Yellow Vests and classism
I'm beginning to think that the people of France are a bit upset.
It isn't just the French. The Yellow Vest protests have spread to Belgium, Holland and Hungary.
What do these protesters want?
The protesters, who are of all ages, professions and political factions, don’t seem to want to back down. “I’m prepared to spend Christmas protesting at this roundabout,” one told The Guardian. They want a more equal political and fiscal system, including the reintroduction of the tax on the mega-rich (from 0.5 percent to 1.5 percent, starting from incomes worth more than €800,000), which Macron abolished after his election. Crucially, they want Macron, also known as the “president of the rich,” gone.
All of that sounds reasonable and enlightened, but that's not how TPTB have reacted to the protesters.
The ruling class views any disruption in the way that they do things in a very familiar way.
Right from the start of this movement we have seen “experts” and “politicians” in the media belittling, condemning, and mocking the gilets jaunes and the revolt that they embody. I saw the words “barbarians,” “idiots,” “yokels,” “irresponsible” spread across social networks. The media spoke of the gilets jaunes’ “grunting”: for them, the popular classes do not revolt, but instead grunt like farm animals.
This sounds suspiciously like a "basket of deplorables".
(now that I think of it, it sounds like the sans-culotte.)
It also sounds like the way the Brexiters were portrayed in the media. In fact, any time that working class people act up in a non-deferential-to-power way they suddenly become less than human.
They become subhuman in a very specific way.
The gilets jaunes speak of hunger, of precarity, of life and death. The “politicians” and part of the journalists reply: “the symbols of our Republic have been tarnished.” But what are these people talking about? How dare they? What planet are they from? The media also talk about racism and homophobia among the gilets jaunes. Who are they kidding? ...
For the dominant, the popular classes are the perfect representation of what Pierre Bourdieu calls a class-object; an object that can be manipulated by discourse, one day represented as the salt of the earth — the authentic poor — and the next day as racists and homophobes. In both cases, the underlying intention is the same: to prevent the popular classes’ speech, about themselves, from ever coming to the surface. Too bad if you have to contradict yourself from one day to the next, so long as they keep quiet.
...When the ruling classes and certain media talk about homophobia and racism in the gilets jaunes movement, they are not really talking about homophobia and racism. They are saying “Poor people, shut up!”
We see it time and time again.
Bernie Sanders and his supporters wanted to talk about inequality in America. So suddenly Sanders supporters were a bunch of racists and sexists. No proof required.
Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters want to talk about inequality in Britain. So suddenly Corbyn and his supporters are anti-semites. No proof required.
Brexiters and Yellow Vests rebel against globalization, so they must be a bunch of racists.
I'm sure that in every movement some a**hole can be found, but if perfection is the standard then the ruling class fails in much worse ways.
Speaking of the ruling class, does anyone really think that the people yelling "racism and sexism" at Sanders and Corbyn supporters actually gave a sh*t about racism and sexism?
But since when have these media and “politicians” been so concerned about racism and homophobia? What have they done to combat racism? Have they used their power to speak out about Adama Traoré [a twenty-four-year-old black man who died in police custody] and the committee for Adama? To speak out about the police violence that strikes blacks and Arabs in France every day?
What exactly did Hillary ever do to combat racism in a measurable way?
Did Obama and the Clintons march with BLM, or do anything meaningful to stop police violence?
And speaking of violence, these same people denouncing the violence of burning trash cans are also the ones who celebrate the start of wars. Especially the wars where they send out children to die, the same children that are now throwing rocks at police.
When it comes to violence and racism, the media and ruling elite are shameless hypocrites.
The real racism and violence in society is written into the rules and laws. Those rules and laws were put there by the ruling class, thus making the ruling class the most racist, sexist, and violent class of all.
Somehow the stereotype of racism and sexism is a working class Archie Bunker, when in reality it should be a guy with a corner office and an address in the Hamptons.
[side note: Archie Bunker was the hero of the show, who always did the right thing in the end]
Comments
Another DSA milestone
I like the comment to this post, where some moron said the Nazis were socialists:
Its weird how conservatives never try to convince nazis that they are socialists.
