no more with the screamers etc.

[135711]

Okay, let's change the subject. how's everyone doing with the war thing, i'm having some trouble believing the situation, what are your impressions. do you see resolution? la pen getting elected? is this real? thoughts, comments? <img src="graemlins/crap.gif" border="0" alt="[Crap]" />

[foxwhelp]

[quote]Originally posted by 135711:
<strong>Okay, let's change the subject. how's everyone doing with the war thing, i'm having some trouble believing the situation, what are your impressions. do you see resolution? la pen getting elected? is this real? thoughts, comments? <img src="graemlins/crap.gif" border="0" alt="[Crap]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>

Well, there's the comparative competence problem. I mean, any of us can talk sensibly about screamers (well, I can't really -- by the grace of God, my club doesn't have any and I don't fence tournaments yet, and no we don't want to borrow one of yours, thank you very much), but who among us can suggest some means of bringing order to the middle east?

But I can say that Le Pen hasn't been elected to anything and, while any system of narrowing a field of candidates down to two can yield freakish results, the French system seems more prone to that than many others, so I don't think much follows from Le Pen's second place finish.

[Event Horizon]

What aspect of the war? What situation are you having trouble with? The war on terrorism seems to be going good. At least we captured on of the top lieutenants. As for OBL...hmm, I think we'll get him eventually. I don't think they should let the terrorist (I can't recall his name, but he's allegedly the 20th hijacker) represent himself during trial. As for the middle east...it's not going well at all. No simple solution to that problem. I think that trying to maintain discussions and negotiations between the two is a good strategy. We should keep Gen. Zinny to keep working on this and also have Secretary Powell doing what he can also.

[Spanky]

well, zinny has come and gone a few times, without much to show for his effort. prob. seems to me, is that there are two combatative personalities, sharon and afarat, forced into confrontation by populations that are fed up with the status quo. best way to resolve it, IMHO, is to give powell a stick and a carrot. with those in his travel bag, he might actualy get shown more than a smile and a handshake....and the way to the door. now, as to the selection of stick and carrot....ah, there lies the point of diplomacy.

la pen, la shmen...them folks are just rattling out a warning. he wont get to be the top dog, but his support is a growl at chirac.

[D'Artagnan1673]

You all do not want to hear my opinion about the middle eastern conflict. Let me just say this. They have been fighting more centuries, no diplomacy is going to change this.

I heard about La Pen yesterday on NPR. Interesting. The liberal French are crying because this radical, psuedo-nazi is in the running. How did he win? According to what I heard, most people didn't turn out to vote!! Maybe if more of them voted, he wouldn't have beaten the PM.

[veeco]

Well, being French, I thought I had to share some comments on Le Pen.

He's been around for decades, always in the low scores. This election was scheduled during a holiday, so that did not help with the fact that a lot of people did not vote.

Also, the French political system is a very fragmented one. There are lots of parties, especially on the left wing. The left won the government five years ago because they rallied under one name and managed to get enough votes, under the umbrella of the "plural left wing". This time, for the presidential elections, it was pretty much a free for all from all the left wing parties, and therefore the people seeing them without any unity just voted somewhere else, or did not vote.
Chirac's score at the first round of the election is a very low score for a former president (the lowest one in decades, I think). This reflects his attentism and his lack of interest in the people.

Le Pen's program was very different this time and he was very good at getting the votes from all the small income people who felt like they were abandonned by both straight parties.

While it is a big surprise to see Le Pen in second place, it probably won't matter because I think he will get a very small score at the second round. Again, this is just the election for president, which is only the executive side of the government. What will really be important is the election for the French congress which will happen in a month and a half. If Le Pen or any other right wing extremist party gets enough votes, it would mean that they would have to be included in the government, and that is scary, because they would have a word on which laws get passed or not.

Hopefully, the French people will be cautious when they cast their vote for these elections and they will recognize the risks of having those brain dead people on the congress or the government.

Hopefully, the politics will have the nerve to finally fight these gangrenous parties and get rid of them once and for all. But at the rate things where going, it was bound to happen, and it's a good wake-up call for all citizens of France that we cannot let our country go this path, so in a way, I'm glad this happened.

I have good faith that the people will be better advised next time. It would be too hard for me to see my country go to such extremes. We used to be known for our economy now, we are like 12th in the world, but we at least have a good democracy and protect human rights well, I hope it stays this way.

[D'Artagnan1673]

It sounds moderately simuar with our own problem a few years back. Ross Perot split the Republican vote and allowed Clinton to take office.

That also happened in 1912 (or 1914?) election when Teddy Rosevelt split the Republican vote in half against William Howard Taft; Woodrowe Wilson profited and got the White House.

I dislike extremists of both sides of the political spectrum because their ideas are way too radical. I also dislike moderates since they are luckwarm, you don't know which side they will go for. I can respect both the right and left wing since they at least have an opinion.

[135711]

thank you for lending me your ear, i am tired, by for now. <img src="graemlins/freak4.gif" border="0" alt="[Freak2]" />

[ 04-23-2002: Message edited by: 135711 ]</p>

[Cyranox11]

Well that is a shock!
Ross Perot split the Republican vote
but I suppose George Dubbya is the people's choice...
Yeah right!
Craig, we need an 'incredulous' smiley!!!


