Politics – Out My Window

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”- George Santayana

There is a series on PBS Television called World On Fire. Now that I am in California, I can watch it. Saturday, I watched Episode 1, Season 1 which begins another WWII story about ordinary people, you and me. The episode opens with a gathering in Warsaw of people being spoken to by a Pro-Nazi someone. The crowd was cheering and Seig Heiling. Those that disagreed with them were singing a plaintiff song. The crowd turned on them and the beatings began. The beaten ones were the offenders, were thrown in jail, bloodied and hurting.

That scene could have been present day USA. A gathering of MAGA fascists spreading love on their anointed leader, the criminal Mr. Trump. Anyone who disagrees is beaten badly or killed as we saw on January 6. Here we are some 80 years since those gatherings in Warsaw, and the scenes are identical. And, as in 1938/39, the majority of people aren’t scared out of their wits. We have daily visuals of two wars and still people aren’t scared enough of Fascism/Autocratism to take a stand. They think journalists are overreaching when they tell us “Be afraid, be very afraid of Trump.” If you are paying attention, 59 journalists, at last count have been killed in the Israel-Gaza war.

Already the war in Gaza, supported by Iran and Russia, is taking away all the focus on Ukraine. The MAGA politicians who love Russia do not want to any more financial support for Ukraine. Russia couldn’t win against the Ukraine. So they did the next best thing, help start a war between Israel and Hamas. The Americans were bound to get involved. When was the last time you heard an in-depth report on Ukraine? Without American support, Russia believes it will win that war.

In so many ways, Ukraine had become the symbol of David beating Goliath, the little country fighting for Democracy for all of us. If they could win against Russia, there is no doubt, that the tide were turn dramatically in favour of democracies everywhere. As we all know, Republicans no longer believe in Democracy. It has taken me a long time to have this truth sink in. Naive people like me have been raised to think good will prevail. When the stakes are so high, even Republicans will get it and not let us be at the mercy of Fascists. Not true. They see the power they can and do wield.

In the past week, there have been two protest marches in Washington, DC. One pro-Israel and one pro-Palestine. To both sides the culprit is now President Biden. When interviewed, participants were saying how they felt so let down by him, that he has no interest in human rights and he will never get their vote again. Wait. What? You’ll vote for Trump in order to get human rights? Or not vote at all which is the same as voting for Trump. In what world does that make any sense?

When a President like Joe Biden, who has done more good for the average person in this county than any President since FDR, has such low ratings what does that say? When I ask people with more knowledge than me (many people) I’m told he isn’t commercial enough. He doesn’t have the good looks and charisma of a Jack Kennedy,the Clinton humor of a down home good ‘ole boy with a clarinet, the intellectual brilliance of an Obama who can stop people in their tracks when he makes a speech. He’s just Joe, regular old Joe, who has given his entire life to the service of the USA, has made many verbal faux pas, and proved to be human like the rest of us. That is not good enough.

There isn’t a day that goes by that there isn’t a film or a series about the hell of war, the greed of the American White Man Who Can, where we witness where Hatred can take us. A day doesn’t go by that we aren’t treated to video and photos of Gaza and Ukraine. Yet, we still sit here smugly thinking that can’t happen here. Yet, Trump has said, in excruciating detail, what he will do to take his revenge when (not ‘if’) he is elected President. Martial law, prison for dissenters. We have one year to rally around Biden. We have one year to take seriously the sword of Damocles hanging over our heads.

To misquote Mary Oliver: Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one precious year?* What will you do? What will I do? I only have history to teach me what will happen if I chose not to act. War is terrifying. Hatred is terrifying. Living under Fascist rule is terrifying to me. Jim Johnson, who everyone said was such a milquetoast, is terrifying. It all leads in one direction.

In a review of Rachel Maddow’s latest book Prequel. An American fight Against Fascism, Jeff Shesol, in yesterday’s New York Times, quotes Alexis de Tocqueville from 1840. ‘“Our contemporaries (Americans) are constantly excited by two conflicting passions; they want to be led, and they wish to remain free.” The result, says de Tocqueville, was a peculiarly American compromise, an abiding tension between state power and popular sovereignty. Tocqueville had faith that Americans could keep the two in balance. At the same time, he warned against a slide into ‘democratic despotism”. The people, he wrote, might someday vote to cede their power and place the government “in the hands of an irresponsible person or body of persons. Having witnessed the rise of American democracy, Tocqueville also, it seems, foretold its decline.’-Shesol, NYTimes, Nov. 19, 2021

A bientôt,

Sara

*From the poem The Summer Day: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

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Israel and Gaza

It seems wrong not to express some words about the war in Israel and Gaza. I often don’t respond quickly. In fact, I often go numb when horrifying things happen and have to gather information, read a lot, and get the facts. Here we are almost two weeks later and I feel empty of words. I don’t consider myself a cynical person, but I’m now of the opinion that hatred and fear are universal feelings that are much stronger than “World Peace” no matter how many beauty contestants pray for it. It is also wrong to completely abandon thoughts on Ukraine. The media only writes about the ugly stuff never the good stuff. I get an e-mail from the Guardian every Sunday with Good News. It is a short e-mail. We are taught to believe that only hatred, war, shootings, and bad deeds are newsworthy. People have expressed shock and outrage that Hamas, a known Terrorist organization, has done what they do best—wreak terror, spread fear, and kill in the name of religion.

