Election? What election?

I recently (OK, 3 weeks ago) read my friend Jon’s blog.  In one of the first entries he apologized for not writing for 2 days.  So I guess I’m no longer in the League of Bloggers but in the Memoir Hall of Fame.  I can provide all kinds of excuses, some true and some flimsy, but I’ve got enough to write without wasting time on trivialities and half-truths and crummy perspectives.

 

This is actually a commentary and less of a “what (and where) in the world is Laurie doing” episode.  As of my last entry, I had returned from Geneva and the Refresh Retreat and was back in my apartment in La Rochelle, near Cannes, painting and reading and thinking about things, becoming very interested in reading what I could on French politics and the French view of America.  I continued reading a book called “La fin de l’Empire” which I grabbed in Cultura (the French version of Barnes&Nobles, but with art supplies!) because my theory for the last few years has been that America’s empire is in decline, repeating the history of the fall of the Roman Empire.  Yes, we are innovative and have done great things and advanced civilization in many ways that will continue to be used, but though we still use Roman inventions (numbers, books, mirrors, roads, indoor plumbing, the Coliseum – I mean, where would USC play football??), their society dribbled away in consumerism and “more”ness.  Anyway, back to the book, I was thrilled to read it.  The author writes that the American Empire is overextended, produces too much (how much can we buy, actually, so let’s market to the 3^rd World whose economies can’t digest it), and is faced with a crisis of legitimacy among the world’s nations and citizens.  The first chapter is called “Route to Bagdad”, and I appreciated it because it traced the American government’s actions back to the beginning of Regan’s reign.  I wasn’t really old enough to follow politics then and didn’t in later years because I was too busy with school and work, so this was something of a history textbook for me since more recently I’ve enjoyed reading and debating as a nice compliment to doing my art and travels. 

 

Anyway, I was enthralled with this book and other articles I could find.  My former French tutor came for a visit one afternoon and after catching up on the mundane of life began to talk politics for 3 ½ hours – in French!  Both of us were quite impressed with my French, actually.  However, in the “Fall of the American Empire”, my bookmark remains in the middle of chapter 2 because I finally saw that this was an American book, originally titled “Dilemmas of Domination:  the Unmaking of the American Empire” by Walden Bello.  It sounded like a good French name to me.  With a new quest to seek out articles on America written by (real) French people I came across a Le Monde special magazine with “Les Américians” plastered on the front.  By paying Cultura 5 euro, I could read articles that Le Monde had published over the last year or so, as well as a follow-up to an article that interviewed several “typical” Americans 4 years ago before the Bush-Kerry election.  I liked best the article entitled “The World escapes the US” – as in “the American’s don’t have a clue”.  (The following are basically excerpts, but translated by me and sometimes abridged.)

 

We will not be returning to a unipolar system where neither the power nor the legitimacy of the States and Western Europe is accepted by the rest of the world.  This signifies two dangers currently in progression:  anarchy and tyranny, either simultaneous or alone, will dominate this century, and neither the States nor Europe nor the grace of destiny, either simultaneously or singly, will be able to influence in any important way.  The States have entered into a new phase, characterized by their humiliation in Iraq, of general loss of prestige and power, due also to the spectacular emergence of China and India on the economic scene and the reemergence of Russia as a menace to its neighbors but also indispensable to the West, however weak and unfriendly.  In this crisis of American power and influence, the terms “unipolar” (or “unilateral”) and “super-power” have lost most of their validity.  And what replaces them is neither the concert efforts of multiple powers  (as Europe in the last century) nor the reign of multilateral institutions (dominated by promoting discourse such as the diplomatic approach by the French in the last years).  Of course the unity of allies to dissuade and international institutions functioning to keep a minimum of rationalization and moderation in international affaires continue to be widely used, but their efforts are, at least, fragile and fragmented.  Their mechanisms are constantly detoured, blocked, or submerged by the assembly of passions and myths, by the armed prophets and their fanatic or desperate disciples, or by uncontrolled cultural and social evolutions.  China and Russia play a complex role in the balance.  For the West, these two states are irreplaceable partners, but at the same time dangerous collaborators and potentially real or virtual adversaries.  (my comment is that they, more specifically India and China, are also our suppliers, allowing us to buy ourselves to death)  Geographic and cultural differences aside, the BRIC group (Brazil, Russia, India, China) is an emerging economic power which transcends the North-South polarity (The French usually use “South” to denote 2^nd and 3^rd World countries and economies.)

