Victory. The new French employment law that Villepin was trying to pass has been scrapped. They took on the French state, they took on the power of business, and they won. I still can't get my head around it. But this calls for celebration.
8 comments:
Anonymous
said...
So let's celebrate! This is how the Disney film of Thatcher's attempt to take on the unions would have finished, with a little artistic licence...
Yup, let's celebrate while we can. Good you brought up Thatcher. She did climb down in her war against the unions once, before taking them on again in '84, and wiping out the miners. It's a wonder there wasn't a Disney film on that commissioned by her - historical oversight, surely? Still too early to say how this film will turn out...but I hope those who won this wonderful temporary victory in France are watching Villepin very, very carefully.
thanks bidi-k, and belated shubho noboborsho to you as well. i did read your comment, but didn't reply on buchu's blog because it was getting so inundated anyway! but thanks for the comment, and no i wasn't at all questioning what you were saying, just that your experience set me thinking along different lines, and so i just thought aloud, really, on that comment, it wasn't really meant to be a rejoinder to you or to contradict what you were saying. as for childhood memories, yes i do know i was at the IHC! though i was too young to have any memory of it, so sadly i don't remember you...but this is most intriguing, since we've clearly met in the past and both have a jnu connection...! further clues, please?
yes you were definitely too young :) but i remember you because there were so few kids and you followed me everywhere and also loved books... and i have a crazy memory for people irrespective of whether they want to be remembered or not! i remember asking your parents about you when they came to my wedding reception though i am sure they don't remember :) aamar baba brajadulal chattopadhyaya.. he was teaching in JNU till he retired in 2004. janina tomar mone achhe ki na.
bidi-k: so all is now revealed! so your dad's BDC (sorry, that's what all of us who read his work - and, btw, worshipped it - called him)....amazing how the blogosphere works, isn't it?
That was utter crap. What's Zizek on about? Who are his 'liberal communists'? What do all his revolutionary proclamations come to, without any genuinely serious considerations of state, capital, law, bureaucracy, and other forms of concrete power? I'm pretty clear about this: if the Left is not globally pluralist, democratic and dialogical, it can't amount to anything more than some or the other variant of Stalinism, in form at least. Zizek's brilliant about Hitchcock, he's a great provocateur, and there's value to that...but what gets my goat is the enormous, enormous condescension of critical theory, in this mode, towards the actual lived experience of real movements, the choices and limitations they're saddled with.
8 comments:
So let's celebrate! This is how the Disney film of Thatcher's attempt to take on the unions would have finished, with a little artistic licence...
Yup, let's celebrate while we can. Good you brought up Thatcher. She did climb down in her war against the unions once, before taking them on again in '84, and wiping out the miners. It's a wonder there wasn't a Disney film on that commissioned by her - historical oversight, surely?
Still too early to say how this film will turn out...but I hope those who won this wonderful temporary victory in France are watching Villepin very, very carefully.
completely unrelated to this, but did leave an answer to your comment at Buchu's blog. belated shubho noboborsho.
thanks bidi-k, and belated shubho noboborsho to you as well. i did read your comment, but didn't reply on buchu's blog because it was getting so inundated anyway! but thanks for the comment, and no i wasn't at all questioning what you were saying, just that your experience set me thinking along different lines, and so i just thought aloud, really, on that comment, it wasn't really meant to be a rejoinder to you or to contradict what you were saying.
as for childhood memories, yes i do know i was at the IHC! though i was too young to have any memory of it, so sadly i don't remember you...but this is most intriguing, since we've clearly met in the past and both have a jnu connection...! further clues, please?
yes you were definitely too young :) but i remember you because there were so few kids and you followed me everywhere and also loved books... and i have a crazy memory for people irrespective of whether they want to be remembered or not! i remember asking your parents about you when they came to my wedding reception though i am sure they don't remember :) aamar baba brajadulal chattopadhyaya.. he was teaching in JNU till he retired in 2004. janina tomar mone achhe ki na.
bidi-k: so all is now revealed! so your dad's BDC (sorry, that's what all of us who read his work - and, btw, worshipped it - called him)....amazing how the blogosphere works, isn't it?
ha, i have to tell baba about this... :) he will be surprised and i am still chuckling at the 'worshipped' bit!
That was utter crap. What's Zizek on about? Who are his 'liberal communists'? What do all his revolutionary proclamations come to, without any genuinely serious considerations of state, capital, law, bureaucracy, and other forms of concrete power? I'm pretty clear about this: if the Left is not globally pluralist, democratic and dialogical, it can't amount to anything more than some or the other variant of Stalinism, in form at least. Zizek's brilliant about Hitchcock, he's a great provocateur, and there's value to that...but what gets my goat is the enormous, enormous condescension of critical theory, in this mode, towards the actual lived experience of real movements, the choices and limitations they're saddled with.
Post a Comment