My cousin’s eldest daughter sent me a Twitter/X on Tuesday of a nineteen-year-old girl, living on a kibbutz near the Red Sea, expressing rage (watch it)—not just at Hamas but at Netanyahu. She says everyone saw this coming. They’ve been asking, begging for help and protection for years. She calls him Bibi. I haven’t heard him called that in years. It sounds so intimate.

So while the world expresses shock and outrage at terrorists doing what terrorists do, Israelis are going to funeral after funeral, yelling at the neglect of this corrupt politician who somehow manages to keep getting back in office. There are innocent Palestinians trapped in Gaza knowing an Israeli ground force will soon be on them while Bibi yells “Revenge.” Revenge for something he might well have preventedu88i

I blame him for the murder of a teacher here in France by an Islamic yelling “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great” in Arabic during the attack. The Louvre was shut down on Saturday and Versailles on Sunday. Both were due to bomb threats. Macron has deployed 7,000 military soldiers to protect us. Six French airports were shut down earlier this week. My metro line received a bomb scare and for forty-eight hours, the trains moved very slowly and stopped three or four minutes in each station. In my hometown, Oakland, and the immediate surroundings in the Bay Area, fifty schools received bomb threats last Monday. Much like Trump, Bibi has unleashed the dogs from hell.

This is all much more complicated than my simple retelling of what most of us know. But the big picture stays the same. If we elect autocrats to rule because we’re afraid of ‘someone else’ and want that ‘leader’ to take care of it, we’re going to get the Trump rhetoric—pushing fear and hatred, calling innocent people “enemies of the people” if they have a differing opinion. All leaders, according to this philosophy, must lay down the law, construct walls both physical and metaphorical, making sure that the small people know who is right and who is wrong.

The media loves it and eats it up. Peaceful times are not newsworthy. When I was writing my book: Saving Sara, I wrote about the hell of food addiction and the wonder and excitement of recovery in my draft. My editor told me “Stop your story when you first get into recovery. No one is interested in your recovery. They only want to read about the down and dirty times.” I was shocked. I shouldn’t have been. I went back and watched movies about alcoholics and alcoholism. She was right. They all end the moment the alcoholic stops drinking. Who wants to read or hear about good things?

When I was in college, a group of cinephiles brought International films (mostly French, Italian, and Swedish) once a week for students to watch. I loved going to them. Friends would say “I don’t understand why you like them. They’re so slow, nothing happens.” Nothing happens, just a little slice of life written by a brilliant filmmaker, usually an affirmation of life, these little everyday moments that bring us love and show us how to get through conflicts. I only mention this because little slices of life that are uplifting just aren’t newsworthy – unless they are films and I’m willing to bet that less that 5% of Americans like Int’l Films.

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Monday, President Biden flew to the Middle East. His intention was 1—to caution against Revenge and 2—to get humanitarian aid into Gaza. According to a wonderful synopsis by Heather Cox Richardson which you can read here, President Biden has a huge following in Israel. They love him. He gave a stirring speech, and Netanyahu, who most often wants to align himself with Trump, made sure he was in every photo opportunity with Biden.

I also read today and found it heartbreaking, that for the first time in this White House, people of the opinion such as mine have been shut down. Aides and staff are divided but cannot discuss it. So where does this lead us? I don’t know. I want the world to surprise me. I don’t think it will happen. But I’ve joined all of you in saying out loud how angry I am—at Netanyahu, at terrorists in general, at two wars being fought at the same time. I’m quite sure that Putin who is visiting his “dear friend”, Xi, in China, is like a pig rolling in shit.

A bientôt,

Sara

What’s going on in France?

As an exPat for the last nine and a half years, I encourage any of my readers and friends to chime in on this subject. It takes living in France a long time to understand the French.

One would have to be living in a bunker to not know what is going on in France. Transport strikes, garbage strikes, street protests, all in resistance to President Macron’s raising of the retirement age from 62 to 64 (at least that is the purported excuse though the french often don’t need much of an excuse to say they don’t like something).

The massive French protests against Macron’s pension

Macron no longer has a majority in the Assemblée Nationale, so he enacted the new law by special powers under Article 49.3 of the constitution. Last Friday, the Constitutional Council met to decide whether he was correct to do so and had France’s best interests at heart. As the sun set Friday, word came out that it was constitutional and the committee agreed with Macron 100%. He signed it into law within twenty-four hours.

People protest with a poster referring to the visit of Britain’s King Charles III – cancelled due to unrest in France – in Nantes, western France. [Jeremias Gonzalez/AP Photo]

People took to the streets in more protests. Monday night, Macron gave a pre-recorded speech meant to calm down the masses and urge everyone to move on. John Litchfield, who writes Opinion for The Local, an English language newsletter, had this to say on Tuesday:

“Yes, the pension reform is painful. But it was necessary. It’s all over now. Dry those tears. End the tantrums. We can move on to things you will enjoy.

Higher wages. Sharing of profits. Better schools. No queues in emergency wards. Expulsion of failed asylum seekers. Something for the Left of you and something for the Right.

