Tuesday, April 18, 2023

The Average Billionaire

 



The Average Billionaire

by C. A. Matthews

How “average” would I feel if I became a billionaire? Since I’m nowhere close to becoming even a lowly millionaire, it’s a moot point really. Looking deeper into what it means to be a part of the highest echelon, some very uncomfortable truths are revealed.

There are only 2,640 billionaires on this entire planet of approximately 8 billion people according to Forbes’ yearly survey called The World’s Billionaires. Most American small towns average about 3,000 people. And yet… “These few billionaires together have ‘investment emissions’ that equal the carbon footprints of entire countries like France, Egypt or Argentina,” said Nafkote Dabi, Climate Change Lead at Oxfam in their report, Carbon Billionaires: The investment emissions of the world’s richest people. The world's wealthiest individuals' investments account for up to 70 percent of their emissions, so presumable the other 30 percent is due to their lavish lifestyles.

According to Fortune magazine, the investments of a mere 125 of the world’s richest individuals have a carbon footprint equivalent to the entire emissions of France.


Excuse me? A tiny handful of human beings and their investments have carbon footprints the size of entire countries? Check out the population of the countries listed and prepare to be shocked.

Egypt has a population of 103,376,607.

France has a population of 68,042,591.

Argentina has a population of 46,044,703.

This is insane. A village worth of billionaires cause carbon emissions as much as 103,376,607 Egyptians or 68,042,591 French persons or 46,044,703 Argentinians, and we’re all okay with this?

I’m not.

But let’s not blame simply the small cadre of billionaires for why the climate catastrophe is worsening.The World Inequality Lab, led by the Paris School of Economics and University at California at Berkeley, found that the top 10 percent of polluters—about 770 million persons—are the climate equivalent of the world’s wealthiest 10 percent and are responsible for roughly 50 percent of all carbon emissions. The bottom 50 percent of the planet’s population make only 12 percent of the total emissions.

Furthermore, the richest 1 percent—the 60 million+ individuals who make more than $109,000 a year—are responsible for the fastest-growing source of carbon emissions. 

Okay, so it’s more than a small town’s worth of polluting individuals at fault for half the world’s carbon emissions. It’s the top 1 percent of the world’s population or approximately 60 million+ people who are the fastest-growing source of carbon emissions. If we could get the top 1 percent to cut back their carbon footprint even by half, the climate catastrophe would lessen appreciably and, perhaps, give us more time to revitalize plant and animal species hanging by thread over the chasm of extinction.

That sounds good and doable to me. Don’t you agree? We get slightly less than the population of France to cooperate and cut back their polluting ways to match or do better on carbon emissions than the bottom 50 percent and things will be looking up for all of us.

I know what’s causing some of you to hesitate. I hear folks saying, “Hey, I make over $109,000 a year! How can I be lumped together with the richest 1 percent on the planet? Why am I included in the evil billionaire class?”
 
Why indeed.
 
Go ahead and pat yourself on the back. Most human beings on our planet survive and have survived on far less income. Of course, they also survive/survived by utilizing fewer fossil fuel-using contraptions and vehicles in their lifetimes, too. Don't forget these are sizeable source of pollution.  
 
Don’t know what I mean? If you make $109K+ yearly, I bet you own a car. You may even own two or more petroleum burning cars, trucks or SUVs, the most polluting of personal vehicles. You might own a motorcycle, off-road buggy, lawnmower, motorboat, Skidoo or snowmobile, too. You probably own/are buying a house or a condo and possibly another home or vacation cabin or even an RV. You fly frequently for work or leisure and occasionally travel on cruise ships, right? Eat out more than once a month? Eat meat on a regular basis? Buy water in little bottles and then toss them away when they're empty?
 
Your actions demonstrate why you’re a part of the 1 percent. The rest of us aren’t quite as fortunate. We don't possess the means to participate in as many polluting activities.
 