One of the most pre-occupying issues is basically the multiplication of civil wars, whether permanent, intermittent, or virtual, whether for religious, racial, political, or economic causes, that menace and incite by extension or contagion entire regions, such as East Asia, Mid-East, and the Cornice of Africa.  This makes control by stronger, outside forces or international institutions an effort of Herculean proportions.  Generally, the basic cause of all evolutions and political revolutions is the coincidence of two series of conflicts:  technology vs. social and cultural norms, and modernization vs. tradition.  These tensions, however, have been incredibly accelerated and heightened by the political and military actions of the West, above all the invasion of Iraq with its false justifications, atrocities, and attempted demonstration of power.  The invasion has been compared to Napoleon’s invasion into Spain by its limited effects and often counter-productivity of military power.

The US has found itself, since 9-11 and Iraq, confronted by a world it cannot ignore, but cannot control, nor, apparently, understand.  More troubling, for Americans, is the complexity and ambiguity of their relations with the emerging powers.  It is impossible for Americans to simply categorize them as friends, enemies, or collaborators.  The central difficulty is that the world has become, on one hand more asymmetric and heterogeneous in terms of perceptions and passions, and more symmetric and equal in terms of power.  To begin to understand this situation, we must deal with incomplete antagonism and imperfect partnerships with an incomplete equality of power and imperfect reciprocity.  (Got that?)  The strong are not always strong enough to completely impose and protect the order and because egos and persistent oppressions and sometimes aggressions compound to make partnerships and objectives more complex or masked.  It has now been proven that the superior technology which can deliver a spectacular military victory obtained in a few hours with few casualties has been rendered, if not useless, at least deceptive.  So the West is left with a classic dilemma:  adopt the methods of their enemies in the name of effectiveness and thereby rival their taste for suicide, brutality, and disregard for human life – either that or a slap on the wrists.  (At first I thought this ridiculous until I realized that in Vietnam, soldiers had to fight as guerrillas because it was the enemy’s tactic.)  General Rupert Smith is quoted that modern conflicts and confrontations are no longer about destroying an enemy, occupying their territory, or taking their resources.  The objective of modern war is now to influence the will and allegiance of other people to one’s own – and this cannot be done in totality (my comment is that this can’t be done at all – most civil wars have roots in this kind of thinking even when some of the differences like culture are minimized).  This is obviously seen in Iraq, but the difficulty of complexity also with Russia.  In exchange for their support against Iranian nuclear armament, the West must abstain from interfering in relations with the Ukraine, Georgia, or even talking about human rights in Russia itself.  (this article was published in summer 2007 before the recent aggression against Georgia and the West’s lack of interference)

As countries in the West, especially the States, influence other nations either by direct pressure, diplomatic compromise, or indirect navigation of the current cultural and social psychologies, they cannot exclude other countries or act in isolation.  On the contrary, only reciprocity, however imperfect, and successes, however partial, between nations and cultures can have a chance to isolate the adversaries of tolerance and encourage transnational solidarity.  It is this solidarity, at a time of increased nationality that will be the best chance for humanity.

(This is an excerpt from The American Interest by Pierre Hassner, born in 1933.  He studied philosophy under Raymond Aron and is one of the most sought experts on international relations.  He studied in Italy, the US, and Canada.) 

 

Turning towards the American election, in the June 16, 2008 issue of Elle magazine, I read an article that French youth love Obama (although most of France does) – they wear sweatshirts and t-shirts with his name and face and “emblem”, replacing  rock band shirts and sports jerseys.  “If Obama wins, racism will be banished throughout the world!” says one high-school student.  The article says:

The candidate speaks to all:  white and black, but has captured the support not due to race but his vision.  He has done what Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice haven’t.  Obama also addresses the immigration issue, a problem both France and the US face.  French immigrants want to know what France can offer their children – they don’t mind working hard and putting up with some discrimination, but want their children well-integrated.  For immigrants and their descendants, Obama is an incarnation of a fantasy.  His cross-cultural roots also set an example for the people being asked if they’re French or Moroccan, Algerian, Indonesian, Haitian, etc.  Obama underlines France’s incapacity to acknowledge its diversity, but they acknowledge that Obama’s predecessors:  Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Mohammed Ali paved the way.  This hasn’t happened here in France yet. 

