Blogging the democratic revolution
I’ve voted. Honestly, I haven’t waited so long before casting my vote. At 2:15 p.m. (local time) there were very few people that you could count them on your hand’s fingers. The Interior Ministry – which updates the percentage of voters on a hourly base – informs that at 12 p.m. the percentage of people who went to the polls is: 17,7% . On 2001, it was 21,6% . What does this mean? It might be that people will go to the polls later or tomorrow. Of course, what is quite clear is that there’s a strong feeling of disillusion…
The Italian general election will be held from tomorrow to Monday afternoon, when the polls will close and – later in the night – results (some say partial ) will be announced. This is a very important election which will mean a lot for the future of international alliance: a Berlusconi’s win would guarantee continuity with the strong U.S.-Italy alliance above all in the face of the war on terror. A Prodi’s win would mean a re-alignment of Italy with the Old Europe, with Spain and France as their worst representatives. And that means – in case Prodi is elected…
Fausta has an excellent French news roundup on all the riots that have engulfed the key European state this week, with links to tons of news sources. Many of her items are taken from the French press, adding a better dimension to the picture than ordinary media usually do. Check it out here.
Hi friends, as many of you maybe know, Italy will be holding national election on Sunday, April 9. These are very important elections, given that from it will depend the future of the Coalition of the Willing in the war on terror. If Berlusconi is re-elected, Italy will continue to be a strong U.S. ally. On the other hand, if former chief of the EU Commission, Romano Prodi wins, Italy will join the Spain-France-Germany axis. So far, all we know is that the outcome risks to be too close to call and there might be a run-off. It’s quite hard…
Daniel Duquenal is a French Venezuelan with strong ties — and insights — to both countries. He is also a fervent believer in democracy as a man of the left. Daniel has written a spectacular essay describing the similarities between France’s angry antirevolution and Venezuela’s under the emerging Hugo Chavez dictatorship. Daniel sees similarities between the French thugs intent on burning Paris down in a bid to preserve their privileges, and the money grabbing and privilege-preserving maneuvers of Hugo Chavez’s vanguard party elite, who also are intent on forcing an unsustainable economic system on Venezuela, explicitly to impoverish it –…
The Dutch are deeply concerned about Venezuela’s renewed threats to take over the nearby island of Curacao as its dictator, Hugo Chavez, flexes his military muscles with an unprecedented arms buildup and condemns the Dutch for their colonialism on the island. Seeking to add more territory of his own, his stated aim is “regional integration,” which is an emerging term that bears more watching. One Chavista foreign ministry official explained it this week as the growing federation between Cuba and Venezuela, which he euphemized as “alternative models.” But his description of that “alternative” was very specific: the Cubanization of the…
Over 40 bloggers have mulled and mused about German-American relations in a new carnival feature put together by the secret diplomats who once ran Daily Demarche, that late lamented cool blog that exposed the seamy underbelly of pinstripe diplomacy. German-U.S. relations are currently seen in a tattered state over the Iraq War, but Germany is one of the U.S.’s largest trading partners, and the two nations have much in common as overachievers in many fields on the world stage. (How ’bout that German medal count at the 2006 Olympics!) Not only that, Germans are the largest U.S. ethnic group –…
Mass protests against a labor law making it easier to fire young workers have ignited throughout France. The law will allow employers to fire workers under 26 years old without cause. Over 700,000 people filled the streets of Paris alone, while estimates around the country top 3 million. Transportation, businesses, universities and other services have been paralyzed in a general strike. Pictures can be seen here. These mostly peaceful protests follow more violent actions by youths that began weeks ago. While the some may focus on the minor incidents of vandalism in hopes to disparage them, but the fact of…