And still… You’re not an average billionaire. You don't own nineteen vehicles or nine mansions yet. You’ll probably never become a billionaire, unless you inherit a large sum of money or marry into it. Don’t be sad—at least you’ve got a good chance of becoming a millionaire before you retire. Your lifestyle reflects your good luck, and it means you’re creating a lot of carbon emissions that add to the greenhouse effect and drive the climate change we're all experiencing.

Billionaires definitely own more homes than most of us, but more telling, they own a lot more cars and other vehicles, including diesel burning yachts and the yacht's newest iteration, the superyacht.

Remember that headline a year or so back about Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos' newly built yacht being too large to pass under a bridge in the Netherlands? They had to dismantle the historic structure just to squeeze the yacht through and get it out to sea. That's a superyacht. An average superyacht produces 1,500 more carbon emissions than a typical family car. By comparison, in the US the bottom 50 percent of Americans emit fewer than 10 tons of carbon dioxide, the middle 40 percent emit around 22 tons, and the richest 10 percent emit over 70 tons of carbon dioxide.
 
“Emissions from billionaire lifestyles, their private jets and yachts are thousands of times the average person, which is already completely unacceptable. But if we look at emissions from their investments, then their carbon emissions are over a million times higher,” said Oxfam’s Dabi.

According to Fortune:

The role of the super-rich in super-charging climate change is rarely discussed...These billionaire investors at the top of the corporate pyramid have huge responsibility for driving climate breakdown. They have escaped accountability for too long.

It’s true. We as a society have covered for the climate destroying billionaires long enough. Not only are they murdering our planet, they’re killing us as a people. Billionaire capitalists create dissension and divisions among the working class in order to make their obscene profits. We workers are kept busy blaming our equally struggling neighbors for a variety of imagined grievances instead of observing how it's the billionaires exercising their carte blanche to abuse the Earth however they please who are our true enemies. 
 
Let’s face it—billionaires own everything, including our politicians. The US Supreme Court gave them that right in their Citizens United ruling. Whatever billionaires say goes.

For example, Texas billionaire Harlan Crow had his companies purchase several properties in Savannah, Georgia, in 2014. What makes this real estate purchase interesting is that Crow bought these properties as a gift for his buddy US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his relatives.

It’s nice to have a billionaire for a friend when you’re seated in such a "lowly" position, a justice on the US Supreme Court, isn’t it? 

Of course, when you’re a billionaire (or even a hundred-millionaire) and fall into a patch of trouble, such as your bank becomes insolvent, you always have the US government to fall back on to bail you out. Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of bailing out. Right, Silicon Valley Bank? 

When’s the last time the American working classes were bailed out of such massive debt? We can’t even get our unfair student loan debts or medical debts forgiven outright, can we? Heck, we can't even get universal health care to cover all Americans regardless of income!

Before I must return to my day job, I want to leave you some thoughts to ponder. What would the planet be like if we didn’t have these 2,640 super-wealthy persons and their extreme carbon emitting, climate destroying, planet and people killing lifestyles? What if the resources of the top 1 percent were distributed to the bottom 99 percent of the population who make less than $109,000 yearly and pollute far, far less? What if the richest persons’ hoarded wealth were put to use to help fight the climate catastrophe, so we could leave our children a cleaner, greener planet and a brighter future?
 
Speaking of green things and bright energy, why not tax these billionaires (and actually make them pay their taxes for a change) so we can retire the dirty coal plants and leaky nuclear plants and erect more solar panels and wind turbines? Or would that upset too many of 1 percent who own shares in coal mining corporations? Should we really care if their feelings get hurt when our planet’s fate and our future as a species is in their hands?
 
After all, if the majority of human beings survive on less (much, much less) than $109,000 a year, why can’t the billionaires? Once the fossilized dinosaur remains are all burned up and the power goes out and the skies grow brown with blowing dust due to drought, we’ll all be living in the dark together, now won’t we? It's about time we learn how to cooperate and live alongside our neighbors.

