what greed has wrought in Canada.
Post a Comment