Showing posts with label French revolution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French revolution. Show all posts

Tuesday, 27 April 2021

نصرالله عصر التنوير وماكرون محاكم التفتيش Nasrallah – the Age of Enlightenment, Macron – the Inquisition

 

نصرالله عصر التنوير وماكرون محاكم التفتيش

ناصر قنديل

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العلمانية التي ظهرت كنظام سياسي وعقد اجتماعي للدولة الأوروبية المعاصرة، هي منتج سياسي وقانوني لثقافة أعمق نهضت على أكتاف الثورة الصناعيّة وتجسّدت في القرنين الثامن عشر والتاسع عشر بثورة العقل والمنطق. وما عُرف بعصر التنوير الذي قاده عمالقة بحجم فولتير وروسو ومونتسكيو، وتبلورت شعاراتها السياسية بالحرية والأخاء والمساواة في الثورة الفرنسية، بينما تبلورت فلسفته العميقة بالاحتكام للعقل، وكانت قطيعة مع تاريخ معاكس مثلته محاكم التفتيش الكاثوليكية التي دفع فيلسوف كبير مثل برونو وعلماء كبار مثل كوبرنيكوس وجاليلو ثمناً باهظاً لها بتهمة الهرطقة على قاعدة تحريم الاحتكام للعقل والعلم، بينما سياسياً واجتماعياً طورد الإصلاحيون باسم التبرؤ من البدع كما حدث مع الفيلسوف ميشال سيرفيه الذي أحرق حياً في جنيف بتهمة رفض عقيدة التثليث، فيما شكلت جرائمها بحق المسلمين في الأندلس أبرز ما حمله سجلها التاريخي تحت عنوان فحص الولاء لله، وشكلت فكرياً وثقافياً وجهاً من وجوه استمرار الحملات الصليبية.

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في ما يشبه استعادة مناخات الحروب الصليبية يتبادل الرئيسان الفرنسي والتركي عبثاً بالعقائد والعواطف والانفعالات المنبثقة عنها، حيث يصب كل منهما من طرفه وفي البيئة التي يخاطبها زيتاً على نار حرب عبثية، لا يتورّع فيها الرئيس الفرنسي امانويل ماكرون عن التحدث عن أزمة في الإسلام، وإرهاب إسلامي، وفاشية إسلامية، أملاً بأن يتزعم جبهة تضم العلمانيين بداعي الدفاع عن حرية التعبير في شقها المتصل بالتغطية على ما يطال المقدسات الإسلامية، وتضم المتطرفين المسيحيين، الذين لا يخفون ضيقهم من تنامي حضور وتعداد المسلمين في فرنسا خصوصاً وأوروبا عموماً، وإلى الفريقين تضم اليمين الوطني الرافض لتكاثر المهاجرين من البلاد الإسلامية، أملاً بأن يشكل هذا الثلاثي مصدر زعامة تشبه زعامات بناها قادة الحروب الصليبية، بينما يسعى الرئيس التركي رجب أردوغان، وفي ظل نزاع مصلحي بين الدولتين الفرنسية والتركية، لقيادة جبهة تضم الجاليات الإسلامية المقهورة تحت ظلم سياسات عنصرية في أوروبا، وتضم التنظيمات الإرهابية التكفيرية التي تشغّلها تركيا، وكانت فرنسا شريكها في التشغيل طوال سنوات الحرب على سورية، وتضم ثالثاً الشعوب العربية من المسلمين التي تسمع بصعوبة كلاماً منخفض الصوت لحكوماتها الواقعة تحت تبعية ذليلة لحكومات الغرب، فتعجز عن التجرؤ لمخاطبة الحكومات الغربية، والرئيس الفرنسي في المقدمة بلغة شجاعة تنتقد وتصحح وتعترض. وهذه الحكومات التابعة هي شريك لحكومات فرنسا وأوروبا في رعاية الجماعات الإرهابية وتشجيع الفكر التكفيري، لكن بغرض استعمال نتاج هذه الرعاية في ليبيا وسورية وليس في أوروبا.

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في هذا القحط الفكري، والانفلات القاتل للعصبيّات، يخرج رجل دين معمّم من أتباع الرسول وعشاقه ليقود الدعوة للتعقل وتحمّل المسؤولية، ووضع النقاط على الحروف، مستعيداً المعاني العميقة لشعارات الثورة الفرنسية ودعوات روسو وفولتير، حيث الحرية هي الاحترام العميق لحرية المعتقد. وهو في الأولوية معتقد الأقلية والضعفاء والمقهورين، والأخاء هو الترفّع عن منطق التمييز العنصري على اساس الدين والعرق واللون والجنس، والمساواة هي نزاهة تطبيق معيار المحاكمة العقلية للمفاهيم قبل أن تكون المساواة أمام القانون، حيث لا يستوي نص تحريم الحرية والعقل تحت شعار معاداة السامية، ولو التزما كل التحفظ العلمي والضوابط الأخلاقية، وتطلق حرية بث الكراهيّة، ولو تمت بصورة عبثية تستخف بالضوابط الأخلاقية والقيمية للأخوة الإنسانية، تحت شعار حرية التعبير، فجادل رجل الدين المعمم، بلغة عصر التنوير كوريث لمنجزات الحضارة الإنسانية، من يفترض أنه الوصي على تنفيذ منتجاتها من الموقع الدستوري والسياسي، بعدما ارتضى أن يتحول إلى قائد جيش في الحرب الصليبية أو رئيس غرفة من غرف محاكم تفتيش.

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كلام السيد حسن نصرلله في ما تشهده علاقة المسلمين والجاليات الإسلامية بالقضايا المثارة على مساحة أوروبا من وحي قضية الرسوم المسيئة للرسول والجرائم الإرهابية المتذرّعة بها، مرافعة فلسفية عقلانية تستعيد روح عصر التنوير والاحتكام للعقل، والحل الذي تبنّاه ختاماً لمرافعته، مستعيداً مقترح الأزهر بتشريع عالمي لتحريم النيل من المقدسات، حجر متعدد الأهداف في يوم الوحدة الإسلامية، بينما يتساءل بعض رجال القانون في فرنسا، لماذا لا تتم محاكمة أصحاب الرسوم المسيئة للرسول تحت بند العداء للسامية، أليس الرسول من أحفاد سام بن نوح، وقد روى الترمذي أن الرسول هو القائل بأن “سام أبو العرب ويافث أبو الروم وحام أبو الحبش”؟

Nasrallah – the Age of Enlightenment, Macron – the Inquisition

2/11/2020

Written by Nasser Kandil,

Secularism is a political regime and a social aspect of the contemporary European state, it is a political and legal outcome of a deeper culture that emerged as a result of the Industrial Revolution and was embodied in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by the revolution of reason and logic or as was called the Age of Enlightenment led by the giants as Voltaire, Rousseau, and Montesquieu. Its political slogans called for freedom, brotherhood, and equality during the French Revolution. But this movement was faced with counter thinking represented by the Catholic Inquisition which a great philosopher as Bruno and great scholars as Copernicus and Galileo had paid a high cost in charge of heresy based on the prohibition of resorting to reason and science. Politically and socially, many reformists were chased under the name of the disavowal of heresies, as happened with the philosopher Michael Servetus who was burnt alive in Geneva on the accusation of rejecting the doctrine of Trinity. Its history was known for its crimes against Muslims in Andalusia under the name of loyalty to God, so intellectually and culturally it formed an aspect of the continuation of the Crusades.

