5/13/2003

You’ve gotta love the French.

The “shrub” decided to invade Iraq and Cherq told him to stuff it. It was more fun to see Putin slam Blair in Russia when he wasn’t expecting it but the French should have gone along. Well that’s what Bush thought. And now today the working class has taken to the streets to protest lengthening the time it take to pay into their retirement. We, the “Super Power” of the world don’t have the chance to even engage in the conversation. We have a shaky social security that we must pay into till we reach 63 and the payments are based on what we paid.
The workers in France have shut down the most of the transportation in the entire country with just the hint that they would have to work 2 more years for their pension. They do not let the government get away with the least infringement on their entitlements. Here in the “Super Power of the world there is no guarantee of any pension EVER. And let’s talk about health care. My friend “L” who works here on a green card knows that he has to get on a plane to France if he gets seriously ill. The major companies that he works for here take taxes out of his check and claim him as an employee but “L” is a freelancer and receives NO benefits from any of the major companies that hire him. Well he’s a foreigner. Yes but I am not. I work as an employee for a few major companies and because each of them claim me as an employee I cannot claim self-employment nor am I entitled to any of the healthcare the give to “permanent” employees. I am a self-employed person and I have to pay my own health care yet I am not allowed the deductions for the business I am running.
I applaud the workers of France for laying down the line that the government cannot cross. They have a strong economy and yes they pay a hefty tax burden. But their children can see a doctor when they are sick and when they get old there will be a pension to keep, them without watching state after state do away with medicade.
We have a welfare state that is in deep trouble caught between the right and the left wasting people’s lives and amazing amounts of money. As we watch the stubborn left and the righteous right decimate any chance for a middle ground we watch our President wage war in the name of the dead at ground zero. The bombing in Saudi Arabia put the lie to that. Al Qada is alive and well bombing the C**P out Iraq was NOT in the name of terrorism. He stands on the podium and takes the accolades for being a war hero while strapping us with debt that we may never repay.
Yes you gotta love the French.

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