Re: [Marxism] Hitchens on France: Reviewing "Left in Dark Times"

[Shane Mage <shmage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sep 20, 2008, at 3:20 PM, Ruthless Critic of All that Exists wrote:
> Bons Mots and Bêtes Noires
> By CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
>
Hitchins, now a resident of the tower known locally as "Hoover's Last  
Erection,"
continues his boundless degeneration: not only does he criticize the  
loathsome "BHL" from the right, he's even lost the ability to write  
(though not to overwrite--that will always be with him).

> "the rather vapid and temperamental quasi-spousal Socialist party  
> team of Ségolène Royal and her significant other, François Hollande."

"quasi-spousal"  *and* "significant other?"  Of course neither has the  
remotest validity in translation of the French term "compagnon/ 
compagne" where there are three perfectly valid choices:  " her  
compagnon" ;  "her companion",  and the clumsy, but correct, "her  
common-law husband."  And it's indeed lamentable ignorance to talk of  
a Royal/Hollande "team."   Only "for the sake of the children"
had their marriage not formally ended before the start of the  
campaign, poisoned to the root by Hollande's resentment that she had  
deprived him even of the chance to contend for the nomination that he  
and the other PS "elephants," (Strauss-Kahn, Fabius, Lang, Aubry,  
Jospin) thought was theirs by right.  When , asked whether her  
campaign had any serious weaknesses, Arnaud de Montebourg, Royal's  
campaign chairman,  answered, "only one--François Hollande."  He was  
forced to apologize.  But in the event it was Montebourg who proved  
right. After finishing second to Sarkozy but just ahead of Bayrou in  
the First Round (the two together had far outpolled Sarkozy in the  
First Round), her only chance for election was to gain Bayrou's active  
support in the Second Round, support that he was only willing to  
provide at the price of an electoral alliance between the PS and his  
"Democratic Movement (MD)" in the immediately upcoming parliamentary  
election. But with the obstinate and stupid sectarianism that has  
marked the whole PS leadership except Royal, Hollande as Secretary  
General of the PS (and the other Socialist elephants) absolutely  
vetoed any such coalition.
The result:  Sarkozy won with an impregnable legislative majority, the  
PS (despite a big majority of local and regional elected offices) was  
reduced to impotent opposition, and Bayrou was the *only* MD candidate  
elected to Parliament. Leaving Hitchens and BHL free to denounce the  
Left for all the wrong reasons.


Shane Mage

"Thunderbolt steers all things...it consents and does not consent to  
be called Zeus."

Herakleitos of Ephesos




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