Skip to main content

Macron vs Le Pen: The terrible outcome of Left's 1968 disastrous compromise

by system failure
 
It has become completely normal now for people in the "free" and "democratic" West to vote for the "lesser of two evils". Despite the fact that there is nothing democratic and normal in dirty tactics (which include even internal-party coups) organized by bipartisan dictatorships against real-Leftist candidates, the outcome of this process is now considered the new norm.

That is, a neoliberal (pseudo-Left for the US) candidate against an alt-right candidate, which is definitely a win-win situation for the capitalist elites against the working class in every country.
 
This ugly show is repeated election cycle after election cycle. The elites produce huge amounts of propaganda energy, through their corporate media, to remove any anti-establishment real threats. In the final round, they leave their most favored neoliberal Cinderella to face an alt-right bad witch.
 
Bad witch's role is to scary the liberal and the Leftist voters in order to vote massively for the Cinderella. In essence, the elites blackmail the voters by pushing them towards their favorite puppet with the promise that what is left from their civil liberties will remain untouched.

And if the ultra-conservative vote prevails, it makes actually little difference to them. And that's because the alt-right politicians are in many cases even more fanatic advocates of the most aggressive form of capitalism which includes fast-track and massive privatizations, just as the elites want.
 
In France, Emmanuel Macron plays, once again, the role of Cinderella. And Marine Le Pen plays, once again, the role of bad witch. And this political vicious circle in which the elites entrap the working class (more and more, over and over again), has its origins in a disastrous compromise by the Left with the capitalist Bourgeoisie, after the great movements of 1968, when France became one of the most active and decisive fields of massive uprising.
 
As David Harvey simply describes it:
 
                     When the neoliberal ethic was first being proposed, it was very much being proposed to the generation of 68 and saying to that generation, 'Look, you want individual liberty and freedom. OK, we'll give it to you in this neoliberal form, which is a very political, economic form, and you have to forget other issues, like social justice and the like.' So, it seeped its way into the discourses of much of the Left and this creates a sort of tolerance for some neoliberal practices.
 
This was the beginning of capitalism's most vicious attack against the working class, as it highlights the beginning of neoliberalism''s ideological domination in the entire West and beyond. And it's also the point of no-return for the Left against which the capitalist elites marked a decisive victory.
 
Indeed, by the mid 70s, right after the 1968 movements and Nixon's shock, the Left retreated and retired from the idea of a collective struggle.
 
As Adam Curtis describes in his film, HyperNormalisation:

                The extraordinary thing was that no one opposed the bankers. The radicals and the Left wingers who, ten years before, had dreamed of changing America through revolution, did nothing. They had retreated and were living in abandoned buildings in Manhattan. The singer Patti Smith later described the mood of disillusion that had come over them. "I could not identify with the political movements any longer," she said. "All the manic activity in the streets. In trying to join them, I felt overwhelmed by yet another form of bureaucracy." What she was describing was a rise of a new, powerful individualism that could not fit with the idea of collective political action. Instead, Patti Smith and many others became a new kind of individual radical, who watched the decaying city with a cool detachment. They didn't try to change it. They just experienced it. 
 
The openly neoliberal vs alt-right pseudo-dilemma has only replaced the old one, which was the social democracy vs the popular right. This new (more clearly undemocratic than ever) political culture became the new norm. Partly because neoliberalism's tricks couldn't sustain any longer the fragile facade of an ultimately fake prosperity for the working class. And partly because of the eruption of a capitalist civil war between capitalist factions that emerged from the extremely aggressive nature of neoliberlism and financial capitalism in global scale.
 
Although the French election only confirmed the awful legacy of Left's disastrous compromise and total retreat, Jean-Luc Mélenchon's performance in the first round shows that the real Left can revive and counterattack.
 
Election demographics indicate that conservatism goes hand in hand with the older generations. Which means that the younger generations already exhibit an increasingly strong desire to resist - through the electoral process, or in the streets - against this new political norm. 
 
