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Politics in US and EU V of V
US and EU Politics: V of V
Republicans, oppose Democrats on all of these points. They are more likely to want more freedom to own firearms, while wanting to limit the freedoms of abortion, sexual orientation. The Republican party is catching up to the Democrats, on the issue of supporting racial diversity. I have to admit that the Bush Administration has more minorities on the cabinet than any U.S. President in history. But the Republicans continue to deny that there is any gap between whites and non-whites in the face of overwhelming evidence that the work of affirmative action has hardly begun to complete it's job.
Then Republicans want to crank back spending, make government smaller, and cut back taxes. Of course, they always tend to want to increase spending on defense. It's great for big businesses that make weapons and communications systems. It helps the economy. And a nice fat military-industrial complex is always good for republicans.
Republicans have a huge core of support from fundamentalist protestant groups, and this is reflected in a lot of their positions. Anti-abortion, anti homosexual rights, pro prayer in the schools. Ironically, however, republicans (and conservative protestants) also tend to be very supportive of capital punishment, something that Democrats, despite tending to be highly in favor of abortion rights, tend to find very offensive. It's a fascinating inconsistency on both sides of "the aisle." (On congress, the left and the right are often referred to as "sides of the aisle," since the main aisle through the center of both the house of representatives and the senate tends to form a rough boundary between the republicans and democrats in congress. )
Well, I do go on and on, don't I. Sorry about that. I'm going to cut this up into pieces so that I can post it there for you. I hope you find it interesting.
Of course, I'm very interested in hearing what you have to tell me, along these lines, about your own country. I know something about your own revolution, about Marie Antoinette losing her head over an imprudent comment about cake, the barricades and all. I know something about Napoleon Bonaparte. Terms like Waterloo and Elba have some meaning to me, even if I don't know any details. I know roughly the story of Joan D'arc. I know nothing at all about your current political circumstances or about how you came to them. So I'm basically a tabula raza. Please, tell me some stories. I look forward to hearing them.
Au revoir,
Mark
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Language pair: French; English
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Mark S.
April 10, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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Politics in US and EU III of V
US and EU Politics: IV of V
Because our country is generally polarized between a right and a left, and because any strong candidate has to win support from both sides, everyone's always trying to fight for a position that looks like the center, which will please everyone.
The Independents argue that neither party has solved the social security problem (true), neither party has dealt with the problem of corporate welfare (true) neither party is addressing our failing education system (mostly true), Neither is dealing with immigration "problems" (a really ugly can of worms, no body can agree on what the problems are or if there is a problem.) No solutions on crime (true) our prison system (true) Everyone argues that the Democrats spend way too much and get nothing done (I have a lot to say about that one), and that Republicans always cut taxes so that we don't have any money to get anything done (I can't argue with that).
I'm not convinced, however, that there is any one other party that could do a better job than the democrats do. When there are Republicans in the White house, I just want to hide in my house for four years and pray nobody notices I'm American. I have to confess, I'm pretty ardently partisan. I just have great trouble finding republicans (and on very rare occasions, I do—always at the far left edge of the Republican Party) whose thinking makes any sense to me. I don't see how we can expect single mothers, for example, to get off of welfare, when a week's child care costs more than they can ever make in a month. It just seems that a great many republicans just don't think about what the decisions they make will mean to real people whose lives are not working, or they just assume that nobody would be poor if they weren't lazy and blow it off as if it weren't their problem.
Well, like I've said, I have a lot of strong feelings about this stuff. Please excuse my lecture. My point is that in my view, the differences between republicans and Democrats are huge. I'm not going to go into details now, because that's a really big long letter by itself. But there has always been a liberal party and a conservative party in the US, even since before the revolutionary war.
They always tended to be fairly divided between the concerns of the Northern, industrial, business concerns, which tended to support a stronger federal government, and the Southern, rural, slave-owning interests. Our first parties were Whigs and Tories, spin offs from their English counterparts, with the Whigs supporting independence, and the Tories trying to find ways to make peace between King George and the Colonies.