As in the Crusades, the French and the Turkish Presidents exchanged in vain beliefs, emotions, and the outcome feelings. Each one of them has tried to evoke a futile war. The French President Emmanuel Macron did not hesitate to talk about a crisis in Islam, Islamic terrorism, and Islamic Fascism, hoping to lead a front that includes the secularists in order to defend the liberty of expression about Islamic sanctities, the Christian extremists, who are fed up with the growing number of Muslims in Europe in general and in France in particular, and the National right which rejects the growing number of immigrants from Islamic countries, hoping that this front can be a source of leadership as the leaderships of the Crusades. While the Turkish President Recep Erdogan was seeking to lead a front that includes the oppressed Muslim communities due to the tyranny of the racist policies in Europe, the takfiri terrorist organizations backed by Turkey, and the Arab Muslim nations who are suffering from their governments that are subordinated to the governments of the West, and do not dare to address them bravely, criticize or oppose. These governments are partners of the governments of France and Europe in sponsoring the terrorist groups and supporting the takfiri belief in order to be operated in Libya and Syria not in Europe.

In this intellectual aridity and fatal chaos of fanaticism, a religious man from the followers and lovers of the Prophet emerged to lead the call to be rational, to bear the responsibility, and to be clear, recalling the deeper meanings of the slogans of the French Revolution and the calls of Rousseau and Voltaire where freedom means the respect of the freedom of belief which is the belief of the minority, the weak, and the oppressed, and where brotherhood means to be away from the logic of the racial discrimination on the basis of religion, race, color, and gender, and where equality is the fairness of applying the mental judgment of concepts before it is governed by law, and where the texts of prohibiting freedom and reason cannot be dealt with under the slogan of anti-Semitism even if scientific reservation and moral controls were taken into consideration, and the freedom of  feeling hostile cannot be spread irrationally underestimating all moral controls of the human brotherhood under the slogan of the liberty of expression. Therefore, this religious leader has argued in the language of the Age of Enlightenment “as a heritage of the achievements of the human civilization” the man who is supposed to be the trustee constitutionally and politically not an army commander in the Crusades or a head of one of the inquisitions.

The words of Al Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah regarding the relationship of Muslims and the Islamic communities with the issues rose in Europe after the offensive drawings against the Prophet and the terrorist crimes relating are a philosophical and rational argument that recalls the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment and the resorting to reason. He adopted the suggestion of Al Azhar of an international legislation to prohibit the underestimation of sanctities as a base in the Day of the Islamic unity. While some jurists in France are wondering why the owners of the offensive drawings are not prosecuted under the name of anti-Semitism, Is not the Messenger one of the grandsons of Sam Bin Noah?! Al Tirmidhi narrated that the Prophet “peace be upon him” said: “Sam was the father of Arabs, Ham the father of the Ethiopians, and Yafith the father of the Romans”.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Wednesday, 20 January 2021

Washington’s Bastille


Washington’s Bastille

January 16, 2021

by Jimmie Moglia for the Saker Blog

Trump’s supporters, having found the vanity of conjecture and inefficacy of expectations, resolved to prove their own existence, if not by violence, at least by physical presence.

They came forth into the crowded capital with an almost juvenile ambition that their numbers would be counted, their voice heard and their presence noticed.

But every upheaval, from Spartacus to the Bastille, is subject to unexpected developments. However peaceful the intents may be, the man involved in a turmoil is forced to act without deliberation, and obliged to choose before he can examine. He is surprised by sudden alterations of the state of things, and changes his measures according to superficial appearances.

Still, the corporate media, whose intestinal refuse is paraded as news, triumphs in every discovery of failure and ignores any evidence of success.

But, revolutionarily speaking, the storming of Washington was a success. And Trump did not expect, inspired or willed the unfortunate deaths.

If and when some reliable evidence will be produced, it will be probably found that parasitic elements, with dubious sponsors and of dubious character, joined the crowd.

This would only surprise the unawareness of the thoughtless. Even in Kiev, the ‘revolutionaries’ included characters who actually shot into the crowd from sundry buildings – as documented, in an intercepted phone call, by a then female president-of-something in the European Union.

Yet, when all is said and done, Washington may prove more eventful than the actual Bastille. For the date of the Bastille’s capture (July 14, 1789), became a French national commemorative event only through a convenient historical post-scriptum.

The punctilious historian may remember that the Bastille, like the Capitol dome in Washington, was visible from all of Paris – a medieval fortress, 100 ft high. At the time of the riot it only held seven prisoners, nor the mob gathered to free them. They wanted the ammunitions stored inside the wall.

When the prison governor refused, the mob charged and killed him. His head was carried round the streets on a spike.

Of the seven liberated prisoners one, a mentally-ill, white-bearded old man was paraded through the streets while he waved at the crowd, four were forgers who disappeared among the rabble, another, also mentally ill, was later re-incarcerated into an asylum. The only nobleman, and potentially an ‘enemy of the people’, was the Count de Soulange, who had been imprisoned at the request of his family for sexual misconduct.

The irony continues. Insensible to its possible historical value, the revolutionaries contracted with an enterprising bourgeois to demolish the tower.

After subduing the revolution Napoleon did not like the suggestive ideological connotations of the Place de la Bastille and thought of building there his ‘Arc de Triomphe’ (the one now in the ‘Etoile’), but that did not prove popular.

Therefore he ordered, instead, to build a huge bronze statue of an imperial elephant. A plaster model, a facsimile of the future finished product was built and inaugurated, but the wars made funding difficult. Waterloo and the Restoration did not help either. The plaster elephant stood in the iconic square from 1814 to 1848 when irreparable decay prompted its demolition.

But I digress.

As for the Washington’s Bastille, the related and subsequent events have openly shown the essentially unlimited power of the swamp, which, Don Quixote-like, Trump said he would attempt to drain.

Most of us know that the UUABLPPTH [Unmentionables Unless Accompanied By Lavish Praise plus their lackeys – hereinafter referred to as the ‘unmentionables’] make up the core of the swamp. I will return to them later, but the massively falsified elections, incontrovertibly show, among other things, how much the unmentionables hate the deplorables – in the instance and probably 60% of the nation.

Generally speaking and under often-recurrent conditions, elections are a rite enabling citizens to believe or continue to pretend that they live in a democracy rather than in an authoritarian regime.

By tradition, the absolute obedience of the population to absurd and incoherent decrees (“Patriot Act” et als.) has repeatedly reassured the masters that whatever they impose, the deplorables will accept.

For example, the Vietnam war protesters of old, plus peace-loving, cultural-marxists and amphetamines-laden youths met with policemen and waved flowers under their nose as an act of rebellion. But the war only ended seven years later. Meanwhile the richer and/or well-heeled dodged the draft, while the poorer didn’t. Besides, that ‘flower-inspired’ rebellion was not aimed at ending the war (or the war would have ended), but at turning upside down universally accepted ethics, and with ethics, perhaps unbeknown to them, the world as we know it.

Nevertheless I don’t think we should single out Americans for blame. Already in 1552, the young Frenchman Etienne de la Boetie wrote his “The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude” to address the central problem of political philosophy, namely the mystery of civil obedience.

Why do people, asked Etienne, in all times and all places obey the commands of the government, which always constitutes a small minority of the society? To him the spectacle of general consent to despotism (or in the recent American case, to fraud) is puzzling and appalling. “All this havoc – says he – descends upon you not from alien foes, but from the one enemy whom you yourself render as powerful as he is, for whom you go bravely to war, for whose greatness you do not refuse to offer your own bodies unto death. He who thus domineers over you has only two eyes, only two hands, only one body, no more than is possessed by the least man among the infinite numbers dwelling in our cities. He has indeed nothing more than the power that you confer upon him to destroy you. Where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves?”