Will it work? Probably not. The nationwide fit of shrieking and toy-throwing, some sincere, some synthetic and hypocritical, will continue for quite a while.

It is unlikely that President Macron will have much to show his wailing child at the end of the 100-day recovery period, ending on July 14th, that he promised on Monday night.

Superficially, this is just French politics as usual. France demands “change”. It opposes all changes.

France complains that it is slipping down the global league table of prosperity, influence and functioning public services. It refuses to accept that it should work longer or tax itself less to compete with its rivals and neighbours.

Superficially, we have been here before. All presidents for the last three decades have faced strikes and street protests against modest social reforms.

Some were withdrawn. Others such at retirement at 62 instead of 60 are now the “acquis” (status quo) which the new generation of protesters defend.

Others, such as the simplification of hiring and firing and reduction in pay-roll taxes, help to explain why joblessness in France has plunged from 9 percent to 7 percent in the last six years. Those reforms, started by François Hollande and continued by Macron, were opposed at the time by strikes, marches and scattered violence.

Surprise, surprise, no-one mentions unemployment much anymore.

But there has been something qualitatively different – almost existentially different – about the pensions reform protests of the last three months. The language is different. There is an edge of hysteria in the allegations that the modest move in the pension age from 62 to 64 is “brutal”, “unjust” and “autocratic”.

The government’s use of its special powers under Article 49.3 of the constitution to push through the reform was predictable and widely predicted. It has happened 100 times before in the last 65 years.

This time 49.3 was presented as “an assault on democracy , “a trampling of the will of the people”, an act of “violence which called for a violent response”.

Close to my village in Normandy someone has erected a cardboard sign with the scrawled message in felt-tip pen: “49.3 = 1789”. Revolution is in the air again, in the Gilets Jaunes rural heartlands, not just among the self-pleased, black-clad, young bourgeois anti-capitalists who smash shop windows and burn cars in Rennes or Lyon or Paris.

Compare and contrast this hysteria (I believe that the word is justified) with the unemotional language of the Constitutional Council’s ruling last week. The nine “sages” declared that the pension reform was reasonable and constitutional – and so was the manner of its enactment.

The Council said that the increase in the official retirement age to 64 by 2030 would “assure the financial balance of the (state pension system) and guarantee its survival in the light of the increase in life expectancy”. The government’s use of several special powers to hurry and then force a decision was “inhabitual” but not contrary to the Constitution.

Normally the pronouncements of The Sages are accepted without much comment. On this occasion, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the radical Left, said that it was a “violent” decision which would encourage a violent response.

Macron’s decision to sign the pension reform within hours of the Council’s decision was presented, even by moderate union leaders, as a “denial of democracy” and an “autocratic” refusal to listen to the voice of the people.

All of this can be dismissed as the sour grapes of bad losers. Mélenchon, who has been stirring violence for weeks, has little right to talk of democracy.

But those who believe – like me – that the pension reform is modest and justified must also now accept that something is happening here which goes beyond the recent French cycle of reform and protest. It is something that also goes beyond rampant Macronphobia of many French people.

Solenn de Royer in a column in Le Monde said that this has become a revolt not just against pension reform, but against the technocratic, top-down, diluted democracy instituted by Charles de Gaulle 60 years ago. There is much truth in that.

Emmanuel Macron claimed in 2017 to be a suited revolutionary. He was an impatient young man with many good ideas but he was no revolutionary. He was – and he was seen by many to be – the epitome of the kind of technocrat who used to stand behind presidents. Now HE was the president.

The father-knows-best tone of his 15 minute address last night – “dry your tears; lets move on” – placed Macron firmly in the Fifth Republic tradition of paternalistic semi-democracy. In the age of social media and the collapse of old political allegiances, that no longer works very well.

The Gilets Jaunes movement of 2018-9 already revealed a formless hunger for a new, more direct kind of popular control of decision-making. It also exposed how dangerous that desire can be.

If the French people want to have more direct control of their lives, they also need to move on. They need to grow out of the child, or teenage-like, modes of thinking which the top-down Fifth Republic has encouraged.

“The state (like mummy and daddy) is all-responsible and usually wrong. The state should do more but we should pay less taxes.”

In sum, the crisis over pension reform is both absurd and profound. It is both Macron’s failure and France’s failure.

A drum-beat is already starting suggesting that Marine Le Pe and the Far Right will reap the benefits in 2027. That is the subject for another column.

But I believe that, in four years’ time, the country may be more likely to revert to the unthreatening immobilism of the Chirac years: someone who promises to “listen” and then delivers little.”—-The Local

A bientôt,

Sara

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Thinking about the midterms from Paris

At 10 pm CET, Tuesday night, Voting Day in the USA, I was ready to go to bed. I’ve been sick and too tired to be anxious. I checked my e-mail from my sister who has worked her butt off for MI Elections: Her last e-mail reported: “We’re all going crazy with worry today–for Michigan and for the country. I’m having a small election “party” but we all fear it’s going to be a wake…” This last e-mail I received was sent one hour later and read:`’Most of the people I invited aren’t coming because they are so depressed and just don’t want to face it. So it’s going to be weird.” She followed with “Not much is going to be known for MI even by tomorrow (my tomorrow). And if the D’s win anything, they’ll call it fraud, so it’s all a big mess.”

