Marine Le Pen's party platform seems more common sense than anything else to me. Granted, the platform is 144 points, and Sputnik only covers a few of them. But of those I'm confounded by what's supposed to be Far Right -- at least when they're studied out of context to the EU Establishment, which seems to view any deviation from its orthodoxy as 'far.'
Exit Schengen, Fight Extremism: Le Pen Outlines Presidential Election Program
14:47 - 04.02.2017
Sputnik
Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French far-right National Front (FN) party, published on Saturday a presidential election program, compiling key proposals on immigration, economy, the European Union and other issues into 144 points.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The FN candidate proposed to restore national borders, exit the Schengen zone, reestablish customs offices, deny French citizenship to undocumented immigrants and simplify their deportation.
With regard to the counterterror fight, Le Pen suggested forbidding all organizations in any way linked to fundamentalist Islam, closing mosques designated by the Interior Ministry as tied to the extremists and forbidding foreign funding for places of worship.
The far-right nominee proposed to leave the NATO military command to avoid entanglement in the conflicts that do not concern France and to ensure the ability to defend itself.
The first point in the manifesto suggests negotiations with the European Union on France's status, followed by a nationwide referendum on the membership of the bloc.
Le Pen, who the polls suggest is one of the presidential race favorites, will hold a rally in the French city of Lyon on Sunday.
[END REPORT]
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im extremely worried about how all this is going to end, pundita. are you optimistic or do you sense that things have already reached a point where a very bleak future for western civ is perhaps a foregone conclusion. i am sick at heart right now
ReplyDeleteI might write an essay in response to your concerns but for now ask yourself how is it that you can be so upset. It's because you know so much that you wouldn't have known a generation ago.
ReplyDeleteI once likened this situation to having "one foot in the god realm;" i.e., humanity is attaining a god-like ability to know about many events but without the gods' ability to quickly act to rectify the events. This calls for those of us who watch the world to develop what's called phlegm -- calmness of temperament.
Of course this is a very hard test of human nature.That's why I started featuring religious songs at this blog. As long as we insist on knowing a great deal, we must learn to put the information we gather in context, and do this by every means available to us including prayer, meditation, singing religious songs. And in learning to invest as much effort in remembering that our knowledge is still quite limited as we invest in collecting information.
To answer your specific question -- both. Often I despair, then I remind myself of my own advice. This is a long war, an epochal struggle, and so it requires great stamina to participate in it.