So where are they and what are they doing? (page 28 of 33)

"Which man or woman can take up the challenge today?" It might take a while—we can wait, chat, and keep discussing endlessly, because in France, we only get a great statesman every 3-4 centuries. The last one was C. de Gaulle.

The last one being C. De Gaulle.

Few of us here knew him. For my part, three months—I don’t even remember...

Not sure he’d be a big hit in today’s world.

it’s futile to hope for a dialogue with opponents

I share this view.

That’s why it’s completely pointless to go on and on about divisive topics for pages. Nobody will convince anyone, and the only result will be tearing each other apart.

What brings us together on this forum is travel.

Even if we don’t all define that word the same way.

some seem pretty out there

Makes sense to be out there when so many traps are being set...

Please don’t hold me responsible for what you don’t understand, misunderstand, or only interpret through the lens of your personal analysis.

I don’t see how trying to educate people could take anything away from them!

Please don’t hold me responsible for what you don’t understand, misunderstand, or only interpret through the lens of your personal analysis:

Oh, I understand perfectly—what I get is that you’re taking the members of this forum for idiots. Well, if that’s your stance, you’ll end up isolating yourself. If everyone on a forum speaks with one voice, I don’t see the point of exchanging ideas 😉

Do you know of any decisions that are accepted if they don’t make sense? I don’t.

hmm, the fact that laws are full of jargon and written in such a cryptic language that only legal experts can decipher and understand is something I realized a long time ago ;) It’s for sure that reading a law text is like reading Chinese to me.

Whether we knew him or not isn’t the point. I didn’t know him either. It’s more about what remains of what he did and put in place. "A recipe for today’s world," and yet he’s constantly referenced—of course, you have to put things in the context of the time, and objectively recognize what he did for his country.

Good evening Catherine,

I fully understand the meaning: postponing the enforcement of the sentence until the appeal ruling could lead the country to have a head of state recognized as a criminal and ineligible. As a result, his voters will cling to the democratic anointing to defend the leader, while those who voted against him will rightly deny any legitimacy. Wanting to spare the country such a conflict seems very sensible and rational to me.

I find this shocking, and even quite serious. In my opinion, the justice system shouldn’t interfere or interpolate like this out of precaution or anticipation of voters' possible choices. The people are sovereign.

Michel

This discussion has basically become my daily press review, complete with a diversity of opinions and varying levels of engagement.

Michel, I think you're a machine designed to test the forum members' nerve endurance.

A degenerative AI? 🤪

#You'reRightMichel is the new trending hashtag? 😮

I wasn't expecting anything more from this discussion.

And then MaitairoaOn showed up... 😉

#TuAsRaisonMichel is the new trendy hashtag? 😮

Saves you from racking your brain for nothing! 😉

And then Maitairoa showed uuup... 😉

But where was he and what was he doing all this time?😮

... rigor as reasoning, all that escapes you...

I don’t know if this escapes Attila, but if you stuck to it, you wouldn’t write things like, among others, « would Trump have been massively elected if the campaign to take him down, discredit him, and eliminate him hadn’t been so strong?». Words have meaning, as you regularly remind us. The American electoral system (indirect universal suffrage), as you well know, is unique and complex. While the delegate count—those who actually vote for the president—was quite significant (312 vs. 227), the popular vote, which counts in France, for example, was much closer: 77.3 million (49.8%) for Trump and 75.02 million (48.3%) for Harris. That’s a difference of 2.3 million votes (1.5% of voters). Incidentally, the election was decided by a bandana-thin margin of 250,000 votes (0.18% of voters) in three swing states. You called that massive? (Figures from Wikipedia, so take them with a grain of salt, 😇)

Here, she invokes reasons and assessment factors that make no sense, quite simply

Implacable doesn’t mean incoherent in its reasoning: and honestly, whether it’s her or anyone else, this isn’t coherent.

As a citizen, you can say what you want (count your blessings—elsewhere, you’d be on the foreign agents list), but unlike the legal experts cited by Zorba and Kola, you’re simply not qualified to comment on a court decision like this. Just read your own wording.

Good evening Jean-Luc...

The Massif viewed in terms of states and major voters.

If as a citizen you can say what you want (count your blessings: elsewhere you’d be on the list of foreign agents), unlike the legal experts cited by Zorba and Kola, you’re simply not qualified to comment on a court decision like this. Just read your own wording.

We’re seeing a recurring flaw in public discourse that really came to the fore in 2020: the idea that only the "professionals of the profession" can have a legitimate opinion, even on the social implications of their actions. Legal experts judging only as legal experts, doctors unable to step outside their paradigm. A kind of technocratic corporatism, then, which you happily promote when it suits you, but which does a lot of damage to debate and trust. Don’t forget that democracy, in its ancient foundations, sought to escape professional judgments and kept scholars and specialists out of the realm of political and social ideas. As E. Macron once said, back when he still knew how to be liberal: "be proud to be amateurs."

Michel

Massif seen in terms of states and major voters.

Don’t cling to the branches of the sequoia—you don’t have the agility for it. You’re basing your analysis on images? So does my 4-year-old grandson! I’ve noticed you place more importance on vox populi.

For the rest, you’re dodging the question, as usual.

Ave Giovani Lucius, cui corniurat te salutat!

I took a while to reply because I’ve been struggling to gather ideas that aren’t too stupid or too cliché—but these struggles only grow with the weeks. I feel like soon my thoughts will only churn out platitudes...