I woke up Wednesday morning to two wins in MI, Governor Whitmer has retained her seat and a house member has also won. According to CNN, the Dems were very happy and relieved. I wanted to call my sister and wake her up but thought better of it.

from Frank Bruni’s Op Ed piece in NYTIMES.

People have had a rainbow of reactions. I wondered about my own lack of anxiety. Perhaps it was because I’ve been sick for over a week and didn’t have the energy. Maybe I’m just too far away living here in Paris or maybe I’ve started to integrate that it’s useless to worry without enough information. I did pray- before I went to bed—I think it was a heartfelt prayer to whatever Higher Power watches over us. I prayed for kindness to the US. The papers were predicting a blood bath for the Democrats, and, naive me, just could not fathom that the God of my misunderstanding would send that kind of facism to the US. Unless it was to teach us a lesson. That particular god sent Hitler and the Holocaust. If there was a lesson there, it certainly wasn’t learned. With the arrival of Trump and all the ugliness out from under the rug, there is clearly as much antisemitism and white supremacy as ever.

I’ve been watching the Lincoln Dilemna on Apple TV+ and, it seems to my untrained historical mind, that things were worse back then. Worse to the point that eleven states ceceded from the Union and were willing to go to war for their beliefs. And though the South lost the war, they’ve never really given up or given in. Then there was Woodrow Wilson….”Wilson defended segregation on “scientific” grounds in private, and (scholars) describe him as a man who “loved to tell racist ‘darky‘ jokes about black Americans.” – Wikipedia. I’ve never seen statistics but I’d be interested to know how many Americans sided with Germany during WWII.

People say there will be another Civil War. I’ve said that I didn’t see massive change without violence—as if there wasn’t enough violence now. With the US’s hands in so many other wars, where would there be people willing to fight in a full-out war. The question people over here in Europe are asking is how could so much money be spent on these elections? 9.3 billion dollars. Can that be right? And now more millions will be thrown at Georgia between now and Dec. 6th. I had some naive hope that all the bullying and demanding e-mails for money might stop but no. I’ve received at least 100 in my Spam since the run-off was announced.

There is great relief that there was no red wave. Biden called it a victory. My Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson, says Democracy won. There are still outstanding contests to be called. This morning I learned that Mark Kelly has been declared the winner of the Arizona senate seat. Forty-nine to forty-nine. So it could be that nothing has changed—the Senate divided fifty/fifty. The Times says the big change is Trump. He had 330 personally hand-picked people running. Very few won.

Trump disgustingly threatened De Santos if he ran against him for President in 2024. Two men with god complexes running against each other. If it wasn’t so sad, it would be fascinating. The media view, one which I agree with, is that the Republican party is moving away from Trump—but towards what? A more eloquent white supremacist or someone else?

There is still so much to learn from these elections, especially the two Senate seats in Nevada and Georgia. As of this writing, the two contenders in Nevada are neck and neck with a large percentage of mail-in ballots still to be counted. We won’t know Georgia’s outcome for at least a month. And now I learn that Nevada finished counting and has a Democratic Senator. A close call. Fifty/Forty-Nine.

Here in France, the midterms have been in the News. But my french friends say people are tired of us and these shenanigans (my word). Nobody understands what is happening to a great country like the USA. How could so much blatant hatred be tolerated? Of course, we have Marine Le Pen and her far-right but somehow to this American, it isn’t the same.

These are all thoughts. The next two years will be very interesting.

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A bientôt,

Sara

There is a time for building, and a time for living and for generation-T.S. Eliot

I was sitting on my couch yesterday talking with a good friend who was visiting Paris from California. She asked me if it was smarter to rent something here or to buy. I said that it depends. Why was she asking? She said that the general atmosphere in the US has become unbearable for her and her husband because of politics. She had visited with another group of friends two days ago and that had been the focus of their conversation. Selling and moving to Paris (these were all people who love Paris). I was a bit stunned. She lives in California and I saw California as a refuge from all the insanity. I guess not. You can’t not know what’s going on all over the country if you own a computer or a TV or both. Maybe with the mid-terms coming up, the volume has risen so high that the desire to run away from it all must seem so attractive.

I left in 2013. Before there was Trump (although we were going through the Tea Party mess). I wasn’t making myself crazy by trying to decide to leave my country because of principles. I left because I could. I had retired. I wanted to experience another culture, really experience it, and came to Paris for a year. That was one month short of nine years ago. I haven’t gone back. To be considering a permanent move without knowing anything about what the future holds seems very brave to me.

That was the other thing we talked about. The future. We are both at the age where one has to be thinking “where do I want to get old?” “Where do I want to be old?” The US has wonderful Continuing Care Retirement Communities. France does not. France has a wonderful medical system. The US does not. If I can no longer live independently, if I have to depend on someone or someones, what country do I want to be in?

