that perhaps you don't get, but to be entirely ignorant at this late date is your responsibility to resolve.

And when I looked on DU, I saw nothing about Europe. So I assumed either I missed it or it wasn't significant. But it seemed it should be significant. So I didn't know so I asked.

But thank you for your helpful input.

That must be rough
He's the first socialist President in nearly 25 years. By the way he's a professor of German
Lots of Information here

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

I used the wrong tense because it feels like this ongoing stream. Everytime I pick up the phone there's something else (one new baby, however!) but I'm doing deranged stress-related idiot projects because I can't cope with the reality which included keeping up to date with the overseas news.

You've been really helpful. Thank you for taking the time. It's just what I was hoping for.

We all need down time - you can catch up in no time. Little will change in a few days.

it appears that the Europeans are angry, and austerity is being challenged, we'll see,

And best wishes to you.

May I say, pray to NEVER be interesting to a surgeon.

doncha think?

ALERTER'S COMMENTS:

"entirely ignorant"? This is a hurtful, rude and insensitive way to treat someone who asks a question. Unexceptable!!!!

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Sun May 6, 2012, 01:51 PM, and the Jury voted 3-3 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #2 voted to HIDE IT and said: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: While I realize that certain people who never made it past grade school understand "ignorant" to be some kind of loaded or insulting term, those people should consult a dictionary. The OP states that he is indeed entirely ignorant of the subject and its implications. This is different from asking a question about some aspect of something. Given that the alerter is him or herself incapable of spelling "unacceptable", the alerter's own ignorance of the English language is perhaps no surprise.
Juror #4 voted to HIDE IT and said: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to HIDE IT and said: calling somebody ignorant because they have a different pov is douchebag behavior and has no place here - hide this pos post and tombstone the author whose participation here mimics the right wing

Give them a break, please. It's not necessary to post a snark on the first reply.

you are!

People come to DU to learn and ask questions. Some of us are ignorant on subjects. Why so rude?

actually took the time to answer the OP. So I guess the OPs curiosity about world affairs didn't stir you much at all. Just like to try to be the PC police for DU or what's that all about?

Edited to give proper notice/credit to both posters who answered.

And you're still being a jerk.

And that the information provided answered the questions.

As for your response, uncouth

It will be interesting to see France with the changes coming and moving to the left.

That's m read

much sooner than others thought.

I hope the generational shift is finally underway.

Damn I wish I were in Paris right now - the partying at the Bastille must be something else.

I need to email him and tell him how proud I am of his countrymen for their good sense in this election.

There's intense speculation that the French troops could be summarily pulled out.

Is that the people are rejecting the austerity programs imposed by the EU and IMF. Some speculate that this could lead to a worsening economic situation in Europe, and even possibly the breakup of the EU itself.

Time will tell.

Both the Euro and Schengen were expanded too quickly, and to some countries whose inclusion
endangered the whole concept. The idea of expanding the EU so rapidly in the first place was the
idea of a few huge multinational companies who suddenly had the right to put local workers out
on the street, close up shop and rebuild their facories with far cheaper labor and costs in the
eastern countries of the EU. Nokia, for example, closed up an immense plant here in Germany,
put thousands out of work, and rebuilt their factory in dirt cheap Romania. Great idea for Nokia.
Now that Romania is in the EU, they could build their phones and still sell them everywhere in the
EU with no customs issues to worry about.

Only: the Romanians were totally unfamiliar with quality control, and a third of their Romanian-built
phones were unsalable. Nokia soon closed their Romanian factory and moved their production to China.

On edit: I, for one, would not object at all if France were to re-institute stricter border controls. I am
sick and tired of being accosted at the Gare du Nord by brigades of trained underage Romanian girls who
have been taught to approach people as they emerge from trains to offer them phony stuff. They leave
me alone when I blow them off in Romanian, but how many people know enough Romanian to do that?

and by foreign bankers, likely as not-although the domestic variety are no better.

The two "mainstream" parties of Greece have been spanked hard for their mutual support of banker imposed austerity measures and asset stripping by foreign creditors. ( And when the people in this country figure out what has happened to them, a similar rejection of bankster-owned mainstream parties will also occur.) Greece is headed for chaos probably until members of one of the mainstream parties -the PASOK hopefully- repent publicly for licking Angela Merkel's riding boots and repudiate their national debts as they must. The race baiting antagonist of the French social security system is out. It must be remembered that the French Socialist Party is not very leftwing, (nor was PASOK which nominally is Socialist) but France will no longer be Obama's accomplice in Afghanistan, the onslaught against the safety net will be slowed if not stopped, and the austerity regime "Merkozy" were imposing on Europe at the behest of their banking sector handlers and controllers will have to be softened.

