It’s a nice day outside (rare this year), and I’ve been busy, but the news that Macron has a decisive victory is sweet to my ears, and fills me with joy and hope.
http://www.france24.com/en/20170507-liveblog-live-france-presidential-election-macron-le-pen-second-round-run-off
/image Emmanuel Macron
Finally. Some cheerful news.
Feeling the same. I was worried that the whole world was heading to the dark side - Macron’s victory (while not ideal) is gratifying.
I don’t keep up much on French Politics… but he was running against a woman, and I’m seeing more women saying that they are happy that a man beat a woman at politics? So… opposite of here in the states, as I can’t remember anything good that Hillary was running on other than “I’m a woman, vote for a woman to make history.”
@sohmageek
Do you think of female voters as being single-issue “vote for the female candidate” voters?
I have never known a female who voted or thought that way.
AKA HRC, many sources make it clear her campaign had many faults and blindnesses. Some of those were obvious at the time, to even the most casual observer.
@f00l
A topic which I know stuff about.
GASP
@f00l No I do not, I remember being upset at her for tanking Bernie and then not having much to stand on. I remember her main argument that I saw was she was a woman, and she wasn’t Trump. I honestly can’t remember anything positive that she brought to the table. I remember a lot of lies and BS.
I do think that there is a push (in this country at least) to try to get women into fields that are not normally considered gender normal for women. More so than getting men into fields that are not normally considered gender normal for men. I also know that other countries don’t have as much of a stigma of having a woman being the leader of their country.
@sohmageek Wow.
I’m sorry it seems that my statement was taken out of the context that I was meaning it. I wasn’t bashing or putting it to single issue voters, I was mentioning it to try to figure out why. I did some googling and couldn’t find a whole lot about the candidates, other than one is likely winner than the other. The winner is inexperienced and different. Not so unlike our elections. We got someone inexperienced and different.
@sohmageek Her being a women didn’t really help- she was the new face of a party that previously was on the far fringe of French politics, and the old head was so racist/nationalist that people straight-out said they wouldn’t vote for him.
The party she was with have a long history, past and present of being ultra-nationalistic, close the borders, and now leave the EU (plus the other xenophoic things).
There was also the fact that an email dump “conveniently” surfaced right around the media blackout period only for her opponent.
@sohmageek Her main argument was that it was “her turn”
@gilar1ja sounds familiar…
@dashcloud thank you! That is exactly what I needed. The missing piece to make it make sense!
@shrdlu
TY!!
Had meant to check, and gotten busy deleting thousands of useless emails.
So glad for some (somewhat rare) good news.
Interesting to me, that after the French election hacking announcement, and then the mandatory news blackout, apparently the French public was tuning into CNN, MSNBC, BBC, etc, to get further updates they couldn’t get locally.
I hope this in-your-face weaponized hacking creates some serious international political blowback. It’s interesting to me that the Russians are publicly the Big Bad again (everywhere but in parts of the alt-right and parts of the West Wing). And they seem happy to play the part. They seem to want to play that part, publicly.
So I guess the rest of the world gets to deal with it.
@KDemo
What politician or political circumstance is ever ideal? Macron seems to be far more one of the good guys that otherwise.
Was is Bismarck who said that “Politics is the art of the possible” (phrased more or less as that)? OK, that has been used to justify all sorts of things that went beyond “necessary realpolitik”. But after a lifetime of off-and-on watching Washington, that’s what I have seen. Bare progress by fits and starts, and good stuff often occurs at a terrible cost that can last for decades.
Many of us have been hoping for the US political scene to step out beyond feel-good slogans, dog-whistle issues, and phony economics for a long time.
Not yet, it seems. But I do not yet despair that we never will. Hope you don’t, either.
France did this to themselves, despite the abundant evidence not to. I will have trouble feeling much pity for them as they continue their now inevitable slide into the festering cesspool of multiculturalism, socialism, and EU-bureaucratic corruption. But oh well - that’s Europe for you.
At least Britain will still be safe to go to for vacation…
Where is the “hide” function?
We really, really (really) need a hide button.
@KDemo
/image give it to me now willy wonka
I was hoping it wouldn’t have to come to this, but I’m ready to use one of my three wishes.
@Deshaun - It would really help the user experience if you and @shawn working on a ‘hide’ thing.
@KDemo God forbid someone says something you disagree with. Run away!!!
Should I have warned you that you were about to be triggered? Would that have helped, snowflake?
@shahnm - We don’t have that many trolls here. You go ahead and spew your poison, and I won’t watch.
@KDemo That’s cool. I’m not a troll. I have an opinion on this topic. That was the point of my prior reply. If you don’t like my opinion, you can always exercise your right not to watch.