 


Related Links:

A billionaire emits a million times more greenhouse gases than the average person  https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/billionaire-emits-million-times-more-greenhouse-gases-average-person

Carbon Billionaires: The investment emissions of the world’s richest people https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/carbon-billionaires-the-investment-emissions-of-the-worlds-richest-people-621446/

The Huge Carbon Footprint of Billionaires https://impakter.com/billionaries-rich-carbon-emissions-ineqauility/

125 billionaires produce the same carbon footprint as the entire country of France  https://fortune.com/2022/11/08/billionaires-carbon-emissions-oxfam-report-france/

The World's Billionaires
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_Billionaires

Billionaire Harlan Crow Bought Property From Clarence Thomas. The Justice Didn’t Disclose the Deal https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-real-estate-scotus

The Silicon Valley Bank Bailout: The Purpose of Government is to Make the Rich Richer https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/02/the-silicon-valley-bank-bailout-the-purpose-of-government-is-to-make-the-rich-richer/

Does Endless Spending in Ukraine Cause Deprivations at Home?/System Update #68 https://rumble.com/v2hmj0s-system-u pdate-68.html

IMF Is Forcing Some Of Hardest-Hit Countries To Pay Unnecessary Fees  https://popularresistance.org/imf-is-forcing-some-of-hardest-hit-countries-to-pay-unnecessary-fees-on-loans/

US bank bailout benefited billionaires, exposing corruption: 'I understand why Americans are angry' https://geopoliticaleconomy.substack.com/p/bank-bailout-billionaires-corruption

Michigan health care crisis: Billionaires cash in at the expense of nurses’ conditions
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/04/12/ilqz-a12.html

Richard Wolff Explains How Billionaires Exploit the 99%
 
Countries worldwide are dropping the US dollar: De-dollarization in China, Russia, Brazil, ASEA https://geopoliticaleconomy.substack.com/p/de-dollarization-china-russia-brazil-asean/comments

Oxfam Slams Rich Nations for Artificially Inflating Their Global Climate Funding
https://truthout.org/articles/oxfam-slams-rich-nations-for-artificially-inflating-their-global-climate-funding/

Anti-Protest Laws Are Not About Safety, They Are About Silencing Dissent  https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/11/anti-protest-laws-are-not-about-safety-they-are-about-silencing-dissent-2/

13 Groups Sue the EPA for Failing to Update Regulations on Water Pollution  https://truthout.org/articles/13-groups-sue-the-epa-for-failing-to-update-regulations-on-water-pollution/ 

Student Debt Forgiveness is a Win-Win for Our Country

    https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/16/student-debt-forgiveness-is-a-win-win-for-our-country-2/

Zelensky & Friends Embezzled $400 MIL | Lula goes to China https://www.youtube.com/live/yp0pt1zymBI

The Indiana fire disaster: Another case of US industry polluting and killing with virtual impunity https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/04/13/faie-a13.html 
  
Welcome to the CLASS WAR! - Why Capitalism SUCKS - Part 2  (video) https://youtu.be/pVCqOpM4UUw
 
Here's why capitalism SUCKS! -- and why it needs to end! [part 1]
 https://youtu.be/8aHvA0KHXqM
 
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Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Good-bye, BlackRock! So Long, Petrodollar! Hello, Peace!

China must be stopped before it imposes totalitarian diplomacy on Ukraine and authoritarian peace in the middle east. --Caitlin Johnstone

 

Good-bye, BlackRock! 

So Long, Petrodollar! 

Hello, Peace!

by C. A. Matthews

 

I took only one economics course in college, but even I can understand enough about our screwed up capitalist economic system to see where we’ve gone wrong. We’ve placed greed before compassion and war before peace because of their profit-making abilities. Look where it’s gotten us—the US stands on the precipice of total disaster.

And that’s a good thing.

Can the destruction of our corporate-controlled government’s way of manipulating and exploiting other governments be a positive development in the quest for world peace? I think we’re witnessing the end of an era. Soon the United States will have to stop forcing “freedom and democracy” upon other countries via sanctions and bombings. 