Good question, we may say, but the problem remains. It is understandable in general, but only confusedly answerable in detail, due to the infinite intricacies of our individual lives. Therefore, a blanket indictment of the deplorables for letting themselves be driven by the unmentionables is theoretically logical but practically unjustified.

Still, during the Washington’s Bastille and for the first time that I recall, the unmentionables felt some concern for their ass. It is tragic that some of the revolutionaries died, because, as we know, the intent of the rally was peaceful and nothing compared to what was witnessed throughout America in 2020.
The lackeys’ official horror and concern for ‘democracy’ show that there is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on its outward parts. All that wringing of arms and shows of deprecation are falser than oaths made in wine. For none of the Capitoline lords would answer why they didn’t want to recount the votes. Leading the average deplorable to conclude that there is no more faith in them (as a lot) than in a stewed prune. For their intoxication with themselves will give no way to reason.

Equally, the Washington’s Bastille brought to the attention of many how much the Constitution has sunk under the feet of the unmentionables. Here is but one example – not to repeat what the readers already know, but to show the arrogance associated with the systems of censure the country is subjected to.

After the death of Ms. Ashly Babbit, shot by a policeman, an Internet friend of mine published the following post on his FB account, along with her picture.

“This is Ashly Babbitt. She was shot and killed by law enforcement during a protest in America. No one will take the knee for her. There will be no murals in her honor. The media will not mourn her death. She is white therefore her life does not matter for the establishment.”

FB returned this message,

“Your account has been restricted for 30 days because your post did not follow community standards.”

To comment on FB’s response the author said, “Mourning the death of this woman on Facebook is banned. Yet we have spent many months mourning the death of a drug addict, a criminal, an abuser, a man who broke into a woman’s home and put a gun to her stomach in order to extort money out of her. We have been paying our respect to this man all over the world for the best part of last year. And this woman who proudly served her country, she is now dead and you cannot even pay your respects to her own social media.”

The restraint and politeness of the censored statement are beyond question. And its censuring should make us pause. For it shows the scorn of the enemy for the rest of us. A scorn that should include the concurrent barrage of nauseating platitudes and the unrestrained bubbling to the surface of a diabolical hatred, no-longer disguised but steeped deep in history.

The Internet is yesterday’s telephone and Zion did not invent the Internet, nor computers, computing and communication software. Yet, the communication engines and components, companies and operations, Google, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube are owned and controlled by the unmentionables.

From his soul in hell, Coudenhove-Kalergi must be laughing his head off. His predicted new world, made up of ancient-Egyptians-looking deplorables lorded over by the unmentionables, cannot any longer be branded as a conspiracy theory. Under our own eyes there is the shape of things to come at large.

For he who controls speech controls opinion. Opinion molds thought and thought drives action. Therefore monopoly of opinion leads to control of action, and action includes just about every aspect of life and liberty.

Besides, free speech is ultimately vital to being human. It is the most important aspect of everything we refer to as freedom. Lack of freedom is the triumph of tyranny. And the train of tyranny drags in tow injustice, repression, murder, corruption, unjust and unnecessary wars.

Even earlier and more primitive media, newspapers and radio, controlled by a few, were the engines of persuasion and coercion to drive millions into quasi-genocidal world wars.

As an aside and in this respect, Germans owe a debt of historical gratitude to the Soviet Union. For it was fear of the Soviets that prevented the implementation of the “Morgentau Plan”, already signed by Roosevelt and Churchill, to be carried out after the end of WW2 – a plan that included the sterilization of all Germans. Disbelievers may wish to consult the details of the plan, as well as the book, “Germany Must Perish” printed in the US during the war.

Restricting free speech is necessary in every war and every tyranny. And we can identify tyranny by how much freedom of speech we have and by how much we can criticize the rulers. For reason and truth can outweigh lies and corruption. But massive suppression and an avalanche of lies and propaganda can make a mockery of factual truth and stuff the ears of men with false reports. Many, sick of show and weary of noise, turn off the set, how many we know not.

In this respect, technology and the power of global corporations to corrupt the minds have never been more powerful and ominous, in all history.

Furthermore, media of all types can now control feelings as well as the more primitive emotional parts of the brain. Never has government been bigger and more able to repress freedom with an infrastructure that includes the FBI, CIA, NSA and their counterparts in individual states and nations.

Never past tyrants better controlled their subjects than the globalists today. The threat to the freedom of the western peoples of the world is the greatest threat to their existence. Suppression of freedom of speech is exampled in the attitude of a controlled media, which is totally against the common feelings of the majority.

Most peoples of the world and nations want to preserve their nationality, country, customs, habits, religion and way of life. None of the corporate channels reflect these beliefs and objectives.

The axis of movies, Zionist Hollywood, ever since the abolition of the “Motion Pictures Production Code” act (1954), has been an extremely powerful engine of persuasion and shaper of belief, custom, habits and action, as well as an inculcator of hatred, let alone depravity. For reference read this article [ https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2021/01/14/the-jewish-role-in-promoting-cannabis-and-why-its-bad-for-you/ ]

The sum of these forces led to the US summer of 2020. Which was not a summer of discontent, but an extended season of Hollywood and media-inspired hatred. And mass hatred, as opposed to individual hatred, is an organized phenomenon.

The current biggest shapers of thought and human action are the networks of social media, primary tools for sharing ideas and learning things.

Owning and controlling these organizations are a few people, whose ethnic affiliation is undisputed and unmentionable. They can decide what the world can see, say, hear and consequently think.

Dismissing the reality and the consequences of this ideological monopoly as a ‘conspiracy theory’ is an insult to the minds of millions.

The conspiratorial element of a theory depends on identifiable circumstances and hypotheses. Even historically sanctified characters such as president Franklin Roosevelt stated as follows,

“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way…” The point is that many of the major world events that shape our destinies occur because there is a plan behind them.”

In the same line of thought, if we were merely dealing with the law of averages, half of the events affecting a nation’s well-being should be good for that nation. If it were just a matter of incompetence, the leaders should occasionally make a mistake in favor of the deplorables. Instead it is planning and foresight that form the shape of things to come at large.

Not that chance is necessarily ruled out. According to his biographers, even Hitler firmly believed in grasping at fleeting opportunities. In a speech or lecture to his adjutants given in 1938 he said, “There is but one moment when the goddess of fortune wafts by, and if you don’t grab her then by the hem you won’t to get a second chance.”

The quote came to mind in thinking about the disparagers who have compared Trump with Hitler. Stupidity is sometimes invincible but, probably unbeknown to his detractors, Trump as a president, shared some characteristics associated with leaders who reach power outside the canonical paths – canonical paths that often include corruption, opportunistic servitude and/or crime.

For one, by all appearances Trump had far less authority on his advisers and subordinates than what we think a president has – an authority that seemingly weakened with each passing year. Also, a characteristic of heads of state who over-rely on advisers is a conscious desire ‘not to know.’ Even if they are later deemed directly responsible for what happened.

It is total speculation but the assassination of the Iranian General Suleimani may be one such instance. Though in other cases the reverse is true. The opening towards Kim Yong Sun of North Korea fits with Trump’s general style.