But just because you dissent and perhaps choose not to watch, why on earth does that mean my opinion needs to be hidden?
I don’t think your or any opinion should be hidden, irrespective of my personal thoughts about them. But yeah sure, I’m a troll.
@PlacidPenguin Do you really want to put Colbert here as a model of decorum and etiquette?
@shahnm
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’ve never watched him.
@PlacidPenguin Here’s one of many articles relating to this buffoon’s latest hate speech:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/332132-fcc-probing-colberts-trump-putin-joke
For anyone who takes shahnm’s above post too seriously, it should be pointed out that the FCC is investigating the Colbert joke, because that is the job of the FCC. To investigate when there are complaints. Whether or not the complaints are valid.
To highlight this, CNNMoney reached out to the FCC, and an FCC spokesman further conveyed this point to them: “We review all consumer complaints as a matter of standard practice and rely on the law to determine whether action is warranted. The fact that a complaint is reviewed doesn’t speak one way or another as to whether it has any merit.”
@curtise Colbert’s comment was demeaning to gays. You can defend him if you want, but you would not have tolerated a similar comment from, for example, Sean Hannity. Even uber-liberals took Colbert to task for this…
https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/5/2/15515066/stephen-colbert-trump-putin-homophobia-late-show
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/late-night-comedy-casual-homophpboa_us_5908c2bfe4b0bb2d087261de
@shahnm
After spending years on this site, I suspect (just my opinion here) that various people’s reactions to your comments stem not from agreement or disagreement per se, but rather from people’s perception of the quality or lack thereof of the POV and attitudes as expressed.
@f00l My comments to others reflect the same.
I’ve been on this site for as long as any (though I don’t post much in the forums). Meh forums seem largely to be an echo chamber for just one political ideology. I enjoy serving as a gentle reminder that there are others who disagree.
The response is always the same. Always.
No worries though. I can handle the hate…
@shahnm Is Sean Hannity a bitingly satirical comedian? I didn’t really know anything about him before, but from what I see when I search for his name, it seems like he is not, so I’m not sure how relevant that comparison can be.
@curtise
The political left and their minions tend to accept crass, disgusting, denigrating rhetoric amongst their own as (to use your example) “bitingly satirical comedy”. These same individuals caterwaul mawkishly about the “culture of hate”, “bigotry”, and a cornucopia of -“phobias” and -“isms” the moment a conservative mutters anything the least bit objectionable to their delicate ears.
I imagine you know this, and are just trying sidestep the fact that a leftist kook just stepped in it. But I’ll humor you and suggest that, to improve the relevance of the comparison, you replace Hannity with Don Imus.
What would the left do to Don Imus if he said something disgusting and hateful about a specific demographic/race/orientation? Feel free to pull out your trusty google and find the answer for yourself…
As an aside, if “cock holster” strikes you as bitingly satirical comedy, what exactly does that say about you?
I kinda like Le Pen. Not saying I support nationalism, but globalism-fascism of Macron is so much worse. Then again, it’s the Froggies’ pick, so we have to respect it.
From The New Yorker:
FRENCH ANNOYINGLY RETAIN RIGHT TO CLAIM INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY OVER AMERICANS
By Andy Borowitz
May 7, 2017
<satire>
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/french-annoyingly-retain-right-to-claim-intellectual-superiority-over-americans
@f00l
There’s something about the French which I still haven’t figured out…
@PlacidPenguin
And what would that be?
/giphy teaser
@f00l “And what would that be?”
That they are narcissistic cowards, whose idea of strength is to be the first to surrender. Perhaps not surprisingly, they are looked up to by the Pajama Boys of the US.
Little surprise that France’s own Pajama Boy will now be their next prezzie…
@shahnm
And that conclusion is based on your vast knowledge of the French people and French civilization as they are today?
I take it that you have not had many in-depth conversations with US soldiers, returned from ops in Afghanistan, about the dedication, competence, and aggressiveness of French units serving there.
I have. Of those soldiers I have spoken with, these American soldiers’ opinions of the French military, as it is today, while these American and French units were either under fire or going into fire, would seem to differ from yours.
But what would these American soldiers know? They’re probably just complete dupes of multicultural propaganda, so deeply brainwashed by modern media, that these US soldiers still had high respect for the French units after serving next to them during intense and prolonged combat.
@f00l
Those soldiers of whom you speak are amongst the good guys, who voted for Le Pen.
Just as American soldiers by and large vote for the conservative candidates in US elections.
Both American and French soldiers struggle mightily to protect your and your French counterparts’ rights to support destructive political candidates, denigrate your national interests, and sacrifice your cultural identities, on both sides of the Atlantic.
But just because you enjoy those rights does not mean that you have any idea who or what those soldiers are. You certainly have no idea what they stand for.