Contrary to what you might think, we at ITBB don’t take everything we read on websites at face value. Even the ones we generally respect and agree with. There’s always another side to an argument if you seek it out, and there’s always someone with another take on any issue.
I often link to articles on Gatestone Institute, and I’m going to do so again now.
This interesting piece harshly criticises Emmanuel Macron, and given that the BBC is at this very moment delightedly reporting some violent demonstrations in France against “far right Marine Le Pen”, I’m linking to it ‘for balance.’
Not that everyone who has deep concerns about Emmanuel Macron automatically supports Marine Le Pen. It boils down to a case of the lesser of two evils. But which one is the lesser?
Recent elections have posed a similar conundrum. Trump or Hillary? Which of the two was the least worst?
Brendan O’Neill has an interesting piece in the Spectator. It’s a scathing exposé of the rabid feminists who supported Hillary merely and solely because she was a woman, willingly disregarding her unimpressive political record.
That being the case, he asks: ‘why don’t the feminists unconditionally support Marine Le Pen for exactly the same reason?’ Well, they just don’t. O’Neill is not endorsing Le Pen. Far from it. He’s merely exposing the stupidity and hypocrisy of the feminists.
The Gatestone piece is damning, too, but about Macron. His economic policy is basically the failed policy of François Hollande, (the continuity politician, as the BBC likes to say) and his stance against the Islamisation which is evidently engulfing France at the moment appears to be non-existent.
(Terrorism) “will be part of the daily life of the French in the years to come” he has said. For all that, the author, Guy Millière is less than enthusiastic about Le Pen.
Now Macron has suddenly decided to exploit the “is she or isn’t she” question that hangs over Le Pen, which is her alleged antisemitism. Like father like daughter. Macron has pledged that he’s the one who will stand up against antisemitism. Hmm. That will be a difficult circle to square. The French voter is between a rock and a hard place,
and some would say, so are we.
Do people find Theresa’s strong and stable ‘rock’ as hard as Jeremy’s ‘all over the place’? We’ll have to wait and see.
What I find odd about the BBC's reporting of Macron is their apparent lack of interest in how he did it...how did this guy who was, as I understand it, a political advisor not a leading politician, set up his own party and finance his own campaign...some say with Hollande's implicit backing. These things don't just happen "like that". Who decided he should enter the race? What was Hollande's role? Who provided the money? The "world class" BBC can't be bothered, although it will of course regularly pursue the issue of FN funding.
ReplyDeleteThe fascist is worse than the investment banker, but they are both bad.
ReplyDeleteBoth bad. I know little about either candidate other than most of those I normally disagree with want Macron to win, which is usually a good reason to want the opposite.
ReplyDeleteA certain bit of me just wants the one that will send the MSM progressives into a spiral of shock and despair. Just think how good it'll be to watch their faces!
However in this instance Le Pens socialist nationalism sounds too much like something else to let it enter the world again.
O'Neill's rant is a lazy appeal for laughs to the peanut gallery. Equally lazy is his theft of the 'If you don't vote for Le Pen, you're a misogynist' line, which quite a few US bloggers have been saying since before the first round vote. I'm pretty sure I had a comment to that effect over at the Speccie quite some time before he wrote this. I realize most British readers wouldn't know that.
ReplyDeleteMarine Le Pen isn't anti-Semitic. Actual Jew-haters who aren't Muslim aren't going to say the things she's said.
The “sins of the father” argument is neither fair nor logical, but it is hard to separate Marine Le Pen from the FN of the past. I don’t know if O’Neill is taking a cheap shot by asking why feminists who voted for Hillary Clinton wouldn’t by the same logic vote for Le Pen, but he does have a point.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think the choice between Macron and Le Pen is a terrible choice, as was the choice between Clinton and Trump.
"Personally, I think the choice between Macron and Le Pen is a terrible choice, as was the choice between Clinton and Trump."
ReplyDeleteCouldn't agree more. We're facing the same problem here in the UK's forthcoming election, although I doubt many posting here would share that view. Perhaps these terrible choices also reflect badly on the electorate(s) too.
The quality of political debate, political coverage and commentary in the (mass) media all taking a huge nosedive in recent history. Social media and the blogosphere is hardly a replacement either, as so few make any sincere effort at objectivity. I'm not expecting an improvement.