This “War on Terrorism” era that turned the US into the world’s biggest economic terrorist is, at last, drawing to a close. China is taking the world stage as peacemaker, acting as a go-between to feuding neighbors Iran and Saudi Arabia. Other countries are being helped by China’s New Silk Road (officially, the Belt and Road Initiative) with its low interest loans that will help them build necessary infrastructure projects.

I can see that quizzical look on some of my readers' faces now. China? What do you mean it’s not forcing itself on others with economic sanctions and threats of “military interventions” the way the US does? It actually wants countries to get along so everyone can safely do business with each other and live in peace?

What a dangerous concept according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Blinken actually claimed that brokering peace deals between countries wasn’t a good thing after China said it was willing to sit down with Russia and Ukraine and help them put an end to their disagreements and save lives.

The US refuses to accept these potential peace negotiations (even though we’re supposedly not even at war with Russia) because it’s not in our best interests according to Blinken. The US government’s stance is that it prefers the fighting continue—or is it our true masters, the military industrial complex, who prefer this proxy war go on forever? Endless warfare means they can sell an infinite amount of armaments to a steadily growing number of combatants. At least that’s the theory if the countries involved don’t run out of soldiers. I guess there’s always those nifty A.I. “robodogs” with machine guns for faces to take up the slack, right?

MIC capitalists can’t have peace and cooperation breaking out across the planet like crocuses breaking through the frozen soil in the spring. No, never! What would happen to their profits if people simply lived in harmony with each other? Oh, the horror!

Those Americans who continue listening to mainstream media propagandists (who actually work for the military industrial complex) will continue believing that “War is Peace.” Orwellian doublespeak makes them see the world through the eyes of capitalist warmongers and profiteers. They irrationally hate China and its diplomatic ways. They’ll continue screaming for billions of dollars more to be sent to Ukraine in order to prolong that conflict, in spite of the fact there are fewer and fewer Ukrainians left to do the fighting. They’ll insist on the US starting a war to nuke China over Taiwan, a break away province that hasn’t been sanctioned or bombed by its parent country. For capitalists, it’s America’s way or the highway, even if the highway is strewn with millions of dead bodies from conflicts that could have easily been avoided.

Fortunately, the vast majority of sane individuals on this planet aren’t falling for the capitalists’ lies about the necessity for resource grabs any longer. They don’t agree with the US policy of economic sanctions that cause hunger and chaos in their wake. African leaders told a visiting V.P. Kamala Harris that they’re not going to be bullied into using the American petrodollar to do business internationally anymore. India and Pakistan have purchased and sold oil recently from Russia using their currency and not the petrodollar. Many countries are applying to join BRICS, an association of nations willing do business with each other in their own currencies and not the “standard reserve currency” of the US petrodollar.

Upon hearing about the growth of BRICS and the use of other currencies, Senator Marco Rubio let slip in a news interview: “They're creating a secondary economy in the world totally independent of the United States. We won't have to talk about sanctions in five years, because there'll be so many countries transacting in currencies other than the dollar that we won't have the ability to sanction them." 

Oops!

That’s great news for heavily sanctioned countries like Cuba. Cuba, a country that came up with its own COVID-19 vaccine that it freely shares with others as well as a lung cancer vaccine than can cure millions. Cuba would prosper and be able to share even more of its people’s expertise freely without the economic roadblock of the US petrodollar. But Big Pharmaceutical corporations don’t want the “competition” that free vaccines and cures for cancer can give, so the US economic sanctions most likely will continue for the foreseeable future.

It’s nothing to be proud of. US economic sanctions and military interventions have maimed, starved, injured and killed more human beings in the last seventy years that in all the wars that have taken placed before that time. Most of the dead are children. 

Why, oh why? Don’t you capitalists have enough profits? Your CEOs are multi-billionaires already—do they have to become trillionaires at the cost of so much human suffering?

I've had enough of them. I say, “So long, petrodollar! Hello, world peace!” What about this“Good-bye, BlackRock” then?