These are huge questions. Honestly, I try not to think about them very often though I should. Yet, it was a pleasure discussing it all with my friend yesterday. A pleasure because we are like-minded and putting it all out on the table. I recently put an offer on a house in Normandy. I had an inspection done by a wonderful Scotsman and I told him my age and asked if he could look at the house with that in mind. He was happy to. He told me the house wasn’t suitable for someone my age, meaning if I had to redo a room or a bathroom to make it more handicap accessible, it wasn’t possible in that house. I patted myself on the back for having the foresight to even think of that question much less ask it.

To me, thinking about leaving the country feels like a little death. It’s great to move if you are going towards something, have excitement about new things, having a chance to start over again somewhere else. But that isn’t what people are saying when they are talking about leaving. They say it with sadness, that it is so scary to live in the US right now. I don’t envy them.

Meanwhile here in Paris….. I was down near Notre Dame last week. Before the fire in March of 2019, my favorite view of Notre Dame was looking at it from behind; the roof held up by flying buttresses. I’d stand about half a kilometer east on the left bank and take deep breaths looking at the extraordinary beauty of that cathedral against a blue sky. Now all you can see is scaffolding. And cranes. And more scaffolding.

Two years ago, there was talk that Macron wanted the rebuilding finished by the 2024 Summer Olympics which are being held in Paris. No one believes that can happen. According to the Smithsonian website, the clean up was finished this past August and the rebuilding started in September. The government is still hoping to finish it in 2024 and has actually announced that it will be open to the public in the Spring of 2024.

There was a contest, at one point, to design a new roof for the cathedral. There was even one with a swimming pool, I’m told. Now the new Notre Dame will look exactly like the old Notre Dame. Which makes me glad. “The French Senate rejected calls to replace the spire with a modern design, ultimately voting to restore it to its “last known visual state.” But France’s National Heritage and Architecture Commission did approve proposals to modernize Notre-Dame’s interior with new additions like contemporary artworks—a plan that some critics described as a “woke Disney revamp.” “A parallel initiative to invigorate Notre-Dame’s surroundings is also underway. Funded by Paris City Hall, the redesign includes planting more vegetation in the area and installing a cooling system, the New York Times’ Aurelien Breeden reported in June. Per the Times, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said that Notre-Dame “had to be left in its beauty and have everything around it be a showcase for that beauty.”—smithsonianmag.com

This is what Notre Dame will look when finished.

And finally, I’ll end with a word about the peacocks in Parc de Bagatelle. I took my Sunday walk to the park four days ago. The first thing I do when I arrive is check up on the cats. If there is a volunteer there feeding them, I have a chat. That’s how I learn the stories about them. And now that I know that peacock tail feathers have a life cycle, I’m watching the male peacock carefully. I saw a peacock before a cat. He was looking in the opposite direction. It looked as if some pine needles had gotten caught under his back feathers. As I got closer, I realized what I thought were pine needles was the very beginnings of the new feathers.

Scattered on his back are what look like tufts of cotton. When the tail is completely grown out and he makes a fan to attract a female, it’s possible to see all the white fluff. This seemed unusual to me – to be able to see so much fluff even when both back wings were flat on his back. But I’m just learning and watching. I have no idea what the norm is.

It seems that today has been about cycles. The life cycle of the peacock tail of feathers, the cycle of a beautiful cathedral that has had parts destroyed by fires in the past, and the lifecycle of a political movement. With nature, it is truly a cycle. I lost my home in California to fire and built a lovely home from the ashes. With what’s happening in the US, one can only pray it cycles out and get into action to give it a big shove. That means Go Vote!

A bientôt,

Sara

“Letters from an American”

Although it is August and I, like many of the French, take August off, I had to jump in and write a post. I woke up to the news that the Senate had passed, 51-50, the sweeping bill now called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 addressing climate change, health care, the national debt, and many more things. Every morning, I get an e-mail entitled ‘Letters from an American‘ written by Heather Cox Richardson. (Anyone can subscribe free to her posts on Substack: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-7-2022 ). Ms Richardson describes herself this way: “I’m a history professor interested in the contrast between image and reality in American politics. I believe in American democracy, despite its frequent failures.”

Senator Majority Leader Chuck Schumer after the passage of the bill

I have been mystified by the consistent reporting that Biden’s popularity is so low, in the 38% range. Democrat Nation loved him when he won the election. He inherited a horror show (my words) from the former president. Senator Tim Kaine visited Paris and Democrats Abroad and told us how Biden managed to get Europe to join America in preparing for the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. At the time, Europe was hedging bets that Russia was just bluffing. Biden’s administration was sure he was not. He got European countries to listen to him by saying that he hoped they were right but, just in case, wouldn’t it be nice (my words) if there was a plan in place that could be executed immediately upon an invasion. All agreed to that – even Turkey who probably would not have agreed if the invasion had already taken place. Brilliant, I thought to myself. Had I read about this in the papers? No? It must not be exciting enough news.

Ms Richardson writes this about Biden and Democracy: “In the past 18 months, Democrats have rebuilt the economy after the pandemic shattered it, invested in technology and science, expanded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to stand against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, eliminated al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, pulled troops out of Afghanistan, passed the first gun safety law in almost 30 years, put a Black woman on the Supreme Court, reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act, addressed the needs of veterans exposed to toxic burn pits, and invested in our roads, bridges, and manufacturing. And for much of this program, they have managed to attract Republican votes.