That poor thing hardly looks up to the task.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
Maybe it's just their travel guillotine
They only pull out their nice guillotine for special occasions.
Maybe that's one of the more specialized models...
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Just that twisted top board, but I wouldn't risk my neck in it
if I were you.
et assez bon?
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
How short people's memories are
HRC used a southern accent while campaigning in the South to show her support of those combating racism. Sheesh, you actually expect her to march after all that effort?
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
Heh
How true is this.
I'm seeing idiots saying that the protests mean that socialism has failed. Socialism, racism, sexism and communism all mean the same thing riiight?
I think that guillotine is a subtle message for the PTB. "Things can always get worse"
Someone on ToP mentioned guillotines and of course got hr'd for it.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Yep
Plus atheism, feminism, and environmentalism.
It's the rule that all words that scare conservatives mean the same thing.
Oh good lord!
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Question is 'How good is that Lordy?
I am sure Mr. Macaroni will tell his secretive life experiences with Mr. Putino this evening to his "fellow country men" or may be "compatriots" or may be "comrades" (hallelujah - Macaroni may have gotten it finally) live. Watch out. /s
Do you get stomach ulcer too from reading?
https://www.euronews.com/live
Putin is truly the
most powerful being in this whole universe.
dfarrah
He sees you when you're sleeping.
He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake. Putin Claus is coming ... to town!!
Snort! N/T
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
Ha! Or something like a Marvel Superhero
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Or....
Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
I'll be watching you
Every single day
Every word you say
Every game you play
Every night you stay
I'll be watching you
dfarrah
How true and Obama warned everyone
When it was mentioned that not everything that happens in Russia comes from the Kremlin Obama did that little smile,chuckled and said in a manner of all certainty "if (that event in particular)happened in Russia Putin knew about it".
Now that is powerful, when the leader of a Country like Russia which covers eleven time zones and with approximately 200 different cultures knows what is going on everywhere and at all times. Not to mention at the same time influencing the Brexit vote (Russia never expressed support),Italy's attempt at exiting the EU as well, the Catalonian protests,basically protests around the world and caused many people to not like the latest Jedi movie and more.
In fact only Putin would be able to list all the examples available and expect an email from him to correct the record and add intimate details of every operation.
Imagine the world
without Putin to blame. What would it look like? Would the Arab Spring in the Middle East look like protests against corruption, against oppression, against drought-caused labor displacement? Would the coup in Ukraine look like a right-wing movement by the Atlantic Council to support Nazis? Would the financial reconstruction in East Asia and in Brazil look like their affair? What would BREXIT look like without Putin somehow dislocating attention? He's the Look Over Here doll. Don't look at the cause of these crises, Look Over Here.
It's official: It's Putin's Fault
it's always Putin
Seriously?
Geez you would think that they would feel just a little stupid for blaming the results of their actions on someone else. But Hillary started this when she blamed her loss on Vlad instead of admitting to herself that she was a horrible candidate! And that so many people rejected her. I hope she does run again and loses again! I would have gotten the point the first time I lost.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
This essay is perfect in every way.
The patterns you point out are flawless.
You're right. The fault and the cause of social turmoil is found at the top. And it is quite deliberate. It welcomes authoritarianism into the government with no resistance.
As to why Bill and Hillary enjoyed loyalty from POC — I don't think they really did. It is an illusion. Women, Hispanics, and Blacks did not rally for Hillary in the 2016 elections. That fact, and the lack of support from the working class of all skin tones, explains Clinton's defeat. People simply decided to vote for the Devil they didn't know. The Democratic Party put Americans in that position. They were told again and again that people didn't like Hillary. They will always make the wrong decisions because they don't know who they represent.
They do know who they represent and it ain’t us!
I have begun to suspect that the reason Dems are so gung ho for impeachment is that they can get together with Republicans afterward and sing Kum By Ya while giving our corporate overlords everything they want. They can politely squabble over social issues to distract from the real action.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
Heh. Far too many Dims are not gung ho for impeachment .