French protesters—remember them from last week’s blog?—entered the Paris headquarters of BlackRock. BlackRock is an international corporation with assets worth somewhere in the vicinity of $10 trillion dollars. (Yes, that’s trillion with a “tr” and not a “b”.) If you are one of the millions of Americans who lost their home in the 2008 mortgage crisis, the bank or mortgage company that repossessed your home is probably controlled by BlackStone, which is owned by BlackRock. They hold a major share in thousands of corporations worldwide. Some of these corporations are major players in the US military industrial complex.

BlackRock has a lot of its investments in pension plans, perhaps even your own 401K, and it owns a lot of the French pension system as well. The French workers have told President Macron that they’re tired of the wealthy not paying their fair share of taxes and his unilateral raising of their retirement age. They are burning bank buildings because they realize their true enemies are not their fellow workers, or even people around the world who don’t look like them, but the capitalists who own and operate such obscenities as BlackRock. 

The French are also marching in the streets shouting at Macron to stop spending their taxes to fund a proxy war to control natural gas sales in Europe. They are anti-NATO, because everyone in France openly acknowledges that the Ukraine conflict was provoked by Western economies to break the Russian and its friends' economies. French workers want peace and justice for ordinary people, not only the multi-billionaires. 
 
Now you can see why Secretary Blinken doesn’t want China to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. There’s money to be made in conflict for his bosses in the military industrial complex, and peace would cause their profits to plummet. The petrodollar is on the wane, and he knows it. US economic sanctions won’t work much longer if there are other currencies being used to do business internationally between nations. The whole “terrorist threat” of US economic sanctions and endless warfare/coups d'état might be coming to an end much sooner than predicted.

It’s about time.

Let’s give peace a chance, America. Everyone will benefit. Even the goddamn profit-loving capitalists.

 

Related Links:

Geopolitical game changer: China's Iran-Saudi peace deal is big blow to petrodollar and US economic hegemony https://geopoliticaleconomy.substack.com/p/china-iran-saudi-peace-petrodollar 
 
Countries Worldwide Are Dropping the US Dollar
https://popularresistance.org/countries-worldwide-are-dropping-the-us-dollar/

The Tragedy of US Diplomacy Pushing for War But Never Peace
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/the-tragedy-of-us-diplomacy-pushing-for-war-but-never-peace
 
Human Destiny In Ukraine
https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/09/human-destiny-in-ukraine/

On Biden Turning Down China's Push for a Peace Deal in Ukraine
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/china-peace-deal-for-ukraine
 
How the Global South Has Risen in the Face of US Sabotage
https://www.mintpressnews.com/how-the-global-south-has-risen-in-the-face-of-us-sabotage/284247/

French Pension Protesters Occupy BlackRock, Torch Restaurant https://popularresistance.org/french-pension-protesters-occupy-blackrock-torch-restaurant/  
 
UN Human Rights Council Condemns Impact Of Unilateral Sanctions  https://popularresistance.org/un-human-rights-council-condemns-impact-of-unilateral-sanctions/ 
 
While Everyone's Distracted, The Dollar Is Dying
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/while-everyones-distracted-dollar-dying

More and More Countries Are Ditching the US Dollar, Here's Why (video)  https://youtu.be/UcIPLGvwGF0

Question marks emerge over dollar supremacy
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/04/06/tokb-a06.html

Russia Writes Off 20 Billion In Debt To African Countries
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Russia-Writes-Off-20-Billion-In-Debt-To-African-Countries-20230320-0015.html

15 Million in the US to be Kicked Off of Public Health Benefits
https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/07/15-million-in-the-us-to-be-kicked-off-of-public-health-benefits/

UN Human Rights Council Condemns Impact of Unilateral Sanctions https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/06/un-human-rights-council-condemns-impact-of-unilateral-sanctions/

Africa ‘All Out,’ 54-0, Against Joining Biden’s Proxy War on Russia
https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/07/africa-all-out-54-0-against-joining-bidens-proxy-war-on-russia/

The West Has Been Planning to Crush China For a Very Long Time
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-west-has-been-planning-to-crush