Continued: See part V of V
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Language pair: French; English
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Mark S.
April 10, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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Politics in US and EU IV of V
US and EU Politics: IV of V
Because our country is generally polarized between a right and a left, and because any strong candidate has to win support from both sides, everyone's always trying to fight for a position that looks like the center, which will please everyone.
The Independents argue that neither party has solved the social security problem (true), neither party has dealt with the problem of corporate welfare (true) neither party is addressing our failing education system (mostly true), Neither is dealing with immigration "problems" (a really ugly can of worms, no body can agree on what the problems are or if there is a problem.) No solutions on crime (true) our prison system (true) Everyone argues that the Democrats spend way too much and get nothing done (I have a lot to say about that one), and that Republicans always cut taxes so that we don't have any money to get anything done (I can't argue with that).
I'm not convinced, however, that there is any one other party that could do a better job than the democrats do. When there are Republicans in the White house, I just want to hide in my house for four years and pray nobody notices I'm American. I have to confess, I'm pretty ardently partisan. I just have great trouble finding republicans (and on very rare occasions, I do—always at the far left edge of the Republican Party) whose thinking makes any sense to me. I don't see how we can expect single mothers, for example, to get off of welfare, when a week's child care costs more than they can ever make in a month. It just seems that a great many republicans just don't think about what the decisions they make will mean to real people whose lives are not working, or they just assume that nobody would be poor if they weren't lazy and blow it off as if it weren't their problem.
Well, like I've said, I have a lot of strong feelings about this stuff. Please excuse my lecture. My point is that in my view, the differences between republicans and Democrats are huge. I'm not going to go into details now, because that's a really big long letter by itself. But there has always been a liberal party and a conservative party in the US, even since before the revolutionary war.
They always tended to be fairly divided between the concerns of the Northern, industrial, business concerns, which tended to support a stronger federal government, and the Southern, rural, slave-owning interests. Our first parties were Whigs and Tories, spin offs from their English counterparts, with the Whigs supporting independence, and the Tories trying to find ways to make peace between King George and the Colonies.
Continued: See part V of V
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Language pair: French; English
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Mark S.
April 10, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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Politics in US and EU III of V
US and EU Politics: III of V
Because our country is generally polarized between a right and a left, and because any strong candidate has to win support from both sides, everyone's always trying to fight for a position that looks like the center, which will please everyone.
The Independents argue that neither party has solved the social security problem (true), neither party has dealt with the problem of corporate welfare (true) neither party is addressing our failing education system (mostly true), Neither is dealing with immigration "problems" (a really ugly can of worms, no body can agree on what the problems are or if there is a problem.) No solutions on crime (true) our prison system (true) Everyone argues that the Democrats spend way too much and get nothing done (I have a lot to say about that one), and that Republicans always cut taxes so that we don't have any money to get anything done (I can't argue with that).
I'm not convinced, however, that there is any one other party that could do a better job than the democrats do. When there are Republicans in the White house, I just want to hide in my house for four years and pray nobody notices I'm American. I have to confess, I'm pretty ardently partisan. I just have great trouble finding republicans (and on very rare occasions, I do—always at the far left edge of the Republican Party) whose thinking makes any sense to me. I don't see how we can expect single mothers, for example, to get off of welfare, when a week's child care costs more than they can ever make in a month. It just seems that a great many republicans just don't think about what the decisions they make will mean to real people whose lives are not working, or they just assume that nobody would be poor if they weren't lazy and blow it off as if it weren't their problem.
Well, like I've said, I have a lot of strong feelings about this stuff. Please excuse my lecture. My point is that in my view, the differences between republicans and Democrats are huge. I'm not going to go into details now, because that's a really big long letter by itself. But there has always been a liberal party and a conservative party in the US, even since before the revolutionary war.
They always tended to be fairly divided between the concerns of the Northern, industrial, business concerns, which tended to support a stronger federal government, and the Southern, rural, slave-owning interests. Our first parties were Whigs and Tories, spin offs from their English counterparts, with the Whigs supporting independence, and the Tories trying to find ways to make peace between King George and the Colonies.