It remains to be seen whether this revolt will escape the clutches of banker instigated counterrevolution. The elites will shift resources into backing xenophobic far right parties and attempt to regain control of the situation by misdirecting the popular anger. But the people have finally swatted away the flawlessly manicured hand at their throats, and that is a necessary and positive first step without which no progress can occur.

Now let's hope this spreads across Europe making it harder for the 'elites' to regain intervene and retain control of a continent that has swung so far to the right over the past few years, it was hardly recognizable. They refused to listen to the people, completely ignored them, and even usurped the electoral system to install their banker-friendly technocrats.

I hope this becomes a global shift away from the corruption that collapsed the world's economy and a move towards doing what they did in Iceland, start to finally prosecute those responsible.

No man should be so rich he has nothing left to buy but his government.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/05/06/f-francois-hollande-profile.html
<snip>
A former aide, briefly, to the late president Francois Mitterand, Hollande has also been a member of the French National Assembly for the largely rural constituency of Correze for much of the past 20 years, as well as the mayor of Tulle, its provincial capital, (pop. 15,600) from 2001-08.

But though he was a graduate of France's elite Ecole Nationale d'Administration, he has never run a large organization or even held anything like ministerial rank. He is 57 and has been on a government payroll of one sort or another since his early 20s.

When he first ran for the party's presidential nomination five years ago, he was crushed by his more telegenic partner (and the mother of his four children) Segolene Royal, who went on to lose to Sarkozy.
(Stephane Mahe/Reuters)
A year ago, when he contemplated running again, he barely registered three per cent in the polls.

thank you.

Good. I don't trust cults of personality.

You'd think people would want to post their ideas and opinions about it instead of complaining that you didn't do your homework. It's open to speculation, anyway.

It means a slight shift to the Left in Europe and a rejection of the Bankers running sovereign nations.

What will happen now, is not clear, but it is a beginning of what could be a turnaround. Otoh, the Bankers and their enablers still have a lot of power and as we saw in the past, are capable of crushing any dissent, as happened earlier in Greece when their PM called for a people's referendum on a bailout rather than allowing foreign entities to decide, and he was quickly ousted and replaced by a Goldman Sachs 'technocrat', unelected. Now however the people have spoken, so we'll have to wait and see.

If so, how very very interesting.

profited greatly by cutting wages and refusing to pay HC for workers, see Goldman Sachs and the fast food business eg. They are the ultimate cheap labor advocates. We could all be as successful as Goldman Sachs IF we were as ruthless when it comes to actual people.

But when you create as many victims as these global Corps have done, sooner or later they will rise up against you. And the people of Greece were not thrilled when they were saddled with an unelected leader chosen by Brussels, former Goldman Sachs employee, to force these austerity programs on them. It was the equivalent of an invasion, without an actual army.

Economic WMDs have been dropped, first on Third World countries, see Shock Doctrine and Diary of an Economic Hitman. We thought they would not do it to First World countries, but that was a mistake. They did. And now people all over the world are joining forces to put an end to these attacks on working people and their countries. It really was inevitable when you look at the history.

France electing a socialist meant the US electorate would elect Mitt Romney

Who said that?

My husband had it on, they just kept going on an on about how unemployment wasn't improving and that doesn't help an incumbent and basically look what happened in France. They totally skirted the issue of Romney being a Wall Street/Bankster pawn and the French being ANIT-AUSTERITY. It was just about as incompetent of a news slant as I've heard in a while.

It's true that there are many parallels between Hollande and Romney. Never held any post of importance,
colorless, took positions that were convenient at that particular moment, etc.

But: Holland is smarter, and had a ready-made constituency, and the dislike for Sarkozy's style was
genuine, if not by any chance universal. Even so, Hollande won by less than 51-49, so it was not
a resounding victory, and his amoeba-like positions are no more set in stone than Romney's are.

However, where animosity toward Sarkozy in France was real, most of the animosity toward Obama
is a product of right wing media manufacture. A few well-financed blogs, National Hate Radio and Fox
noise do not constitute a 50% sector of the US electorate.

Solidarity.

We are the 99%.
http://www.ontopmag.com/article.aspx?id=11610&MediaType=1&Category=24#

the European Markets in the early morning...

Link: http://finance.yahoo.com/intlindices?e=asia

Just found this now...

CNBC: http://www.cnbc.com/

is that the Yen has become too strong again, gaining more than 4% over the dollar in the last month or so. A strong Yen hurts Japanese exporters, which make up a very large portion of the Nikkei. And a weak Euro hurts Japanese companies doing business with Euro-based contracts.