Why China's Winning & The US Is Panicking (w/ Josef Gregory Mahoney) (video) https://www.youtube.com/live/MMkqeaTlVTA

Chinese Currency Displaces Euro In Brazil’s Foreign Reserves
https://popularresistance.org/chinese-currency-displaces-euro-in-brazils-foreign-reserves/

China’s Historical Destiny Is to Stand With the Third World
https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/02/chinas-historical-destiny-is-to-stand-with-the-third-world/
 
Marco Rubio Accidentally Makes a Great Argument Against US Dollar Hegemony https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/marco-rubio-accidentally-makes-a 
 
Protesters Storm BlackRock (video) https://rumble.com/v2he81o-protesters-storm-blackrocks-offices-bidens-oil-drilling-orgy.html

Macron Fails to Persuade, So Opts for Coercion https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/08/macron-fails-to-persuade-so-opts-for-coercion/

French Protesters Storm BlackRock's Paris HQ (video) https://youtu.be/xqki_HI1ZRY

US Media Cheer as France Forces Old People to Work https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/08/us-media-cheer-as-france-forces-old-people-to-work/

Biden Knocking 15 Million Off Healthcare (video) https://rumble.com/v2h0lzq-trumps-plane-gets-more-media-than-biden-knocking-15-million-off-healthcare.html 

US Bank Bailout Benefited Billionaires, Exposing Corruption: ‘I Understand Why Americans Are Angry’ https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/10/us-bank-bailout-benefitted-billionaires-exposing-corruption-i-understand-why-americans-are-angry/ 

Seymour Hersh: The Nord Stream Ghost Ship
https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/05/seymour-hersh-the-nord-stream-ghost-ship/

For The Record, NPR Absolutely Is US State Propaganda
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/for-the-record-npr-absolutely-is

French Revolution 2.0/American Revolution Nil https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2023/04/french-revolution-20american-revolution.html


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Tuesday, April 4, 2023

French Revolution 2.0/American Revolution Nil


French Revolution 2.0/American Revolution Nil
by C.A. Matthews 

 

If a massive series of nationwide strikes and protests occur across France, but American mainstream media completely ignores them, or relegates brief mentions of them to the “back pages,” does this ongoing popular French uprising really exist at all? 
 
This point struck home this week after I had a conversation with a person who said “Huh? What?” when I mentioned the huge number of protests, strike actions, and other activist events happening since the start of the year in France. He didn’t know that France is literally on fire. 
 

It seems odd that an intelligent person who’s reasonably in touch with reality wouldn’t be following the story of how French workers are standing up to President Macron’s unilateral raising of the retirement age. But if you watch mainstream news channels and read rags such as Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post, you might have missed anything to do with the French building barricades and burning automobiles in the streets next to sky-high piles of uncollected garbage bags and brigades of baton-wielding police officers dragging protesters off to jail.
 
Some days I wonder if it’s all worth it. Should I keep following independent journalists and keeping up with what’s happening in the world? Maybe it’s time to throw in the towel and give in to the propaganda machine. What could it hurt? I could live in darkness and believe that things that average Americans believe, like how we haven’t had a series of war criminals for president and American intelligence agencies had nothing to do with either the 2014 Maidan Coup or the Nord Stream 2 pipelines bombing. 
 
 (If you have to look up any of these topics to understand what I mean, might I suggest you check out https://radindiemedia.com and use their search function? You’re welcome.)

Back to the French protesting and burning cars in the streets thing: I’ve wondered if this ongoing protest in France is somehow a chance for Americans to witness and learn what a real, honest-to-goodness revolution is like. Before you object and say, “Hey, Americans had a revolution in 1776!” I’d like to remind you that the French also had a revolution in the 18th century, around 1789. 

The thing is, the French working class actually toppled their monarch off his throne and marched him to the guillotine. American working classes (excluding enslaved Africans and despised/displaced Native Americans) simply followed a bunch of wealthy, white, slave-owning/land-owning males who threw a temper tantrum (or “Boston Tea Party”) over having to pay their fair share of taxes to the king back home in England—a king who never lost one hair on his head due to rude behavior in the colonies. 

