Celebrating at the Bastille - Unconscious Leftists

I couldn't be more amazed to watch the joy of the socialist celebrations in France after taking the elections.
These elections have proven that liberal France is dead - or at least that socialists don't really have a liberal French majority.
Even when the far right casted about 20% of the votes and refused to vote for Sarkozy, Hollande barely got 50% of the votes with very little difference over Sarkozy.
The votes Hollande got consisted of classic liberals (modern liberals, secular, feminist, gay, etc) but also of a large contingent of people who voted just to oppose the Republican Secular strict agenda lead by Sarkozy. These people (mainly marginalized and extremized communities) do not understand or share the values of the liberal left that sincerely embraces them - in some cases even despise them. Hollande couldn't have refused to these votes, but I'm not sure his people understand the undercurrents.
If we do the simple arithmetic, the liberals in France are an absolute minority which managed to take the elections supported by non-liberal populations based on an ad-hoc need.
I would assume that given this anti-Sarkozy coalition, Hollande's administration will evade promoting a "Franchising" policy and not even liberal education to all the French population. The amazing Republican building will be growingly under attack from left and from right.

By the end of Hollande's term the far right in France will be stronger and bigger than ever as well as the non-liberal communities who voted him.
Does Hollande have an alternative? Yes he does. He must take the middle path, cherish the Republican liberal values even at the expense of losing a chunk of his voters. The other way will be far too disastrous for the liberal essence of the republic. Hollande's administration must see itself as the last defender of the Republican values. Otherwise, I'm afraid there will be nothing to stand between the troops of La-Pen and Immigrants' gangs that will clash in the streets.

The Conquest of the Bastille (CC Wikipedia)

No competition to capitalism and the rotting west

Hegel made a correct observation that dialectics between two opposites (thesis and anti-thesis) creates new matter (synthesis) and promotes the advance of history.
Currently, when the leftist ideas championed by the USSR and socialist movements were demolished, there is no counter thesis to create dialectics versus the capitalism, which in its turn causes the rotting and decay of capitalism.

This way, the basis of the western renaissance, the logic questioning of subject, competition between ideas and cycling improvement is in danger.

While Capitalism and Socialism were contending against each other, new and advanced forms of matter appeared in the friction lines - social-democracy, welfare state, social security and more.

Nowadays, it seems that regardless whether you are a western capitalist, a middle eastern Islamist, a nationalist Russian or a competitive Chinese - money is a tool and a goal at the same time. Thus, they do not challenge capitalism and capitalism isn't really challenging their core values. This way, western liberalism (what we used to wrongly call, leftism) is left without a defender and is vanished from the ideological arena.

I agree that these ideologies currently competing on world dominance do have dialectics between them, but not sure these dialectic currents are positive.

The left has left and we are left alone. It's our own responsibility to bring up a new notion of liberalism.

We had a dream - and now we have none

Martin Luther King had a dream. That dream marched hundreds of thousands of people all over the USA and inspired others around the globe.
The strength of King didn't lay merely on is personality and his ideas.
It laid, first and foremost, on the fact that he had an idea. He combined the existing wishes and passions of people in the USA, centuries of belief in human equality and human rights into a clear an articulated utopia - an achievable new world which managed to wash away cynicism and mobilize masses.
The existence of a clear alternative world is a strong force - the one which explains the force of religions over people. The one which explains why Marxism had the same force over people.
This explains also the amazing strength of the capitalist idea - which is a clear but also one of the simplest of all utopias. Let the market play, don't intervene and the world will be paradise.

There is no leftist utopia nowadays. There is no liberal utopia. Liberalism has succumbed to a pile of post modernist bullshit. It retreated in the face of a mass of relativist ideas which justify why all the ideas of humanism and liberalism should be sacrificed to appease religious, extremist ideologies and oppressing regimes.
Enlightenment as moved aside and in the name of liberalism cleared the way to anti liberal ideas.

The west's liberalism submerged itself in a bath of guilt over the calamities that Europe has brought on the world over the 20th century has disappeared.
Instead of reformulating its aspirations into a new sociopolitical movement is was washed away by relativism, effectively accepting non-liberal ideas as acceptable just in order not to impose "European" ideas and castigating those who still believe in it as "imperialists", i.e. the USA.
For the sake of humanity and the world, the western liberalism has the same right to exist and profess its convictions like any other ideology. Regretting for western deeds should learn to a revision of ideas, improvement of liberalism and cleanup of racist ideas, but not to a full retreat.