Now they are turning to lowering the cost of prescription drugs—long a priority—and tackling climate change, all while lowering the deficit.

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne noted accurately today that what these measures do is far more than the sum of their parts. They show Americans that democracy is messy and slow but that it works, and it works for them. Since he took office, this has been President Joe Biden’s argument: he would head off the global drive toward authoritarianism by showing that democracy is still the best system of government out there.

At a time when authoritarians are trying to demonstrate that democracies cannot function nearly as effectively as the rule of an elite few, he is proving them wrong.”

The passing of this bill in the Senate is exciting. All expect that the bill will have no trouble in the House. It is inspiring to other countries, like France, who want Democracy.

I’ve been reading these ‘Letters from an American ‘for quite awhile. If you would like to read about day to day goings on without the hysterics, the hyperbole, without the ‘screaming at you’ from much of the media, I refer you to Heather Cox Richardson. If you don’t like it, you can always unsubscribe.

A bientôt,

Sara

The Silent Generation

My sister is a prolific reader. She recommends wonderful books I might not have stumbled on had she not alerted me. A couple of weeks ago, she suggested I read Deborah Cohen’s Last Call at The Hotel Imperial: The Reporters who took on a World at War (Random House, 2022). It is so new that I had to recommend it to the American Library in Paris. I have found it to be one of those non-fiction books that is so well-written, it is easy to forget that it is not a novel. Cohen tells the story of the foreign correspondents who went to Europe, Asia, Russia (I know Russian is considered Asia but….) and chased down any emerging story. Some went to great lengths to get an interview before their friends, who were also competitors, got there first. This is definitely not Fox News where those guys sit in comfy chairs telling the world how it should think, what their truths are, and haven’t moved an inch to talk to anyone except those who 100% agree with them.

On page 110, Ms. Cohen was describing “the so-called Lost Generation“. “Eventually the term “Lost Generation” came specifically to denote the American writers and expatriates who, in the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald, had ‘grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken.’ Disillusioned by the Great War, alienated by American materialism, they’d moved to Europe in the 1920s, embracing what the critic Malcolm Cowley called ‘salvation by exile.’ ” “In using the term “lost,” psychologists were referring to the “disoriented, wandering, directionless” feelings that haunted many survivors of what had been one of the most horrific wars in modern history.”–Robert Longley at ThoughtCo

Actress Betty Field Dances in Party Scene From “The Great Gatsby”. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

This doesn’t sound so different from today. So many Americans, disillusioned by the state of affairs in the US that have followed one war after another that the US can’t win, are moving over here (Europe). Some say it’s worse now than it was then. But how does one gauge how bad something is. Many of those correspondents saw and wrote about Germany and the threat of Hitler. Maybe it’s only worse now because we are in the middle of it, day by excruciating day, waiting for the next body blow. I’ve read the above paragraph by Cohen many times. I have found some solace in it. I didn’t move here because of the politics but I have stayed here because it seems like a nicer, kinder place to live. I’m sure many French people would disagree with me. Their politics hit them the way American politics hits me. Cohen goes on to say that by 1930, “the dividends had evaporated, adult life beckoned, the half-finished novel would be put away. The “exiles” were returning, sobered-up and broke, newly conscious (perhaps) of the ties that bound them to other Americans.” p. 111.

I’m writing this because I often feel torn. There is a very good chance that democracy won’t survive what’s happening in the US. From over here, it seems the Democrats are whimpering along not doing much about the everyday decisions coming out of a very biased Supreme Court. My own opinion about the war in Ukraine is that the more Europe and US gets involved, the more likely a war on a much larger scale will break out. How can it not? And will it take violence, death, and hostile killings to find out if Democracy can still survive? It is only through a few flukes that the “good guys” won WWII.

I can’t imagine what I can do if I were living in the US that I can’t do here. Democrats Abroad is a vibrant organisation and very active. I feel much closer to the ‘action’ by going to DA meetings and meeting interesting people and politicians who travel and stop in Paris to talk to us. The amount of e-mails I get on a daily basis from so many organisations who want to crush Republicans but are loud, hostile, nasty, and sound just like the Republicans they say they want to get rid of is extraordinary. I unsubscribe to at least three a day but, just like Medusa, six more come the next day. They consider themselves completely entitled to access my e-mail then scream at me in order to shame me into giving my life savings to something that is probably not working. I even wrote one person running for Congress in California. I asked that he tell me what he stands FOR; that I was tired of hearing how awful his opponents are. I never heard back.

I wrote last week that many bloggers like me, non-professional opinionators, feel numb, unable to write. Thoughts like the ones that have been swirling around my brain, I believe, occur to try and break us out of sleep-walking, out of an overwhelm that is crushing. People get involved in world activities for many reasons. One of the main ones is an attempt to feel some power in a powerless world. “I’m doing something, I have a voice. Where can my voice best be heard?”

All of this has been going on in my head and reading Last Call at the Hotel Imperial has gotten me writing. If only to put down on paper the hard questions. Where can I be useful? How can I be useful? Am I doing enough already? Can writing words be a tool that I can use to make a difference? If 300 people read what I write, does that make a difference?

