frslblg-0024UScomments

For a long time, particularly since the protest vote againt the European Constitution, the suburbs riots and the protests against the CPE (jobs law) in France, I have been watching out for a plan of new society, which could be logically expected in days of political dimness. But no plan. On Sunday I read an interview with Daniel Cohn-Bendit, figuring that the man that had been a star of the May 1968 youth protest movement might well have a plan of new society.
Cohn-Bendit says, "The May 1968 movement was explosive and aggressive ideologically speaking[, while the anti-CPE movement] has no ideology... [is just] defensive. There was full-employment in 1968 France... there were no more than 100,000 jobless... The point of the 1968 movement was questioning all of institutions, unbuilding Gaullism and Communism. We used to think that a different society could come into existence. All those points of reference have vanished since then. Today youth feels [just] scared." He points out, "There's been a culture of revolt in France... The culture of negociation is starting, but very slowly. Whatever the problem in France, the outcome hangs on power struggles. Every situation develops in fits and starts... Once during a debate a French lady in her forties leveled at me that she always felt the existential need to say no!" He adds, "I was unable to reply to that." You think Cohn-bendit is the sort of man expected to reply to the woman with a plan of new society where she could say yes at last? But no, he didn't.

Cohn-Bendit goes on, "[I'd have liked] taking part in the anti-CPE (jobs law) protest... Under such a law it's the same ones, the wage-earners, who run risks again and again... The young wage-earners are laid off without knowing why, while they definitely need to know why." This is true, but Cohn-Bendit once more is planless. As he puts forward no plan in place of the CPRjobs law, he could suggest the youth to consider it as an open invitation to employment, which is better than nothing, but should demand that they would know why they do not fill the job. He says only this, "The French need to be put at ease... Society in France is being stuck so much so that reformers would need more than to be right to succeed." Which is an admission of powerlessness. He eventually adds, which is meager, "Employers' problem is not freedom to lay employees off, but the cost of employment."
In short, Cohn-Bendit has no plan of new society. Whenever I listen to the government and majority parties, I can't detect the least note of new society project. Whenever I listen to the opposition politicians and trade unionists, I hear social demands, but no plan of new society. The religious leaders have no plan of new society, either.
The days of new society plans seem over. Arguably because history has shown that no society politically and/or religiously structured has ever really been suited to the idea man has always had about happiness. It is man who so far has had to be suited to the idea that society, whatever, has had about itself through the speeches of those who manage it.
The Revelation of Ares is right, therefore. If the world changes (28/7), it will not change through changes in societies, but through a change in the individual. It is the individual who has to change his life (Rev of Ares 30/11), for the happy man will be only the one who loves his neighbor, forgives, makes peace, sets himself free from prejudices and dependences, recover spiritual intelligence, whatever society he lives in.