It’s one thing after another with that asshole Trump. The mad king of America is having fun spreading chaos and destruction everywhere. He is personally corrupt and evil. Nothing is too vile or too bad for him. It’s like the world is unraveling. Cruelty and insensitivity abound. Donald Trump is a psychopath.

Now that we’ve established what Donald Trump is, let’s ask: What evil or corrupt thing did he do today? Here is the latest scandal: It turns out that last Sunday, Trump had a telephone conversation with the Turkish strong man Recept Tayyip Erdoğan and gave him the green light to invade and “ethnically cleanse” our Kurdish allies in Northern Syria. It was, by all accounts, an impulsive act of our little toddler king.

During the Turkish invasion against the Kurds, who, as I said, received the “green light” from Trump, many well-documented atrocities have already been committed. The Turks specifically targeted and bombed civilians killed children and destroyed entire families. Similarly, their representatives of Arab militias perpetrated violent massacres and ethnic cleansing. It seems indisputable that the Turks are fucking barbarians. We should expel them from NATO. We should expel them from the civilized world.

In short, another day, another act of madness, cruelty and betrayal by Donald Trump. Not only is he betraying his own country, but this time he is also betraying our allies, the Kurds, for the ethnic cleansing and countless atrocities committed by his Turkish paymasters.

There has been a lot of media coverage and the Turks are brutally killing everyone in their path, especially civilians. But, for some reason, one death among many touched me. Her name was Hervin Khalaf. She was a Kurdish politician. Her death was just one death among many, but as I said, it caught my attention. This woman was obviously targeted for death well in advance. And I thought of her alone, helpless, trapped like an animal. But according to most witnesses, she was raped, tortured and then stoned to death.

Remarkably, there is apparently a video of her death. Because it turns out that the Turks and their Arab militias are in fact proud of it. They wanted everyone to see it, even if it was a war crime. I will post a link to the video I mentioned above, and the Twitter account where it was found, but you probably don’t want to watch it. It is said that the rape and murder were also filmed, but I have not yet seen a film of this kind.

I don’t know why this one death among the massacre of so many innocent people was so significant to me, but perhaps it’s because the death of thousands of people is an abstraction while the death of an individual is real and tangible. Maybe this woman’s murder will hit the Republicans’ heartstrings and the Turks will be forced to withdraw. I am not sure that it is possible, at this stage, to repair the damage, but perhaps these heartless and sanctimonious bastards will be pushed to do something. Who knows? One thing is certain, Hervin Khalaf’s death will not affect Trump at all; to feel human emotions, you need to have a heart and a soul, and he doesn’t have one either.

Hervin Khalaf’s blood is on Trump’s hands, which won’t bother him, because he’s a malignant narcissist and a psychopath. He has no conscience or soul. He is condemned to hell, and I personally think that his Republican Party facilitators should join him there as soon as possible.

“One for all, all for one”

Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers

The other night, I had the pleasure of watching a screening of the film “En Guerre”, in collaboration with the Alliance Francaise Los Angeles, followed by a discussion with Mr. Stéphane Brizé, hosted by Nadine Juton. It was a remarkable film, really excellent in all respects. It is a dark view of labour relations, particularly in France. It’s in what I think is a small town in the southwest of France.

Vincent Lindon (the star of Measure Of A Man, for which he won the prize for best actor at the Cannes Film Festival 2015), plays Laurent Amédéo, the leader of the strike of the 1,100 employees in a factory where the management (at the behest of the German multinational which owns the factory) after obtaining subsidies from the government and important concessions from the workers, decides that it is more profitable to close this plant and transfer production to a Romanian plant where wages will be even lower. (In addition, I was shocked to learn that there was only one professional actor in the film. All the performances were excellent. Sometimes the film almost seemed like a documentary).

The film begins with a reminder that “whoever fights can lose; the one who does not fight has already lost”. And yet, even if I do not want to spoil the plot of the film, I also remember the French proverb, often attributed to the Count Bussy-Rabutin “providence is always on the side of the big battalions”. Which, I have to say honestly, presages everything in the movie. But for the purposes of our discussion today, I will simply say that large multinational employers have learned to follow a strategy of divide and conquer as a way of breaking unions, breaking workers, and breaking governments. I would like to comment briefly today on the implications of this strategy.

As I mentioned, there was an excellent discussion after the film with Mr. Brizé, hosted by Nadine Juton from AFDELA. And during that discussion, Mr. Brizé made a critical point in which he spoke about some of the actual strikes that inspired his film and the tactics used by the large companies to break those strikes. The events of the film can only be described as a tragedy, but I think Mr. Brizé summarized what we should all take as the message of the film when he spoke about “solidarity”. That disunity and the inability or refusal of the unions to work together to support strikes like this one, as Mr. Brizé notes, was the cause of the weak bargaining position of the employees depicted in the film and, ultimately, of their fall.

