[Peace-discuss] Jean Bricmont on Yellow Vests

Tue Feb 26 14:51:31 UTC 2019

The YV’s are thousands, of working class people, rising up against their governments implementation of austerity policy’s, that is impoverishing them. Their movement has spread across Europe, and we wish it would spread here.

They are an inspiration to the working class, and we can only hope they will not give up.

People here get excited over the many teachers strikes, which proves strikes are effective, but once they achieve their goals, its over. Though inspirational to other teachers across the country, they tend to be in isolation of one another, with little coming together of groups to do something about our exploitive, capitalist system.

Bricmont, a Belgium intellectual on par with Chomsky, has expressed in the interview posted below by David, a fear many of us have of the wrong leaders, if any, coming out of the YV movement, which could happen given the lack of organization, and collective. A spontaneous uprising, is always a first step, but is usually due to a lot of work by many people in advance. The question is who is now at this stage the vanguard, it’s difficult to ascertain. It could swing to the left as we hope, or it could swing to the right, which we fear. It may just die after being bought off, as was the case in 1968, as is the case with our teachers strikes.

My FB is full of postings related to that which is taking place in Venezuela and the many efforts on the part of socialist groups in the US to go to DC to protest US intervention in Venezuela, many such happenings have already occurred in Chicago, by socialists and some others.

 Bernie and other so called left Democrats support a form of regime change in Venezuela, with Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters calling them out. He has also called out Israel on many occasions. I love their music and now I love Roger. Please see below:
From ANSWER and the PSL:

"With the threat of intervention looming, over 100 cities mobilized this past weekend to oppose a new war on Venezuela, in actions large and small, supported by hundreds of progressive and anti-war organizations.

These actions provided an immediate and important counterpoint to the war propaganda and the Trump administration's phony "humanitarian aid" stunt. They mark the awakening of a new anti-war movement that is growing by the day. When the news of the coup attempt broke, activists in dozens of cities across the United States immediately responded with picket lines; thousands more have since joined this movement.

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The situation remains critical. Although the Trump administration has failed to break apart the Venezuelan state forces or provoke the Maduro government at the border, this failure will make the war-makers more aggressive. They're meeting in Colombia today with Mike Pence. Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó is calling for military intervention. Senator Marco Rubio tweeted on Sunday an image of Gaddafi just before he was murdered in 2011, a sadistic death threat explicitly calling to turn Venezuela into another Libya.

The notion that Trump, Pence and Bolton care about the wellbeing of the Venezuelan people would be laughable were it not so dangerous. Nor do they care about the lives of U.S. service members who would be sent in to kill and be killed in another war for oil.

It is imperative that we continue to organize in solidarity with Venezuela! The March 16 National March on Washington in front of the White House will be a rallying point for all anti-war forces in the United States.”

On Feb 26, 2019, at 05:09, Mildred O'brien <moboct1 at aim.com<mailto:moboct1 at aim.com>> wrote:

I'm more concerned about what our own government is up (or down) to, such as in Venezuela and the rest of the world.  YV will deal with their own gvmt in their own way.  Why don't they speak out on their govmt's preferential treatment of Israel?

Midge

-----Original Message-----
From: Karen Aram via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net<mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>>
To: David Green <davidgreen50 at gmail.com<mailto:davidgreen50 at gmail.com>>
Cc: Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net<mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>>
Sent: Mon, Feb 25, 2019 10:43 am
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Jean Bricmont on Yellow Vests

I’m on FB with Bricmont, and though he usually speaks/ writes in French, his English betrays much passion and anger at the west, the US, Israelis, France and neoliberals. He admits to frequently being sarcastic.  Though I hesitate to say so publicly, as I stand in solidarity with the YV, I fear I agree also with his statement:

“Yes, I think so, but it is very complicated to imagine the form by which the people would take power. They talk about the RIC (Citizens’ Initiative Referendum) and the European Union, but they are not at all clear on the latter issue. The problem is that it is a spontaneous and unorganized movement, so there are no leaders, no method for collective thought. There is collective thought developed by people discussing in the traffic circles and who think of alternatives, but the movement is not yet structured enough so that we could know where it will lead. I tend to think that we have to wait to know what will come of all this. For now, they are resisting, which is already remarkable, but where it will go, I do not know. They should not, for example, create a list for the European elections; I think it’s a mistake. Most Yellow Vests agree that it’s a mistake, but there are still various attempts. There are very harsh attempts to repress the most radical people and at the same time attempts to recuperate the less radical people willing to enter into dialogue with Macron and play the electoral game.”

Does the movement of Yellow Vests not have the merit of showing us the panic of the oligarchy which directs France and the world?

(Laughs). I do not really like the term “oligarchy”, so I will say the ruling class. It is not just the capitalists, there is the whole petty bourgeoisie, there is the media, and so on. And I will not call it the oligarchy. We can see that in all these milieux there is a kind of panic. In France, artists, intellectuals, are very reticent. There is a slight mobilization in favor of the Yellow Vests, but they do not really know what to do. Since the movement is intensely patriotic – they sing the “Marseillaise”, wave the French flag, etc. It is an attitude that deeply disturbs the left.  The people show that they are attached to their country – as the Algerians are attached to Algeria, the French are attached to France -, which does not imply any hostility towards foreigners, but it implies a certain idea of national community and this is something that the left has hated for decades. It is the great problem of the left that it is cut off from the majority of people because it rejects this idea of a national community and puts forward its membership in Europe, globalization, etc. From this point of view, the left is completely cut off from the people.

https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/a-global-challenge/

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