And as the establishment behind this norm becomes more authoritarian, day by day, in its struggle to maintain control, (without offering anything to the working class to counterbalance), it is unlikely that these generations will eventually compromise too, as did those back in 1968.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Zuckerberg changes camp in the capitalist civil war, joins the Musk-led oligarchy

globinfo freexchange   It was Mark Zuckerberg this time that decided to change camp in the capitalist civil war, in order to join the Musk-led oligarchy under the oncoming presidency of oligarchy's puppet.   The move by Meta to end its third-party fact-checking program and move to a so-called community notes model, has been justifiably widely interpreted as an attempt by Zuckerberg to ingratiate himself with the incoming Trump administration, which has long denounced the moderation policy as censorship with a left-wing bias.   From the first moments in his interview with Joe Rogan, Zuckerberg attempted to justify his previous policy regarding censorship practices in Facebook, claiming that he was receiving high pressure from the Democratic party to do so! The ex-liberal billionaire oligarch made an impressive 180 degrees turn, claiming that he knew that there was something wrong with the specific policy and that he tried to fight back against the pressure to imple...

Tech CEOs admit they want AI monopoly: US plans to block China's competition & 'steal' engineers

Geopolitical Economy Report   Big Tech oligarchs in Silicon Valley fear competition from Chinese AI companies like DeepSeek, so they're working with the US government to cut off competitors. Billionaire Donald Trump backer Peter Thiel admits they want monopolies, arguing "competition is for losers". Ben Norton explains. 

We asked DeepSeek if China will fully decouple from US dollar - Here is the answer we got in 19 secs

globinfo freexchange     The exact question was: Will China fully decouple from US dollar? The analysis we got in just 19 seconds is pretty impressive:   The question of whether China will "fully decouple" from the U.S. dollar is complex and hinges on geopolitical, economic, and strategic factors. While China has been actively diversifying its financial systems and reducing reliance on the dollar, a complete decoupling in the near term appears unlikely. Here's a balanced analysis: 1. Trends Toward Reduced Dollar Dependence De-dollarization Efforts : China has promoted the use of its currency, the  renminbi (RMB) , in international trade and finance. Initiatives like bilateral currency swaps (e.g., with Russia, Argentina, and others), the  Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) , and the digital yuan (e-CNY) aim to reduce dollar dependency. Commodity Trade : China increasingly settles energy and commodity trades (e.g., with Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Russia) ...

Trump BETRAYS MAGA & “America First” Over Gaza!

The Jimmy Dore Show  

In France, Ordinary Consumers Fund Tax Breaks for the Wealthy

Emmanuel Macron’s government gave tax breaks for France’s wealthiest while counting on purchase taxes paid by ordinary consumers. Now saying it has a budget hole to fill, his administration is again expecting working-class people to pick up the bill.   by Marlon Ettinger Part 1 President Emmanuel Macron picked François Bayrou as France’s new prime minister earlier this month, despite his lack of any parliamentary majority. Bayrou’s appointment on December 13 came just over a week after his predecessor Michel Barnier’s government was felled by a no-confidence vote proposed by the Left and joined by the far right, after Barnier tried to force through his budget without having the numbers in the National Assembly.  The most likely outcome now is that Bayrou, who comes from a party called the Democratic Movement, will reimpose last year’s budget by decree. The National Assembly has already assented to continuing last year’s budget by an emergency vote. France’s in many ways undemo...

