What an excellent read. I’m tempted now to hear it and see how much my poor French can manage.
Friedrich Merz has just declared that Europe needs its own military alliance. This is a recognition that France has been right for decades in advocating for strategic autonomy.
Now it must be built. This will require massive investment to replenish the European Defense Fund beyond the Maastricht debt criteria, harmonize weapons and munitions systems, accelerate European Union membership for Ukraine, which now has the leading army in Europe, rethink the role and conditions of nuclear deterrence based on French and British capabilities, and relaunch missile-shield and satellite programs.
(emphasis mine)
I haven’t heard it put that way before. Interesting to think about.
[…]
Our parents defeated fascism and communism at the cost of great sacrifice. The task of our generation is to defeat the totalitarianisms of the 21st century. Long live free Ukraine, long live democratic Europe.
(emphasis mine)
Dammit, why’d you have to mention that at the end?
Fotzenfritz is an ultra-reactionary, revisionist, eight-winged concretehead. He can’t say “nazi” without mentioning the communists were just as bad, he can’t condemn a right extremist terror action without mentioning imaginary left-extremists hiding behind every corner. You can find this rhetoric in literally every sentence he says about political extremes. Merz is not half as moderate as he claims but a notorious nazi apologist and anti-democrat.
No tomato throwing here because I just wish it were true because it sounds simple. But I just don’t think it works. So long as work exploitation and the profit motive persist, any gains will always be precarious. I mean, it’s much harder to build something than to tear it down, as we also see with the DOGE monkey business. We have to win every time but they have to win once.
So I would argue that certain fundamental moral imperatives would have to be codified as inalienable rights, constitutionally and declaratively. So for example it should come to be considered illegal and morally repugnant to rent humans, just as it is to buy them. It should also be considered illegal hoarding and gross to pass down intergenerational ownership of capital (“passive assets”, “investments”, and the like, I’m not talking about personal property).
But the thing is once stuff like that are enacted, there is no longer anything to be called “capitalism” any more.
We still need people to perform basic functions, and capitalism is a way to do that. “Renting humans” as it were. I think we can certainly raise the minimum a fair bit. Higher minimum wage works being everyone up. I think we could and should get the working week down from 40 hours to 35. That takes covering a full seven day week from 4.2 shifts to 4.8 (or five with a bit of overlap).
Agree on the estate tax. It used to be a thing. Republicans had ground it down over the years, and just recently finished it off.
Universal healthcare does a ton for freedom and entrepreneurship.
When you spread the money thin, it does run out quickly. But I think we can still afford those things if we just actually tax billionaires and corporations. And stop taxing payroll more than capital investment. Usury is a sin. Anything they makes money from having money needs a big leash.
And of course money nearly all the way out of politics.
I’m not looking for a radical change from what we had before.
What an excellent read. I’m tempted now to hear it and see how much my poor French can manage.
(emphasis mine)
I haven’t heard it put that way before. Interesting to think about.
(emphasis mine)
Dammit, why’d you have to mention that at the end?
Because it’s too verbose to call it “totalitarian state capitalism masquerading as socialism”?
Fotzenfritz is an ultra-reactionary, revisionist, eight-winged concretehead. He can’t say “nazi” without mentioning the communists were just as bad, he can’t condemn a right extremist terror action without mentioning imaginary left-extremists hiding behind every corner. You can find this rhetoric in literally every sentence he says about political extremes. Merz is not half as moderate as he claims but a notorious nazi apologist and anti-democrat.
https://youtu.be/j51HZncBvEI
He’s centre right, of course he dislikes communism.
Democratic socialism with a heavy fucking leash on Capitalism is likely the best system.
Braces for tomatoes
No tomato throwing here because I just wish it were true because it sounds simple. But I just don’t think it works. So long as work exploitation and the profit motive persist, any gains will always be precarious. I mean, it’s much harder to build something than to tear it down, as we also see with the DOGE monkey business. We have to win every time but they have to win once.
So I would argue that certain fundamental moral imperatives would have to be codified as inalienable rights, constitutionally and declaratively. So for example it should come to be considered illegal and morally repugnant to rent humans, just as it is to buy them. It should also be considered illegal hoarding and gross to pass down intergenerational ownership of capital (“passive assets”, “investments”, and the like, I’m not talking about personal property).
But the thing is once stuff like that are enacted, there is no longer anything to be called “capitalism” any more.
We still need people to perform basic functions, and capitalism is a way to do that. “Renting humans” as it were. I think we can certainly raise the minimum a fair bit. Higher minimum wage works being everyone up. I think we could and should get the working week down from 40 hours to 35. That takes covering a full seven day week from 4.2 shifts to 4.8 (or five with a bit of overlap).
Agree on the estate tax. It used to be a thing. Republicans had ground it down over the years, and just recently finished it off.
Universal healthcare does a ton for freedom and entrepreneurship.
When you spread the money thin, it does run out quickly. But I think we can still afford those things if we just actually tax billionaires and corporations. And stop taxing payroll more than capital investment. Usury is a sin. Anything they makes money from having money needs a big leash.
And of course money nearly all the way out of politics.
I’m not looking for a radical change from what we had before.
I know, I know, but I was caught up in the rest of what he was saying. Thanks for the link.
It’s worth a watch/listen, he’s an excellent orator