There aren’t any answers. But it is good to ask the questions. If I, and others like me, keep asking the questions, individual answers may get clearer.

Why did I title this blog The Silent Generation? I wanted to know if any research showed similarities to the Lost Generation and today. The Silent Generation is about to outnumber the Baby Boomers of which I’m a part of. The Silent Generation is the most materialistic and tech savvy generation. The Silent Generation feels let down by adults and politicians (who don’t always act like adults). The Lost Generation was undereducated and the Silent Generation is overeducated but both ended up feeling ill-prepared for the world they have been let loose in. In France, they don’t vote. In the US, their passion lies mostly with Climate Change. This generation has “…the highest level of stress than any other generation, suggesting a need for more conversation surrounding mental health and the pressures facing recent graduates.”–Evan Brown, The Warped Similarities Between Millennials and the Lost Generation (2020). This only underscores the questions I ask myself. What do I owe this generation? I often look at the future as I see it in my head and I’m grateful I may not be alive to see the worst of it.

And the questions just keep coming?

A bientôt,

Sara

While I’m waiting

It’s July 7, I have not yet heard from Stanford. I’m not holding my breath. I’m not anxious or letting the world pass by. In fact, the news of the world seems to be coming in fast and furious. Some bloggers I know are writing that their brains have gone on tilt-too much, too fast, too sad, too awful–and how hard it is to write at the moment. I absolutely concur. So I give you the things I’m focused on.

Today, Boris Johnson stepped down as Prime Minister. “It is clearly now the will of the parliamentary Conservative Party that there should be a new leader of that party and therefore, a new prime minister,” said Johnson. Ya think???? This morning I woke up to news that he was going to stick to it come hell or high water (my words). Four hours later, everyone who gets notifications on their phone got the same message as I did. CNN reported that Johnson is not planning to leave office immediately, however. “I’ve today appointed a Cabinet to serve, as I will, until a new leader is in place,” he said, in a televised speech outside 10 Downing Street. Hmmm. How much damage can he do between now and then?

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson walks at Downing Street in London, Britain July 6, 2022. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

Everyone I know is getting Covid. Two friends came over, vaccinated and boostered, got Covid here (Europe) and I spent time on the phone with them helping them figure out what to do. Three friends were over here and tested positive after their return to the US. This virus will keep mutating and figure out how to get around all the vaccines. The great saving point is that it does make one sick but not so sick as to go into the hospital or die.

France Covid — From ‘Secrets of Paris’ blog

In French Politics, Macron was forced to shuffle his cabinet around. “France has entered a new political era; or has reverted to an old one. Parliament is divided and therefore parliament rules. The President can no longer treat the National Assembly as his rubber-stamp or echo chamber. We have returned to the France of the 1950s or the 1930s, before Charles de Gaulle invented the supposedly all-powerful presidency (but left the ultimate power in parliament).”–John Litchfield in The Local. For more of his analysis, go to: https://www.thelocal.fr/20220706/opinion-france-begins-a-new-political-era-and-its-going-to-get-messy/?tpcc=newsletter_member

And on a sweet note, on a walk in the Parc de Bagatelle this past Sunday, I learned about two of the sweetest cats there. Their names are Zoe and Gaston. They come from a circus. Once the pandemic hit 28 months ago, the circus approached the non-profit that feeds and cares for the cats in Bagatelle and asked if Zoe and Gaston could stay there. The volunteer assured me that there was no abuse, nothing like that. The circus felt strongly they would be better cared for by the wonderful volunteers who come everyday to feed the cats. I went over and petted Zoe who rolled over on her back to get her belly rubbed. No wonder I see the two of them sitting on benches with people reading or just hanging out in the sun.

Zoe (or Gaston) waiting for company to sit on the bench with them

There is supposition that France is in for a long heatwave. Last summer, we had rain all summer and no canicules (heatwave). So far, we have had two that have been called a canicule and more is yet to come. Depending on where you are in France, it can be fine. In Paris, where the pollution is terrible, heatwaves are awful to bear. In the south of France where many people live in stone houses, one keeps the shutters closed, the lights off, and one stays inside cool as a cucumber until evening. As long as there is no humidity, these heatwaves cannot be compared to NYC or Philly in summer. However, if you have porcelain, British skin, it is hard to get through a french summer. I have dark olive skin inherited from my Russian grandparents and I love the heat of summer.

A bientôt,

Sara

Update on French Elections

My first foray out into commenting on French politics and I got some of it wrong. How embarrassing. So here’s the deal. The second round of Parliamentory voting was Sunday the 19th not the 26th. Macron’s party won 255 seats, the NUPES won 131 seats with other leftist parties winning 22 seats, and Marine Le Pen’s party, the far right, won an unprecedented 90 seats.

The question on everyone’s mind is ‘Can Macron dissolve Parliament and call for another election?” He is scheduled to speak on TV tonight.

French Parliamentary Elections: Who are the NUPES? A Primer

Two Sundays ago, June 12, the citizens of France voted in the first of two elections for seats in Parliament (Assemblée Nationale). For the past five years, President Macron has held a majority and been able to lead top down. Macron won his second election for President but is not enjoying the popularity he had in 2017. The parties on the left, who have a long history of fighting with each other, felt a resurgence of hope when Jean-Luc Mélenchon came in a very close third in the first Presidential elections. Now Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party, LFI (La France Insoumise) has created along with three other leftist parties a new coalition known as the NUPES (Nouvelle Union Populaire Écologique et Sociale). On June 12th, the NUPES won a tenth of a percentage point more than Macron’s party, En Marche. Who are the NUPES why is this not good news for Macron?