I’ll never forget him. Fabrizio Quattrochi, the brave Italian man in Iraq who told his brutish Islamofascist kidnappers at the moment of his murder that he had no intention of dying with a hood on his head and tried to tear it off, saying he would show them ‘how an Italian dies’ struck a fearsome blow against the cowards perpetrating the war on terror. He not only exposed them as inhumanly evil, he ruined their crummy snuff-murder propaganda movie, which was the reason they killed him in the first place. His actions achieved the exact opposite effect of their evil…
I’m sure you’ve all heard that the Basque terrorist group ETA declared a permanent ceasefire with Spain a couple of days ago. They’ve waged a decades long campaign, killed hundreds of people, and have not furthered their interests one bit. Now it appears as if the train of thought in the ETA leadership has finally changed. Here is what they have been saying: MADRID, March 23 ???????? The governing party in the Basque region of northern Spain said today that the permanent cease-fire announced by the militant Basque separatist group ETA opened the way for the region to loosen ties…
Glenn at Instapundit has gotten some amazing information about France that you don’t see in the mainstream media, along with a couple incredible pictures. There’s a vast youth counterprotest full of beautiful young people who are standing up against the bandana-swathed firebomb-hurling losers who would burn the city down, all for the right to not have to work hard in their early years of employment. That’s right, sensible heads have prevailed, the protest babes are out, and the revolutionary spirit of Frederic Bastiat is resurrected. That means thousands of industrious French young people have taken to the streets to SUPPORT…
DOWN is a good way to put it for today’s world festival of anti-Iraq democracy protests. Because as GatewayPundit has noticed, attendence is down at every single one of these. He’s got a liveblogging roundup of these “antiwar” (who the hell isn’t antiwar?) protests around the world, city by city, showing that this ‘movement’ doesn’t quite have the move it used to. Not many people want to go to these stupid irrational things anymore, not after “peace mom” Cindy Sheehan kissed Iran ally Hugo Chavez on the lips. And even more because given the growing victory of democracy and democratic…
Not since 1968 has France seen so many educational institutions occupied and on strike. Thousands of students and young people have brought Paris to a standstill. Source: Thibautcho They are protesting a new labor law that would permit probationary employment for the first two years of employment for all new workers. That would affect them most of all. France’s young people grow up without the big dreams their American counterparts. But at the same time, they have their consolation. That compensation is that if they can land a job, no matter what kind of job, and no matter what kind…
The “unholy alliance” at work again. A disgusting pro-terror rally was held in Rome on Saturday. It was organized (guess who) the communists and the Greens . Among the hate-filled slogans shouted were : “10.100,1000 Nassiryahs” (yes, they wish the terrorists to kill Italian soliders again and again!), “what pacifism, what non-violence? true peace passes through resistance by giving money to the Fedayeen” And, echoing Ahmadinejad and Bin Laden:”With the palestinians, until victory over the Zionist imperialist oppressors” They couldn’t declare the rally over without burning U.S. and Israeli flags! You know what’s the irony in all this? First of…
Terror-enabling Italian Muslim Association threatens to sueall those Italian media that printed- or intend to – the Mohammed cartoons. The UCOII (Union of the Islamic Communities in Italy) is a pro-Hamas organization that controls most of the mosques in Italy. As the brave investigative journalist, Il Corriere della Sera’s Magdi Allam often states,these mosques – with UCOII blessing – preach jihad and hatred against the ‘infidels’. UCOII is a sort of Islamic Mafia. Their target are several newspapers and TV programmes that dared to show the cartoons. The newspapers being targeted are: Libero , La Padania,La Stampa and Il Corriere…
No one has a penchant for coming down on the wrong side of the issue like Spain’s Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Whenever there is a critical juncture, a challenge from brute force, he has a way of placing himself on the illiberal side of the issue. So now he’s made a new string of appeasing statements about the Islamofascists, right in the middle of the Denmark cartoon crisis – taking the side of the rioters. In part his actions may be due to fear, considering that Spain gets more immigrants from Islamic countries than elsewhere. But such people…