On the other hand, the policy towards Venezuela, though justified imperialistically, does not fit the profile. The ‘self-proclaimed’ Guaido’ is a puppet worthy of a Simpsons cartoon. Based on what I know of the country (readers may also consult my article “Don’t Cry for Me Venezuela”), the regime is anything but what described by the unmentionable media. The tight economic sanctions, the equivalent of a war, the arbitrary freezing of Venezuela’s gold reserves in London, the theft of CITGO, (the Venezuelan oil company operating in the US), the placing a bounty of 15 million $ on the head of Maduro, the many failed coups d’etat – quite open in planning and gross in execution – do not seem consistent with Trump’s character, at least as displayed in his general demeanor and other occasions.

Incidentally, the two ‘ambassadors’ of the Guaido’ puppet, in the US and Britain, are unmentionables. And there is an extant recording of the UK ‘ambassador’ Newman where she discusses assigning the Esequibo mineral-rich area – disputed between Venezuela with Guyana since the early 1800 – to an Exxon consortium of sorts.

Besides, in my view and independently of ideological convictions, in oratory, consistence, intelligence and demeanor Maduro towers over all former and latter members of the Trump administration put together. A remarkable achievement, I think, for someone who started as a bus driver and union leader to become the president of Venezuela. And although I cannot, of course, verify its accuracy, there is information among some Venezuelan sources that Trump expressed a secret admiration for Maduro.

To conclude, most records of history are but narratives of successive villainies, treasons and usurpations, massacres and wars – of which professional historians explain causes and effects.

As a non professional historian but a rude mechanical who earns his bread upon the Athenian walls I offer here an extremely arbitrary theory. On the ground that, just as a right line describes the shortest passage from point to point, a plausible historical explanation is that which connects distant truths by the shortest of intermediate propositions.

Therefore I select few key events – constituting an arbitrary beginning and its connecting causal links to the present. In the instance, fractional banking, 1968, Reagan and the Washington Bastille.

Fractional banking is a generally familiar idea whose implications, I think, are not sufficiently realized due to the apparently neutral effect of the term ‘fractional’. Risking the contempt of professionals and economists I will reduce the notion to its core with an example.

A bank that owns, says, 10 k$ in gold can loan out 100 k$ in money that does not exist – at say, 10% yearly interest.

After one year, globally, the borrowers return 110 k$ to the bank, (loans plus interest). Of the globally returned 110 k$, 100k$ are the money that did not exist, but the 10 k$ paid as interest correspond to the labor expended by the borrowers.

Let’s for a moment overlook where the borrowers got the additional 10k$ from, because for the purpose of this demonstration, the point is not important.

The bottom line is that with an investment of 10 kS of actual money (gold for example) the banker realizes an interest of a real 10k$ or 100%. Now with 20 k$ of actual money he can lend out 200k$ of non-existing money and so on.

It follows that the bank’s wealth increases exponentially. Consequently, sooner or later, the bank or banking system will essentially own and control – directly and indirectly – everything that has a demonstrable commercial value.

Fractional banking became the operating system of the first modern capitalism only at the end of the 17th century, with the establishment of the Bank of England. Which, unknown to many, was a private bank that lent money to the crown for conducting business and waging wars. Money paid back from the taxes on citizens.

The system is so brilliant in its simplicity that we must wonder why was it not applied centuries before.

And here we meet again with the unmentionables. Christianity, as well as Islam for that matter, considered interest usury and usury a sin.

The philosophical tricks by which Christian rulers tried to skirt the issue are ingenious and often amusing. Suffice to say, with a gross generalization, that it was found more expedient to let the unmentionables handle the matter. From thereon begin their path to unstoppable power.

As for 1968 – the second selected event – there took place a brilliant ideological operation, and again I generalize for simplicity. For the 1968 ‘revolution’ launched the ideology aimed at the deconstruction and destruction of the family, customs, traditions and gender distinctions. Destruction leading eventually to the assault on nationalities and ethnicities.

That destruction is in progress. I suspect without proof that the unmentionables’ hatred for Trump stems from his effort, however feeble, to mount an opposition. Opposition to a new world order where humans become merchantable individual atoms, drifting on the smooth world plane of exchangeable merchandise.

As for Reagan, with his background as a Coca-Cola cowboy, he was the perfect president for cutting the taxes of the rich, under the now all-but-forgotten theory of ‘trickle-down economics.’ Perhaps a thinly-disguised reference to the parable of the rich Epulon, from whose table fell the crumbs for the starving deplorables of the time.
From then on and on a planetary scale the already exorbitant assets of the overclass, began to increase immeasurably. And deregulation triggered a race to the concentration of capital and activities. Resulting in the stratospheric wealth of the few, with which they can buy everybody and everything, and become a dominant power over the traditional states, as even the events of the last few weeks unquestionably prove.

Remember Reagan’s, “The state is not the solution of problems, the state is the problem”. And now the state, the law and even health (e.g. Covid) are turning into a mockery of themselves.

In the end and in my view, the Washington’s Bastille was but the externation of long repressed and related feelings of helplessness.

To those who cannot but feel nauseated by the means used to impose the current presidential ticket on the rest of us, I will quote the answer, attributed to the wife of a Turkish diplomat at the court of King Lois XV. A courtier was asking her what happiness consisted in. “My lord – she replied – our happiness depends on the circulation of the blood.” [… ma foi, Monsieur, notre bonheur depend de la facon que notre sang circule.]

The others may reflect that, after all, man is little more than an instrument in an orchestra directed by the muse of history.


River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Wednesday, 28 October 2020

The ‘Third Way’ Scam

The ‘Third  Way’ Scam

October 27, 2020

By Francis Lee for the Saker Blog

Historically speaking “left” ‘’right,” and ‘centre” has been the political configuration dating from the French Revolution. In the 1789 French National Assembly, the nobility and high clergy sat to the right of the chair, while the third estate and lower-status clergy sat on the left. The benches in the middle became associated with political moderation.

Over the next century-plus, most European polities allowed for a “centrist” presence. Even the design of the European parliaments where the seating arrangements were horseshoe shaped and still are, except that is for the British parliament where the contending parties sit directly facing each other; initially Tories and Whigs but from the 20th century onwards Labour and Conservative. There were the cross-benches where the minor and generally ineffective parties sat. But Centrism will likely be distressed to learn that the first recorded appearance of the word “centrist,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was an 1872 insult from London’s Daily News correspondent in France, who assailed “that weak-kneed congregation who sit in the middle of the House, and call themselves centrists.’’

In the UK the centre was traditionally moderate, providing a seating space for a small Liberal party, until that is, the late Celtic arrivals of Irish, Welsh and Scottish militant nationalists – Sinn Fein, Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party who began to make their presence felt.

But it was the European party structures and their Parliamentary expression that led invariably to coalition governments; this was the case even in Nazi Germany where Hitler had to form an alliance with the Zentrum Liberal party to get an absolute majority in the Reichstag. This was quite different from the Anglo-American two party systems where the Government could de facto be elected on a one-party vote.

Nonetheless, centrism had its more forthright defenders. In the US at the dawn of the Cold War, liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger celebrated political moderation as a vigorous “Third Force” in his 1949 book The Vital Centre. Rather than left or right, he wrote, the real conflict was “freedom vs. totalitarianism.” The United States’ goal presidential election — which saw the resounding defeat of George McGovern in 1972 — occasioned a rightward shift in centre-left parties. Smarting from defeat and the Nixon triumph Democratic elites moved to retake control for a new direction for the party. And it was this that set the tone, not merely for the United States but also in Europe. In 1992 the man of the moment William Jefferson Clinton had arrived. But there was much work to be done. The sabotage of the tools that had underpinned the prosperity of the Golden Age of Capitalism (1945-75) also created unprecedented challenges for the political parties of the ‘soft’ left. Infused with what were thought to be new ideas they now began to look for new paths forward less hostile to finance and big business.