Mélenchon has not been a popular candidate (He also ran for President in 2017). They call him the Bernie Sanders of the French, but he doesn’t have Sanders’s personality. You mention his name and people used to say, “oh Mélenchon, he’s crazy’. But he is a leftist and with his high percentage of votes during the first round of Presidential elections, people on the left are looking to him for guidance to create obstacles for Macron. He has become the defacto leader of NUPES. As Macron has been leaning more and more right in an effort to appease conservatives, he has neglected what has been happening on the left. The four parties that have allied together to become a new left alliance are Mélenchon’s LFI, the Greens, the Communists, and the Socialists. The Nouvelle Union Populaire Ecologique et Sociale. NUPES (pronounced Newps or New Pays). If this alliance won a majority in the National Assembly on the 26^th of June, Macron would be forced to reckon with this block and probably Mélenchon would become Prime Minister. The few times this has happened in the past, the president would deal with foreign policy and the Prime Minister with domestic. All 577 seats are up for grabs. Macron needs a majority, 289, to maintain the power he has enjoyed his first five years as President. En Marche, soon to be renamed Renaissance, could win 255 seats. NUPES is projected to win 150-190 seats. Marine Le Pen’s party could win as many as 40 up from 8 in 2017.

There is one other block of voters that made themselves known Sunday, the 12th. The no-shows or abstainers. According to the media, this is the largest no-show of voters – 52% — ever in France. It is made up mainly of young people who have stopped caring, who feel powerless to do anything about their circumstances. There is a chance that these people could be motivated to vote for NUPES. Followers of NUPES are out on the streets campaigning in every arrondissement of Paris urging these people to go to the polls on Sunday. Although the chance of NUPES gaining the majority of seats this Sunday is very low, this group of people if motivated to get to the polls, could make all the difference.

“Perhaps the most notable loser on Sunday was far-right pundit Eric Zemmour, who attracted vast media attention in the presidential race but has so far flopped as a candidate. Zemmour failed to advance to the second round on Sunday in his bid for a seat representing Saint Tropez. Nationally, his Reconquest party won just 4.24 percent of the vote, and did not send a single candidate to the run-offs.”—France24.

To keep leftist voters away from the polls or to convince them not to votes for NUPES, Macron and his buddies have reverted to some bizarre scare tactics. In a guest essay in the New York Times, Cole Stangler, (an American journalist based in France), wrote, “Amid tight polling and mounting anxiety, Mr. Macron and his allies have sought to tap into fears of this very scenario, reverting to red-baiting. The finance minister has likened Mr. Mélenchon to a “Gallic Chavez” who would “collectivize” the economy and bankrupt France, while a leading lawmaker from Mr. Macron’s party has warned of a “return to the Soviet era.” The chief of France’s top business lobby has said Mr. Mélenchon risks pushing the country “to the brink.”

In fact, the coalition’s actual platform is far from revolutionary. It’s inspired more by the golden days of European social democracy than by the Bolsheviks. The coalition’s two signature economic policy proposals — a hike in the minimum wage to 1,500 euros, or about $1,560, a month and a cap on the prices of essential goods — are modest measures at a time of rapidly rising inflation.

Plans to raise taxes on the superrich and boost investment in schools, hospitals and transport networks contrast with Mr. Macron’s embrace of the private sector, it’s true. Yet these are popular, standard-fare progressive policies in Europe. The alliance’s bold climate proposals — a five-year €200 billion, or nearly $209 billion, green investment plan driven by the principle of “ecological planning” — have led the ecology minister to accuse NUPES of “playing on young people’s fears.” But it’s hard to see the plans as anything other than an attempt to tackle the climate crisis head-on. The costs of inaction would be much greater, anyhow.” June 16, 2022

One thing is sure, since Macron will not gain a majority in Parliament, he has to stop governing top down. He and his ministers (some of whom may not even make it back to their seats in Parliament), will have to compromise with both the left and the right. The right is a solid unit that has actually spread from the southeast of France up North and northeast. The question will be – can those four entities on the left, the NUPES, who have vehemently disagreed with each other over the years stick together with an overall plan or will they fall in to in-fighting? I may be projecting my own fears of the US Democratic party which seems to shoot itself in the foot whenever possible.

My take on French politics has never been very clear. However I have found the rise of NUPES to be very interesting and I’ve caught the excitement that this alliance has incited. I hope I’ve been able to explain, albeit very simply, what is happening here in France and what the results on Sunday may look like.

Watch the voting news on Sunday, June 26, to see how all this plays out.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/19/macrons-centrist-grouping-to-lose-majority-in-parliament-say-projected-results?utm_term=62aff0c3ce7c89178fb662a1606a05ba&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUK&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUK_email

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/12/emmanuel-macrons-coalition-level-with-new-leftwing-group-in-french-elections

A bientôt,

Sara

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