(There is still racism in France, sanctioned and even institutionalized – most obvious to me when I learned that pictures are still required when submitting a resume.)  Other students Elle magazine interviewed are more pessimistic.  They believe Obama will fall back in the ratings.  While he’s new now (written in June), by November Americans will revert to supporting someone closer to their values: patriotism and closed-minded positions towards the Arab world.  Most students believe McCain will win, malheureusement.

 

Another article in “Les Américians” commented that each of the presidential candidates (this was before Hillary bowed out) would disappoint everyone.  McCain has proved himself to have strong character, but in the coming decade, his war record is not applicable.  He doesn’t have the temperament nor the mentality for the new world order, aside from his vicious temper and quick-flip to calm.  He’s not ideal for a head of state on the international stage.  The author was most inclined to Hillary, excepting her fanfare about bombing Iran.  But she’s a moot point now, anyway.  Obama’s fierce campaign against Hillary will do him damage in the final run against McCain (although what I hear is that he’s ahead of McCain now – probably more to do with running mates than anything, though). Obama’s biggest proponent is probably his biggest handicap:  the world over is looking to him, not just along racial lines but for an appropriate approach to the complex international stage.  He brings so much hope with him that, if elected, the only place to go is down.  With not just Americans awaiting his grand initiatives, he will not be able to satisfy everyone.  While Obama is compared to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and also heralded as the next JFK, the world unfortunately isn’t Kennedy’s world anymore.  So just as Sarkozy was heralded as the most exciting leader in Europe and anti-establishment when he was elected in May 2007, but has disappointed most of France, so it will likely be Obama’s fall if elected.

Yoann, my friend in Geneva who is a former Alcatel colleague, gave me some of his perspectives on Sarkozy.  First, he made a contract with his former wife to pretend their marriage was fine until 2 months after he was elected last May.  They then divorced (Sarkozy’s second) and he quickly married Carla Bruni, after first showing her off to the world during a vacation to Egypt at Christmas-time.  She, apparently, for all her high-breeding, is equivalent to a call girl. She has a son from her relationship with famous philosopher Raphaël Enthoven, but also happens to have slept with Enthoven’s father, Jean-Paul. (Do we even have famous philosophers in the US, let alone those who are publicly known and respected?)  And she doesn’t even have the class to hush it up.  During an interview to the magazine Figaro Madame in February 2007 she declared: “I am faithful — to myself! I am bored to death by monogamy.”

The first press conference of Sarkozy’s presidency addressed his love life.  Bruni is a stepdaughter of an Italian tire magnate and classical composer, Alberto Bruni Tedeschi, who is married to her mother, Marisa Borini, a concert pianist. Carla Bruni is rich, grew up in France, is well-educated, and speaks three languages, so some think she’s good first lady material.  I saw a TV programme that gave some details of their meeting.  Sarkozy, from the right-wing, asked a close friend and political aide to find him someone with the qualifications of being left-wing and some sort of artist (the French venerate their culture and those who nurture it, be they artists, fashion designers, singers, writers, or philosophers).  So a dinner party was arranged. Bruni, one of the guests, successfully wooed Sarkozy by strumming her guitar and singing a song for him after dinner.  It would be such a cheesy story if it wasn’t in France.

 

The general consensus, both in France and in conservative nations like Egypt and India, where the royal bedmates visited, is that she doesn’t have the image of a first lady. Additionally, Sarkozy’s public affair with her removed the very traditional French boundary between a politician’s public and private life.  Mitterand, for example, had a mistress for about 20 years, and although the press certainly knew about it, only for Mitterand’s funeral were photos of her and their teenage daughter published.  