‘’We have moved past the sterile debates between those who say that government is the enemy, and those who say that government is the answer, said Clinton who, along with his wife Hilary had studied at Yale school during the 1970s, and Bill had an unfinished stint at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar in the late 60s (1) ‘My fellow Americans we have found a ‘Third Way’

THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF THE THIRD WAY

The ‘Third Way’ was a rather slippery and nebulous concept. In purely policy terms, however, the Clinton reforms were a mixed bag and differed from the postulates laid down by the former Reagan administration. In his 1992 presidential campaign Clinton promised that, if elected, he would bring about the “end of welfare as we know it.” This catchy election pledge aimed to address middle class concerns about so–called welfare dependency while also arguing that the government had an important role to play in fighting poverty and unemployment. Clinton’s Third Way position, at best, offered a way out of the liberal/conservative impasse on how to effectively reform America’s welfare system. At worst, Clinton’s position undermined the concept of welfare entitlements that the Democratic Party had established in America at an earlier period. In 1996 during the lead up to that year’s presidential election, President Clinton signed into law the most significant federal welfare Act since the 1960s. However, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) that Clinton signed had largely been drafted by congressional Republicans. Then came NAFTA, the bitterly contested policy which still rankles.

But possibly the most politically significant piece of legislation authorised by the Clinton administration was the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. This Act had prevented ordinary commercial banks owning excess of certain types of dubious and dangerous financial companies, which had been considered so useful that it had survived until it was repealed in 1999 under Clinton and his Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, the former Goldman Sachs banker.

Of course this was manna from Heaven for the banking and financial fraternity, and it indicated the President’s choice of policies which had little in common with his professed ‘Third Way’ beliefs. In conclusion the failure of Clinton’s Third Way welfare agenda opened the way for more conservative reforms. This experience is illustrative of the pitfalls of Third Way politics with its mix of post–entitlement welfare policies and hard–nosed electoral positioning.

That being said the US economy began to move into high-gear during the 1990s and even managed a budgetary surplus. Alas, however, as with all upturns comes the downturns and the long-run, dot.com blow-out of 1999/2000, the US boom of the roaring 90s turned into a secular decline, and this was followed by even deeper economic crises in 2008 and now in 2020.

It could be argued in terms of cyclical political movements that there exists a rough correspondence between political and economic phases. In political terms this is usually a cyclical period between progress and reaction, movement, and order, conservative or radical, revolution and restoration. The great German social and political theorist, Max Weber, (1864-1920) would have argued that the Clinton restoration being based upon the Reagan/Thatcher ascendency was an example of charismatic authority that was superseded by legal-rational authority. In broad illustrative terms the MaoZedong period in China was followed by Chou En Lai, Trotsky was followed by Stalin, Napoleon by Louis XVIII, Cromwell was followed by the reinstallation of Charles II. As day follows night Revolution is followed by Restoration. But the restoration is never complete, and there can be no turning back to the status quo ante. But the strange thing was that during the second half of the 20th century a reactionary right-wing movement, best illustrated by Reagan and Thatcher was replaced by a milder ‘Third Way’ version of the same theory. The ‘Third-Way’ was beginning to take on rather familiar social and political forms, although its proponents would argue otherwise.

THE THIRD WAY CROSSES THE BIG POND

By 1997 the Clinton ascendancy – the Third-Way – had come to the attention of an ambitious young man who was trying to find an occupational niche for himself in the London milieu. Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, who preferred to be called ‘Tony’ (of course) and described himself as a ‘regular kind of guy’ (goes without saying) was the son of a barrister, Blair attended Fettes College in Edinburgh (a school often viewed as ‘‘Scotland’s Eton’’) and Saint John’s College of the University of Oxford, where he combined the study of law with interest in religious ideas and popular music. But he displayed little enthusiasm for politics until he met his future wife, Cherie Booth. He graduated from Oxford in 1975 and was called to the bar* the following year. While specializing in employment and commercial law, he became increasingly involved in Labour Party politics and in 1983 was elected to the House of Commons to the safe Labour parliamentary seat of Sedgefield, a tight-knit former mining district in north-eastern England. His entry into politics coincided with a long political ascendancy of the Conservative Party (from 1979) and Labour’s loss of four consecutive general elections (from 1979 through 1992). He stood as leader of the Labour party and won an overwhelming victory (1997) over a divided, dispirited and out-of-ideas, Conservative party.

Blair was one of those archetypal politicians – unfortunately one of many – who didn’t have a political notion in their heads; and as a complete opportunist he was, as was the case with Clinton, able to latch on to some of the fashionable threadbare and dubious political and economic ideas current at that time. One of those fashionable notions was the ‘Third Way’ in politics.

In fact the ‘Third Way’ was a pretty simple idea.

‘’It was an attempt by the parties of the left to stake out a new middle-ground in politics. Fuddy-duddy socialist ideas were considered distinctly de trop. Globalization as its proponents would argue, was considered inevitable, so countries should embrace it and adapt to it, hitching a ride on the growth of global financial markets, then shaving off globalizations rough edges with progressive social policies and dollops of good old-fashioned redistribution. As Blair and Germany’s Gerhard Schröder summarised it in a joint declaration in 1998, the Third Way stands out not only for social justice but also for economic dynamism and the unleashing of creativity and innovation.

But this third way was always an offshore model, a recipe for countries effectively to turn themselves into tax havens in order to prosper in rough, globalizing seas. The model was, in turn, driven by the competitiveness agenda, the notion or ideology, that states must be ‘open for business’ constantly dangling enticements to large multinationals and banks and to rootless global money – for fear that they will decamp to more hospitable or ‘competitive’ places like Dubai, Singapore or Geneva. (2)

THE IDEOLOGICAL ASSIMILATION OF THE OLD LEFT

But behind the rhetoric of a new golden age which awaited the electorates on both sides of the pond was the familiar sound of disappointment among the loyal supporters and believers who were somewhat sceptical about the new order – with good reason. The newly entrenched and consolidated Third-Way involved strict de-regulation of labour markets and only light-touch regulation – if at all – of financial markets. In the meantime financiers, were still relatively untouched by the pseudo-rhetoric of globalization. The whole dreary neo-classical credo was trotted out namely that that if left alone, financial markets would reward efficient firms and punish inefficient ones which would go out of business. Meanwhile financiers could help with mergers and transfers of ownership of the more efficient. This reasoning also bolstered demand for the privatisation of state enterprises, which was soon embraced with almost as much enthusiasm by social democratic parties as by their right-wing opponents – witness the French socialist government of Lionel Jospin and the renamed ‘New Labour’ government of Tony Blair.

The period of debt-financed growth got into gear in the early 80s during which it was sustained up until the start of the 21st century. That time bore witness not only to economic issues but also to political and ideological questions and concepts; a reactionary milieu established itself where decadence had become de rigueur. The presence of rampant individualism, obsession with self, contempt for failure was contained in Ayn Rand’s view of life. Doyenne of the new age Ms Rand’s rise in popularity coincided with the widest gap between rich and poor in the history of the US. Her books are today actually more popular than when she lived, and attempts are being made by very wealthy parties to sell her ideology as the philosophy of our era.

Ms Rand has been accused of Vulcanism, that is of exhibiting an attitude of pure logic unbalanced by empathy and humanity like the character Spock from Star Trek, who is from planet Vulcan. When people of high intelligence lack human empathy, they can be intellectually arrogant, even narcissistic.

