Unlikely Ambassadors and Unelectable Pesidents

Sometimes I address multiple subjects in my daily repertoire. At times you may wonder what they have to do with being an expat, but being an expat means that one has to be aware of changing situations where you live or where you might be planning to migrate to. So let me assure you, the references to the Falkland Islands and Sean Penn as well as Jim Sensenbrenner are here just as opinion pieces. I doubt to many of you want to migrate to those forsaken islands in the South Atlantic. I merely want to showcase what grand standers these two examples of the United States of America gone bad are. Please follow the link on Sensenbrenner to find out what a wonderful member of the Republican Party he is!Recently, Sean Penn, a wanna be Bono, showed up in Buenos Aires in support of Presidenta Cristina’s provocative stance on the Malvinas i.e. the Falkland Islands, pretending he was somebody and preaching to the world that this silly colonialism’s time had come and gone, while he lives on land in Malibu that was for all practical purposes stolen from the Mexicans. No debate necessary here, with the former actor who adores Hugo Ch?vez, visited with Saddam Hussein (who had to be reminded several times who his visitor was), and then positioned himself between the victims of the Haitian earthquake and the press in order to get as much exposure for himself as was possible. Now the latest to throw his hat into the fray about the Falklands, at an untold cost to the U.S. taxpayer, is none other than U.S. Representative F. Jim Sensenbrenner, who as a Republican, has done as much as he could to escalate the toxic atmosphere currently existing in the United States Congress. Having first been elected to that hollowed out body in 1978, he has accumulated quite a dreckord record, his most recent class act being a declaration about the First Lady’s ample derriere, when he was deriding her healthy food initiative during a cell phone call at Washington’s Reagan Airport. The good congressman was heard loudly complaining to the party at the other end that “Obama lectures us on eating right while she has a big ass herself!” This coming from a man who is at least 70 pounds overweight, and it has nothing to do with his genetic body shape.Now just what kind of a junket this is baffles me. He is not on any committee that deals with the Falklands issue, yet he throws his considerable 270 pounds into it, flying there with his staff and press corps to meet with expats living in the Falklands and the Governor General thereof, take some strolls around, and revel in his self-importance. Hello New York Times, Washington post: should you not send along some correspondents to try to make sense of Sensenbrenner’s intentions? Meanwhile expats worldwide are in limbo about what to do financially. With every passing day the certainty of uncertainty about the €uro, Italy, Greece, and Spain becomes a little more confusing. The Iron Maiden, Chancellor Angela Merkel has managed to ram her agenda through, while French President Sarkozy has started the fight of his life for re-election against a rejuvenated socialist party that had to do nothing but sit on the sidelines while he became Angela’s little lap doggie. The self destruction of the most viable candidate the French socialists had, Dominique Strauss Kahn, or DSK for short, actually opened the door for better qualified candidates coming from the French left.With a little over two month to go, the campaigning in France has just begun. Why could the U.S. not adopt a similar model instead of the four-year campaign cycle, which is just designed to get the media moguls wealthier? The first elections are slated to be held on April 22 2012, with a possible runoff on May 6 2012. Frankly, things do not look very pretty for Fifi, the French president who has allowed his nation to be used as a surrogate for the German dominated €uro restructuring. There is blood in the water and the Euro-Socialist sharks can smell it. France has spent its reserves, unemployment is up, and the Gaullist pride is deeply injured. The country recently underwent a humiliating ratings agency downgrade, and Sarkozy is trailing badly in every poll. A large majority of French voters now just want a change. Sarkozy’s face with his unfortunate Flipper-like permasmile is not what the voters desire anymore, supermodel wife and baby included. It is a given that if not in the first round election, he will be trounced by his opponent François Hollande in the runoff. In the eyes of the voters, Sarkozy represents everything that is and will go wrong with the nation. But one of the most injurious things in the eyes of the Gaullist public is his subjugating France to German domination all over again. The national psyche still aches from two steam rollerings suffered during the previous century at the hands of their now good neighbors. He just simply failed to stand up for his people and act presidential.When first elected, he was pursuing the Anglo Saxon model of neo liberalism, trying to dismantle excessive workers rights, the 35 hour work week, that month of summer vacation, and going after the well oiled state enterprises that contributed heavily to the booming economy.  One of the major problems he inherited through generations of colonialism of course were the millions of colonial subjects coming home to suck off the motherland’s teat. The burden on the social fabric proved to be too much for many of the larger cities, where severe riots broke out, mainly caused by the unacceptable social conditions created for the immigrant youth who for the most part were prevented from participating in society’s growing wealth, because of a lack of jobs and training available.Simply put, the nation was overwhelmed by its internal wave of expats, who, after generations of exploitation, came “home” to roost. And they too are voters! Guess who they will vote for? For a large segment of society that has been screwed for as long as they can remember, the only future lies in change, and that is obviously a radical change of government.For Sarkozy, never having been a member of the French elite, his climb to the top has been amazing to watch. The son of Hungarian aristocrats, living in wealth and comfort in Paris, he became a lawyer, and during the 1968 leftist student riots in Paris opted to join the right wing counter protestors and street fighters. He groomed himself to succeed in politics, and to his credit, he did so marvelously, but like that bright shooting star, he burnt out of his own volition. Get ready to say President Hollande![image: French President Nicolas Sarkozy, via Wikipedia]I encourage you to write to me, jamie@expatdailynews.com with any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel related business. My advice is based on my own experiences, and is free of charge. (Donations accepted). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure. You can also contact Jamie at jamie.douglas [at] yahoo.com
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