Why can we not be more like the French?

[Chrisjay]

 Even if you dislike the French you have to admire the way they make their government take notice.

They do not like the price of petrol and are seriously opposed to raising the state retirement age from 60 to 62.  Their logic, if you raise the age there will be fewer jobs for the young.  We would agree there.

If this population has to work until it's late 60's and possibly into it's 70's then there will be a new generation of people who have never held a job or paid taxes as people will work till they drop and therefore it will be years before those jobs are available for people moving into 'dead men's shoes' and create new jobs to take up by the younger generation.

Now if for all the French bolshiness they can see that why can we not.  I do wish this country did not operate on such a pacifist platform and actually made it's government answer to the people even when they get elected they should still have to answer to the will of the people.

Chris

[Papaumau]

I don't dislike the French, in fact I find many more reasons to love the Europeans than I do to to hate them ! ( To dislike the French or any other nation as a whole would be to act very stereotypical and you should know by this time what I think of stereotypical behaviour ).

That aside, It is one heluva co-incidence that I posted the exact-same question on my own consumer website BEFORE coming here to read yours.

See it HERE if you wish.

Of course I agree that Britain really needs to get to be much more militant than we are, as all previous governments are well aware that we will accept - in our usual stoical British manner - just about any abuse that is applied to us in a quiet way.

I guess we have to be REALLY angry before we do what the French and the others in Europe do at the drop of a hat and this is shown by the anger that was prevalent in Britain during the poll tax riots and the one big fuel-tax protest that brought the country to a halt.

I do think that at times we ARE a bunch of mugs that will put up with just about anything here.

[jack sparrow]

How "militant" are you prepared to get papaumau?

[Ivanhoe]

jack sparrow, Good question.

[Ivanhoe]

/////I do think that at times we ARE a bunch of mugs that will put up with just about anything here./////

Yes, that just about sums the British up.

[Hugh]

I cannot see the French militants winning this time round they are losing the support of the people and I can see the unions being crushed. The eyes of world are on France, and if the unions are allowed to win the french leaders will look like fools and lose respect through out the world.

Call me a silly old fool if you wish Ivanhoe your words mean nothing to me any more.

[jack sparrow]

British people have been getting traumatised by the State with events like the Enclosures, the Highland Clearances and the Irish Famine for centuries. Being a small island it was difficult for people to escape the attention of the brutal landowners and their militias. Children of were taught at their mother's knee and in the schoolroom that resistance was futile. The clerics warned of damnation. Dissenters were thrown in dungeons and hung from gibbets. Folk kept their mouths shut if they knew what was good for them.

People have been conditioned. They aren't "mugs", they are frightened. Frightened they will lose their jobs, their houses, their families, their freedom or their lives if they dare to question the status quo. Britain is a very violent country. After 20 years of fighting in Iraq the country has many dangerously traumatised ex-military and a surplus of guns on the streets. People are very, very frightened. Frightened of the very institutions ostensibly there for their protection. I think Stephen Hawkins is right. Humanity is on the verge of extinction. Animals do not [censored] in their nests or torture each other; but just look at the way that humans treat their neighbours and their environment.

The mechanisms to reverse this negative behaviour are all there. The media needs to start singing a different tune. The young men of the military need to be involved in construction and not destruction. Economics needs to be re-evaluated. Education needs to be re-evaluated. And we have to be prepared to forgive the venal creatures who are presently running the show as long as they get out of the way of change.

If people had just one generation of peace and equality they would NEVER go back to living in a dog eat dog world!

[Papaumau]

Excellent stuff Jack, and most of it is very true.

We are afraid to lose what we have and this fear paralyses us.

Mind you I also think that we are - over and above that long-term brainwashing - also very masochistic too. It almost seems that we LIKE to be abused as we very seldom, ( not never ), get up on our hind legs to protest.

My friend Ivanhoe asked just HOW militant we should get and I have to come back with my opinion that we have to be willing to create civil unrest without overtly breaking the law.

The only times that the ordinary people of Britain ever truly rioted - like the French do regularly - we found that the government of the day were very quick to "read The Riot Act" and bring the soldiers out onto the streets.





 

[Chrisjay]

Well with 20% reduction in their spending and carriers with no aircrafts the ymight not be as quick to take to the streets to quell civil unrest?

[jack sparrow]

Read a book called Fellatio, Masochism, Politics and Love by Leo Abse.

[jack sparrow]

It explains about national masochism and how to address it. This is the kind of information our so-called leaders and their diplomatic service should be accessing.

[Papaumau]

Well with 20% reduction in their spending and carriers with no aircrafts the ymight not be as quick to take to the streets to quell civil unrest?

Chris.....

I think you will find that we will always have plenty of soldiers and coppers available to back up whatever government is in power.

Trying hard to resist harping back to Thatcher.....I found it interesting that while Thatcher was decimating the miners and the steelmakers and the carmakers and all of the unions that controlled these industries, she was raising the salaries for these uniformed grades.

During the firefighters strikes a few years ago under "madam" she was quick to bring out the army and give us fire-cover using mothballed Green Godesses.

Yes Chris, it is always a good thing to do to keep the police and the army onside during periods of civil unrest.

[Chrisjay]

I did not live here under Margaret Thatcher so I have a different perspective on what happened during that period.  I do remember the green goddesses though and as the London fire brigade are due to strike on Haloween we may see them on the streets again.

I did not have a problem with unions being brought under some control as rubbish in the streets and people not being able to be buried was not the way civilised people should live nor should they have to have endured power cuts I remember Heath making headlines about 'crisis what crisis' when my friend here was watching her young child die with gastric enteritis that was epic in the late 60's early 70's

I wonder how those union members now feel about the huge salaries their leaders get and how well the Scargills have done for themselves.

Unfortunately the government will always be able to rule with the backing of the police and armed forces in other countries it's called a dictatorship but because we have a vote we assume we do not live under one.

Politics and the state of this country never cease to depress me

[Papaumau]

Even as a middle-of-the-road Socialist I too agree that there WAS a time when the British unions were too powerful and while I agree with having this kind of protection for the workers I hate to see them or any other body abuse their power.

As I have said many times before, this uncontrolled power stems back to the days when almost all unions were controlled by the Communists and rightly or wrongly they needed taken down a peg. The trouble is that in doing this Thatcher completely castrated the unions and made them virtually ineffectual when doing the job that they have the remit to do: Protect the workers from management abuse.

Now that successive governments - and YES, the New-Labour government too - have sold off more and more of the country's assets to the private sector the British state is only a shadow of it's former self. With the real Tories in charge we are going to see this state-control diminished even further until eventually the welfare state will be miniscule in size and the profit motive will rule all.

[Chrisjay]

 Now that successive governments - and YES, the New-Labour government too - have sold off more and more of the country's assets to the private sector the British state is only a shadow of it's former self. With the real Tories in charge we are going to see this state-control diminished even further until eventually the welfare state will be miniscule in size and the profit motive will rule all.
[/quote]

Is that why all politicians now refer to Britain rather than Great Britian