The EU was a joint project of Euro-intellectuals who wanted a super-socialist State and were afraid Europeans might turn away from "Europe." They sought to create an ersatz Euro-nationalism that has still only caught on among deracinated yuppies and oligarchs, if anyone at all. What they wanted and still want is what every true state has – an army. Which Macron has been agitating about for some time now. He doesn’t want to persuade Italy and Poland and Hungary to take more refugees – he wants to force them. Even more, he wants a reliable force to crush domestic protests, one that is unlikely to sympathize with the protesters.
Protests are everywhere: the media loves to cover them provided it’s the right cause – and one of the qualifying requirements of coverage should be drama. One would think therefore that the most recent and most violent would attract the media. Not so! We hear nothing about the twelve-week riots that have shaken the Macronist regime to its foundations.
But as the so-called Yellow Vests run roughshod in France – and all over the self-proclaimed "anti-nationalist" Macron – their origins, their ideology, their story remains untold.
French President Macron, a fanatic environmentalist, decided to revise the fuel tax code so that the small urban cars beloved by his circle had their tax reduced, while fuel for trucks and more industrial uses went up as much as 30%. It was a deliberate insult to the rural working poor who must drive long distances.
Macron went out of his way to convey his contempt for the rural voters who did not vote for him. The original reduction was actually intended for long-distance fuel, but Macron changed it around at the last minute to punish this use.
The French "Deplorables" reacted swiftly and not with the usual threat to strike: they simply started an insurrection. No preliminaries. They call themselves Yellow Vests referencing the safety vests required by French law of all motorists to signal emergency: yes, they declare: there IS an emergency going on!
We are continually told the rebels are "Right wing" – the evidence being opposition to taxes, yet they have no aversion to receiving government largesse-provided it’s distributed fairly.
I would remind you of the context in which all this happened: the aftermath of Macron’s anti-nationalist reaction to Trump’s America First doctrine.
The French are fighting the Yellows Vests tooth and nail, but not with much success. Hundreds of thousands are joining the protests-even many government workers – and Macron’s response is to get out the big guns including VBRG armored vehicles (used in Kosovo and Ivory Coast), water cannons, and tear gas. And this is why Macron needs a Euro army. Even the French police and soldiers are reluctant to fire on their countrymen, but a trans-national army would have no such compunctions. The French people themselves, as much as the Italians or the Poles, should rightfully be wary of the Merkel-Macron army.
Just yesterday the government arrested a principal Yellow Vest leader, as tens of thousands of Yellow Vests marched on Paris protesting Macron’s brutal tactics. Yet there are no designated leaders: let Macron fill the jails. That won’t stop the protests. Nothing will except massive repression or Macron’s surrender. Macron has called for "no compromise" and is clearly frightened his end is near. As I have been writing since Trump took office, the conditions that gave rise to Trumpism are worldwide – and so is the revolution.
The War Within
There has been much speculation as to why pundits were so wrong about the outcome of the Iraq war. What were they seeing? What did they miss? What vital fact did they leave out?
After the war there was a broad inquiry: the neocons claimed their strategy had never been carried out. Some, like Andrew Sullivan completely confessed to the hubris, groupthink, and post-9/11 emotionalism that led to his becoming a very active and dangerous warmonger. Others simply went into denial.
Now we are faced with a similar question: how is it that the alleged advocates of a policy of nonintervention fail to see that President Trump would actually carry it out?
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They believe it’s impossible. The empire is a permanent albatross around our necks. This is nonsense of course since the opposite is true: the empire is hardly tenable as it is, as, for one, it’s driving us over the cliff of bankruptcy.
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They profit from the imperial order in terms of profits, prestige, and other pelf. This racket has been going strong for decades – why give it up now?
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They hate Trump and they want him out. This group consists of neocons, and, unsurprisingly, foreign "allies" grown dependent on aid, contracts, and covert cooperation. America First? They have no use for it.
Afghanistan, Korea, Syria, and yet more is on the agenda – Trump wants out of NATO, the very linchpin of the Western alliance. No US President has ever even vaguely suggested this. The end of NATO will see the end of internationalism.
This, of course, is the Trumpian goal.
Congress has already passed numerous Bill forbidding withdrawal from Korea – what will they do when Seoul quietly insists?
How will they prevent the demilitarization of Afghanistan? The President is the commander-in-chief. We are about to see a new battle erupt – between an imperial congress and a noninterventionist President.
Rumor has it that Trump is going to give a major foreign policy speech in which he lays out his goals, instead of the State of the Union. Never has such a speech been so necessary.
HEALTH UPDATE: As you can see, I haven’t surrendered to silence. I am still active, still challenging what we think we know, and still giving my readers something they get nowhere else – a view of international relations based on facts as opposed to the current fashion for hysteria.
So stay tuned. I’ve just begun to cause trouble.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
You can check out my Twitter feed by going here. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.
I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).
You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here.
