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 Cothonian wrote:
Is it true that Macron said that Paris will "just have to learn to live with terror" ?

Don't know and don't care. And I do live in Paris.

So currently in France it's the rise of the Extreme-Right and the Extreme-Left and the Extreme-Center and the RIght and the Left are losing fast. That's… interesting .
Anyway the second turn should be super-easy for Macron now.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Cothonian wrote:
Is it true that Macron said that Paris will "just have to learn to live with terror" ?

Don't know and don't care. And I do live in Paris.

So currently in France it's the rise of the Extreme-Right and the Extreme-Left and the Extreme-Center and the RIght and the Left are losing fast. That's… interesting .
Anyway the second turn should be super-easy for Macron now.

Should be.. But if thr past year or two has proved anything. Relying on what "should be logical" is not ernough.
Its proven that very wrong and thrown at least 2 wild cards into the game.

Recent events may prove otherwise.
They claimed Hilllary had the election all tied up. Look how that turned out.

 Cothonian wrote:
Is it true that Macron said that Paris will "just have to learn to live with terror" ?

If he did then he should be absolutely ashamed of himself.

If all the politicians that say stupid things where put away from their position... we'll live in a world without politicians...

Actually, I doesn't sounds that bad

 Future War Cultist wrote:

 Cothonian wrote:
Is it true that Macron said that Paris will "just have to learn to live with terror" ?

If he did then he should be absolutely ashamed of himself.

Let's get some context before we start jumping to condemnation, yes? After all, if the full quote were to be something like "If it were possible to end all terrorist attacks but only by returning to the horrific days of the Reign of Terror, then Paris will just have to learn to live with terror." then wouldn't that just be a statement that the French people are not going to give into terrorism by destroying their own freedoms?

That is an awful example, I admit, but you get the idea

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Let's get some context before we start jumping to condemnation, yes?

Where is the fun in that though?

It was Manuel Valls that said that. He meant that threat of terrorism wasn't going to simply disappear in the near future. To me, it felt as if he was saying <<we simply don't have the balls to do anything about it>>.

 jhe90 wrote:
Relying on what "should be logical" is not ernough.

Well, I'm going to vote for Macron and not worry in the meantime. The alternative would be voting for Macron and worrying in the meantime, and I like my option better .

 Khornate25 wrote:
To me, it felt as if he was saying <<we simply don't have the balls to do anything about it>>.

I'm sure the sucker doesn't even have the balls to do anything about cancer. Such a wimp.
If only we had a president with big hands, that would brag about how he is going to cure cancer all by himself! He knows the best guys, you are gonna love how they beat the crap out of cancer!

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:

 Cothonian wrote:
Is it true that Macron said that Paris will "just have to learn to live with terror" ?

If he did then he should be absolutely ashamed of himself.

Let's get some context before we start jumping to condemnation, yes? After all, if the full quote were to be something like "If it were possible to end all terrorist attacks but only by returning to the horrific days of the Reign of Terror, then Paris will just have to learn to live with terror." then wouldn't that just be a statement that the French people are not going to give into terrorism by destroying their own freedoms?

That is an awful example, I admit, but you get the idea

Well like Khornate25 said, it just sounds like "we don't have the balls to stop it". Or worse, that doing something about it means admitting that we were wrong. And that we would rather let the killing continue than admit that we were wrong.

Pretty disgusted with the results, caused me to sculpt a dark mechanicus demon fetus then drink probably too many beers. Not sure this is the result John Oliver hoped for, but nothing to be proud/smug about imho.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:
Relying on what "should be logical" is not ernough.

Well, I'm going to vote for Macron and not worry in the meantime. The alternative would be voting for Macron and worrying in the meantime, and I like my option better .

 Khornate25 wrote:
To me, it felt as if he was saying <<we simply don't have the balls to do anything about it>>.

I'm sure the sucker doesn't even have the balls to do anything about cancer. Such a wimp.
If only we had a president with big hands, that would brag about how he is going to cure cancer all by himself! He knows the best guys, you are gonna love how they beat the crap out of cancer!

Aye my point was more meant as the candidates.
As proven just because polls say you should does not mean you can rely on that to be true on the night.
You have to keep on your toes until the end.

And beer/cider...
Even UK and France can agree that's a good way not to worry.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
it just sounds like

But that doesn't mean that is what it is, or even what it sounds like to others; it seems like a bizarrely context free interpretation of a snippet of what someone else said. It reminds me of when people took President Obama's statement about how taxes are used to build roads, fire departments, contract law, et al but some people wanted to believe that it sounded like he was saying no one does anything, even though is not even close to what was said.

 KernelTerror wrote:
Pretty disgusted with the results, caused me to sculpt a dark mechanicus demon fetus then drink probably too many beers. Not sure this is the result John Oliver hoped for, but nothing to be proud/smug about imho.

Sorry. Who were you rooting for?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:
Relying on what "should be logical" is not ernough.

