Thread: "Have They Learned Nothing?" - The End Of France As We Know It? "A return of nation

"Have They Learned Nothing?" - The End Of France As We Know It?



"A return of national sovereignty across Europe is no longer coming. I think it’s here...It’s jumped borders. It’s part of the zeitgeist now. "

Thu, 12/13/2018 - 05:00
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Authored by Tom Luongo,

When an event grabs headlines like the protests in France have I temper my reactions to it. I didn’t give the Yellow Vest protests much thought at first wanting to see where they would lead.
Protests like this and even bigger ones like Catalonian independence are invariably betrayed by the European political establishment. They become an excuse to move towards tighter control — more cops, more surveillance, crackdowns on free speech, etc.

So, sometimes it’s hard to separate the manufactured reality show from the spontaneous uprising of human frustration.
But after the past two weekends of violent protests, after the French government backed down on the new diesel tax which was the inciting incident of this story, it’s safe to say this is real and there is real fear brewing among the political elite of Europe.
As Rev. Steve Turley points out in this video, the media across Europe and the U.S. are scared of where this leads.



Youtube Video https://youtu.be/KNPH51uKETc

A return of national sovereignty across Europe is no longer coming. I think it’s here. This can no longer be stage-managed as a relief valve of the massive discontent at neoliberal policies rammed down Europeans’ throats as it has in the past.

Something far more significant is here. They can’t cordon off this movement in France and use it to demonize the leadership and, by extension, the people.
It’s jumped borders. It’s part of the zeitgeist now.
No matter how many times rags like The Guardian, Der Spiegel and Politico call these people ‘far-right’ or ‘alt-right’ and link them to Nazism it doesn’t stop them because the protestors don’t see themselves that way.
And well they shouldn’t because they aren’t.
Macron made numerous mistakes in handling this protests. But the biggest one was opening up his conversation with the French people with the same, tired insults used in the past to smear them and sow division.

Have they learned nothing in the past three years?

Brexit was not a fluke.
Trump was not a fluke.
Salvini isn’t a fluke.
Orban isn’t a fluke.
France is not a fluke.

These elections represent gut level revulsion to the path the political and economic discourse is on. And crying Nazi wolf too many times eventually gets you eaten.
These people are sick of the corruption and demand results, not words. Not campaign speeches, but results.
And if these men don’t deliver quickly they will be on a short leash. A very short one in Macron’s case. Because it isn’t like 35% of France wasn’t willing to turn hard away from the status quo last year and vote for Marine Le Pen.
Macron was sold as the outsider, the reformer, who wasn’t in office a week before he began betraying the people who voted for him. And now he’s stuck.
The media turned against him quickly because they know he is done. Their job now will be to prep the narrative to puff up his replacement.
Kicking the can down the road means replacing the old boss with a new boss who is also just another globalist, neoliberal shill.
It’s what’s happening in Germany as Angela Merkel passes the torch of the CDU to a woman even more on board with Merkel’s agenda than Merkel was.
Theresa May’s attempted cynical betrayal of Brexit could actually fall apart as parliament looks ready to *gasp* do its job.
We’ve become used to France being the epicenter of nearly all the bad ideas coming out of Europe for decades. But, that may be changing rapidly for the better.
The villain always looks unbeatable when the second act closes and yet, more often than not, the heroes eventually prevail. The French people are ready for something different. They’ve donned vests and gas masks, picked up live grenades and thrown the crumbs Macron has thrown them back in his smug face.
Now the question is, what comes next? Because political unrest leads to financial unrest really quickly and the market hasn’t even begun pricing France into Europe’s evolving troubles.
* * *

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...nce-we-know-it

The Noose Tightens Around The EU's Neck



"The more they struggle to maintain control in one place the more they empower their enemies in another. The little Dutch Boy in Brussels is running out of fingers..."

Correct me if I’m wrong but France is already running a budget deficit that defies EU regulations. So, how is Macron going to pay for these programs and cuts?



Does Brussels even care?

No, they don’t because Macron is one of theirs so anything that can save his government from extinction will be tolerated. But what this move by Macron signifies is how close the Yellow Vests are to winning, because there’s no way these kinds of things would be on the table if the political winds hadn’t shifted far enough to leave him badly exposed.
With his approval rating dropping faster than Deutsche Bank’s stock price, Macron had to do something to stem the tide against him. It’s so bad even the rest of the French political establishment are sharpening their knives looking for a no-confidence vote and his resignation.
So, this is a desperate bid to quell the anger by throwing some money around and supporting tax relief for the very people who are rioting against him and turn some of the public’s opinion his way.

I note that Marine Le Pen has kept her mouth mostly shut while this is going on allowing the tempest to gather strength on its own. It’s been more than a week since she called for the French parliament to be dissolved for the first time in 20 years.

And, in my mind, that’s a very good thing. Le Pen is a divisive figure and by her staying out of this it doesn’t give the compliant European media any chance to link these protests to her and ‘far-right’ and ‘alt-right’ she’s supposed to occupy.

Instead they’ve had nothing at all to focus on but the protests themselves while test-marketing a tired “Russia hacked muh protest” narrative without proof or cause.
The best part about this move by Macron is that Italy’s Matteo Salvini, a man who walks through crowds in Rome like he’s the messiah, can use this to enflame Italian passions (not a difficult proposition, let me tell you) over just how unfair the EU is treating them with respect to their budget.
Salvini is looking at this proposal of Macron’s like it truly is manna from heaven. But for the EU, does it really have any other choice? When you’ve stepped off the cliff and are falling, anything you can do to keep from hitting the ground is what you do regardless of the long-term damage. Survival is all that matters.

And that’s exactly where the EU and Macron are now. Every action they take to try and hold this dysfunctional and tyrannical union together is only tightening the noose around their necks and hastening their eventual demise.
The more they struggle to maintain control in one place the more they empower their enemies in another.
The little Dutch Boy in Brussels is running out of fingers.




https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...round-eus-neck

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