Jacque Chirac Full of Crap

I'm sure that is no surprise to anyone that reads here. I don't talk much about him because I see him as just another world leader with crap on his lips and his butt in the air, pretending in between to be an arbiter of world morality.

That's a laugh.

In the wee hours of the morning I was watching CSPAN and they had a translation of a Aril 14, 2005 "town hall" meeting between Chirac and a small number of people (mostly between the ages of 19 and 35 I'd say). This was a discussion on ratifying the EU Constitution. Obviously, old Jacque is in desperate need of shoring up his base (since polls indicate it is the young that actually support the EU Constitution more than the old concerned with French Sovreignty) if he is going straight to the young people.

I didn't catch the whole thing, but I did find some parts of it amusing.

First, politicians are ever the same, side stepping questions and throwing up bogies to distract the inquisitor from their original question. Let us not forget giving long winded answers full of verbose prose that end up saying nothing what so ever.

In the section I did catch, several people were asking questions about environmental protections and how they related to the EU constitution and the French Constitution.

Jacque full o' crap, explains that France is the first country to actually make the environment a constitutional concern.

Other's have talked about this before, but I think it's fair to mention again that the EU's ideas of what constitutions are for is why they are in such pain and legal quagmires. Instead of the austere idea of the constitution set down by our founding fathers and largely maintained as austere, for the basic purposes of setting down minimal guidance for creating and administering governmentand good society, they have tried to codify just about everything in existence, which, according to some readings, means that they often have extremely contradictory points.

I tried to locate it, but I read somewhere that they were codifying the right to free expression as, "shall have the right to free expression" then they throw in the contradiction, "except where such expression is harmful to the public good".

We in America know that that just opens up the valve for suppression of speech. Who is this grand arbiter that will decide what expression is harmful to the public good? You know what happens next? New laws and precedents that set "law" will have to be written and codified in ever more increasing degrees in order to determine that which is "protected" and that which is "harmful". One reason why I don't go for PC laws here. Too arbitrary and, depending on who is in power, your speech may be good or bad. You might recall the Sedition Act repealed in the US in the early 20th century. At the beginning of the 19th century, different political parties in power tried to use this act to silence their critics. This is one reason why it fell out of power. It really damaged the overall concept of the First Amendment.

I frequently thank God I live here and not over there.

Back to the environmental questions being tossed at ol' Jacqui boy. One young lady asked directly, what was it that, as a French citizen she could do to help reduce green house gases and why didn't the government impose certain restrictions on their life styles to help mitigate these gases.

Of course, as soon as I heard her ask the question, I almost started laughing. Yes, let's let the government tell you on what days you can drive, what cars you can drive, what food packaging you can buy and dispose of. Let's make it a law, with fines and prison terms. Of course, let's just tax you to 50% of your salary instead of 30% or 40% whatever is the current mode of operations in France, so that these laws and activities could be put in place. Then you won't have any money to buy anything or drive your car so it will be all good, N'est ce pas?

It is amazing the self flagellation of these folks. One wonders why the young lady didn't just get on the internet and find some ideas on how she could do it herself? Of course, that wouldn't allow her and her kind to impose their will on the rest of the poor smucks trying to make a living and survive so maybe that just isn't enough?

Back to Jacque full o' crap. Instead of answering the question directly, Jacque acts like the best of dictators in the ME and whips out his favorite whipping boy and goes to town, hoping to distract his young inquisitor with a greater evil. "Well, France's environmental policy must take into account development..er..quick, look over there! There's a big black cloud of poisonous gasses coming from the US." Don't you know that French citizens need not worry about their responsibilities since France has ratified the Kyoto Treaty (and apparently this is all one needs to do to be environmentally friendly), but the US, we evil environmental sabotuers, has yet to ratify it and there is nothing much more that France can do on the subject and since France is only one small part of the world, it didn't much matter what they did.

Then some bozo commentator (whose name I didn't get) asks what France is going to do to pressure the US into signing and ratifying this treaty. Jacque full o' crap takes this helpful bit of further distraction and comments about the upcoming G8 meeting where the US president will be "isolated" due to the US refusal to sign this treaty and there is an alleged general concensus in the G8 that will bring such pressure on the US. At which point, I had to giggle a bit. But he did go on to explain that legally and politically there wasn't much that France could do on the subject, but she shouldn't worry her pretty little head since France is doing all it can, while maintaining its focus on development.