Well, I'm going to vote for Macron and not worry in the meantime. The alternative would be voting for Macron and worrying in the meantime, and I like my option better .

 Khornate25 wrote:
To me, it felt as if he was saying <<we simply don't have the balls to do anything about it>>.

I'm sure the sucker doesn't even have the balls to do anything about cancer. Such a wimp.
If only we had a president with big hands, that would brag about how he is going to cure cancer all by himself! He knows the best guys, you are gonna love how they beat the crap out of cancer!

Nah, I'm fine with cancer. It's easy to avoid and I've beaten it once.
The passivity towards terrorism, the constant re-telling of the same old one-liners, all this while they eat, dress and sleep in a luxury they don't deserve, on the other hand...

 Khornate25 wrote:
the constant re-telling of the same old one-liners, all this while they eat, dress and sleep in a luxury they don't deserve, on the other hand...

See here in the US we treat people like this differently, we elect them President.

Ba-dum tshhhh!

 Cothonian wrote:
Is it true that Macron said that Paris will "just have to learn to live with terror" ?

He didn't. It's just more fething lies.

What Macron has said is that "“no such thing as zero risk” and terrorism will be "part of our daily lives for the years to come."

In order to make the claims sound outrageous, the liars in conservative media are trying to confuse Macron's comments with a statement made by former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who said “Times have changed and we should learn to live with terrorism.”

Here's a Breitbart article that shows how the lie is sold. Just skim through, as most readers would, and not how the Breitbart article makes it fairly natural to confuse what Macron actually said with what Valls said.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/04/21/macron-terrorism-part-daily-lives-years-paris-shooting/


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Khornate25 wrote:
It was Manuel Valls that said that. He meant that threat of terrorism wasn't going to simply disappear in the near future. To me, it felt as if he was saying <<we simply don't have the balls to do anything about it>>.

Or, you know, he knows there is no wand that you can wave to just make terrorism not happen, and he was being honest enough to tell that to people. There's an unkillable myth that you can make people safe if only the people in power are tough enough, do things that 'take balls'. It's a total fantasy.

This doesn't mean I want to defend Valls' comment. It was poorly worded and the timing was even worse, coming in the wake of the Bastille Day attack. I mean, there's a reason that people are trying to make that comment sound like it was said by Macron.

 Khornate25 wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:
Relying on what "should be logical" is not ernough.

Well, I'm going to vote for Macron and not worry in the meantime. The alternative would be voting for Macron and worrying in the meantime, and I like my option better .

 Khornate25 wrote:
To me, it felt as if he was saying <<we simply don't have the balls to do anything about it>>.

I'm sure the sucker doesn't even have the balls to do anything about cancer. Such a wimp.
If only we had a president with big hands, that would brag about how he is going to cure cancer all by himself! He knows the best guys, you are gonna love how they beat the crap out of cancer!

Nah, I'm fine with cancer. It's easy to avoid and I've beaten it once.
The passivity towards terrorism, the constant re-telling of the same old one-liners, all this while they eat, dress and sleep in a luxury they don't deserve, on the other hand...

Did you just follow up a complaint about one-liners with a one-liner?

So we got a centrist banker versus a right-wing populist, I think I have heard this story before!

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 KernelTerror wrote:
Pretty disgusted with the results, caused me to sculpt a dark mechanicus demon fetus then drink probably too many beers. Not sure this is the result John Oliver hoped for, but nothing to be proud/smug about imho.

Sorry. Who were you rooting for?

Jean Luc Melenchon, his program got me out of a long abstention period. 19.5 is a decent score but seeing a banker, a racist and a crook ending up preferred to him is pretty depressing. I am concerned that 5 more years of stomping on the poorest of us and on the public services will only make Le Pen's party stronger for 2022. Then there is Macron's surveillance program, and his overworking of our old nuclear infrastructure.

 KernelTerror wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 KernelTerror wrote:
Pretty disgusted with the results, caused me to sculpt a dark mechanicus demon fetus then drink probably too many beers. Not sure this is the result John Oliver hoped for, but nothing to be proud/smug about imho.

Sorry. Who were you rooting for?

Jean Luc Melenchon, his program got me out of a long abstention period. 19.5 is a decent score but seeing a banker, a racist and a crook ending up preferred to him is pretty depressing. I am concerned that 5 more years of stomping on the poorest of us and on the public services will only make Le Pen's party stronger for 2022. Then there is Macron's surveillance program, and his overworking of our old nuclear infrastructure.

I agree, Melenchon was by far the best option available. Between the banker and le pen, the latter seems the lesser evil, and that tells a lot. If le pen doesn't win now and Hollande II won't solve france's problems next time she (or her successor) can get 35-40%.

 Khornate25 wrote:
The passivity towards terrorism, the constant re-telling of the same old one-liners, all this while they eat, dress and sleep in a luxury they don't deserve, on the other hand...

Is that a goddamn joke? You call that passivity?
“Why aren't politics using their magic wand to solve terrorism?”