A couple more have come out this week but what I have mainly seen is there is no there there.
I am for impeachment meshelf. He has broken multiple laws.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Impeach them ALL!
Trump, Pence, the entire Cabinet, and at least 90% of the Senate.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Good one.
eventually people will catch on when HER said "basket of deplorables" she was including just about all of us.
It makes sense
2011: Occupy Wall Street
2012: Manning, Snowden, etc., vulture-capitalist steps in personally to run for President
2013: Joke's over, secret's out: Capitalism doesn't work.
2014-2015: Suddenly...
IDENTITY POLITICS!
FEMINATIONALISM!
CRITICAL THEORY!
PRIVILEGE THEORY!
ODDLY DISPROPORTIONATE BEAUTY & THE BEAST NOSTALGIA!
IMPLICIT BIAS!
RAPE EPIDEMIC!
GAMERGATE! ZOE! MILO! ANITA! BRIANNA! (Seriously, anyone understand this? I tried to stay TF out of it, but people were even using it as some kind of bludgeon on DailyKos - I'm very confused, and don't know who to believe)
SILICON VALLEY BAD NOW!
NERDS ARE BULLIES NOW!
BE AFRAID OF SOME UGLY-ASS CARTOON FROG!
(O shit guyz, it's October 2016, what do we talk about when Hillary's President?) UM...CLOWNS! BOO!
"George W Bush is sooooo niiiiceee...he gave Michelle a breath-mint!" (What, does Barack taste THAT bad???)
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Ah yes, Gamergate.
The whole thing started when Zoe Quinn broke up with her boyfriend at the time and he decided to post his dirty laundry on 4chan (Including lies about Quinn screwing a reviewer for favorable scores on her text-based game, Depression Quest).
Being the vultures they were, the American Enterprise Institute and a few Youtube 'skeptics' joined in and looked for anything they could get on Quinn, Sarkeesian (Whose videos were little more than a layperson's primer on tropes) and others, no matter how insignificant. Oh, and don't forget the massive rape and death threats they got online. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
A Wiki Entry on Gamergate
List of Gamergate Claims
Personally, when it comes to the industry, I'm more concerned about the shitty practices of developers in recent years. Gamble boxes, Half-assing a game to force people to pay for the rest as DLC, rush jobs pushed out for shopping seasons, workers in the industry getting paid in packing peanuts while the execs make out like Robber Barons, the list goes on. Those are the real scandals.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
I'm still not sure who to believe...
Frankly, I shouldn't have to know who either of those people are. The fact that I've felt forced to not only have an opinion, but to have to have THE RIGHT ONE, feels more than a bit wrong. This isn't how real victims behave. Anita Sarkeesian, in particular, sounds like she's just James O'Keefe in a blouse: http://gintaxalvissforever.tumblr.com/post/81629999178/reasons-why-peopl...
Then there's this hot mess: https://encyclopediadramatica.rs/GamerGate and https://encyclopediadramatica.rs/Zoe_Quinn - and frankly, while I'm not certain about RationalWiki or where it's come from, I have some goback with Encyclopedia Dramatica, which I've been semi-aware of since circa 2009 and my days on RPG.net. Between the two, I'd more easily trust the latter, for the same reason I've learned to trust sources like Rotten.com, the Satanic Temple, Anonymous, George Carlin, Hunter S. Thompson, MAD Magazine, and even the Sex Pistols, Cassandraic First-Responders to a massive pedophilia conspiracy (https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/24/john-lydon-says-he-was-ban...): In a dystopia - nay, a MALARCHY! An INFERNOPOLIS! - such as the one we face, those who purport not to give a damn about right and wrong wind up being the ones most free to see and speak it.
Let me put it another way: I've been in this Twilight Zone episode before - it feels kind of like when DailyKos had me (almost) convinced that Julian Assange had suddenly become a Trump-supporting sex criminal (although I did always drag my feet about it; I knew SOMETHING was amiss, and real people don't just make dramatic face-heel-turns like that). Only one side is self-righteous, dominating the airwaves, and managing to extract contrition from others while never making any concessions themselves, and the truly oppressed can NEVER get away with that.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Both sides of this mess are total shit, in my view,
because no matter who wins, the corporate chicanery will continue and we'll all be worse off than before, kind of like now.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
Humbug!
