RT, please stop demonizing the the French freedom protestors?

Pro-French laziness protests. No one should be allowed to retire at 60, it's laughable. 62 is STILL laughable. Get over it you arrogant French.

Thank God for France. While American liberals tremble at the idea of sending an angry email to congress for fear that their name will appear on the State Department's list of terrorists, French workers are on the front lines choking on tear gas and fending off billyclubs in hand-to-hand combat with Sarkozy's Gendarmerie. That's because the French haven't forgotten their class roots. When the government gets too big for its britches, people pour out onto to the streets and Paris becomes a warzone. This is what democracy looks like when it hasn't been emasculated by decades of propaganda and consumerism. Liberty isn't free anymore. If you want it, get out of the barko-lounger and organize. The amount of freedom that any nation enjoys is directly proportionate to the amount of blood its people spilled fighting the state. No more, no less. The state isn't moved by lyrical editorials or prosaic manifestos. It responds to force alone, which is why it takes people who are willing to "throw themselves on the gears" of the apparatus and stop it from moving forward. Unfortunately, most of those people appear to live in France. The pension turmoil is not limited to France either. US pension funds are underfunded by nearly $3 trillion. Will US workers be as willing as their French counterparts to face the beatings (to defend "what's theirs") or will they throw up their hands and appeal to Obama for help? The French are fighting back against this oligarchy of racketeers and the ripoff system they represent, while, namby-pamby Americans are placated by signing their umpteenth petition or venting their spleen at a Palin rally.

Since RT reports on France are rather CONSISTENT, that is, continue to bash the protesters while continually publishing INNACURATE data about the protest itself, especially the support the protestors are getting from French population. This article goes one step furhter in the attempt at ridiculing; the author presumably KNOWS that people supporting the strikes themselves WOULD NOT participate. And what is the source of this amazing information? The "fity percent" is an amazingly sly way of AVOIDING to say "over fifty" percent, which in reality is 85%. But all these details aside, RT needs to diversify its reporting. When only one side is kicked and blamed, while the other is pious, there is a problem. Even many readers do not seem to get is the utter irrelevancy of the RETIREMENT AGE. It could have been over a bread vs. cake, which is how the other revolution started. When political leaders develop TIN ears and do not understand its own society, they are PRINCIPALLY to blame for all the damage. Way before such a law was proposed, they should have understood that the electorate was not going to accept the wholesale theft of the retirement funds to fix the black hole of financial system fraud. The elegant phrase, "underfunded retirement system" does not betray the disguisting reality of the system being defrauded. The government that was forced to spit out TRILLIONS of euros since JULY of 2007, in order to deal with the "problem of liquidity", and other consequences of predatory financial system, now wants to portray these deficits as problems of the retirement system! And for those who think that French are retiring too early --- none of your business! If trust fund makes money to let people "retire" at 40, so be it! It is THEIR money, not the property of new kings and queens in the Parliaments. ACCOUNTABILITY is asked for, and the new lords just do not get it, and they are RESPONSIBLE for whatever happens.

It is amazing how many people still believe that the retirement systems are gifts from the government, and are at the expense of taxpayer. No wonder, corporate media has seen to this that this is the image retirment systems have. I do not begrudge a trust baby of rich and prudent parents who have created trust funds that would allow a child at birth to have an income sufficient to retire on. In fact, there are many such people in US. Most of them I know choose to work and have careers just like anybody else. However, when such a trust fund is established for the benefit of working population, it is all of a sudden to be looked down on as an "entitlement", and everybody and their mommy is called upon to muse if it is really necessary to retire at 60, 62 or other. That is equally as stupid as having a say in the management of other trust funds. Retirement funds are examined regularly through actuarial studies that project the solvency of funds. US Social Security, for example, is solvent through 2040. That is not what you would hear politician say. The reason is, they think that Social Security TRUST fund is part of their overall kitty to spend from. And while they cannot say their election contributors that they will cut their programs due to the country's fiscal deficits, they can always tinker with the TRUST fund. People are stupid enough not to know that not a penny from that system belongs to politicians. Only if US has a failing economy, staggering drop in employment, or other catastrophy for next 10 years --- trust funds will be healthy. The stupidity being banded around about babby boomers retirements resulting in problem, is unbelievable. Decades ago, increases in Social Security created a BUMP in contributions to meet that need. All taken care of with our OWN money. Unlike private funds, retirements are INTRAGENERATIONAL and INTERGENERATIONAL. All principal remains in the fund after the retire dies.

I'll have to return to school to study "Industrial Relations", "Political Sociology", "Economics" and "History" before I can comment justly to the topic under discussion.

Oh, please, the Parisians also like to drink wine while looking at the streets. It must be not only a caffeine-induced hyperactivity in the French blood that makes them restless! Lol The Parisians grown up children (aka students) are on the streets protesting because they don't loose their day earnings unlike their protesting parents who have a tough choice to make. If the article's another insinuation of 'French entertainment' as "show must go on" is taken seriously, then it shows how serious the French are about loosing now to prevent loosing even more to bottomless pockets of their big spenders. Can't book my trip to Paris as yet, but happy to be delayed because the Parisians have my respect, not to be interrupted that is. I wonder if those Russian drawing artists around the Centre Pompidou have the same 'Russian view' as the RTs?