[Peace-discuss] In the streets

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Paris When it Sizzles:
	The French Say No to Fat-Cat Bailouts			

You have to admire the French. The ordinary people there know how to stick up 
for themselves – instead of meekly bowing down and accepting whatever bitter 
gruel the elite tries to cram down their throats. And they don't just write a 
few angry letters (or blog posts!), or send checks to some worthy progressive 
organization to organize a few mildly admonishing ads or press releases on their 
behalf. Hell no, they take to the streets, by the millions, they shut things 
down, they make some noise, they put their time, their jobs, and their bodies on 
the line.

Yesterday saw another remarkable display of this national trait, as an 
astonishingly broad spectrum of the French citizenry surged through the streets 
of Paris to express their outrage at the government's response to the economic 
crisis. This response has been the usual doling out of billions in public money 
for the fat cats who caused the crisis, coupled with increasing demands for 
"sacrifice" from the hoi polloi: less pay, longer hours, fewer benefits, a 
bleaker life for you and your children while the elite party on.

But on Thursday, an estimated 2.5 million people – blue-collar workers and 
white-collar professionals, educators and students, doctors and train drivers, 
native-born and immigrants – came out to tell the government: "We are not going 
to pay for the greed and corruption of the elite! Find another way!" The 
contrast to the stunned, herd-like reaction of the American and British publics 
to their governments' gorging of corrupt oligarchs with no-strings largess could 
not be more striking...

Full article at <http://www.chris-floyd.com/>