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more on The Geopolitics of France
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 20:46:38 -0500
------ Forwarded Message From: Mitra <mitra_lists () earth path net> Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 11:44:57 +1100 To: dave () farber net, ip <ip () v2 listbox com> Subject: Re: [IP] The Geopolitics of France The analysis of the Geopolitics of France is insightful, and may very well be accurate, however it focusses purely on the external politics not the internal politics. From my own perspective (former Brit, spent a lot of time in France, live in Australia). It seems the internal politics are far more important than GeoPolitics. The population of Europe is far less convinced than the US of the moral justification of obliterating a city and its inhabitants because their unelected leader possesses Weapons of Mass Destruction sold to him of course largely by the same countries who are complaining. It is even less convinced that there is a threat to the rest of the world from this same leader, who is thoroughly contained and is opposed by the same terrorist groups that he is supposedly going to arm. Whether this is correct or not is beside the point, the population of Europe doesn't believe that the evidence is stong enough to massacre hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, any more than it believes that evidence of the US's crimes is justification for the massacre of US civilians Sept11. So why Germany and France, and not Britain. The key is in their political systems. Both Germany and France are democracies with some form of either preference system or proportional representation. So their governments are under significant threat that if the population opposes their plans so totally, and aren't listened to, then that population will vote for a minor party - e.g. the Greens - into a major party. Britain on the other hand is (I believe) the only country in Europe that has a similar voting system to the US, where voting for a minor party is a wasted vote, i.e. if your candidate doesn't win then your vote doesn't get counted for your second choice. So Blair has no credible opposition on his left, as voting for anti-war parties is essentially wasting a vote that could be used to oppose the Conservatives. This also explains why in Australia (with a preferential voting system) the opposition Labor party is moving to oppose the war, or risk being wiped out at the March state elections as its traditional supporters will not vote for a pro-war party, as the large numbers at demonstrations this weekend showed (12% of the total population of our county marched (3000 out of 25000, with a similar number in the next county ). Hopefully this helps explain why the governments of France and Germany will listen to their populations, and Blair (and of course Bush) won't. - Mitra -- Mitra Technology Consulting - www.mitra.biz - mitra () mitra biz 02-6684-8096 or 0414-648-0722 Life is a Mystery to be Lived, not a Problem to be Solved ------ End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To unsubscribe or update your address, click http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- more on The Geopolitics of France Dave Farber (Feb 17)