Something Else About Yellow Vests

Here’s a somewhat limited and underachieving-redneck understanding of the French Revolution¹. First. While attempting over the years to read this or that about the Revolution, I learned a while back, to my great disappointment, that Marie Antoinette probably never uttered let them eat cake. Instead an author wrote years before the Revolution something like: “Let them eat Brioche”. Brioche is a funky, fluffy mix between a loaf of bread and a large bun. And if that ain’t disappointing enough…

The second thing learned about the Revolution is that there was a whole bunch of turmoil within it. That is, if I understand it correctly, although the French Revolution has a beginning and an end, what happened between all that ain’t no small task to comprehend. History class has the Revolution starting in the spring and summer of 1789. It then lasted till 1799. After that France gets its own odd looking and well-branded little dictator. Oddly, no one’s compared #Trump too Napoleon yet. Or have they?

Although accredited with being one of the greatest events in all of human history, the French Revolution sometimes shocks me to think that this event doesn’t play a larger role in life today. I mean, is there something French Revolution in yellow vests? I’m kinda doubting there is. Which also begs the question: if the French Revolution was such a significant human event, how come it’s so damn hard to understand? I mean, why aren’t school children taught all about Guillotines? We teach them everything about terror. Or? Who the fcuk is Danton, Robespierre and Jacobins, The Mountain, etc.? Heck, kids today should also be taught what Marie Antoinette’s face looked like as her head was finally, superbly separated from her body and the gushing blood from a still pumping heart filled the stage while the meek watched dreamy-eyed as though fluffy Brioche was losing its fluff. Oh wait. The children are taught instead to admire the disgust of British monarchy in the form of weddings and stuck-up accents galore.

No. Seriously. That monarchies still exist today shocks me.

Nomatter.

“A large part of the media-political world wanted us to believe that violence is not the thousands of lives destroyed and reduced to misery by politics, but a few burnt-out cars. You must really never have experienced poverty, if you think that graffiti on a historic monument is worse than the impossibility of being able to take care of yourself, of living, of feeding yourself or your family.”²

I’m wondering if the current yellow vest movement can be compared to other concurrent movements? The Arab Spring, for example? What about Occupy Wall Street? I mean, you know, compared to the greatest Revolution in history–and, yes, the French Revolution most certainly one-upped the American Revolution. What is the end-game supposed to be in all this revolution stuff? Is there an end-game? As we all know–at least those capable of such a comparison: the American Revolution resulted in nothing but a recreation of the same Europe it tried to rebel against. Or did I miss something in the advent of politics post WW2 + Ronald Reagan that could only devolve into #Trumpism? And since I’m probably waaaaay off subject: what was the point of the American Revolution now that the country is only about maintaining the nothingness of consume-to-survive, pseudo-aristocracy and #Trump‘s hair? But on that note, I do die-grass.

After a bit of contemplation, news review, watching/listening to a few podcasts on the subject, I’m coming to worst-realise that the scariest thing about the yellow-vest turmoil in France is it will, like so many other protests, be all for naught. As soon as I heard Macron was giving in to the protests by dropping the gas tax, increasing minimum wage, not taxing pensions³, etc., I was happy for the protestors. But then I thought: oh my. France, like so many other #Eurowasteland countries, is already on the brink of nation-state financial failure not unlike Italy, Spain, etc. That is, when Macron has France do all he says in order to stop the rioting, it only means that national debt⁴ issues will explode. It is exactly that type of government activity that keeps the so-called elites in power. Because the elites both profit from debt but also use debt to control finances, this is exactly what they want. It’s also exactly what’s going on in #Trump-land, Brazil w/Bolsonaro, and, of course, Brexit. 

The thing that protesters need to wise-up to is simple: it’s time to finally make the elite pay. Protest and riot, burn the fcuking house down, but do till Macron taxes the $hit out of the elite. Those jerk-wadds have been getting richer and richer off the $hitshow since globalisation began and now, considering how world issues are literally repeating the previous century, I’d say they’re starting to panic. All they need is reason and rhyme and the Great World War scenario begins anew. And we know who will pay for that. 

But what do I know?

Rant on.

-T