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Les Déplorables Demand The Fall Of The Regime
Today we will again (read the comments) see large, and mostly peaceful gilets jaunes gatherings all over France to protest the neo-liberal policies of the Macron regime. The biggest ones will naturally occur in the capital Paris. They are likely to later develop into riots. The regime ordered 89,000 policemen onto the streets to counter any potential violence. 8,000 of them will be in Paris alone.
A problem is that police are often the cause of riots. Dressed like storm troopers and angry after way too many hours on the street they tend to attack with much brutality even when calm defense would be more appropriate.
After last week protest the Macron regime first delayed and then abolished the planned fuel tax hike that was the immediate cause of the yellow vest protests. That was too little too late and made his regime look weak. The people are now demanding more measures like a reintroduction of the wealth tax which Macron had abolished in one of his first acts in power.
Over the last week fireman, ambulance drivers, students and the administrative police union have joined the protests.
Luxury shops have been boarded up, museums and landmarks were closed. (An English language livestream can be watched here. Please point to others in the comments.) The police are an running early interdiction tactic, closing off roads and applying tear gas to kettle the people and to prevent larger gatherings at the Champs-Élysées. Hundreds have already been arrested. Meanwhile the protesters sing la Marseillaise. It is way too early for the police to use such force and it is not going to work. This only increases the anger of the protestors and will cause more conflagrations.
Les déplorables demand the fall of the regime.
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In a France24 report from a small town in the country side shows extraordinary solidarity between the people. Police passing through an occupied toll road entry sign the protesters petition, other pass by and gift food to the middle-aged protestors.
One woman makes an good point. Yes, the violence as seen in Paris last weekend was not nice. But only after last weeks protest went violent were the yellow vests really noted by the media and by the otherwise tone deaf politicians.
If the protestors today try to storm the Bastille, the Elyssée palace or whatever, if there are more casualties, more people will join protests and strikes during the next week. Macron will come under even more pressure. He will have to dismiss his prime minister and government. More pressure and he will have to dissolve the parliament and call for new elections. That would likely mean the end of his policies of further enriching the very rich while impoverishing the lower middle class and the poor.
I thought about this before and estimated the current decline at the early 200s Roman Time. This is a bit later than when the Roman decline started (mid/late 100s). And a bit later than when the strong migration pressure against both the Romans or the West started.
The current clear US imperial decline started relatively recently, lets say in 2001. Same for migration pressure against the EU and somewhat (a bit later) same for migration pressure against the US. So it could take a bit longer for things to collapse, although things in recent times change rapidly.
Emperor Trajan defeated the eastern Parthian Empire just like the US defeated the USSR and brought the US at the height of its power. This is when both empires were at their height.
After that migration pressure increased and fiscal troubles started.
I saw the imperial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as the long expensive wars against restive barbarians that Marcus Aurelius waged, that threatened to bankrupt the empire, just after the Roman decline was starting.
In the 300s the Empire was divided in two halves. A possible break between the EU and the US incoming? And what if part of the Empire survives, just as Bizantium survivied? Maybe some part of the current empire could survive too, but it will no longer be that powerful and will be one among many actors.
Posted by: Passer by | Dec 8, 2018 9:18:19 PM | 99
We must be very careful about tracing parallels between two different historical epochs, for, albeit it rhymes, History never repeats.
First and foremost: there are no economic data about any period of Ancient Rome. We don’t know how much people lived there, we don’t know the average height and weight of the Roman citizen, we don’t have any macroeconomic data (inflation, “GDP”, “per capita income” etc. etc.), we don’t have any other demographic indicator. All we have is conjecture and very vague observation.
Now, some things we can conjecture over Ancient Rome from the evidence we have (both written and archeological):
1) if we are to divide Ancient Rome’s society by the contemporary sociological categories (which we shouldn’t), then we have that Rome never had a “pure” apex: it’s cultural apex as in the new Republic era (Gaius Julius Caesar era); in literature, it was in Augustus era; in Law, it was in the late High Empire; economically, it was probably in the first half of the High Empire. Even when the Empire begun to decline during the Severan era, many cities still continued to prosper, and it wasn’t until the Crisis of the Third Century was some decades old (the 250s) that the first written source that survived to our days realising the Empire had declined appears.
2) The Crisis of the Third Century was so brutal and was “solved” to slowly, and Diocletian’s Reforms were so radical in the regressive sense that no historian doubts the Crisis was the definite time mark to the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire as a progressive force to the world. Diocletian’s Reforms reformed Rome in a way that basically transformed the Empire into a proto-feudal State, and it explains smoothly the transition from Ancient Slavery to Manorialism. Yes, the people who lived during Diocletian didn’t think that way — they saw the Reforms as the “rebirth of the Empire” — but they were not alive during the time of Antoninus Pius, and there wasn’t internet back then to research for it.