 

Aside from the sordid stories of her former relationships and attitude toward them, Yoann disgustedly told me that Sarkozy was caught texting Carla during meetings. So for those who don’t really care who he sleeps with or marries, Sarkozy brings down his ratings by publicly being in love with a woman rather than France.  He is also perceived to be just looking out for himself and excels in self-marketing and manipulating the press. Newspapers loved making caustic comments about him, in typical French fashion.  One favorite name was Presisdent Bling-Bling.

 

But while his self-promotion and the “Carla Effect” reduced Sarkozy’s popularity last year, so has his approach to reforms to improve France’s economy...

 

So I mentioned before about my 3 ½ hour French conversation with my former tutor, Christéle.  Of course I wish I had written a few things down soon after, but there’s a general theme among my French friends, no matter what economic or social class.  One of the first ways Sarkozy got the French in a frenzy was by increasing his salary while telling all of France they need to tighten their belts.  In order to stimulate the economy (by getting the French to spend what they just lost in wage increases) was to allow the giant commercial corporations like Carrefour and Casino (Wal-Mart and Ralphs grocery store equivalents) to use their large purchasing power for reduced wholesale costs to pass on lower prices to the public, meanwhile undercutting small and medium-sized merchants.  Since France is one of the least-franchised countries in the West and having small merchants (bakers, butchers, neighborhood brasseries) is a part of their culture.  (For example, one theory regarding poor service in large department stores is that the French custom of saying “bon jour” on entering a business can’t be done in a large store.  And if you don’t say bon jour – even if only to other customers if the proprietor isn’t within earshot – service can get nasty.)  Sarkozy is also good buddies with many heads of big business.  Aside from his son being married to the heiress of Darty (equivalent to Best Buy in the States), he and his family have been long-time friends with the head of Bouygues, a giant telecom company as well as infrastructure and construction, and several other businesses (equivalent to GE, I suppose).  Many of the reforms he’s making to improve the economy are perceived to attack the middle-class while leaving benefits to big business – sounds familiar.  Also the method in which he is changing the structure of France is to bombard them with reform before labor understands the full effects and can strike.  His favorite trick is to reform one aspect of business or education, then reform an opposing group so that both are paralyzed to strike because they would be striking against each other.  The perception of Christéle, as well as my friends Pascale and Thierry, is that Sarkozy tinkers with change, making tweaks in the system, but so frequently that the population can’t keep up and the long-term effect is masked – usually to the benefit of big money.  Back in May or early June, I saw that one of the long-term newscasters was fired, and this made the headlines.  I wasn’t quite sure why, but Christéle enlightened me that he’d irritated Sarkozy during his “welcome to the presidency of France” interview.  This well-respected and well-known newscaster (someone like Tom Brokaw) always interviewed the new presidents and put some hard questions to them.  Well, Sarkozy thought his image tarnished afterwards, so the newscaster was fired, based on him being too old and reducing ratings, of course.  A “retrospective” of his work was broadcast, specifically excerpts of his interviews of Mitterand and Chirac who both diplomatically answered the same questions he posed to Sarkozy.  Sarkozy also tampered with unemployment benefits – sacrilege for the French.  Christéle said he’d changed the scale so that an unemployed worker is required to take a job providing 90% of his former salary or wage after 3 months, then 75% after 6 months, and something like 50-60% after a year (these are approximate, probably being distorted a bit both by Christéle’s telling me and my memory). 

 

Anyway, that’s just a bit of what’s been going on in France, not to mention immigration continuing to be a big issue (Sarkozy wants the EU to have a united front on this), and all the adaptations France has to make as the EU strives to be more concrete.  It’s amazing that France is working so hard with the EU with respect to its tradition of looking inwards and thinking their methods are the best (hmmm… sounds like another country I’ve lived in).  Oh, one other fact I saw on the news recently is that France’s banking is in good health despite the crisis in the States that has become contagious to most of Europe and Asia.  The banking expert on TV said commercial loans had increased by ~15% and personal loans by ~8% from last year.  Their system somehow prohibits riding loans on loans on loans on equity.  The downside, though again more of a cultural thing that the French are used to, is that the townhouse my friends Pascale and Thierry bought in 2006 has yet to be completed (the original date, however, was mid-2008, so it’s not incredibly behind schedule).  The French appreciate things being slower in order to be of better quality, or simply contribute to a better quality of life.

