RAMIN MAZAHERI—In a quote of Trotsky’s which sounded the death knell of capitalism entirely too early, Napoleon Bonaparte represented “the bourgeoisie’s impetuous youth”. We must, therefore, look at the “impetuous youth” of Bonaparte’s bourgeois victory as a victory for the people precisely because it was the only victory which could be permanently extracted in that awful autocratic era – the liberal rights which 1789 fought for were advancements; bourgeois rights were advancements; peasants, not nobles, getting land should not be derided as a “bourgeois revolution” but were advancements. It is the West’s total blind spot regarding the social evil of monarchy – which is the only accurate standard of comparison Napoleon and the French Revolution can be compared to: their peers – which blinds them to the obvious historical truth.
FRANCE
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RAMIN MAZAHERI—The European Union is undoubtedly the combination of English parliamentarianism with Teutonic fiscal elitism. European history since 1789 is most easily defined as Anglo-Germanic monarchism fighting implacably against the political advances which arose in France.
Those last three words – “arose in France” – are so widely assumed to be true, ethnocentrically, that it requires many, many books to overcome this false arrogance of Europe’s sole ownership of political modernity. Therefore, I will spend only this one paragraph on it in this book about the Yellow Vests: The ideas of political freedom and equality obviously spread from the New World to the Old World, contrary to European claims. More accurately, all great cultural advances are the result of cultures inter-mixing.
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Wang Yi ‘Overwhelms’ Blinken, Confirms China Backs Russia on Ukraine, NATO in Furious Call
11 minutes readALEXANDER MERCOURIS argues that several of EU’s most important nations are now de facto breaking with Washington in its confrontation with Russia, unwilling and unable to implement American diktats. This is a turning point for Europe, ANATO itself, and the world. In time the chance are that the french and german examples will create a deeper and wider rift with the US empire.
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DAVID GAMBLE—A common enemy unifies people. While the Yellow Vest protests have underscored the economic and financial crises of capitalism as they rally against austerity and privilege, a gasoline tax and inequities, the traumatised French population gathered en masse in unified nationalism. They confronted the Muslim enemy, alleged radical separatism which, in some aspersions, is somehow leftist Islamo gauchisme. What, then, is left of solidarity of the Arab working class with the general population? They have been dismissed with a word in the current rightward trend. The religious rights of Muslims need to be included. This is not limited just to Muslim students but to Arab workers who compose 3.3% of the French population.
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A year on, the gilets jaunes have lost 24 eyes and five hands – and made a deep mark on French society
20 minutes readPAULINE BOCK—A few days before the gilets jaunes’s first anniversary march (or “act 53” of their weekly protests), French newspaper Libération reported that the interior ministry was set to approve a “new national plan for law enforcement” that supports the police’s harsh, aggressive tactics for crowd control — despite the hundreds of injuries this approach has caused.