Solidarity between unions would have made all the difference in the world.  If all the trade unions in France and Germany had worked together, their combined resources would have far exceeded those of the German company and the employees would not be subject to such economic pressure. Similarity, if all the unions in France, had used their combined muscle to put pressure on the president (who, I suppose, was François Hollande), they could have gotten some tangible help from the government, instead of just lip service. And with the president more firmly committed to their cause, the response to the German company’s boss’s refusal could and should have forced the government to try to take the scalp of the recalcitrant boss of the German owner of the factory. If successful, negotiations with his successor would likely be more productive.

The other problem is that even in that one plant, there were obviously several unions, each with its own agenda and its own needs. And the lack of solidarity facilitated the division of the workers and victory of the German group. The main source of this division was whether to take a rather meager buyout offer or continue the strike to save the factory and their jobs.  At the heart of the problem, of course, was the fact that the strikers were not supported even by their own unions but were forced to rely on donations from supporters and their own limited savings. All the unions in France, if they worked together, pooled their resources, could have eased the financial burden that created the pressure which divided the workers.  But without this solidarity, the factory workers were like a handful of peasants confronting the king with nothing but their pitchforks. They are doomed to failure.

I really cannot stress enough how crazy it is to think that a worker, with limited resources and limited financial means at the bank, could survive for a long time in a fight with a multinational business with billions of dollars in the bank. Yet the national unions left them to fend for themselves.  Both financially and, perhaps more importantly, politically.

Each of these workers spoke only for himself and therefore had no power, even against politicians who were nominally their allies.

I think that if the German boss were under pressure from his government and the French government were to put pressure on the price of the company’s shares, his perspective would be different, knowing that he could personally lose. And if the unions had succeeded in taking the scalp of a CEO, the trend towards globalization could be considerably slowed.

Since Mr. Brizé started his film with a quote, I will finish with a quote. Unions and workers around the world must heed Benjamin Franklin’s saying, “we must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

― Mahatma Gandhi 

Matthew 25:35

“For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.”

King James Version (KJV)

Isaiah  58:7

“Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?”

King James Version (KJV)

According to Le Monde, for the second time, the British Parliament has rejected the agreement negotiated by Theresa May on Brexit.  Which means that it is five minutes to midnight and they are now looking at the abyss. I think they’re going to ask the EU for a delay. And then another and another because, in the European Union, nothing is really decided except a deadly austerity policy that must always prevail no matter how misguided. But the meaning is the beginning of what I believe will be a long, perhaps endless series of delays is that we will live essentially forever on the brink of disaster. It also means that the county of my youth has been destroyed by a bunch of fools and posers.

England today is a country where all the politicians, and especially the Conservative ones, are fools, posers and morons. Why is it so difficult for these idiots to see the need for a second referendum? As the saying goes, it would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.

Update:

I don’t understand what any of this business of the House of Commons setting its own agenda means. Apparently, this new group of Conservative MP’s will somehow define the agenda without consulting the government. But the May government will not fall, for reasons that are idiotic and concerned only with the internal politics of the Conservative Party (and, naturally, the ambitions of the next Prime Minister, Boris “the Clown” Johnson). I’m totally confused. How does that break the deadlock? There is no appetite for May’s deal with the EU, no appetite for no deal (except among the hardcore fools) and yet they do not allow a second referendum. So, what’s the way forward?

But beyond all this confusion, it seems that the United Kingdom, against all logic, believes that it has control of the decision-making process and can dictate the timetable despite the harsh speeches of Tusk and Macron and the deadline of 22 May.  This seems to be the foolish hypothesis that runs through all the Brexit madness; that England can dictate the terms of an agreement to which the EU must abide. But why is that? Yes, trade with the UK is important, but the EU economy is much larger, more diversified and probably more resilient.

This notion of British control over the process is absurd but the extension of the deadline granted “reluctantly” by the EU is only fueling this illusion and the related illusion that the British Parliament has the luxury of taking the time it wants to find something equally acceptable for the lunatic hardcore Brexiters.  But, of course, it was May’s policy of unreasoning appeasement of the hardcore Brexiters that put the United Kingdom in this jackpot in the first place.

A closely related problem, I think, is that the EU’s reputation for delay and ambiguity means that no deadline is taken seriously, because the consequences of a Brexit “without agreement” are so horrible that you have to “extend” an extension. But the fundamental principles do not change and the pressures that the EU intends to apply are ineffective because of the universally accepted assumption that it will yield and then surrender.