One of the major criticisms of Ayn Rand is that all her heroes are self-centred sociopaths, as she is: they are concerned only with themselves, with their own purpose and ambition, and they are entirely unconcerned with others.

Rand also ignores context in her assessment of reality: the persistence of her logic leads to places where philosophy gets utterly divorced from common sense and reality. Philosophical materialists must contend with the facticity that we are woven into in its entirety, even with those aspects of our facticity that are what she would view as not heroic, like the hunger of the masses.

Okay it can be generally agreed that the idiosyncratic Ms Rand is a little bit over the top, but her generalisations roughly ring true with today’s ailing social and moral societal collapse.

But as Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) once noted:

‘If, in activities that almost completely fill all of our days, we follow no rule save that of our own self-interest, as we understand it, how then can we acquire a taste for altruism, for forgetfulness of self and sacrifice? Thus the lack of any economic discipline cannot fail to produce damaging social effects that spill over beyond the economic sphere, bringing with it a decline in morality.’’(3)

One wonders whether or not Ms Rand actually believes in her virulent anti-social messages, or, what I rather suspect, she is simply out to shock the more gullible by voicing what are in essence simply crackpot outpourings.

That being said she certainly has a following particularly among those well-heeled denizens who seem intoxicated with these rantings.

IT’S THE ECONOMY STUPID

Turning to economics the situation goes from bad to worse. This is hardly surprising since the attempt to abolish the trade cycle, a rather eccentric and fashionable notion since the early 1980s, was bound to result in an economic nemesis. It has been argued that:

‘’Whilst all capitalist systems are premised on the monopolisation on the gains of growth by the people who own the assets, under finance led growth these dynamics become more extreme. Rising private debt might conceal this fact during the upswing of the economic cycle, but when the downturn hits it becomes clear that finance-led growth is based upon trickle-up economics, in which the gains of the wealthy come directly at the expense of ordinary people. This is because financialization involves the extraction of economic rents from the production process – income derived from the ownership of existing assets that does not create any new value. (4)

Paper currency is not value, it is a claim on value, a promissory note. Value is produced in the production process, whereas economic rent – rent on land, titles of future ownership claims (stocks, shares, bonds) monopolistic pricing, patents – is produced in the extractive process. It is fictitious capital. The financial economy is essentially parasitic on the productive economy.

When corporations generate ‘growth’ it should be understood that the Central Bank enables this ‘growth’ when it showers the same corporations with QE monies who simply buy-back their own shares/stocks and become richer! In the same manner when large corporations buy other smaller businesses – through mergers and acquisitions M&A, they also become ‘richer’ but in fact no new wealth has been created, what has occurred is a shift of wealth from one sector of the economy to another, this is a zero-sum game where the central bank determines the winners and losers in this rigged fixture: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Another side of this process is the increasing market concentration with the growth of monopolies/oligopolies and the monopoly rents that go with it.

Having painted itself into a corner the economics institutions, both public and private, seem unable to extricate themselves from an ever-tightening process of slow economic and political strangulation.

In summation we may say without reservation that the ‘Third-Way’ was a rather transparent con-trick reminiscent of the second-rate magician in Thomas Mann’s allegorical novel Mario and the Magician. In this particular work the sorcerer, Cipolla, is analogous to the fascist dictators of the era with their fiery speeches and rhetoric designed to hoodwink his political audience into believing that what appears to be real is in fact not real. In our own time this simulacrum is the product of modern advertising techniques designed to mask the reality behind a stream of psychological manipulation and conditioning of the audience. How long this process and phenomenon will last is problematic. Western civilization seems standing at the crossroads without a plan B.

It’s rather like Gerald Celente always says: ‘‘When everything else fails, they take you to war.’’

NOTES

(1) As the 2016 presidential campaign closed in on the finish line, the Washington Post published  an eleven-year-old tape of Republican nominee Donald Trump’s making controversial remarks about women. The inevitable partisan rancour that ensued largely targeted the behaviour Bill Clinton, husband of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, including the repetition of rumours that he had been expelled from Oxford University in 1969 for raping English classmate Eileen Wellstone.

The allegations weren’t new — Republican opposition research strategist Roger Stone had tweeted about them a year earlier:

The backdrop for these rumours was that just prior to his graduation from Georgetown University, Bill Clinton won a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship to study at University College, Oxford, for two years and headed off to England for the 1968-69 academic term — but he returned to the United States (under a pall?) before finishing out the full two-year course of study.

There was additionally the Lewinsky affair. Yes, Mr Clinton certainly had a penchant for the ladies.

(2) Nicholas Shaxson – The Finance Curse – Chapter 5 fn 10 – p.97) In the words of Peter Mandelson, Blair’s Svengali and his co-author Roger Liddle in their book – The Blair Revolution – the main aim of the Third Way project was to ‘… overcome Britain’s continued slide into international competitiveness … based upon partnership or private and public sectors and create a more equal and cohesive society.

(3) Emile Durkheim – The Division of Labour in Society – p.xxxiv.

(4) Grace Blakeley – Stolen – p.14.

* ‘Called to the Bar’ This has nothing to do with going for a drink in a licensed establishment! It is a term used by the legal profession signifiying the entrance of the candidate into the legal profession and practising of law thereof.


River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Monday, 23 September 2019