3) Albeit historian uses the refusal of Odoacer/Odovacar in 475 as the time mark for the end of the Roman Empire in the West, many evidence indicates it was, for all practical purposes, already over some one and a half century before. What happened was that Rome had a depopulation, and not overpopulation, problem, and centuries of civil wars induced emperors and usurpers to coopt barbarian tribes to fight as mercenaries on their side against their political enemies in exchange of Roman land and, later on, political offices. It was reverse colonisation: from the late Old Republic (Marian Reforms) to the High Empire, the rule was to coopt soldiers to fight on foreign land in exchange of the loot on and a portion of this foreign land. It was an expansionist doctrine. When the office of the Emperor became unstable, the Roman enemy became for dangerous than the foreign (barbarian) enemy. Rome then begun to slowly collapse over its own weight.
So, with those points taken, let’s debunk your analysis for the sake of thinking about the future:
a) the barbarians weren’t a problem when they were invading, but when they were invited to settle on Roman land. And even this was not a cause, but a symptom of something much graver: declining population (which can be infered since Marcus Aurelius). Marcus Aurelius refusal to colonise Marcommanic land after his vitory represents us a clear image of the problem: for him (the Roman Empire), a depopulated land would be worth nothing, which means he didn’t have enough Roman citizens to colonize Marcommanic land. Instead, he accepted the peace terms and allowed the Marcommanic to stay in their land, as subordinate allies. At the time, people may have thought this as a temporary setback because of the Antonine Plague — but we all know it nowadays that wasn’t the case.
b) as mentioned before, Roman had a depopulation problem, not an overpopulation one (as the USA has now).
c) Traianus won a victory against the Parthians and briefly occupied the Mesopotamian plains, but it wasn’t a decisive victory and the Parthians were very far from collapsing because of that. The Mesopotamian plains were an extremely difficult position to defend at the time: it was, well, a very vast plain, with a range of mountaneous terrain in the East (and the North — but Severus Alexander conquered the North and that didn’t solved the Roman problem). Unless you could march on and conquer all the Middle East at once, it was a vulnerable position for an enemy attacking from the east. That’s why, for much of the Ancient World, the region was hegemonized by the fortified cities. That’s why Hadrianus quickly abandoned Traianus’ conquests in Mesopotamia: either he had the usurmountable quantity of wealth to fortify the entire Mesopotamian plains, or would have to abandon it. Allegedly, he almost did the same with Dacia (which suffers from the same problem) — but Dacia was smaller and was full of gold (the same gold mines which probably guaranteed the prosperity of the “Five Good Empererors” without the need of extreme territorial expansion). Instead, he just abandoned the northernmost part of the new province.
The USA didn’t defeat the USSR in that way: it just waged a Fabian war and lasted more. The USSR peacefully dissolved because of its own internal contradiction. We can attest this by the fact that even the CIA was caught by surprise, as unclassified documents show.
d) The Persians changed names many times in their history, but that was only because they had the tradition to name themselves after a dinastic change. The Parthians were toppled by the Sassanid family, hence the name change. That didn’t necessarily mean they collapsed. The Persians only collapsed during the Muslim Conquests of the 6th-7th Centuries. The Byzantines (which called themselves “Romans” or “Christians”) survived the Muslim onslaught, but barely: they lost (forever) all their East provinces and was reduced to a Greek kingdom — this was the de facto end of the Roman Empire in the East.
e) Marcus Aurelius didn’t invade the Marcommanic and the Parthians. Instead, Rome was invaded. His war was defensive — another glaring mark of Rome’s decline. Granted, he still had the entire Roman territory and Thirty Legions at his disposal, plus a very good surplus of the aerarium left from his father, so he was capable of couterattacking. But that was not how the Roman system was supposed to work. At that point, the Dacian mines must’ve already dried up, so the Severans had to resort to coin devaluation (inflation) to pay the legions and the Praetorian Guard — this possibly ignited a vicious cycle, where more soldiers were needed than ever to expand the empire and earn more wealth, but which cost even more wealth (which the Empire didn’t have), which rose even more inflation, which diminished even more the capacity of the Empire to levy soldiers. A classic case of implosion.
f) When the Empire was first divided in two halves by Diocletian, the average Roman citizen didn’t see it as very important, but just as a bureucratic policy to rise effiency of administration. This is so true that, when the Tetrarchy collapsed, Constantinus governed as sole Emperor again — and even him was not the last Emperor to rule over the two halves.