At the bottom of all the distraction and misdirection is that a significant number of people in Europe and around the globe are calling bullshit on the authoritarian Masters of the Universe that have had their way for the last couple generations.

What I find most disturbing about this is that, if history is any indication, America might well be swayed by the inevitable backlash that the banksters will initiate and go all in on the stupid and continue its policy of propping up the destroyers. While people outside America have an idea that power lies with them, inside America we are dominated by fools that are ready and willing to lay down their lives and their children's futures in the name of their "someday I'll be on top" fantasy.

It's a really good question, especially when the U.S. media is distorting and exploiting everything they report on. I'd like to know "what it all amounts to" as well. From what little I know, the answers are correct, it's a repudiation of all the failed "austerity measures" that are bankrupting the world.

It is a repeat of post WWI Germany. The neo nazis of Golden Dawn realize that people are fed up with the out of control immigration problem in Greece (mainly Afghans) who come to Greece for shelter, food, clothing. And yet, austerity is thrust upon working Greek citizens and it creates resentment and xenophobia to outsiders in Greek society. They ask why should my child not have aspirin and I am a Greek citizen while an immigrant from a distant land is allowed such humane necessities?

Syriza is very wishy/washy about the Euro zone bail out and austerity measures. They want the bail out but don't want the conditions that come with them.

In short, Greece's voters will pretty much change with the wind, and right now it is very dramatic and in flux.

But she's totally freaked by Golden Dawn going from 1% in the last election to 8% in this one.

I think there is a huge political shift brought about by the bank bust of a few years ago and the preceding austerity programs. Citizens in these countries see the wealthy get wealthier and the poor getting poorer as the powers that be ask for more and more in cuts for the people.

It is basically about the lack of fairness in the sacrifices. People are fed up. They are demanding higher taxes on the wealthy and more benefits for the workers. It is a move toward socialism and a move away from the Euro and just one European currency. This scares the big banksters and money manipulators because it will make it more difficult to finagle the money markets around the world.

In my opinion, this is only the beginning. More countries will follow suit in the next two years. The greed of the capitalists has brought birth to a new socialist movement, to which we do not yet know the extent or boundaries which it will reach...

why would a move toward greater socialism, which would really be no more than repairing the social perks that have been so insanely removed, endanger the euro which was, I ignorantly thought, doing fine with it before the big bank heist that crashed the world economy?

How over my head is this?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/07/opinion/krugman-those-revolting-europeans.html?_r=1

<snip>
One answer — an answer that makes more sense than almost anyone in Europe is willing to admit — would be to break up the euro, Europe’s common currency. Europe wouldn’t be in this fix if Greece still had its drachma, Spain its peseta, Ireland its punt, and so on, because Greece and Spain would have what they now lack: a quick way to restore cost-competitiveness and boost exports, namely devaluation.

As a counterpoint to Ireland’s sad story, consider the case of Iceland, which was ground zero for the financial crisis but was able to respond by devaluing its currency, the krona (and also had the courage to let its banks fail and default on their debts). Sure enough, Iceland is experiencing the recovery Ireland was supposed to have, but hasn’t.

Yet breaking up the euro would be highly disruptive, and would also represent a huge defeat for the “European project,” the long-run effort to promote peace and democracy through closer integration. Is there another way? Yes, there is — and the Germans have shown how that way can work. Unfortunately, they don’t understand the lessons of their own experience.

.....more

DU used to be a nice shortcut...

and glad you asked the question.

Found out some interesting info and insight in this post (other than the assholery exhibited at the beginning of this).

Sending good thoughts and vibes regarding your personal situation.

1:58: "The traditional political elites are losing control of the system they once dominated."

&feature=player_embedded#!

not be freely given.

About Hollande....Prof. Rick Wolff http://rdwolff.com seems to see Hollande as some sort of progressive, but other articles I've read say, "Not so much."

I hope everything turns out well with your family members.

But two of the surgeries are over with what looks like good results. Hopefully the others will be the same.

Hollande is the socialist president-elect in France, who is likely to be tougher on the financial industry and less keen on cuts for the population in general.

In Greece, the mainstream parties suffered losses to new parties, mostly of the left but unfortunately a neo-Nazi party got 7% of the vote.

In the UK, we expressed our frustration with the coalition by voting for the main opposition party (Labour).

It will be harder for hardline austerity policies (i.e. punishing the poor and to some extent the middle class for the problems caused by the banks and financial industry) to get accepted in Europe now. This may result in temporary instability, but will be a good thing in the long run IMO.

The Cameron crew were busy saying this was just the expected mid-term loss and that Labour had lost so much that it could only go up............was this a normal seat changeover?