[PEN-L:268] Re: **SPD & Schroeder in... II

[valis <valis@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Rob Schaap replies, in part, re the SPD victory:   ....................
> Much depends, I suppose, on how Jospin reacts to Schroeder's accession.
> If he feels he can get the German socdems to go along with some of his
> promises to the unions (eg standardised 'an hour off the day; not a penny
> off the pay' as they used to say - in vain - in 1926), he may make issues
> where Schroeder might be hoping none arise.

In that case, considering the right of EU citizens to get "on their bike"
and go where the jobs are, France and Germany could become caught, much like
GE and Westinghouse, in a tug-of-war for qualified workers.  Of course this
was one of the very premises of integration, but on the level of the street
and the corner pub it's likely to play out quite differently.
We could soon find out just how much the European working class has really
changed since the war.  Contradiction may run even deeper than we know
from our Marxist ABCs.

> If Jospin won't, I'm bloody sure that smug Pom Blair won't.  But ya gotta
> look on the bright side whenever there's one going, eh?

My light meter gives an ambiguous reading on brightness at the moment.
It appears that the whole SocDem enterprise is based on maintaining
a national consensus at any cost rather than putting it at risk of
collapse in serious class confrontation (which is the decision that made
that good socialist Mussolini into the first fascist).  In this victory
another few inches of tail may have entered the maw of Ouroboros.
Yes, it may be the most cynical Vonnegut novel to date.
Hope I'm wrong.
                                                                   valis