Posted by: vk | Dec 9 2018 15:13 utc | 120
One of the leading Russian experts, a political scientist and historian Rostislav Ischenko, expressed an interesting opinion about the mass protests in France. The expert believes that the likelihood of UK’ involvement in the organization of these protests is high. In particular, Ischenko said the following:
What is happening in France is very similar to the orchestrated anti-Macron action, being operated from outside of France. Because in its structure, these crowds that came out against [Macron] are pure Maidan. I.e. they all say “we have no leader”, “we have nothing, we just got together by pure chance”.
But it can’t be “by pure chance”. Even when trade unions, parties, or someone else protest – they create a steering committee. But these (protesters) are exactly like on the [Ukrainian] Maidan. [Allegedly] “accidentally” do something… [No,] This is organized.
Then, when the government — by the way, [this is] the standard procedure for France — compromised, that is, stated that it will not introduce new taxes for six months, and will not increase the price of fuel for six months, these [protesters] immediately refused [to accept concessions]. Moreover, initially they put forward the demand “Macron’s resignation”.
In fact, in France such clashes often occur, because there the people are used to the fact that they don’t need to work, while the state should carry about them, and the people are very indignant when [the government] is trying to somehow make them budge. In general, this has never put forward the demand for the resignation of the president. Even de Gaulle, who resigned in the wake of a student revolt – he firts put down this [revolt], and then essentially declared that he would resign if the constitution was not revised and he would not receive additional powers. As for the constitution, the people voted against on the referendum, so he left for voluntary resignation. I.e. even then – those riots are compared with the current – there was no demand for de Gaulle’s resignation.
In general, there are two reasons to “bother” Macron. The first is the American one, since he declared the need to create a European army, but from my point of view this is not a serious reason, because even before Macron the need to create a European army was declared almost every year, but so far they have not created it, and in the future it is extremely difficult to create it, because Europeans do not like to pay. They don’t want to pay in NATO either, but actually they will have to pay more from their own pockets for the European army.
And there is a second reason – these are problems with Brexit in the UK. The EU – this is primarily Germany and France – did not make concessions on any of the principal issues for the UK. Even the question of the Irish border seems to be resolved, but nevertheless, the in the EU they periodically say “Well, we can still think and change our mind”. In Britain, the situation is such that most politicians say that if you submit a [Brexit] document for ratification to parliament, then anti-government protests can begin, in scale no less than [current protests] in France. [And] that the government actually stands “on promises only”.
Naturally, in fact, that the British government should re-negotiate with the European Union. On the conditions that are spelled out, they will not be able to enter Brexit. I.e., of course, they will come out of the EU, but their own grateful population will constantly ask them the question “Why did you make it worse for us, while the obligations to the EU remain?”. They have to re-negotiate. In order to make Europe re-negotiate, they need to create problems [for Europe]. Well, here’re the problems being created. Because it’s not a fact that riots from France will not be transferred to Germany – [where] there are also enough reasons (for riots), ranging from migration policy to the same decrease in the standard of living, which continues for many years.
Even now, when it affects only France – this is a French and German problem too. If all the more riots expands, spreads to Germany, then the EU’s position will be very vulnerable, and the UK may begin to try to re-negotiate [on Brexit].
Therefore, from my point of view, it is possible that they will say about Macron that he is “a bloody dictator”. Although on the other hand they can say that Russia invented all this in order to take “revenge on France for Ukraine”.
It is quite possible that the protests are organized from the outside, primarily by Britain with the possible participation of the United States. The whole mechanism of development of events is really look like these two interested parties took part in it. Perhaps they did not participate fifty-fifty – I assume that the US participation was smaller, the United Kingdom took the main part. It really seems that this is their work in France.
I repeat once again, if you simply compare the mechanism of exactly the same protests for the exact same reason, which in France occur if not once a year, then once every 2 years for sure. Moreover, often these are protests of millions, that cover the whole country – traffic can be paralyzed, airports paralyzed, railways paralyzed, highways paralyzed – the country literally stands, does not work. This happens for weeks. Then the government comes and says, “Well, we came up with some kind of compromise here”, so negotiations begin. And even if they squeeze more out of the government than this compromise [suggests], anyway, [it means that] someone sits down at the negotiating table with them.
But in this situation, it turns out that the government comes and says “Well, we’ve come up with a little compromise”, but no one see them. Moreover, I repeat, from the very first days one of the main requirements is the resignation of Macron, i.e. a purely political requirement. Although the [French] government carries out the reform in coordination with the president, but it was actually the government who contributed the ideas [of the reforms]. I.e. they (the protesters) do not demand the resignation of the prime minister, do not demand the resignation of the profile minister, they do not sit down at the negotiating table. Exactly in accordance with the Maidan technology, they say “Make us a small concession, and we will demand more, and more, and more… until you give everything to us”.
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Source (video).
Posted by: alaff | Dec 10 2018 6:42 utc | 141
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