Ο εκσυγχρονιστής της διαφθοράς: Όλη η αλήθεια για το βρόμικο σύστημα Σημίτη που συνεχίζει να καταστρέφει τη χώρα μέσα από το καθεστώς Μητσοτάκη

* Κείμενο και podcast από τον Κώστα Βαξεβάνη Τον Κώστα Σημίτη, αναμφίβολα θα τον κρίνει η Ιστορία, όπως λέγεται μάλλον εκ του πονηρού αυτές τις μέρες, αλλά τον πρώτο λόγο έχουν αυτοί τους οποίους εξαπάτησε. Το προφίλ του Δωρικού πανεπιστημιακού και σοβαρού πολιτικού που φιλοτεχνείται στη μετά θάνατο αποτίμηση της προσωπικότητάς του, είναι μια ακόμη απόδειξη ότι στάθηκε στη σωστή (για τη διαπλοκή) πλευρά της Ιστορίας. Φυσικά, για τον πρώην πρωθυπουργό έχει κάθε δικαίωμα να πενθεί, ο Κυριάκος Μητσοτάκης, ο οποίος όχι μόνο έκανε την καριέρα του ως «ρουσφέτι Σημίτη στην Εθνική Τράπεζα», αλλά τον αντέγραψε στα βασικά στοιχεία της πολιτικής του. Ο Μητσοτακισμός δεν είναι τίποτα άλλο από τον Σημιτισμό με άλλα, πιο ακραία μέσα. Ένα κοινό στοιχείο που επίσης εντοπίζεται σε Σημίτη και Μητσοτάκη, είναι ότι και οι δύο, κατάφεραν να αποκρύψουν σοβαρά ελλείμματα στην κοινωνική και πολιτική τους συμπεριφορά, επιστρατεύοντας μισθοφορικούς στρατούς από δημοσιογράφους και δημοσκόπους. Ο Κώστας Σημίτης δ...

Hamas Intends to Uphold Agreement, Senior Official Tells Drop Site in 30-Minute Interview

In an exclusive interview with Drop Site News , a senior Hamas official said that the group intends to uphold its side of the “ceasefire” deal—despite claims by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he received assurances from both President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump that Israel can resume its war against Gaza after the first phase of the agreement. “We are committed to this deal. We will exert the maximum efforts to give this deal a chance to succeed. We are looking for how to prevent the war again, how to protect our people. We will do the best to protect this deal,” said Dr. Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau. “What kind of side deals they have done, this is their business. But what I can say here: the American administration led by Biden, we consider complicit—directly complicit—in the genocide.”   [...]   Naim said that Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, as well as other resistance groups, are prepared to resume fighting if Is...

Did a Trump executive order just cripple the global US regime change network?

With federal funding paused to USAID, pro-Western media outlets from Ukraine to Nicaragua are panhandling for donations, and a multi-billion dollar regime change apparatus is in panic mode.   Part 1   Among the flurry of executive orders issued by President Donald Trump in the first days of his administration, perhaps the most consequential to date is one titled, “reevaluating and realigning US foreign aid.” Under this order, a 90-day pause was instantly enforced on all US foreign development assistance across the globe – excepting, of course, the largest recipients of US aid in Israel and Egypt. For now, the order forbids the disbursement of federal funding for any “non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and contractors” charged with delivering US “aid” programs overseas.  Within days, hundreds of “internal contractors” at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) were placed on unpaid leave or outright fired, as a direct result of the Exe...

Seeking Justice: Tracking IDF War Criminals Around The World

Glenn Greenwald  

Raffi Berg: BBC Middle East Editor Exposed as CIA, Mossad Collaborator

A senior BBC editor at the center of an ongoing scandal into the network’s systematic pro-Israel bias is, in fact, a former member of a CIA propaganda outfit, MintPress News can reveal. Raffi Berg, an Englishman who heads the BBC’s Middle East desk, formerly worked for the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service, a unit that, by his own admission, was a CIA front group. Berg is currently the subject of considerable scrutiny after thirteen BBC employees spoke out, claiming, among other things, that his “entire job is to water down everything that’s too critical of Israel” and that he holds “wild” amounts of power at the British state broadcaster, that there exists a culture of “extreme fear” at the BBC about publishing anything critical of Israel, and that Berg himself plays a key role in turning its coverage into “systematic Israeli propaganda.” The BBC has disputed these claims.   by Alan Macleod    Part 5 - A Worldwide Network   Whatever the v...