Continued: See part IV of V
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Language pair: French; English
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Mark S.
April 10, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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Politics in US and EU III of V
US and EU Politics: III of V
Because our country is generally polarized between a right and a left, and because any strong candidate has to win support from both sides, everyone's always trying to fight for a position that looks like the center, which will please everyone.
The Independents argue that neither party has solved the social security problem (true), neither party has dealt with the problem of corporate welfare (true) neither party is addressing our failing education system (mostly true), Neither is dealing with immigration "problems" (a really ugly can of worms, no body can agree on what the problems are or if there is a problem.) No solutions on crime (true) our prison system (true) Everyone argues that the Democrats spend way too much and get nothing done (I have a lot to say about that one), and that Republicans always cut taxes so that we don't have any money to get anything done (I can't argue with that).
I'm not convinced, however, that there is any one other party that could do a better job than the democrats do. When there are Republicans in the White house, I just want to hide in my house for four years and pray nobody notices I'm American. I have to confess, I'm pretty ardently partisan. I just have great trouble finding republicans (and on very rare occasions, I do—always at the far left edge of the Republican Party) whose thinking makes any sense to me. I don't see how we can expect single mothers, for example, to get off of welfare, when a week's child care costs more than they can ever make in a month. It just seems that a great many republicans just don't think about what the decisions they make will mean to real people whose lives are not working, or they just assume that nobody would be poor if they weren't lazy and blow it off as if it weren't their problem.
Well, like I've said, I have a lot of strong feelings about this stuff. Please excuse my lecture. My point is that in my view, the differences between republicans and Democrats are huge. I'm not going to go into details now, because that's a really big long letter by itself. But there has always been a liberal party and a conservative party in the US, even since before the revolutionary war.
They always tended to be fairly divided between the concerns of the Northern, industrial, business concerns, which tended to support a stronger federal government, and the Southern, rural, slave-owning interests. Our first parties were Whigs and Tories, spin offs from their English counterparts, with the Whigs supporting independence, and the Tories trying to find ways to make peace between King George and the Colonies.
Continued: See part IV of V
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Language pair: French; English
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Mark S.
April 10, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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Politics in US and EU II of V
US and EU Politics: II of V
The problem was, Gore and Bush were within a few percentage points of one another in the polls. There was really no telling which way the election was going to go –as the world discovered with all that noise we had about Florida. We had no idea how crazy it would get, but it was obviously going to be a tight race. With the election as close as it was, voting for Nader would amount to a vote for Bush, because it would take a vote away from Gore. I really didn't know what I was going to do, even as I was walking into the polling site. But I finally voted for Gore, and I have never regretted the choice. I would have lost a lot of sleep over Bush's election if I'd voted for Nader.
Now I want to be very clear about what I mean by this, because there are a whole lot of sour grapes democrats in denial about the problems the party needs to deal with these days—the lack of leadership, of strength, of currency with the concerns of voters—that are the cause of the eight years of nightmare we are presently enjoying. Such democrats vilify Nader for being "'a spoiler"' by stealing "'Gore's " (or "Kerry's") votes. The brutal truth is that there is no such thing as a vote that belongs to a candidate. Votes belong to voters, not to candidates. In a free republic, citizens award their votes to the candidate who best convinces them that his political agenda will serve the needs of the country. I get a little emotional about this, because I'm really getting sick of democrats who blame Nader for Bush's electoral victories. It is not Nader's job to get out of the Democrats' way. It is the Democratic Party's job to develop a strategy for dealing with Nader. They failed to do that, and now the whole country is paying the price. People who think Nader "spoiled"' the elections need to go back to civics class get a refresher on democracy. It's not about locking out people who say thing's you don't like. It's about listening to them and taking a risk that you might learn something new and important about the country's needs.