 KernelTerror wrote:
19.5 is a decent score but seeing a banker, a racist and a crook ending up preferred to him is pretty depressing.

I know but if we look to the bright side, he is on a very strong rising trend, and if he keeps the momentum he maybe very well be on the second turn next time.
The only problem is he is starting to get a bit old.

Also you should have written “a banker, a racist crook and a crook” .

I find it fascinating when people talk about the need solve a country's problems. Its interesting in part because not only are solutions not offered, but the problems themselves are often not actually detailed. It is just accepted there are national problems of a great and pressing urgency that it is within the power of government to fix, if only government chose to fix them.

The other part that's interesting to me is how people only look at the problems that might be fixed, they give no consideration for the possibility that new problems might be created, if the wrong solutions are tried, or a poorly chosen government allows new issues to rise unchecked. This one sided look at politics heavily favours unconventional and even chaotic candidates, as only the upside of change is considered, not the downside. This, to me, is how many outsider candidates become viable.

The move to these outsider candidates, on the right, seems to be fairly consistently from establishment conservatism to a kind of conservatism that isn't necessarily racist, but is certainly heavily xenophobic. Add in some strong man populism, and this explains not just Brexit, Le Pen and Trump, but also Putin and Duterte. On the left though, there doesn't seem to have been much actual gain among properly socialist politics, some groundswell in support, but little actual winning. Instead it seems like the move has been to keep with mainstream, neo-liberal politics, but to just have them sold by more youthful candidates, ones who can make the same old politics sound like something new and positive. This is the space that Obama, Trudeau and now Macron have operated in.

This is by no means a complete theory, of course. And it certainly isn't that heavily based in the ins and outs of French politics, to which I know nothing. But a couple of posts here about the problems that need fixing in France, plus some thoughts that were already bouncing around in my head got me thinking.

 sebster wrote:

Add in some strong man populism, and this explains not just Brexit, Le Pen and Trump, but also Putin and Duterte.

Brexit isn't even started yet, no one can say if it will be bad or good for the UK or/and for the other countries. Trump is president since 2 months, le pen never governed. Putin and duterte don't belong to democracies. I'd wait the proper amount of time before judging.

Obama was one of the worst american presidents, considering how his politics affected europe, africa and middle eastern countries. If he wasn't half black very few people would have praised him.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/4/obama-competing-with-jimmy-carter-for-worst-former/

Trying to put Obama on the level of Dubya is intellectually dishonest beyond belief.

 Blackie wrote:

 sebster wrote:

Add in some strong man populism, and this explains not just Brexit, Le Pen and Trump, but also Putin and Duterte.

Brexit isn't even started yet, no one can say if it will be bad or good for the UK or/and for the other countries. Trump is president since 2 months, le pen never governed. Putin and duterte don't belong to democracies. I'd wait the proper amount of time before judging.

Obama was one of the worst american presidents, considering how his politics affected europe, africa and middle eastern countries. If he wasn't half black very few people would have praised him.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/4/obama-competing-with-jimmy-carter-for-worst-former/

You don't know much about the American economic situation when Obama took office do you? Hint: It was bad. So bad it was even acknowledged as the Great Recession. Since then, unemployment has plummeted to under 5% and the Dow Jones more than doubled. Likewise, international relations were very strained at the end of the Bush presidency as the US had embroiled itself in some rather unpopular military engagements. Obama reversed that trend and remained popular internationally with some exceptions (Russian and several Muslim nations, specifically).

But all of this has *nothing* to do with the topic, which is French elections!

It looks like the first round pretty much followed expectations. Any thoughts on the runoff? Le Pen seems to have a motivated core of voters.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Trying to put Obama on the level of Dubya is intellectually dishonest beyond belief.

I know right. We never saw Obama's grades.

 Blackie wrote:
Obama was one of the worst american presidents, considering how his politics affected europe, africa and middle eastern countries. If he wasn't half black very few people would have praised him.

You are the guy that wrote something akin to “Those savages (sic) don't belong to a lab, except maybe as test subjects” for anyone who was educated in a third world country. Therefore, your opinion is irrelevant .

The talking heads seem convinced Le Pen is going to win, and use her election to either force significant change in France's relationship with the EU, or else Frexit. And if France Frexits, Italy may well be next in line, and then the house of cards may very well collapse.

Not sure how much of this is true or just hot air, but may you live in interesting times. It's kind of unsettling to see the EU experiment unraveling in such a short period of time, and I can't help but think this French election will have dramatic implications for the future of Europe at large.

It certainly seems to me that the EU is being put on notice that it must make major reforms or die. I wonder if the institution is even capable of change, or if there is too much inertia and the bureaucracy is too entrenched.

Frexit is fun to say. It's like I'm swearing but not getting in trouble for it.

"What is wrong with the EU?" "Dunno. Frexit."

 kronk wrote:
Frexit is fun to say. It's like I'm swearing but not getting in trouble for it.

"What is wrong with the EU?" "Dunno. Frexit."

Frexit! Just frexit all with a 10 foot pole! And frex you too!