Islamofascist fanatics have set fire to the Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Chilean embassies in Damascus, blaming all four for the Danish cartoons that offended Koranic commands not to make graven images of religious figures in a bid to halt idolatry. Anyone who looks at those cartoons can be pretty sure he wouldn’t be tempted to idolatry, given their derisive content. Well, except maybe an intellectually zeroed-out Islamofascist, who knows? The European Union, according to a Danish correspondent here, has responded wimpily, hanging the Danes, their own member country, out to dry. That’s emboldened the fanatics, who’ve burned the embassies in…
Two more Italian newspapers reprinted the Mohammed cartoons. L’Opinione and Libero are two center-right-leaning newspapers that consider themselves as “libertarian” and “unpolitically correct”. Here is L’Opinione frontpage today. And below is Libero’s . For those who don’t read Italian, this is the translation of the title: “Here Mohammed gives orders-What a shame. Europe caves in to Islam and apologizes for satire about Allah – Here are the 12 satanic cartoons nobody dares to publish” I believe that it’s everone’s right to criticize the cartoons. Everyone can agree or disagree about the content of the cartoons, but I think that every…
In democratizing countries emerging from tyranny, where tremendous injustice has occurred, there is usually some effort to call the past into account. South Africa is a good example, where truth commissions have forged national reconciliation, and Germany after World War II is another, where Naziism was totally repudiated and renounced, and large compensation payments were made to Israel in its infancy. Chile and Argentina since their Dirty Wars, making efforts to restitute victims, return orphans, and jail oppressors is of the same piece. Even the U.S., with its efforts to compensate Japanese victims of internment camps in the U.S. is…
Instapundit has found a terrific blog called Yannick Laclau from Spain showing that Nicolas Sarkozy of France is getting ‘down in the trenches’ of the blogosphere, which is to say, actually publishing comments on other peoples’ blogs. Yannick, the blogger who discovered this notes that while Dominique de Villepin writes love poetry and Napoleonic history, Sarkozy hops into the blog pool and blogs with the normal people. It’s an extremely clever political move and is certain to get him both popularity as well as headlines. It shows that he is both nervy and in tune. Yannick’s terrific post and analysis…
After nearly three weeks of silence when France was in a desperate time of need for leadership, President Chirac finally made a speech on television outlining his plan for solving the root problems that caused the violent suburban riots. He spoke bluntly of France’s problem with racism, a change of political discourse quite refreshing, but failed completely to recommend fundamental changes to the French social model. Instead of proposals to officially acknowledge the existence of racial demographics and create the economic conditions by which opportunity and growth can occur, he has proposed that the model for integration should remain unchanged.…
A few days ago I predicted that the riots in France would become fodder for the French far-right — the Le Pen and National Front types oft considered xenophobic zealots. Because of the high amounts of violence coming from immigrants, and the weak response by the government, politics will move further to the right. Le Pen will look more appealing, and the governing center-right will have to move further right in order to compete. That’s the gist anyway, so make sure to read the whole article. Well, guess what? It just may be coming true already. Once the flames, if…
As the French riots near the two-week point – 13 nights now – there is a debate both as to whether a moderate drop-off in violence Tuesday means it is winding down or just fluctuating, as well as the broader question of what the riots mean socially and religiously for France. The purpose of this post is two-fold. First, I will do a round-up of news and commentary in the European English and French-language medias. Second, under the section subtitled Jihad, Intifada or Mere Degeneracy?, I will examine the broader issue of Islam and the future of France. I conclude…
Jacques Chirac was swept into power in the runoff presidential election of 2002 with 82% of the vote. He achieved this unprecedented tally because his opponent was Jean-Marie Le Pen, a xenophobic man often called a French fascist. Le Pen’s defeat was preceded by a million man march in which the whole country, except for far-right National Front voters, rejected his anti-immigrant and racist views. They wouldn’t allow France to become the kind of vision that Le Pen wanted, which left him with a mere 17% of the vote. The election campaign that year says quite a bit about the…