We don't have enough of that under our two party system, and I guess I get a little crazy about hearing from people who want to make the problem even worse by trying to shout down what little diversity of discourse we still have.
As to your question of the differences between the Democrats and the Republicans, it's a pretty interesting question, and you'll see a lot of different answers from different people. Of course, the independents make a big deal about how alike the big two are. Naturally, it's to their advantage to convince us that the only meaningful change would be to bring in an independent party candidate, and it's not an empty argument.
Continued: See part III of V
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Language pair: French; English
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Mark S.
April 10, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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Politics in US and EU II of V
US and EU Politics: II of V
The problem was, Gore and Bush were within a few percentage points of one another in the polls. There was really no telling which way the election was going to go –as the world discovered with all that noise we had about Florida. We had no idea how crazy it would get, but it was obviously going to be a tight race. With the election as close as it was, voting for Nader would amount to a vote for Bush, because it would take a vote away from Gore. I really didn't know what I was going to do, even as I was walking into the polling site. But I finally voted for Gore, and I have never regretted the choice. I would have lost a lot of sleep over Bush's election if I'd voted for Nader.
Now I want to be very clear about what I mean by this, because there are a whole lot of sour grapes democrats in denial about the problems the party needs to deal with these days—the lack of leadership, of strength, of currency with the concerns of voters—that are the cause of the eight years of nightmare we are presently enjoying. Such democrats vilify Nader for being "'a spoiler"' by stealing "'Gore's " (or "Kerry's") votes. The brutal truth is that there is no such thing as a vote that belongs to a candidate. Votes belong to voters, not to candidates. In a free republic, citizens award their votes to the candidate who best convinces them that his political agenda will serve the needs of the country. I get a little emotional about this, because I'm really getting sick of democrats who blame Nader for Bush's electoral victories. It is not Nader's job to get out of the Democrats' way. It is the Democratic Party's job to develop a strategy for dealing with Nader. They failed to do that, and now the whole country is paying the price. People who think Nader "spoiled"' the elections need to go back to civics class get a refresher on democracy. It's not about locking out people who say thing's you don't like. It's about listening to them and taking a risk that you might learn something new and important about the country's needs.
We don't have enough of that under our two party system, and I guess I get a little crazy about hearing from people who want to make the problem even worse by trying to shout down what little diversity of discourse we still have.
As to your question of the differences between the Democrats and the Republicans, it's a pretty interesting question, and you'll see a lot of different answers from different people. Of course, the independents make a big deal about how alike the big two are. Naturally, it's to their advantage to convince us that the only meaningful change would be to bring in an independent party candidate, and it's not an empty argument.
Continued: See part III of V
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Language pair: French; English
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Mark S.
April 10, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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Politics in US and EU Part I of V
Hi Arnaud. It's great to hear from you again. Busy night on the MLE site. I feel like a kid in a candy shop (idiom). I can hardly figure out where to start.
Well, I start by observing how relative things always are. To you, it seems that we have no left wing politics in our country, yet most Americans will tell you that we have a very powerful left wing called the democratic party. They may seem very conservative in a country where the communist and socialist parties are active. But when I see a democrat standing next to a republican, I see a lot of huge differences.
Of course, that's my point of view. I don't know how visible it is from across the big water over there, be we do have more than two parties. We have hundreds, and that includes the Communist and Socialist parties, both in a number of different flavors. It also includes a lot of other very interesting groups, some of whom make our republicans look very left-wing. The problem here is that we don't have proportional representation here as you do in your country, and the two main parties have such a stranglehold on the system, voting for an outsider is tantamount to throwing away your vote.
For example, in the 2000 elections, I was very upset. I had to choose between Al Gore and George W. Bush. Bush was a no-brainer: He didn't have one, and I knew that he'd be poison for the country. I had some measure of respect for Gore, on the other hand, but I could never see him as "my president," the way I did with Clinton, despite a few issues on which I disagreed with the former president pretty strongly. Obviously, I had not trouble choosing between Bush and Gore.