And so, Britain and the EU continue to live precariously on the edge of the abyss, neither together nor divorced. Every time we are told that there will no longer be an extension of time, followed by the inevitable extension, the conviction is that there will be no firm deadline. Until, of course, the EU finally says no, and we all plunge into the abyss.

I think that it has begun. I read that there have been  many demonstrations against the labor law in Paris, Lille, Marseille, other cities throughout France.  Several of these protests have represented quite strong mobilizations.  More such demonstrations are apparently being planned.

Even though I agree with Art Goldhammer that these “reforms” are mostly insignificant. I am opposed to them because the burdens of these reforms, trivial though they might be, are being shouldered almost entirely by the workers and the bourgeois. I feel that the bosses should give up something equal to what is being asked of the workers and the middle class.

Nevertheless, I do not understand certain things.  As a practical matter, Macron has all the power. All the députés of En Marche! came to Paris to serve him, the new god, the new Jupiter, and apparently for no other reason. There was no agenda during the election, just Jupiter. Plus, he essentially controls the MoDems 42 députés and, of course, the left has collapsed and his agenda is largely acceptable to the right.  So, no one remains to oppose him and his pro-globalization “reforms”.

And yet, the so-called “Reforms” are trivial. I am surprised that labor unions are even bothering to demonstrate so forcefully against them.  This package of trivialities is hardly the audacious blow of man who refused to give the traditional interviews on the occasion of the fête nationale the media is incapable of understanding the god-like, complex thoughts of Macron.

Macron will, hopefully, never have more power than he has today.  As I’ve said before, there’s probably never been a time in the history of France when one man has enjoyed so much power with so little opposition.   We all know that Macron wants to make sweeping changes to France and to Europe on behalf of the Davos crowd, yet even after gathering the Congress at Versailles, as though the country were in the midst of a national crisis, what he has proposed is relatively trivial by anybody’s standards despite all of the pomp and circumstance.

Which brings me to some further thoughts about the election: I think that he was in the “sweet spot of time”.  All the stars were perfectly aligned for Macron; and he followed his star without the slightest hesitation.

The internal problems destroyed all the political parties. From the extreme right to the center left, nothing remained standing.  In particular, the Parti socialiste was nothing but a smoldering ruin.   Of course, Macron and his patron François Hollande were the ones who destroyed the PS, but, no matter how it was brought about, the collapse of the PS resulted in a massive vacuum of power which the new Jupiter saw was clearly intended for him.

The first to begin to recover will be most probably the FN, because unless the party’s internecine rivalries are deeper and wider than previously believed, it is being disrupted by little more than a family conflict that will be resolved when all of the members of the Le Pen family remember the source of the family’s wealth and why they get to live in a castle. The structure of the party as a national organization, built by Marine Le Pen, remains essentially intact.  Unlike the PS, there doesn’t seem to have been much structural damage.

Following the example of the PS, its failure results mainly from an internal collapse which made impossible to work during the elections and also because of certain extremely stupid tactical choices (i.e., MLP’s pointless effort at distancing herself from the extreme right by appointing an actual Nazi as the caretaker head of the FN or abandoning her most important political and economic as disastrous and unworkable only a few days before the election). But the structure and the base of the FN remain more or less intact and it will be relatively easy to them to regroup and begin to rebuild and perhaps even expand at the local level.

And, make no mistake, if Macron cannot fulfill  his extravagant promises, the FN will probably be in the best position to take advantage of his failures.

The center and the right, of course, belong to Macron and to the men of unlimited ambition who are clustered around him.  But these are ruthless men who would gleefully stab Macron in the back in an instant, just as he betrayed his own patron, Hollande. So, in that sense, even with all his power, Macron must move cautiously and this perhaps explains his tepid reforms.

But my thoughts are principally focused on whether the Parti socialiste can be rebuild by those who might be attracted to a revitalized party of center left.  I believe the PS can rebuild itself and once again be the party of center left which meets the needs of the workers and the middle class through the “socialism of the possible”.

We all know who will oppose this resurrection.  The question is whether the base of the party wishes to continue being led by the ageing elephants of the radical center who burned everything on the ground.  Surely it would be better for the Parti socialiste to respond to the emergence of Macron by embracing the extremely popular and beneficial politics of the center-left which will revitalize France.

I have little to say of value about this speech. He’s still King Macron. In his speech to the Congress at the palace of Louis XIV – the ‘Sun King’ – in Versailles, he spoke as though the country were in the midst of a national crisis. Macron threatened to overrule lawmakers with a referendum if they try to frustrate the “reforms” he wishes to impose on France.  Such assemblies are usually reserved for times of national crisis and the tone of the speech was also very strange more; like a general telling the country how things would be after a military coup than a newly elected president of a republic speaking to an elected national assembly.

