I always try to stick up for the French, i.e. the French people; when some attack 'the French' I always point out that their beef should be with the socialists in power and the unions, not the average Frenchman. The Frenchman on the street is likely an philisophical and upstanding individual, albeit a bit kinky and eccentric...but that's how I like them. Reminds me of myself.
I would agree. The problem is that French government and society are so heavily dominated by elites with a rationalistic philosophy that is totally unnatural--and such a worldview inevitably leads to a kind of generalized nihilism. The other source of information about the French comes from the experience of tourists, and unfortunately, those very narrow encounters, typically in restaurants and cafes in heavily touristic ares, are usually horrible for all of the obvious reasons.
Anyway, we'll see if 5 years of the French Bush and French Berlusconi (as the media was calling Sarkozy) can make any difference in the edifice of French elitism and its veneer of equality.
Have a great week Akhetnu...I'll be grading furiously most of it!
Yes, I agree.
Sarko is a very brave man. But the elites are sooo angry with this, because the moral and bien-pensante gauche had no won that I fear he is not going to have it easy...
I have been reading yesterday several French communist blogs and they were really, really angry. They were discussing if they should give up the name of communists or not, if the campaign had been well focused or not... But they were all agreeing in one thing: they wanted Sarko to know they existed!! and they also thought the people were scared of different people and that's why so many have voted for him...
They said that Ségo was soooo centered even sge was a rightie for them...
I mean, this people can be very few but they can develop what we are seeing these days. It remembers me the days when Aznar was in power and leftists wanted him to know they did not agree with him. PP MPs and sympathisers were called murderers once and again, stones were thrown at them, PP offices were attacked, Rajoy's house was covered of manure while he was inside with his little son, etc.
And now the Spanish Local and Autonomous Elections are coming... we will see what happens, though I am not very optimistic. If you see the laudatio all TVs make to Zapatero, whatever happens, hmmm, you would be depressed.
I am going to begin writing about them. They are going to be held on May 27th. 
It's had not won...
And the sad emoticon was in the before-last paragraph...
By the way, and linked to the MSM leftist bias, I have to say that thanks to the blogs the right is articulating a powerful response to them. But some of them had been menaced and some others have been listed by the Communists in a black list and they are doing their best to harrass them.
A pity that a part of society does not fulfill the democracy rules...
The radical left has always considered democracy simply a means to an end, a way of acquiring power and to be discarded whenever convenient for more direct (i.e. terroristic) action.
Thank you, L.V., for the important insights. Most folks here in the U.S. do not know what a communist insurgency looks like. They do not know how much communist inlfuence was at work in the student movement here, nor in the pro-illegal immigration movement of today.
But the Left is gaining strength in South and Central America, and in the U.S., for classic historical reasons. In a period of growth and prosperity, demagogues whipping up envy, jealousy, resentment, class hate, of the working classes--now stoking also the fires of racial resentment.
The myth of revolution of the opporessed is baloney. Revolutions are always initiated by essentially middle class people, with education, who are demanding FASTER improvements in their condition. Terrorism is their answer to FRUSTRATED social and economic demands.
To wit, once again we should understand how the radical Islamic terrorism and the resurgence strength communisim and utopian Liberalism are connected.
Keep us posted on the Spanish vote!
Don't worry, be happy!
D. Ox
Hey D.OX!..Hopefully the winds are changin my friend!
Have a super day! 
The resurgence of the Left in Latin America is very troubling.
I also see a great resurgence in socialism in the US. Many of my classmates are avowed socialists. Of course they also spend a lot of time at Starbucks talking about how they need to bring down the corporations that control our lives. Cognative dissonance is a beautiful thing.
Most of this is because of propaganda in college. I had to read Nickel and Dimed five times as an undergrad. Of course I grew up in a lower middle class area so I was undistrubed by the fact that people have to work hard sun up to sun down to get by. Yet, my upper middle class collegeues could not believe that people lived like that. There parents were lawyers and executive types. The closest thing to poverty they ever experianced was not having enough allowance to go to a concert where bands screamed nonsense about the "Establishment."
The truth of the world is that the Establishment is liberal. They hate democracy and the Republic because it allows people from Des Moines to control the actions of those who are well bred and went to Harvard. To be truly against the establishment, one must have the heart of the eternal rebel: the conservative.
Hey Wordbearer! Glad to hear from you. Hope you have had a good 1st year, and exams are over or nearly so. Let me hear from you, we'll go turn over some blood to the evil Starbucks in exchange for coffee!
Check out the TechRepublican blog (banner below a bit) and consider joining their Google group. It's a very interesting group of GOP activists.
A bientot!
Hello, Ox. I have made an update with videos and more round-up:
http://vorzheva.blogspot.com/200...-ii-
videos.html
And about the Spanish vote, the Socialist candidate for Madrid's Major is involved in a very important case of corruption.
And that is the problem: in an important percentage, elections are won not because of the ideas, but just because of the defects of the other contendants...
Or in the case of New Orleans, they happily re-elect a Congressman who had been caught with $90,000 in corrupt money in his freezer!!!
Unfortunately we are in a phase of "late democracry" where the mob has learned that it can vote itself money from other people... and Liberal and Communist "leaders" are more than happy to incite them...
Thanks for the update!
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