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Chris Hedges: The Globalization of Hollow Politics
from truthdig:
The Globalization of Hollow Politics
Posted on Apr 23, 2012
By Chris Hedges
I went to Lille in northern France a few days before the first round of the French presidential election to attend a rally held by the socialist candidate François Holland. It was a depressing experience. Thunderous music pulsated through the ugly and poorly heated Zenith convention hall a few blocks from the city center. The rhetoric was as empty and cliché-driven as an American campaign event. Words like destiny, progress and change were thrown about by Holland, who looks like an accountant and made oratorical flourishes and frenetic arm gestures that seemed calculated to evoke the last socialist French president, François Mitterrand. There was the singing of La Marseillaise when it was over. There was a lot of red, white and blue, the colors of the French flag. There was the final shout of Vive la France. I could, with a few alterations, have been at a football rally in Amarillo, Texas. I had hoped for a little more gravitas. But as the French cultural critic Guy Debord astutely grasped, politics, even allegedly radical politics, has become a hollow spectacle. Quel dommage.
The emptying of content in political discourse in an age as precarious and volatile as ours will have very dangerous consequences. The longer the political elitewhether in Washington or Paris, whether socialist or right-wing, whether Democrat or Republicanignore the breakdown of globalization, refuse to respond rationally to the climate crisis and continue to serve the iron tyranny of global finance, the more it will shred the possibility of political consensus, erode the effectiveness of our political institutions and empower right-wing extremists. The discontent sweeping the planet is born out of the paralysis of traditional political institutions.
The signs of this mounting polarization were apparent in incomplete returns Sunday with the far-right National Front, led by Marine Le Pen, winning a staggering vote of roughly 20 percent. This will make the National Front the primary opposition party in France if Holland wins, as expected, the presidency in the second round May 6. Jean-Luc Mélenchons leftist coalition, the Front de Gauche, was pulling a disappointing 11 percent of the vote. But at least France has a Mélenchon. He was the sole candidate to attack the racist and nationalist diatribes of Le Pen. Mélenchon called for a rolling back of austerity measures, preached the politics of love, of brotherhood, of poetry and vowed to fight what he termed the parasitical vermin who run global markets. His campaign rallies ended with the singing of the leftist anthem The Internationale.
Long live the Republic, long live the working class, long live France! he shouted before a crowd of supporters Saturday night. ....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_globalization_of_hollow_politics_20120423/
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Chris Hedges: The Globalization of Hollow Politics (Original Post)
marmar
Apr 2012
OP
xchrom
(108,903 posts)1. du rec. nt
MrYikes
(720 posts)2. I thought I read "globalization of hollow points"
I was prepared to see a discussion on bullet types.
yurbud
(39,405 posts)5. that's probably already happened
Recursion
(56,582 posts)3. Le Pen also campaigned against the "parasitical vermin" who run global markets, oddly enough (nt)
MisterP
(23,730 posts)4. that's right-wing populism for ya--Buchanan and Paul both hate NAFTA
yurbud
(39,405 posts)6. even broken clock is right twice a day
MisterP
(23,730 posts)7. actually, you could also say the populist 20% of their policies is right,
and the reactionary 80% is wrong
it's called "political fusionism," like what Juan Perón promoted since 1946 (that's also why he ended up covering literally the entire political spectrum by 1973. if anyone calls themselves a "triangulator" just laugh at how far they really have to go!)