Back to French tear gas in the morning: smells like austérité

Back to French tear gas in the morning: smells like austérité
September 22, 2019
September 21 (hello autumn) was the worst day of violence in Paris since May 1st. That day is best remembered for when “centrist” politicians and citizens were enraged that Yellow Vest/union/old lady demonstrators would dare to seek refuge in a hospital rather than stand there and get tear gassed prior to getting charged and beaten by cops.
President Emmanuel Macron knew a black mark day was coming – not just Yellow Vests but unions and climate change protesters would also be marching – so he made a major concession: he gave a public interview. Noblesse oblige!
Macron waited two years before giving his first press conference, so we shouldn’t have expected a miracle, but France’s #1 public servant could have considered to talking to French media, at least. Instead he spoke with US magazine Time.
In the land of Ayn Rand, where the petit bourgeois boss is the undisputed chief in a million hillbilly fiefs, Macron may have been playing to his audience when he said: “In our country, we want leadership, but we also want to kill the leaders.” Who can forget Louis XVI?
However, I thought of all the French leaders who weren’t hacked to death by a vengeful populace. Louis I, for example. Louis II – there’s another one. Louis III, him too. In fact, Louis IV through Louis XV all were not assassinated, so why is Macron so worried about public retribution?
Look deeper into French history – despite #MeToo claims of universality it’s not even a gender thing: (2018’s 43,434th-most popular name) Ermentrude of Orléans, (don’t call me “Big”) Bertha of Burgundy and that lousy job-stealing immigrant Clementia of Hungary all escaped assassination despite being the nation’s #1 lady. Joan the Lame was a regent, and thus held the real power, and yet she wasn’t beheaded even though she must have been pretty easy to catch. They did destroy Joan’s tomb during the French revolution – she couldn’t run forever.
I also note that way back in the Merovingian era Engelbert the Humperdinck was not assassinated either, despite his many crimes which fell harshly on the ears of his suffering subjects.
To clarify for Macron: France wants leadership but they also want to kill their leaders sometimes. Other times they build huge statues to their leaders, like Charles de Gaulle and Joan of Arc. It seems to rather depend on the leader, and I thus think this allegedly French sentiment may actually be universal.
Jokes aside, Macron is obviously not trying to get re-elected, and thus he shows the biggest loophole in Western bourgeois democracy: the one in which opportunists temporarily accept public service in order to exploit it for personal gains.
(Contrarily, I’m not sure Iran’s Supreme Leader is even allowed to resign? He is there expressly to be a permanent patriotic force within a democratic system – presidents came and go but the Leader does not – and to mediate among different societal groups for the good of the national well-being.)
I look at Macron’s cover of Time and I see Brazil’s Michel Temer.
There is a clear contradiction between the image and caption on the cover of Time: Macron is frankly and aggressively rolling up his sleeves, yet the words about his “troubled presidency” indicate contrition, guilt and a desire for reconciliation. Anybody need to roll up their sleeves before a fraternal embrace? Anyway, Time got it fundamentally wrong: In June Macron declared he was on “Act 2” of his presidency, which is not at all a reset but an advance, a progression. Macron is rolling up his sleeves because his current pension and unemployment system rollbacks are the most divisive and most sweeping of his presidency. Like Temer, he couldn’t care less about the consequences – he has work to do, and the work is the social dismantling ordered by neoliberal austerity ideology and Brussels. Both Macron and Temer act on the orders of their 1% friends – the only reset for them is personal and after their terms, when they get the cushy lives and private, ego-stroking conferences where their hurt, under-appreciated egos can be revived.
But why should Time journalists have any real idea about what the “French Street” thinks? They aren’t there, haven’t been there and ain’t gonna be there – they hold the Yellow Vests in the same contempt as US Zionists do the “Arab Street”.
What Time would have seen on the worst day of violence since May 1
The tear gas and police brutality started at 10 am. I’m not sure what time it was in Hong Kong?
The first tear gas always provokes the most dramatic symptoms – I imagine it is because your body is telling you, “What the hell is this you’re inhaling now? Get it out of here.” Your skin burns more, you are expectorating excessively via the mouth and nose, your heart rate is elevated well after the “conflict adrenaline” has worn off. The next gassings are much easier, provided you are not at ground zero of course.
I have taken so much tear gas in “the birthplace of human rights” I wonder just how much poison I have built up in my bloodstream? I wonder if I can sue the French government for creating a hazardous work environment after organ failure from cyanide poisoning? Probably not.
Tear gas was falling from the skies regularly, and especially loud Yellow Vests were being individually targeted for violent arrest, but for whatever reasons – programming, shift change, etc. – after my 12pm live interview PressTV didn’t want another interview until 2pm. Being the die-hard activist journalist me and my cameramen are, we went on lunch break.
Hey, we gotta eat sometime. We’re workers, and Macron hasn’t revoked our right to a lunch break yet. And we can’t be there for every gassing/beating/rubber bullet – it’s not possible; furthermore, if we, did eventually our time would come and then there’d be no more reports at all. Gotta play the long game.
By the time we returned the Champs the crowds had really thinned out, after looking like there would be enough to hold it all day. Cops were being totally brutal: gas, confuse and punish, push people off the Champs, and then don’t allowing them back in, thus locking down the world’s greatest mall/boulevard. But we had an interview scheduled, so we stuck around with the perhaps 500 die-harders still hoping unionists, climate changers and Black Bloc would show up to retake this iconic mall-evard from the hated regime.
So we go live and do our interview, and we probably contributed to the violence. This is what often happens: The Yellow Vests know they’re on TV all of a sudden, cuz some monkey with a microphone is yammering in front of a camera, and they want to represent. They get loud and rowdy. In this way the presence of journalists hypes up the crowd in a way similar to, but actually very different, the presence of hyper-armed cops agitates a crowd. For political protesters journalist coverage is a sign that they matter and that they are doing something right and worthy of comment: that’s what makes it so sad that my French media colleagues are never covering the Yellow Vests – if they were, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people would join the protests again. Of course, the vast police repression since late March is the main reason the average Frenchmen isn’t showing up.
We finish live French protest interview #481 (I truly and humbly contend that no journalist in France has covered as many demonstrations as I have in the past decade – that number I gave is my honest estimate) and the little crowd is back to being the Yellow Vest engine that could.
Heartwarming… let’s get out of here. And we left because we had to go find another demonstration to cover – newsroom bosses want you to be where the action is, and there was a huge climate change protest there. Frankly, and sadly, I think much of the crowd had dissipated because they wanted to go join the eco-nuts, who are have as much backbone for a political fight as tofu.
Why was I going to the climate change protest and not the union demonstration? Because only one of the nine major unions ultimately decided to demonstrate that day – total betrayal of a day which was supposed to be so huge, but that’s the “virtue” of “independent” trade unions, right?
As we are leaving and I take one last look and – the tear gas is flying again. Of course it was: cops fear rowdy protesters whom they haven’t totally beaten into silence and submission, thus – launch some more gas.
Nothing we can do for ya, Vesters. We gotta think of where the action will be 45 minutes from now, and y’all had been kettled (boxed in by cops) and y’all knew they were going to gas you, drive you out and put the Champs on lockdown and if ya didn’t know then now ya know.
What teases we journalists are! Get ‘em all excited, and then leave ‘em in their moment of need. Don’t blame me, lady – blame the system.
The alternative hypothesis is that the cops saw that the only camera-wielding journalists around were leaving, and that the coast was clear for more gassing. Then it is still our presence which provoked it, and more shame on my well-heeled French media colleagues for not being there.
The final hypothesis is that the cops were about to gas them anyway and the timing of our leaving was purely coincidental. That is certainly mathematically logical, given the rates of tear gassing by French cops on Saturdays.
Regardless, that was an interesting anecdote which proves the journalistic corollary to quantum mechanics – the mere observation of a phenomenon inevitably changes that phenomenon. Again, what would the effects be if the French media were actually there? Or even journalists from Time?
The eco-kooks: fake-leftist politics at its most pathetic
I can’t stand covering ecological protests – what a waste of time.
Firstly, climate change requires a cooperative solution on an international level, and obviously capitalism is predicated on competition at an international level. Therefore, there is no reason at all to do a damned thing about environmental issues – the only solution is to get socialism first. No socialism? Then no possible climate solution.
Secondly, is climate change a news beat which is not being covered enough already? Hardly – there are 900 billion Western journalists who simply adore covering this story. I note that the roughly 900 billion climate change articles in Western media on any given Tuesday hasn’t done much good. Don’t tell that to the eco-freaks, though – they think they’re God’s favourite servants.
