The Truth About France’s Yellow Vests;
Not a single media report I have read or seen about the Yellow Vest demonstrations in Paris and across France has not been slanted by Fake News. The problem is that crucial information has been omitted.
It is not wrong to say that the demonstrations were caused by the government’s decision to raise gas prices. But that view seems to pit two more or less equal sides against each other—people (responsible government officials) seeing the necessities of taxes in life versus carefree people (common citizens) unconcerned with the sacrifices that life entails and who go overboard with their protests.
What is missing from most all of the coverage of this crisis in France is that this is just one of several draconian measures dating back half a year, i.e., the recent tax hike that sparked the wave of protests was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
Read it all. The assault on private automobile ownership has begun in earnest.
Link is broken, this should work
https://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=189550&sec_id=189550
Thanks, link fixed.
The home page of the New English Review also has a link to an interesting article worth reading: “The Sexual Exploitation of Young Sikhs in the UK”. I’ll leave it to the readers to guess who the exploiters are.
https://www.newenglishreview.org
What is that you are knitting M. deFarge?
Your “assault on private automobile ownership” is really nothing more than the continuing effort to destroy national sovereignty – as Frau Merkel has admitted – and wipe Western culture off the face of the earth. And it is led by the tribe, who want to reprise their fine performance with Lenin and Stalin. Or had you not noted that Western “reformed” Jews despise Israel every bit as much as the ragheads do? Wanna bet how much Davos and Bilderberg money is behind BDS? And no, they are not ALL of the tribe, but a helluva lot of those maggots sure are.
A former head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was once asked by a member of the pundit class, at a social gathering, what kind of car he drove. His answer was “Oh, I don’t. I hate the darned things. They scare the heck out of me.”
The answer was framed in a manner that indicated that the Secretary could not grasp why anyone would ride in such a contraption, let alone own one. This was in the 1990’s.
‘Nuff said?
When horse drawn omnibuses began to appear in London the upper classes frowned on the idea. After all, it would encourage people to “ride about aimlessly”. The transportation has changed but not the sentiment. And although they seem wild for the idea of public transit nowadays, I wonder how long it would take before they begin metering that? Surely a ride back and forth to work, and perhaps one for fun, should be enough for the average citizen, rather than riding amount aimlessly spewing diesel fuel emissions or making demands on the power grid. Or perhaps a weekly “nobody goes anywhere” day.
It is one long concentrated obsession to diminish personal freedom.
One wonders why it took cars and gasoline before the masses cried: “Enough!”
Long twitter thread showing police brutality against the Yellow Vests and passersby…
https://twitter.com/sotiridi/status/1085129853509271552
I’ve read they’re using non-French police a while ago, like the guys wearing jeans instead of full police uniforms; and something linked at Insty’s yesterday that I didn’t read.
Looks like the police are using real bullets now…..
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6593807/Shocking-video-shows-fireman-Yellow-Vest-protestor-shot-head-French-police.html
I tend to first look at Occams Razor for explanations, paraphrased as “the simplest answer is usually the correct answer.”
The simplest reason for any increase of fees and taxes is that politicians and bureaucrats are greedy bastards. That’s the basic motivation. They dress it up as fairness, environmental responsibility, investment, social justice etc. But the truth is they’re just greedy.
Sin taxes are always a favourite for the ruling class. Selling indulgences has never really gone out of style. The current justification for sin tax is the environment/CO2 so we have carbon taxes, higher fines and fees on cars, proposals for meat taxes, proposals to penalize parents if they have too many children, cow taxes…..it’s first and mainly about money. Investments (giving away taxpayer money) are always politically motivated, crony capitalism.
I agree with both your posts, LC. This has been a long time coming however. It’s also about the systematic misrule in France over the past two decades. Throughout, there’s been always higher taxes and more social disorder, from both new immigrants, particularly illegals, economic mismanagement on a grand scale, all resulting in decades of declining living standards and earnings by the folks who pay all the taxes. The current furore over fuel taxes is just the final straw that broke the camel’s back. This bodes particularly bad for Macron:
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/a6afdy/french_generals_accuse_president_macron_of/
Never, ever, piss off the guys with all the guns. France’s government has been overthrown at least eight times in the past two centuries because of this. Note the signatures. This is not a few disgruntled corporals. These are the folks who actually run France’s military.
Not a good sign for Macron
You wrote:
“The simplest reason for any increase of fees and taxes is that politicians and bureaucrats are greedy bastards.”
That is the heart of the matter.
Whether is it immigrants allowed in to replace the dying population or high taxes for XYZ purpose, it always boils down to greed and incompetence.
Yep, I’ve said before that we have the misfortune of having the worst ruling class and pompous courtiers in generations. They have no idea what’s going on outside of their chattering class bubble. They’ve created all the conditions necessary to start a populist uprising.
