presidential dilemma

The French election system is horrible, unfair and absolutely one-hundred-percent frustrating. Voting in the majority, two-round system as it has developped has more to do with betting, calculating and hoping than expressing political convictions. Betting on which candidate other voters will massively vote for, calculating which two candidates are thus likely to make it to the second round, and hoping that your calculations are right.

Over the past weeks and months, I had come to the conclusion that considering the present candidate constellation, and the experience made with the 2002 presidential elections, I had to vote for Royal. 2002 was the first time I was allowed to vote. I voted green - which as a choice in itself I'd rather not judge at present - and contributed to Jospin's weakening so that I HAD to vote right wing in the second round. HAD to vote right wing for my first presidential elections. I remember waking up all sweaty after a nightmare in which Le Pen had won the elections. (The good side-effect of this was the sllllowww beginning of my politisation). If this time, once again, no social-liberal-democrat candidate (debatably a lesser evil) made it to the second round, and if the choice then were between one-eyed-evil and two-eyed-evil, I would be totally and absolutely incapable of voting. So to avoid this type of second round, I had accepted that I had to vote Royal.

The problem is, I dislike being blackmailed and voting AGAINST what I don't want rather than FOR what I want. I dislike being put in a position where I'm told there is no alternative. So it is that I've started looking more into the whole situation. I've looked at what the candidates say, I've looked at their websites, I've downloaded programmes which I haven't started reading, and I've started asking other people what they were thinking of voting. The candidate that has a vision that most resembles my ideal is little Olivier Besancenot of the LCR. He is an excellent talker and debater, and has the rare ability to explain in simple terms what the cause of socio-economic problems are. He is probably the most powerful orator when it comes to countering both racist and neo-liberal ideologies. This is one of my favourite interventions of his, debating with businessman Charles Beigbeder.

The main obstacles I have for voting for the LCR are
1) that obviously, left-wing vote is once again going to be scattered and thus the ominous Evil 1 vs. Evil 2 second round would be unavoidable.
2) that it's unclear what the meaning, significance and purpose of an idealistic vote is.

The aspects to keep in mind when considering these two obstacles are
- Would having more moderate Royal or even Bayrou as president actually be in any way better than the Big Evils? And, connected to this,
- What would the socialist party learn from an election process in which voters gather on one candidate out of fear, not expressing the way in which they really want left wing politics to go?

I'm surprised that so many people have started considering voting for Bayrou - people I've talked to. Well, mainly two people. I need to read his programme, but instinctively I would say that the difference to the socialist party programme is minimal, seeing as the socialist party is already very centre. So why go for him? I would expect that Royal has the woman bonus for her, that people would be curious and excited by the novelty of trying to have a woman president.

In any case, I'm thinking. There's more to it, but I'm going to make cheese scones.

Music for the revolution

Cie Jolie Mome is a theater-music group located in St Denis. They have a few nice political songs on their site (under MP3), including the very catchy Ta colère est légitime, which is an attempt at getting proletarian extreme-right voters back into the left. Check the links, there are some really nice things there - including, for more political music, Secouez.org.

Prostitution

Last Friday I unexpectedly ended up at my institute's graduation ceremony. I had left work much later than planed and wanted to go read and think in the OSI library for my written exam next week. When I stepped into the OSI hall, I noticed that Things Were Different. There were high round tables set up, larger ones with glasses and bottles at the back, and, most disturbingly, two orderly and virtuous looking girls standing on each side of the entrance holding a stack of programmes. The blond one on my left handed me a programme and asked if I intended to go to the graduation ceremony. I opened the programme with surprise and muttered that I hadn't planned to. Before I could glance inside the flyer, the blond stopped smiling, her mouth violently moving downwards with spite, and she grabbed the paper back, adding as if I'd wronged her, that this was only for graduates and guests. I said "Ooooh but I understand", put on my best Hurt Face and headed for the library as planned. An unusually high ratio of people wearing suits and/or their best clothes gradually started appearing.
I was focused and concentrated and managed to do what I'd planned more quickly than expected. Which was just as good, because eventually the institute's director started his Pointless Boring Speech which carried all the way into the library.
It sounded so absurdly boring and pointless, thanking as he was the family of the graduates for enabling them their studies (by bearing them?), that I thought I should go and listen. The programme was a long list of the worst speech-makers available that day, including the stuttering university vice-president and a union-woman who teaches at the institute this semester and held an affirmative speech validating her experience, choices and path as the best example, in twenty chapters with footnotes, digressions and annexes. She interpreted every bold collective attempt at bringing her to an end by clapping on those rare occasions when she needed to breathe as signs of enthusiasm.
I looked at the students. A large number of them was wearing expensive, well ironed, clean and tidy suits. They exchanged self-satisfied looked, and I could feel a lot of them felt united in the identity of the Young, Beaming, Successful Urban European Academic. A guy arrived behind me. Thick black suit, red tie, brand new leather shoes, fancy mobile phone - and besides him his mother, out of place, with tacky clothes, an imitation jaguar-skin top. He had climbed up the social ladder, was obviously proud of having reached a better social status than his parents. He was showing off. I disliked him on the spot.
As I continued to look around the room, I spotted well-read L., whom I'd last seen in the U-Bahn a few weeks ago, and next to her Little Creative Genius D., who had been in the same seminar where I got to know L. and made me even more shy than Well-Read L. L. waved and I went over. She greeted me as a strengthening element for the Undisciplined Fraction they were trying to build.
Eventually the buffet was opened and there was wine galore. We ended up outside in the snow drinking, and Mister Social Status unexpectedly walked up to L. "Didn't we do our Abi [A Levels] together?"
L. accepted to engage in a communication process with the man, although every remark we could catch was disturbing. Eventually he said he was now working. Lobbying. He wouldn't say for whom when I asked, but turned round to me and said "Well, you would also open your legs for those who pay, wouldn't you?" I think we all looked at one another in shock and horror.

Turn left

I went to a podium discussion tonight at the Latin America Institute with extra-parliamentary German academic idole Uli Brand and a woman I'd never heard of before, Juliana Ströbele-Gregor. She is more into details, he's into concepts. The discussion was on "left" wing movements in Latin America between State and emancipation. There were all sorts of thoughts and ideas that I found interesting, but one question suddenly jumped up to the front of my continuous string of questions floating in my head:

How do people become left wing?

And by left wing, I don't mean institution-loving socialdemocrats, nor do I mean pessimist frustrated authoritarian revolution-loving left intellectuals. I mean experimentierfreudige people geared towards emancipation, solidarity, openness, and generally believing in the creative potential of humans to build an alternative, a better society.
Another one of those biographical socio-psychological political questions I keep having. Suggestions welcome.