Fight the Power!
Who, in this case...
...IS "The Power"?
Incidentally, I really hate the way people talk about "power". Not only is the definition of "power" being bandied about totally wrong and misleading (they mean political/interpersonal 'power', which doesn't even exist in objective reality), but it all comes across as some kind of sick (and stubbornly missionary) dystheistic theology - I keep hearing people I'm supposed to agree with talk about "Power" like Gollum talks about "the Precious":
"We HATES The Power!...but we LOVES It!...We wants it to GO AWAYYYY...but it's sooooo PRETTY...and we WANTS IT for USSSSS *Gollum!*...."
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
You're right
about my comment. I don't know anything beyond what I've read here about Gamergate, and I was just reacting to a comment as if it were unrelated to that subject, which is not OK. I'll try to get up to speed.
Forgive me, but I feel compelled to ask:
Am I bad for being willing to think maybe..."pro-#Gamergate"'s actually the good (or at least 'better') guys?
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
No. But they're still shit.
At the end of the day, the Pro Gamergate crowd were nothing more than shocktroops for corporate developers who pay their code monkeys in packing peanuts. Their time could have been better spent attacking the shitty practices I mentioned above, but there was no clickbait money in that for the guys pushing the pro or anti narrative.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
So it really is just all the worst teapot-tempest of our time?
I was kinda hoping so. I tried to ignore it...but WTF were people doing badgering me about it on a mainstream 'grownup' political site like DailyKos, acting like it was all required "knowledge"???
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
They were doing what they do—gatekeeping. “Gaters gonna gate.”
Gaters good at their gig gotta generate a steady supply of shiny new shibboleths.
“If you were really one of us you would know X / be saying X.”
Who's "gating" WHOM, though?
In "gaming" and politics alike, the past 14 years feel like this to me...
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
RIGHTEOUS RANT, gjohnsit!
IKEA has these perfect holiday gifts:
BESKYDDA Reflective vest - L/XL/yellow
$5.99
Really is a great essay.
Those vests in France appear dayglo green to me.
But whatever, glad to see them!
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
They're less than 2 Euros in France, . . .
. . . where they are required equipment for every automobile.
And that's part of the point. Everyone has one of these already, or would need to dish out no more than the most paltry pocket change to get one, so the buy-in to the movement is essentially just to be there.
There's a working-stiff association to the vest. It's used by someone who might conceivably change his/her own tire at the side of the road, or who needs to be visible in a warehouse full of jockeying forklifts. You won't see a yellow vest over a $3,000 suit. So it immediately distinguishes (in multiple senses of that word) the wearer from the rich and their hired enforcers.
And it provides instant comraderie in the streets. Community on the move.
Gilets-jaunes just might become as much an historic identifier as sans-culottes, and for exactly the same reason. Assuming anyone's around to discuss history much longer.
Live from Paris !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKepPsurZec&feature=youtu.be
In case anyone suggests,
about the struggle in France or elsewhere, that wearing vests and threatening to bring work to a halt will go nowhere, I hope we, as Americans, will keep in mind Lincoln's thoughts about Labor and Capital:
heh, linda, no problem, we won't forget
most of us have always a lot of labor and no capital.
https://www.euronews.com/live
it's hard to tell by the comments if this diary is about
the #gilets jaunes, the DSAs, or gamergate, whatever that is. but the trotskyite's french SEP correspondent Alex Lantier offers a prescription for the way forward, parses the various parties involved, especially which ones are looking to steer them into corrals for 'dialog', unions, etc. his final four paragraphs:
Committees of action.
Okay, I'm not anywhere near France right now, but what I have been seeing from afar doesn't look like something that's gonna want to nestle into committees.