A strange thing, indeed. He told the deputies, the majority of whom came to Paris specially to serve him, that if they refuse to obey him, he will go to the country with referendums.  Here’s my question: Why bring up the subject at all? What is the aim, especially since, as I said, most of these members seem to be have no political or philosophical beliefs, except for their belief in Macron as their leader? Why insult them?  Is it possible that Macon knows something we do not?

But if the agenda of Macron is so toxic that it cannot be propelled even with using Article 49-3, what does this bode for the future? This would certainly be a test that would allow us to better gauge whether the landslide victory of Macron was linked to his personal charisma or something else entirely.

Macron has certainly been the beneficiary of a unique confluence of circumstances that saw the collapse of the entirely left of French politics.   I attribute the destruction of the PS to the rise of radical center under Hollande.  The destruction that Macron’s allies François Hollande and Manuel Valls inflicted on the Socialist Party has been total.  They quite simply burnt the most significant party of the center-left to the ground and then laughed as they walked away from the smoldering ruin.

Likewise, the National Front and the UMP/LR were destroyed by their respective leaders who were unable to control their inner demons and, of course, by their party rivals who were prepared to win or lose everything in a death match.  And the result was that both parties have also been reduced to ashes.  The result was a incoherent and immobilized far right and a vacuum in the political space from the right to the center-left; a vacuum which Macron rushed in to fill.

I have always maintained that there was no appetite for centrism in France. But there is a powerful argument that the rapid rise of Macron, a self-proclaimed centrist, to a position of unmatched power means that I am wrong.  There is much ambiguity about the result of the election given the incapacity of the parties of the left and right, combined with a well justified revulsion at the thought of a president Marine Le Pen.

But if  Macron is forced, for some reason that I can’t envision, to go to the people, then we’ll have something much closer to a true test of the popular appeal of radical centrism because such an “up or down” vote on actual policies would not depend on the health of political parties, but rather a direct judgment on the merits of centrism. This could get interesting!

I am shocked. I did not see this coming; not at all.  My thoughts are still disorganized and disrupted, but it seems to me that French politics is also disorganized right now. I’m still trying to make sense of it all.  The only that’s certain is that Marcon is surfing on an enormous wave of popular support. Beyond that, I can only offer a few random observations.

To begin with, there’s an equally large number of people who did not vote. Both main political parties (the LR and the PS) suffered crushing defeats.  But are they finished or will they come back when, or perhaps if, they are able to resolve their internal differences and challenge of Macron?  Who knows?

For the moment, the stars are perfectly aligned. The LR is destroying itself with an internal fight for the power between Sarkozy and “Honest” Fillion.  And, of course, the PS was destroyed from within by the militant centrists, of whom Macron was one.

The REM has swept everything. Macron has a total power. Certainly, more power than De Gaulle. Maybe, more than anybody ever in France.

And it is an important difference. These new députés are not committed to a cause, an idea, or a philosophy; instead, they are committed to a man. One man who holds all the power of the state in the hands, essentially as king. More than king, perhaps, because there is not a Cardinal Richelieu around to oppose this king. All of my political and philosophic differences with Macron aside, this extraordinary concentration of power is a very disturbing development for a republic.

Both, the LR and the PS are facing annihilation in Paris if my guess about the upcoming legislative election is correct.  For the PS, one of its most popular and important figures, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, has lost in the first round.  And PS luminaries Benoît Harmon and Jean-Christophe Cambadélis were also beaten in the first round. Very strange. I see no reason people should abandon their party for the benefit of Macron.

Mélenchon and La France insoumise will support the frondeurs of the PS in the second tour.  Not Valls, naturally.  Harmon has also called for PS members to vote against Valls.  Although Valls’s politics are not mine, I’ve always admired and respected him personally; but there’s undeniably a sense of rough justice in this. If there is anybody running in this election who richly deserves to be drowned by this tidal wave, it is most assuredly Valls.

But, surprisingly, the FN did quite well in its strongholds. 122 candidates qualified for the second round. So, Mélenchon and La France insoumise also did strangely well, especially considering how badly the PS was treated.

All of which would seem to count against the conventional wisdom that this election reflected a wave of popular support for the centrism. And nevertheless, it is undeniable that Macron, the self-proclaimed centrist, has ridden to power on a wave of popular support like nothing else I’ve seen in French politics.  If that’s not a wave of support for centrism, then what is it?

And this is the second major election in which absenteeism and the null vote represented a huge proportion of eligible voters and that number has been growing – it’s now more than 40 % according to Le Monde.

My hope is that the PS can return to being a party of center left. The party of Jean-Jaurès.  A movement towards a socialism of the possible is something that would be very important for all the Western democracies.