Indeed, I’m a "quoque" conspiracy theorist. Conspiracy-mindedness is the mark of a scientist or practitioner of any discipline who questions things. Science has always progressed through doubt. Calling someone a conspiracy theorist, to me, is the height of stupidity—a sign of blind conformity, lack of imagination, and arrogance. Let’s get to the topics you mentioned, but first, I’d like to bring up the great philosopher Caius Laïusmaximus:

"Sumpti dum est hic, apportavit legato alacrem eorum"

Let’s talk simply about the "national mainstream press." It barely exists in print anymore; it’s read online or heard on the airwaves. It’s owned by a handful of billionaires. I won’t say "they’re all corrupt"—that’s a label more fitting for politicians. The press, on the other hand, is either "the voice of its master" or "takes orders."

The alternative media I follow all rely on Patreon for funding. I doubt they receive government handouts. Now, to the facts—and I’m sorry to contradict you: the national press is a powerful collective tool for pushing agendas. It all started with the sudden launch of a toothpaste mascot, "Mr. White Teeth": Jean Lecanuet. Just as suddenly and in perfect sync, we got the rise of Ségolène Royal, with the slogan "What if it were her?" Then, a complete unknown—Emmanuel Macron—saturated the landscape with his 50 magazine covers.

Another example of manufactured consensus is the narrative around the Ukraine war, which is said to have begun on February 23, 2022, casting the Russians as savage aggressors against peaceful Ukraine. Erased are Putin’s warnings at the Munich Conference, the Maidan coup, Victoria Nuland with her doughnuts and her "fuck the EU" moment, the Ukrainian civil war, and the Minsk agreements. The press uniformly portrays Zelensky as Churchillian, Ukraine as virtuous, and the conflict as one between the Russian Federation and Ukraine—when the reality is quite different, as seen by who’s actually at the negotiating table.

Another case of directed opinion is the COVID-19 episode. It certainly wasn’t the national press that revealed the lab-leak theory or the vaccine’s inability to stop transmission. We’re still waiting for a flood of information on this—information that will come from abroad, not from our national media.

I’m just tossing out ideas from my limited intellectual toolkit, but I can assure you that this kind of truth manipulation is the subject of very advanced studies in various organizations. The UK, in particular, is a leader in this field.

Talking to people here and there, I sense a soft consensus and a real lack of information—kind of like the U.S. population 40 years ago. What a dream to rule over the ignorant!

Finally, I have something to say about challenging your own certainties. I’ll talk about my experience soon. It was painful but incredibly liberating. That experience is probably what pushed me into conspiracy theories.

Nox tibi dulce! Giovanni Lucius maximus!

Hello there....

Am I dodging the question?

A legal expert gives a technical assessment of a court decision; and in itself, technically, the one we’re discussing is no doubt formally within the rules. But that’s not the point. The point is that the worst person to comment is probably the legal expert, who is steeped in a paradigm and can only offer opinions within their own system of thought, references, and benchmarks. I’m talking about medical specialists—I’m *not* saying doctors—in 2020, because it’s exactly the same thing: specialists blinded by what matters to them, unable to take into account society, the human condition, values, religion, everything that people live by when influencing the executive on initiatives. Specialists who played with public opinion, with fears, relying on compliant and oligarchic media; we see every day, elsewhere and here too, the cost of these mistakes and their consequences on trust in institutional speech. Giving too much power to specialists, in law, medicine, or anything else, is harmful, and we must keep them in check when they don’t restrain themselves.

I hope what Catherine is glimpsing is wrong: the idea that the real motivation behind the decision would be to anticipate the possible election of someone who could be confirmed guilty, as a breach of public order would pose a real democratic problem. Who is sovereign and of age in a democracy without their choices? The people? The so-called elites?

Michel

hi Zorba

Let’s just talk about "the great national press." It hardly exists in print anymore; it’s read in digital form or listened to on the airwaves. It’s owned by a handful of billionaires. I won’t say "they’re all corrupt"; that friendly jab applies to parliamentarians. The press, on the other hand, is either "the voice of its master" or "taking orders."

don’t you think the information fed by major media outlets leans more toward facts than real political, sociological, or economic analysis? Despite some excellent editorials here and there. And the thing you shouldn’t lose sight of—what a scoop, ha ha—is that as soon as an article or text doesn’t go viral, the media doesn’t make money because it’s only seen by a limited number of readers. Moral of the story: if you want to cultivate your mind (and I’m sure you already are, no doubt about it), then you should listen to media focused on deeper themes, like France Culture, for example. Staying informed and learning are two different things. Q.E.D.

hello again

Giving too much power to specialists—whether in law, medicine, or anything else—is harmful, and we must keep them in check when they don’t regulate themselves.

So, molecular biology, alpha-amino acids, messenger RNA—none of it holds any secrets for you now? You can explain all of this in a snap?

To lighten the mood...

https://youtu.be/Il91bxLH1V0?si=hyMZsykYblJUc1VU

sudden launch of a tube of toothpaste, Mr. "White Teeth": Jean Lecanuet. With the same suddenness and synchronism, we got the launch of Ségolène Royal, with the language element "What if it were her?" Finally, a perfect unknown came to saturate the landscape in the person of Emmanuel Macron with his 50 magazine covers.

It's not quite there yet—it only works one time out of three! :