in Vive la résistance!

This is What Democracy Looks Like

Well, I don’t know how many people are aware of what has been happening in France ever since the government started driving through a law that would shift the age of retirement from 60 to 62 but there have been massive uprisings across the country that have seen workers, students, seniors, new immigrants, and many others uniting to fight back against the powers that be.  Gas and oil refineries have been shut down, along with other locations like high-schools, universities, highways, and airports.
There is an inspiring series of pictures documenting some of this here.  I think this really shows us the two faces of “democracy.”  On the one hand, we see the multitude rising up in an effort to claim (a form of) self-rule, and on the other hand we see hegemonic powers employing force to prevent anything that resembles the actual “rule of the people.”
 

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  1. How is the elected senate and president not the “rule of the people.” A mob is hardly indicative of the “people’s” opinion. Or is it just mob’s you agree with?
    Raising the retirement age is fiscally prudent as there are not enough workers to fund the future pensioners. In other words the rioters are marching for a huge transfer of wealth from the fewer young to the many old. Generational thievery. Or intolerable levels of immigration beyond what any society can withstand over such a short period.
    Or alternatively fund the pension through inflation and then they pay for it in higher prices and exported jobs.
    Just a thought.

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