Not everything is about money

In our previous post we suspected that Marx may have been right and people would hit the streets only, when the cause regards their direct economical interest.

However, we also noted that many people many times, do not mobilize even when it is in their direct economical interest. For that we can assume a few reasons:

1. They are lazy or the economical pain isn't strong enough


2. They do not analyze correctly what's their economical interest


3. They do not identify with the groups that are trying to represent their interests


4. Or...their interest isn't just material-economical. They are after something additional or there are interests that subdues material considerations.

More on the latest Iran protests

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8348366.stm

The Iranians Hit the Streets Again

The Iranian youth is hitting the streets once again.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/11/04/iran.hostage.protests/index.html

Where the hell is the world left to support their cry for freedom and their cling to hope?!

While you are all doing nothing .....
Dozens or even hundreds of newly arrested Iranian students will be dragged today to the dungeons - bitten, raped and dehumanized just for the mere audacity of claiming their right to manifest.

The Left has Left, and the Leftists have left alone these brave people....

The Left is dead? The Iranian case

The Iranian Case

For over a month now (since the day after the elections held at June 12 , 2009) the liberal forces in Iran and part of the conservative forces in Iran are struggling for what they see as the right to have fair elections, the right to chose the path which their country should take. They oppose the dictatorship of the hardliners.
The ruling Ayatollahs (not that some of the Ayatollahs support the opposition) are cruelly oppressing the students, middle class and others who took on the streets manifesting. Read more here.

Don't mistake to think I'm naive enough to believe that only democratic people and liberals are behind the manifestations in the Iranian cities. However, the young people confronting the Basij militia, being shot, dragged, bitten and arrested are liberals and real freedom fighters. Each with his own view, which may differ from the western leftist view, is yet a freedom fighter. Freedom in its deepest meaning.

Iranian students are over the past 2 decades targeted by the most violent elements of the Iranian regime - and you can guess why. Their dorms are stormed, they are arrested and tortured. Click here for a good and very personal start point for reading on this.

Click here for some more on the students movement

And do not let yourself sleep calmly thinking they were just 'arrested'. You can rest assure these brave people were bitten, terrorized and tortured in order to make them an example of what will happen to those 'endangering the order'. Not even the parents loyalty to the system saved their souls (see this case )

Iran is a complicated nation. It is made of the historic Persian people, the Azeri people at the north, Arabs and Sunni Muslims (differing from the Shii majority) to the south and many others. Religious people live side by side with western like style city dwellers. It is a country with a long history of culture making and religious tolerance. The Iranian people were always sensitive to unjust deeds and rule usurpation. The young and educated people led also the past uprisings in Iran (e.g. the 1990's students manifestations). These are just another piece of the puzzle depicting the beginning of the end of the current regime in Iran. More young idealist will die. More non idealist people will die too - people who just want to be able to make the choice of what they dress, speak or do in their leisure time. More people will die for their demand to get accountability from their government - for knowing who really won the elections, what was done with legendary sums of oil money, how come their country suffer from poverty when their should have been one of the richest. They will all want to redeem a nation once leading the enlightened powers of the ancient world and now being dragged over and over again to dark places. The Iranian nation soul will eventually break out.

However, it looks they are gaining support only from individuals in the western left, their PC's and Twitter accounts. No major mobilizations by Left organizations were noted.

Read more here.

And Where Is The Left?
Have any of you seen a manifestation in favor of Iran's liberals in the streets of Madrid, Rome, Paris, London or even the 'Red' cities of northern Spain and Tuscany?
Do any of you have the slightest notion that till the Islamic revolution Iran had a strong presence of leftist parties who were forced to exile or "disappeared"?

What is that makes the left to manifest only against some things and not for others?
What is there in the slaughtered people of Darfur, the brave young people of Iran or the ethnic minorities of China that cause the western left to ignore them?
What is special in the dictatorship of North Korea that makes the left people to stay at home?!

How come the Spanish socialist government has not taken a clear stand on this?
How come the 'socialist' governments of Lola in Brasil, Chavez in Venezuela and similar have embraced the regime instead of standing by the people?
(for more details see )
The left as long ago deserted its ideals. Is it now deserting also its basic honor?

These are hard questions which resound in the current world politics and which will leave ugly scars in the history of the world we'll leave to our children.
I'm afraid the answers to these questions may be worst than leaving them unanswered.

Dario