But if I was going to vote my soul, there was a very easy choice for me. Ralph Nader, a consumer advocate has been running for president for years on our Green Party, an independent group that advocates sustainable practices with respect to the environment, equal rights for all, fair labor practices, low unemployment, and a poverty program that empowers the poor, providing meaningful support to help them care for their families and get back to work. I don't expect it is very different from your own Green party – or at least the Green party in Germany, with which I actually have at least some passing familiarity.
The problem was, Ralph Nader wasn't dealing with reality where it sat. He came to speak at my school where I was attending at the time in the San Francisco Bay area, and I asked him to explain to me how it might be that I could vote for him without voting for Bush by consequence. He recited one of his talking points back at me and went on to another question. Clearly, he was ignoring that issue, and I found that very sad.
Continued: See part II of V
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Language pair: French; English
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Mark S.
April 10, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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Re:French politics.
Hi Arnaud,
Nice to hear from you again. I really enjoyed your explanation of the issues around the EU constitution, unemployment, and other social issues. For all of the vast differences there are between our countries, it seems that there is also quite a bit we share in common. For example, just as your people seem to want to maintain a practical balance between national sovereignty and international cooperative unity with respect to the EU, so have we struggled to navigate the same balance in the UN. Of course, we have many here (in my opinion, a bunch of narrow-minded hotheads) who argue that for the United States to relinquish any of our own sovereign authority to any external body would be a violation of the essential principles that make our country great. I think it would be the best possible affirmation of American principles. We learned in our first 30 years that if our United States were going to be strong, the individual states would have to be willing to cede certain key powers to a central government, or we would never be able to build the unity that we now enjoy under our present constitution, the one that changed our government from a confederacy – a collective of sovereign nations sharing a single flag, to a federal republic, where governing powers are allocated carefully between the national and state governments. The people who argue that the nations of Europe will have to pull together in order to stand against the United States are making good sense. I'd really love to see the EU do that. My country obviously needs to "eat some humble pie" these days. It would be a very healthy thing for my country, and a very healthy thing for the world.
I wasn't sure I understood your comment about Turkey. Are some of your people afraid that Turkey will expand its land area, moving its territory closer to France? Why might they anticipate this?
Since this is too long for one message and the rest of this is not about current events, I hope you won't mind popping over to the opinions board for the rest of my response to your message. I'll see you over there!
Mark
Sacramento, CA USA
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Language pair: French; English
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Mark S.
April 3, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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Re:War and Democracy don't mix very well!
Thank you, Arnaud, for your very thoughtful comments.
I find it very disturbing that the Bush administration points to free elections and says, "see, I was right!" He points to the fall of the Hussein regime, and says, "if the Democrats had been in power, Sadam Hussein would still be in power in Iraq.
The Bush administration, unfortunately is winning a tremendous amount if domestic support for its outlandish policies by pretending everything is very simple, and that's very effective, because, unfortunately, many citizens of the US are impressed by simplification. What we often overlook is that simplification of complicated situations hides important ramifications.
When Bush makes the decision to invade Iraq a matter of having or not having Sadam Hussein in power, he creates a false dilemma, he puts dissenters in the position being seen as supporters of Hussein. But the truth is, you don’t have to like Hussein in order to value the principle of due process of law, one of our most basic constitutional principles, and one which we conveniently decided to ignore when we invaded Iraq.
As Arnaud astutely points out making a country appear democratic is not the same as making it democratic. And there is nothing democratic at all about imposing the US way of government at the point of a gun.
Our problem is and has been (ever since there has been a United States of America), that we treat our values the way we treat our religion in this country. Whether we admit it out loud or not, we are convinced that our way of doing things is the only sensible way, and we think we’re doing people a favor by marching into their countries and requiring them to adopt our lifestyle.
I can’t blame other countries for finding us arrogant. We are.
Fortunately, I hope, we aren’t all.
Thanks for the topic, Cassie!
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA USA
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Language pair: French; English
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Mark S.
March 19, 2005
# Msgs: 26
Latest: April 23, 2005
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