In other words, as rightly noted by many, Kyoto treaty Schmyoto Treaty, if anyone thinks some country is going to totally give up its ability to develop and produce for the sake of saving the ozone, they got another think coming. Its really just a piece of paper to make everyone feel good that they are doing something, even if it is just signing the damn thing.

Strangely, this young socialist was not detered by the red herring Mssr. Full o' Crap (translated to de Merde I believe) tried to throw up and held on to the microphone, asking again, what is it that she and others as French citizens could do or expect the government to enact to insure that they are doing all they can.

Mssr. de Merde continued to throw up words like developing countries, Kyoto, policy and the US, meandering off to be saved by a commentator indicating they only had a few moments left to answer questions.

Additional questions asked about the EU budget and the amount of money being spent on development in countries like Spain and Portugal compared to France and compared to contributions to the budget. He actually explains the reality that they need to develop these other countries to create wealth there and open up trade between their countries, thus increasing economic growth and that they cannot ask countries, including France, to scale back their national budgets just to contribute more to the pork barrel...er...grand ponzi scheme...er...EU budget.

Sound familiar? Wonder where these folks got that idea?

Another question regarding French Sovreignty. So, would the French keep their place on the UN security council and be able to veto the bad ol' US or is this position in fact going to rely on the EU foreign minister and the consensus developed in the EU and, by the way, many eastern European countries have strikingly different policies than France, like on Iraq, so what happens if they don't have a concensus?

Mssr. de Merde explains France keeps its seat on the Security Council, but that the EU foreign minister will be responsible for trying to herd all the other countries into a bat to beat the UN and, essentially, the US with, but France will always make decisions about its own security issues and speak on them regardless.

He went on to talk about the necessity of the French to ratify the treaty. Using some scary language, he says that if the French citizens refuse to ratify the treaty, they must understand that France will give up its role as power broker (paraphrasing here, but essentially the same) in the EU.

With a news flash to the other members of the EU, the EU constitution and ideas are essentially based on french ideas and this constitution is meant to protect these french ideas and propagate them through out the EU so, he really doesn't understand how French citizens could oppose it.

No wonder the Brits are bulking. I wonder if they got this same broadcast? I wonder if Mssr. de Merde knows that he is spewing nationalistic bull merde while insisting that the rest of the EU swallow their own nationalistic ideas in favor of French ones?

Anyhow, the inquisitor then asked how the foreign minister of the EU was going to develop a concensus when the US was continuously interfering in EU business and convincing these other dasterdly...er..less advanced...er...new member countries to follow other policies and would this fabled Minister evince any policy if the EU members did not agree? (I was thinking what a good little indoctrined socialist the boy was; its not that these folks might find French surrender...er...wisdom to be anathema to their own struggle for democracy, but it is somebody else who formulates their foreign policy) Mssr. de Merde side stepped this question and continued to point to France's sovreignty in stating positions, the security council and, out and out stating, that he intends France to be the leader of the EU in ideas, at least, and make it an opposing power to "other powers in the world".

Gee..who would he be speaking of?

Finally, they wrapped it up and Mssr de Merde basically pleaded with the people to ratify this constitution so that France, who worked the hardest on it, would not be the laughing stock of the region...er...lose its position as a leader in the EU.

Any how, I only caught the last 20 minutes of the program, but I was struck how many times the US was brought up in their discussions. The old "bait and switch" tactic. Don't pay attention to the flaws in this gigundo piece of crap we're selling you, watch the big, black bird over the ocean called the US while we dip our greasy fingers in your back pocket and take your wallet so we can support this grand socialist scheme to become the next USSR on the European continent. Sure, France has problems like giant unemployment, crappy immigration and assimilation policies, but our economy is growing twice as fast as the other countries in the EU (yeah, they got a GNP of 1% compared to the .5% and .3% of their neighbors; brilliant economy structure).

Basically, I wonder how many French know they are getting snookered by the Wizard while little men play with their gadgets behind the curtain?