Tuesday, April 1, 2014

French Politics

The state -- friend of all, enemy of each one. ~ Paul Valéry 

To govern is to foresee. ~ Émile de Girardin 

Every nation has the government it deserves. ~ Joseph de Maistre 

The powerful man commands. Public opinion governs. ~ Henry de Montherlant 

The tyrant never corrects himself because he hears only flatterers. ~ André Maurois 

12 comments:

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Big earthquake of the coast of Chile.

8.2 Big enough for CNN to interrupt their lost plane coverage.

West coast of the US on Tsunami watch.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

You are saying we are giving the-way-of-the-French a try.

We have to try their way in order to prove their way stinks... or something

The Dude said...

You forgot a quote:

"Just a little off the top" - Louis XVI.

deborah said...

LOL

ricpic said...

At least the French, witness their stinging electoral rebuke of the socialist overlords, still have a pulse. The word racist isn't sufficient to shut them up or keep them from casting a vote for the France for the French (Marine LePen's) party. Not so here. Total cowardice. Which disguises itself as "being nice."

chickelit said...

I'm glad you brought that up, ricpic, because all of the random thoughts I put here are pretty old.

Nice connection to the present.

edutcher said...

Why are the roads in France lined with trees?

Germans like to march in the shade.

deborah said...

ricpic:
"At least the French, witness their stinging electoral rebuke of the socialist overlords, still have a pulse. The word racist isn't sufficient to shut them up or keep them from casting a vote for the France for the French (Marine LePen's) party. Not so here. Total cowardice. Which disguises itself as "being nice.""

The racial history of America is rather different from that of France, wouldn't you agree?

Mitch H. said...

The racial history of America is rather different from that of France, wouldn't you agree?

Not as distinct as you might think. Haiti was French territory at the time of the slave revolt, and Martinique and Guadeloupe are both still departments of France proper, as much as Corsica is. A significant fraction of the "French" troops that fought on the Western Front in WWI were from the French West African colonies - especially the Senegalese.

But France *was* less racist than the US. It's more of a century-long convergence of a steady-state France and a vastly improved American racial climate.

The Dude said...

Crack Emcee to the white courtesy phone, paging Crack Emcee!

deborah said...

Ricpic, my problem isn't guilt, I'm tired of the lack of nuance.

deborah said...

Mitch, thanks for the interesting info. You make me think about when I read British spy novels the narrator will say, 'I saw a Sudanese,' or 'I saw an Ethiopian.' They seem more in touch with blacks as real people, rather than a category or construction.

Which then reminds me of a commercial I saw for, I think, Ancestry.com. They offer a genetic test now, and the black guy in the commercial said something like, 'now I know what part of Africa my ancestors were from...and I'm 1/16 Irish (or something).