 

So the French are disappointed in Sarkozy for one reason or another.  I asked Yoann about the other candidate running against Sarkozy in last May’s elections.  Yoann’s opinion of Ségolène Royal, a woman, was that she is not articulate at all.  Following her speeches was like hunting for clues as to the point she was trying to make.  Yoann actually abstained from voting, which surprised me, but sounds similar to the last two American presidential elections:  choosing between two unqualified candidates.

 

Also, not particular to external American affairs but an influence on it, is an excerpt from “Screwtape Proposes a Toast”, written in 1959 by CS Lewis. (It was something of a short follow-up after he’d written the infamous “Screwtape Letters” 1942.)  I suppose just by writing the excerpt in my blog forces me to admit what I believe, but Lewis does it in a much more eloquent and logical way than I could, so it speaks for itself.

 

Democracy is a name they venerate.  … Democracy is properly the name of a political system, even a system of voting, and that … has only the most remote and tenuous connection … that all men are equal.  … And of course it is connected with the political ideal that men should be equally treated. … As a result… the word Democracy … prompts a man to say I’m as good as you.  [But] no man who says I’m as good as you believes it.  He would not say it if he did. … and therefore resent every kind of superiority in others;  denigrate it;  wish its annihilation.  Such a man presently suspects every mere difference of being a claim to superiority.  No one must be different from himself in voice, clothes, manners, recreations, choice of food. … But now it is sanctioned – respectable, even laudable – by the incantatory use of the word democratic.  Under the influence of this incantation those who are in any or every way inferior can labour more wholeheartedly and successfully than ever before to pull down everyone else to their own level.  But that is not all.  Under the same influence, those who come, or could come, nearer to a full humanity, actually draw back from it for fear of being undemocratic.  People who would really wish to be – and are offered the Grace which would enable them to be – honest, chaste, or temperate, refuse it.  To accept might make them Different, might offend again the Way of Life, take them out of Togetherness, impair their Integration with the Group.  They might (horror of horrors!) become individuals.  [Thus is produced] the vast, overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence – moral, cultural, social, or intellectual.  … It is not pretty to notice how Democracy (in the incantatory sense) is now doing … the work that was once done by the most ancient Dictatorships, and by the same methods.  … “Tyrants” allow no pre-eminence among subjects.  Let no man live who is wiser, or better, or more famous, or even handsomer than the mass.  Cut them all down to a level; all slaves, all nobodies.  All equals.

It begins to work itself into their educational system.  … The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils.  That would be “undemocratic”.  These differences between the pupils – for they are obviously and nakedly individual differences – must be disguised.  This can be done on various levels.  At universities, examinations must be framed so that nearly all the students get good marks.  Entrance examinations must be framed so that all, or nearly all, citizens can go to universities, whether they have any power ( or wish) to profit by higher education or not.  At schools, the children who are too stupid or lazy to learn languages and mathematics and elementary science can be set to doing the things that children used to do in their spare time.  …  But all the time there must be no faintest hint that they are inferior to the children who are at work.  Whatever nonsense they are engaged in must have – I believe the English already use the phrase – “parity of esteem”. … Children who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be artificially kept back because the others would get a trauma… by being left behind.  … All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish.  The few who might want to learn will be prevented;  who are they to overtop their fellows?  And anyway the teachers … will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching.

A democracy does not want great men. … For “democracy” … leads to a nation without great men, a nation mainly of subliterates, morally flaccid from lack of discipline in youth, full of the cocksureness which flattery breeds on ignorance, and soft from lifelong pampering. … One Democracy was surprised lately when it found that Russia had got ahead of it in science.  What a delicious specimen of human blindness!  If the whole tendency of their society is opposed to every sort of excellence, why did they expect their scientists to excel?

 

For anyone who has read this far, aside from Ma, I have to admit that with all this “research”, I’m staring at the absentee ballot on my desk and wondering who to vote for…