Maybe committees are the way to manage an orderly transfer of power, but it also would do that into an existing political entity/group/party/whathaveyou, . . . when everyone who's been interviewed on the streets has expressed the deepest cynicism of all entities/groups/parties/whathaveyous. That committee proposal looks great from the perspective of the e/g/p/w, who'd stand to benefit from the influx of new blood, but does it really answer what the new blood is looking for? Is it not just another form of kettling?
This thing looks amorphous to me, purposely so, apparently, much like Occupy was. And there's more than one way to effect a general strike than in committees of action. One could just let this thing grow organically, as it is doing now, until most folks eventually lay down their tools and stay home or join in. That is the trajectory it's on, now. The parties (or e/p/g/w's) and unions are on the sidelines, just as baffled and stymied as the government, all of them wanting to steer it to their own advantage and so far failing quite visibly. When they fail to rein it to their own purposes, they try to discredit it, but that's not working as well as it did when Occupy tried this. The French have learned. They know they are on their own, but that they have numbers, too. For once, the revolution (Ojalá que sea) looks like it's something real, not manipulated, not theater.
you may know best,
but wsws is full of videos, interviews, and comments from inside france. g' night.
i dunno,
read the reactions to macron's 'gives' on RT today and yesterday, and more coverage at wsws. i believe many see this is an actual revolution '(redistribute the wealth of elites', etc., which might take some planning.
but of course russia today and putin are flogging the insurrection...
I've been watching the reactions all along.
Yesterday's was not the first concession by Macron.
From a considerable distance, this looks to have the hallmarks of a genuine revolution, or the very early stages of one. The anger is there. The sense that a threshold has been crossed. My concern was that anyone would want to contain the GJs, for any reason. The government, to stop the thing. The unions, to preserve their own power. Political parties, for the feet on the ground and the votes to put their people in power, not the demonstrators. The Trotskyites, to gain anything close to the credible heft they once might have had. The GJ demonstrators have already been failed by everyone but each other (unless you count the three-quarters of the French populace that supports their cause). They'd be right to be leery of any existing organization.
If this continues to grow, if it becomes fully fledged revolution, of course some planning will need to take place (especially if it succeeds, and needs to form a better system!). You don't need that yet, not even for a general strike. And any planning should come from within the movement, not from outside it.
If we are not going to don yellow vests here in the US and start a parallel uprising, I think we need to respect those who are putting themselves out there, let them choose their path, and help wherever we think we should.
have a bunch of yellow jackets coming
to hand out as X-mas gifts. Spread the cheer!
@dance you monster @dance you monster dbl
dbl post
i can't think of anything to say in response,
so i'll leave you to your own constructs/beliefs, even as you modify your position, as it's not worth arguing about. what will be will be, of course, but we may never know about the competing forces and 'who won or lost the day'- in the end.
i wish them all well, and those gilet jaunes all over europe as well. who know; they may decide to cooperate in harmony, educate one another and not compete?
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9mybTArlsk]
I heard on soccer mom radio
I heard on soccer mom radio (NPR) that Brazil has made it illegal to sell yellow safety vests except to bonafide construction companies. Any yellow vest protests here, I'd show up.
Everyday I find more and more
Everyday I find more and more reasons to hate liberals, and yet they give me just another one.
Now apparently, when the working class revolt against the ruling class as we are seeing in France, it is due to Russia.
Everything is due to Russia.
If you protest against the bourgeoisie, that's because Putin got his tentacles into you.
If your anti-war, Russia brainwashed you.
And the thing is these smug, elitist, liberal filth actually believe they are right. Their idea of intelligence and reason is actually a smog of pseudo-intelligence and cult delusions.
End of rant.
Money -> politics -> corruption
That's the source of most of our current crisis: climate change, health care, debt, poverty.
What exactly has Hillary done to get money out of politics? What has Trump done? What has Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi done to get money out of politics? What has Rand Paul done to get money out of politics or Marco Rubio or the racists who've just "won" in Florida and Georgia? Or Dianne Fienstein? Or Macron? or Theresa May?
IMO, of course.
edit: Or Ted Cruz or Heidi Heidekamp or Joe Donnelly or Susan Collins or any 2016 candidate besides Bernie and Jill Stein?
Beware the bullshit factories.