A French Perspective on the Election

Under the headline of "Présidentielles : surprise ! c'est (encore) un homme !", mes amies at Le Blog d'une Chienne de Garde demonstrate their excitement at the news that Carla Bruni is rumoured to be on a flight to Los Angeles since her husband just lost the French Presidential election.

What? A translation? Hmmmmm ... the quote is something like "I'm not born a feminist, I am becoming one". As for what the testicles are saying, the Babylon translator online suggests "with the hair to the tabs and all" but I suspect that is not quite what the artist wishes to suggest. The headline, with my A for O-level French, I can reliably tell you it says, "Presidentially:  Surprise! It's (once more) a man!"

O well. Let's reserve judgment on the new Socialist President-elect of France:  Francois Hollande!

gordon brown

for those of you outside the uk, who is gordon brown? he is currently the chancellor of the exchequer in the labour government, and expected to succeed tony blair as prime minister of the united kingdom in the near future. he is presenting the budget today, and is therefore under particular scrutiny.

is he really a "stalinist", as stated in the news yesterday? and what does that mean in any case?

if you look at the independent's comment, one might surmise that they are inferring totalitarian behaviour, and using (or, i think, misusing) the term stalinist to indicate the socialist bent of the chancellor. i don't think, however, that they are criticising him for being a socialist, since he is the #2 in the labour party :-) on the other hand, it is a much more evocative term than 'authoritarian', more evil than 'control freak'.

then again, as the independent notes:

"Lord Turnbull said yesterday he had been speaking off the record but in a BBC Radio 4 programme on the civil service under New Labour to be broadcast tomorrow, he says too much power has been developed at the centre of government."

thus, perhaps, the government is being criticised for the corruption of its socialist roots. that, however, is very old news, because this is, of course, new labour.

how much longer will i remain an anachronistic idealist who still hopes that one day we can find a way to make "from each according to her/his ability, to each according to his/her need" a viable social policy? *sigh*

another nail in the coffin of socialism

the maxim that has meant the most to me has always been: from each according to his/her ability, to each according to her/his need.

i see in today's grauniad that kibbutz degania, the oldest in the history of israel, has voted for privatisation.

allan shapiro, a long-time resident, was quoted as saying: "I feel sad and in a way I am nostalgic for the traditional kibbutz, but I have to realise that I am nostalgic for my dream of a community that I had before I came. We depended on loyalty to the community and ideology to take the place of the market," he said. "The socialist part was really sort of minor here. The important thing was that there were Jews working the land with their own hands and if there was a search for anything it was a search for community."

i too feel sad and nostalgic, although i think i felt like that 25 years ago when i was living on a kibbutz. already then the grandchildren of the founders had neither memory nor experience of the early days of hardship and toil. they wished not for the advent of running water, but for american sneakers. i remember my very first day at work, dressed in shabby blue work clothes that had been worn by many before me. as we bounced around in the truck on our way to the grapefruit trees, i wondered why we weren't singing pioneer songs (hey, i was 18!). at 8 am, after 2 hours in the sun being yelled at by our overseer and shlepping grapefruits from tree to truck, i was a little less naive :-)