I’m glad I saw most of western Europe before 2000. I think things will get worse before it gets better.
I think history repeats itself and it does so because refuse to learn from it. The French should find this terribly familiar.
There is always Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic.
Their are true believers of course but the new sin taxes are an updated version of the Baptists and Bootleggers dynamic. Activists push, politicians respond by creating taxes knowing that there’s no viable alternatives, so they taje in lots of new revenue. Cronies sit on the sidelines, waiting for cash, pocket most if it and use the rest to fund activist — a complete, never-ending circle of greedy bastards.
The true motivations always get missed because it’s so simple. The politicians are saving the Earth by “putting a price on pollution” in exactly the same way the Catholic Church was saving souls by charging for indulgences.
The Catholic Church came up with indulgences, and they owned the local politicians at the time. The Vatican came up with the agenda and found treasonous scum to push Rome’s agenda ahead of that of each nation state.
They also used investiture as a means of ensuring loyalty by emplacing foreigners in positions of influence to minimize their squeamishness in harming the locals.
Nothing has changed other than optics. The Roman Church acts weak while using its tools (the UN, environmental groups, Hollywood, token Jews like Soros) as fronts to implement its agenda.
Hey Wacko, are you A Canadian’s twin? You both are on the same loony page.
a poor population can be ruled instead of governed. Macaroni is a globalist stooge, just like the Turd. They are both UNsmart and easily manipulated. The money grab is part of a larger strategy, and not a strategy unto it’s self
A full blown kleptocracy knows no limits.
Because the fools and bandits,bandits mostly, know they are up against a hard limit.
Time is their enemy,eventually even the thickest most deluded citizen feels the pain.
After wiping out the government sanctioned scapegoats,the pain goes on.
Then we reach the 1770s french solution.
When all who work know they are robbed, the endgame comes.
Poor wee Macron is just the sucker holding that hot potato.
Just like so many carreer takers,when the axe falls they will still be ;
“Whaaaa?I was helping you”.
On the subject at hand,yes the attempt by the media to cloak events in France with their “narrative” is obvious and not working like it used to.
Russian Tv and Al Jazzera offer a contrast.
And of course multiple blogs .
Average Working Guy in Canada has been incensed for decades,when that becomes full blown rage is anyones guess.
Kipling:When the saxon began to hate.
We are slow and want no agro,then we burn it to the ground,salt the earth and never mention the victims again.
History is such fun.
Not for nothing did Ireland’s Penal Laws forbid Catholics (considered disloyal) from owning a horse worth more than five pounds (perhaps 2000 of today’s Canadian dollars), on top of a ban on gun ownership. Horses were weapons of war.
Our masters figured out long ago that private passenger cars will prove very useful for transporting guns and other weapons in a future anti-globalist rebellion. Hence, they must be banned at all costs.
The freeways will be kept in shape, of coirse. They make it particularly easy to send tanks (operated by mercenaries) into a major city to put down a rebellion at a moment’s notice.
First they will take away our guns.
Then they will take away our transport.
Then they will take away our worldly wealth.
Then they will take us away.
The old left were against the (bourgeois) personal automobile because of the Marxist class struggle and the sanctity of public transport, essentially the politics of envy , resentment, and hatred. Starting about 50 years ago, the same leftists have increasingly adopted green theocracy and their rent seeking corporate useful idiots to better accomplish the same goals.
I walk around town (pop. 8500) every morning for exercise and I see completely empty buses diligently doing their rounds with perhaps one rider every tenth day. They might get up to 20% capacity by mid day. In the same town, there is multi year waiting lists to get a family doctor. The beauty of socialism!
It’s an informative article, but he’s wrong that France is the only jurisdiction to lower speed limits. The NDP government of BC lowered speed limits in the 1990s and instituted a photo radar program that was pure tax collection dressed up as law enforcement. Like the French government Svane describes, they also cut municipalities in on the action, after which the abuses got even worse — speed traps at the bottom of hills, speed traps placed just inside the city limits to get drivers returning home to the suburbs, etc. It became an issue in the 2001 election where the NDP was reduced to two seats. Gordon Campbell had promised that photo radar would end the day after he became Premier, and it did. (This not an endorsement of that deeply corrupt villain, but he kept that promise. He also put the speed limits back to 110 on the Coquihalla and 120 on the Island Highway.)
So, did the BC NDP learn from the experience? At first it looked like maybe they did, when they removed the Lower Mainland bridge tolls being collected by cronies of the BC Liberals. Unfortunately, they then lowered some speed limits again, beginning with the Island Highway.
Re: “Gordon Campbell had promised that photo radar would end the day after he became Premier, and it did.”
The same goes for Mike Harris in Ontario when he was elected in1995.
photo radar is a good thing, they don’t require police and so the police can sit in coffee shops and recycle your tax dollars:-)))