[ 04-24-2002: Message edited by: Cyranox11 ]</p>

[135711]

i kind of liked ross perot,he has a real interesting way of looking at things, he would have made a great millinium president.

[D'Artagnan1673]

If I had been 18 in 1992, I would have voted for him.

[135711]

if it were 1892 who would we be voiting for, probably le pen, but maybe he's not such a bad guy, i have no idea what he stands for or who he is, maybe he just got a lot of bad press from a bunch of non-intellectuals.

[D'Artagnan1673]

From what I've heard, he sounds to be a psuedo-hitler who is getting bad press from intellectuals.

[Gav]

Le Pen is a far right winger. He is notorious for observing that the holocaust "was merely a footnote in history". He also advocates the forced repatriation of immigrants although he has softened this to those who commit a crime or are illegal immigrants. Interestingly the issue of immigration is a sore one between the UK and France.

Recently the French have taken a lot of flak in the British press over the placement of a refugee camp at Songat. It's situated just at the side of the Channel Tunnel rail link. Every night the refugees try and stowaway on a Eurostar or freight train and gain illegal access to Britian. Eurostar (quite rightly) are upset that they are fined for this as they state that it's not their job to police the borders between the 2 countries. France have refused to move the camp and the British government doesn't appear to know what to do to sort the situation out.

Back to Le Pen. A lot of French citizens appear to be quite upset about the issue of Le Pen. When they found out he had made it to the last round of elections they took to the streets. Now a lot of them are scratching they're heads and wondering how this all happened.

[Inquartata]

As I understand it, many of those trying to stowaway on the Chunnel trains do not survive the attempt. Perhaps that was the intention of putting the camp there in the first place.

Many French voters did not want to vote for Chirac, but will now be forced to do so in order to avoid "the lesser of the two evils". ( Not too different from the average election here in the US, actually! ) This is the source of much of the dissatisfaction with the present situation, I believe.

[Gav]

Not all refugees who 'hitch' a lift on the Eurostar die. There's actually relatively few deaths - considering the lengths they are going to. The main danger currently lies in the reckless way they attempt to gain access to the trains and their methods for slowing them to get on board. They're also idiots if they think the UK is SO much better than France in any case.

[three_hundred_fifty_five]

It would be interesting to see France have a right-wing party with some clout. Just because you are right wing doesn't mean you are a Nazi, the same goes for being left wing not meaning you are a communist.
As a possible theory, there is an organization backed by US and Japanese businesses to assist Le Pen in these elections. He supports removing France from the European Union, a move which would strengthen the US dollar and Japanese yen against the Euro. Then, France could do business with the US and Japan without imposing EU tariffs. In addition, with one less country in the EU, that may lead to a domino effect of other countries dropping out of the EU resulting in the demise of the EU and the Euro.
As another theory, the thefts of thousands of new Euros at the British airport is probably masterminded by an insider in a government position who tipped off the theives to the time, location, and security of the shipment of the Euros. It only took a small number of people to steal the money and the thefts occurred within weeks of each other without security being beefed up after the first theft. There's a bloke out there with a new Ferrari in Hong Kong.

[Gav]

Sorry 355. There was no gevernmental conspiracy surrounding the euro theft at Heathrow it was a simple old fshioned theft. There was a guy on the inside who supplied the thieves with a keycard that allowed them thru the security doors. Once thru no-one thought to question them as they had gained entry 'legitimately'. Simple really.

Also France will not leave the EU. 1st because they [the govefnment] are in favour. 2nd because they were founder members. 3rd They stand to lose a lot more than their probable gains from trading with the US.

Inq' about the siting of Songat. The the British Tabloids are (as usual) rife with speculation regarding the site of the camp. They suggest that the reason the camp was built there was to give refugees the opportunity to invade Britain (gasp!). I don't know of that is true or not. Personally I think it unlikely as the numbers who succesfully get thru the Chunnel at all are quite small. Also just cos you site the camp there doesn't mean that anyone will get thru. Eurostar are not the only users of the CHunnel either - SNCF also run freight trains thru it. Now that Eurostar have beefed up their security measures refugees are targeting SNCF freight trains. This is costly for SNCF and therefore France.

[D'Artagnan1673]

True, just being right wing doesn't make you a miny hitler. However, hearing that he considers the Holocaust to be a foot note in history strengthens my belief that he's too right wing. I myself am right wing, but there is a point.

True chaps, we Americans seem to vote for the lesser of two evils. Our country is so ate up with Political Correctness that no one can be popular and speak their mind. Everyone must tiptow around controversial issues that will get all the liberals in the media crying.

Speaking of the wholesale slaughter of Jews (Holocaust), I've been reading a lot on the Crusades these days. The Christian armies were just as likely to slaughter the Jews as they were the Moslems as they made their way to Jerusalem.

[Inquartata]

Sorry, Gav, I was being tongue-in-cheek with that first comment. I should've put a wink smiley after it, I suppose, but hey, if Swift and Twain didn't use 'em why should I?




( D'oh! )