Definitely don’t point out to them that the 1% just adores you wasting your political energy on climate change instead of class issues. Climate change is inherently neutered of any class aspect: billionaires and homeless alike all litter or leave a “climate impact” (or whatever) or don’t compost properly.
Climate change protests are thus so very, very useless that I cannot give a damn, and the protesters directly acknowledged this: they had one big ballon, which read “Give a f***”. Classy. And they’re the only ones who give a f***, right?
Smug punks. And climate change protesters are punks with a capital P – too many examples to list, but here’s a quick few:
The presence of alcohol at French political demonstrations is lamentable – this is not a party – but only at eco-protests do you see Champagne.
The presence of loud music at protests – instead of loudly-chanted slogans or even silence – is… acceptable, I guess. But for many people Saturday wasn’t a protest but a rave, celebrating Mother Earth – techno music boomed it’s 4-on-the-floor “pound my tiny soul into submission” with the idiot hipster/bobo DJ calmly, slowly saying (for the people there on ecstasy or MDMA) “Feeeeeeeeeeel the earth…. don’t let it die.” Nothing says “I protest” like dancing during a protest march.
The presence of mimes at protests… can only happen in France, of course. I have no idea what political purpose they served, but I must admit they were amusing. I must also admit I was hoping they would also be tackled by cops for their very minor vandalisms, because they they would have to say something. Mimes are a good symbol for ecological protesters in general: they are there to be seen. And, I’d add, to feel good about and receive praise for their nonsensical works.
The presence of tear gas at ecological protests is not expected because WHAT a buzzkill, amirite? When the first tear gas flew the eco-warriors were so panicked thousands of them all ran in the wrong direction… and just kept marching that way. LOL, later comrades!
That was a new one. But I was hopeful, because instead of heading in the exact opposite direction of the Champs (as the eco-route had planned), they were now heading toward it – let’s retake the Champs, yes!
No, eco-warriors planned to march in the exact opposite direction of the Champs (east, not west) and they were determined to make sure they stayed away from any possible conflict with cops that could create bad karma/force them to shower (the tear gas off) later. Eventually, the thousands all just turned around and marched in the proper direction. Inwardly, they were likely too egotistical to ask themselves if they looked like idiots.
Black Bloc must have got the address wrong
The violence which spooked the eco-kooks was provided by Black Bloc. We had arrived just in time to see it happen:
The usual. Targeted vandalism against banks, real estate agencies (10,000 euros per square meter now in Paris, so believe me when I say that my landlord – whom I have made rich – can take a long walk off a short pier), and sexist ads (lotta Black Bloc are women).
There was a twist, and you gotta admit Black Bloc is up on things: they attacked the Egyptian Central Centre… obviously in solidarity with the anti-Sisi protests in Egypt going on that day. These Blocers were up on the news, found out the Egyptian Cultural Centre was on the eco-route, and took action. I got that wrong in this live interview from the scene among the debris – maybe Black Blocers could do my job better? Cut me some slack – live interviews are hard: I got it right in time for the day’s official report.
(I talked with the lone Egyptian worker at the Centre, and whom you can see in that video – he said the Centre was clearly targeted. He showed me an empty vodka bottle they had thrown inside, but Black Bloc isn’t a bunch of drunks. I felt bad for the poor guy – who knows if he supports Sisi or not? He’s just manning a cultural centre in some far away place – Egyptians need cultural centres, after all.)
Ok, there was some damage which was not purely political – two motorcycles were set on fire. However, when I claw my way to the top and become dictator of France the first thing I will do is ban those damned loud lawnmowers they call transportation. You have to live in Paris to understand just how much extra reverberations motorcycles make in this walled city – noise pollution is a much bigger problem than regular pollution (which is also a problem) – so I personally view anti-motorcycle actions as 100% justified; it is social, if not necessarily political. On top of their annoying and perpetual noise, motorcycle riders do nothing but drive between car lanes and break every law imaginable. I truly believe Paris has become more dangerous to drive in than Tehran, and that is pretty amazing. (Of course, in the past few decades Iran has actually invested in driver infrastructure whereas Paris just makes more bike lanes; Iran now has many more traffic cops, which is a type of public worker you’ll never seen in Paris – maybe they were there pre-austerity?)
Seeing as how our job is to be at the front line, we had to be at the front line fire. I made a rookie mistake – never be in a situation where you have to flee down a side street, always stay on the main thoroughfares and close to the wall. So, they gassed us (women, elderly, children) to clear way for the fire trucks to put out the fire. Here’s the thing: the crowd was already moving back to clear a way – the gassing was not at all necessary but punitive. The tear gas cans exploded mid-air so close to me I could see them ignite clearly, and that’s when you lose an eye. Alhamdulillah, me and my colleague were ok. Pretty badly gassed, but we’ve had worse. The worst part? I was only so close because I was scheduled to do a live interview from the craziness, but our damned connection wasn’t good enough! So I was gassed, crying, running and yelling at Tehran to put me on the damned air all at the same time. It happens.
But I admit it humbly: with my awesome-sounding French in my PressTV Français recap at the end of the day (not posted yet), I was not critical enough of Black Bloc – they can do more harm than good. Mainly when they go where they are not wanted – like that ecological protest instead of the Champs.
Immediately after the violence and mid-demonstration Greenpeace and Youth for Climate tweeted that they were revoking their leadership of the march and that everyone should leave the protest. Tough kids, eh?
I talked with a Black Blocer just prior to the gassing: a woman who was very voluptuously built. She was probably one of those defacing sexist ads, as she is likely subject to constant objectification when walking down the street (a hejab undoubtedly gives women a break from that, but let’s leave that issue there): heaven forbid she violently object to female nudity in public advertising, because that’s proof France is so “sexually progressive” and “respectful of women”, right? She took off her mask when she saw I was one of the good journalists – her pretty young face was flushed from leftist exertion. Dressed head to toe in black, she said she wasn’t Black Bloc but merely rocking the “Goth” look. A lovely figure, pretty face, guts and a sense of humour? Of course I was so smitten I could not identify her to authorities if ever forced to do so, such was the mass of stars, hearts and bright lights swirling around her.
I would have talked to a Youth for Climateer but they were retreating too fast… yet somehow they were able to tweet at the same time? Millennials – so talented!
Another Saturday in France, more long-term lung damage
The reality, which is still difficult to grasp as we left Yellow Vest #45 and filmed an old man whose face was red and bloodied from cops, as well as a bleeding, handcuffed old woman, is that things are only going to get worse: As I wrote, the pension and unemployment systems will have the broadest immediate impact of any of Macron’s “deforms”, thus they will provoke the broadest protests.
Such protests go beyond the Yellow Vests’ capability. September 21 was significant because it was the “Yellow Vest Day Without the Yellow Vests” – most did not wear them. The idea was to finally converge the Vesters with the various social struggles (unions, NGOs, mainstream leftist political parties, even eco-kooks, etc.). After 10 months, they have to join forces with the right groups.
They are talking about an unlimited transport strike in December, and I never recall hearing that before. No Christmas vacation for me, I guess.
The only TV media openly covering the Yellow Vests remains Iran (in English, French, Spanish and Farsi) and RT. I have seen France’s LCI (the government channel) openly there for about 6 weeks, and once or twice last month I saw TF1, but that’s it. I’m sure the fake-leftist MSM was all over the climate change march – because they always are – and I hope they got more tear gas than I did.
However, the process of lasting revolution is long – it takes years of struggle, and victory is not assured until households and families are forced to choose sides against each other. I am not promoting familial disharmony, just reporting what I have read of previous revolutions – the simplest, most moral and most effective choice, of course, is to side with the lower classes.
The thing about a “reset” in a video game is that you just go right back to the same beginning, and you have totally erased from memory all the bad you did. Why would Macron deserve a reset from the French public?
Too bad for Macron that civil service and politics are not a video game, or a hippie rave. Too bad for everyone in the global economy that austerity continues.
The reality is that Macron doesn’t even know his own country’s history: since the 9th century less than five of France’s just over 100 leaders have been killed. France doesn’t kill their leaders – they exile them, even those of the First Republic (1792-1804). This is another false cliche Macron has accepted as fact which is mainly promoted by fearful, reactionary English monarchists. Beheadings aren’t necessary – just ask any Frenchman: what could be a worse fate than to not live in France?
Macron will likely wind up exiled as well – who doesn’t imagine the young Macron being feted like an emperor in the Anglophone business world after he isn’t re-elected in 2022?
So Macron needn’t worry – he’ll probably just have his tomb desecrated like Joan the Lame. Probably a lot of other similarities between Macron and Joan the Lame, I imagine….
The question Macron should ask himself is: what is it that he is doing which is causing him to have regicide on his mind?
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of “I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China”.

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