If a despot is still sitting on his or her throne at the end of the day, you can’t say you’ve experienced a revolution, now can you?

The French have experienced a revolution on several occasions besides 1789, and it appears Macron is going to be out on his ear before too long if the people have anything to say about it. Sure, the militarized police and the armed forces are being used and will be used against the people, but the French seem bound and determined not to allow Macron to cross their line in the sand. They’re in it to win it, no matter how physically, financially, or emotionally damaging it could be.

What’s the difference between the French and Americans when it comes to standing up to injustices, such as forcing a raise in the retirement age? Independent journalist Patrick Lawrence in his piece, French Streets and American Sofas, puts it well:

...It is remarkable the world over to watch the French explode into the streets of dozens of cities and towns to protest the imperial president residing in Élysée Palace. It is altogether singular to follow the demonstrations against Emmanuel Macron as an American. The French are still citoyens and take to their streets and public squares. Americans long ago cashed in their citizenship to live as consumers—and take to their sofas no matter how abusively political elites treat them, no matter how many wars they start, no matter how corrupt the financial system, no matter how many people live in poverty, no matter how grotesque the “defense” budget, no matter how poisoned the environment, no matter… let me not go on.

Please pass the Fritos and turn on the big game.

Lawrence has wisely discerned the major difference between the French and the Americans that demonstrates why the French make revolutions and Americans make… simply a change in the TV channel and a choice of chips. The French still see themselves as one people, one body, one class of workers, standing up against the injustices of the king or the emperor or the president. The French don’t sit back and eat junk food and ignore the plight of their fellow workers. Instead, they stand up and take their righteous indignation to the streets and fight for justice for all workers, for all citizens, for all their people. 

Americans have, from time to time, attempted to do likewise—such as in the Civil Rights protests of the 1960s—but basically we’ve never been able to keep that level of righteous indignation going for very long. We profess that we don’t care all that much about our neighbors, particularly if our neighbor wears a red hat or votes “blue no matter who” or attends a different church or happens to use a public restroom we’d rather they didn’t use. Americans have been divided and conquered for so long that it’s as natural to us as breathing. We’d rather give in to the ruling oligarchy and turn on the game and tune out of life than stand up and fight for what really matters. 

Lawrence further elaborates on how the French see the raising retirement age problem as an indication of whose side their government is on: “Macron’s choice lay between raising taxes on the wealthy and the corporations or pushing the problem on the shoulders of the working class. He made the wrong choice.” 

Can you imagine American workers getting upset over the federal government raising the retirement age? Can you imagine American workers getting angry over how the wealthy and the corporations don’t pay their fair share of taxes, so the poor and struggling workers are forced to make up the deficit? Of course you can’t imagine Americans having their noses put out of joint over this type of ill-treatment because these two things have already occurred in the US, and American workers have done nothing serious about them. Not. One. Thing.

You owe it to yourself to read the entirety of Lawrence’s article. Here’s one last quote that sums up where Americans have gone wrong in thinking that once we actually experienced a revolution:

The [French] Revolution was an attack on the vestiges of divine right, the notion that a monarch’s authority was God-given. It was about humanity, not the heavens, as the agent of its destiny. And it was class-conscious. There were no illusions in 1789 as to the nature of power. The fate of the French is in the hands of the French: This was the core thought then and it is the core thought now.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees this fault in Americans. We don't really believe in ourselves as a people. We don't universally believe in anything really, other than the oligarchs’ propaganda that we gladly consume from our mainstream media like a bag of chips. Americans are indoctrinated from a young age and propagandized throughout our adulthood to do as we're told by our bosses. We have a natural instinct telling us things aren't quite adding up, that they're wrong or unfair, but we can never quite put a finger on it. We are blind to our society's class conflicts and never lose faith in the powers-that-be, no matter how blatantly corrupt they are or how perverted the capitalist economic system has become. 

Oh, to be as class-conscious and community-minded as the French! Oh, to be able to rise up as one people and set the streets on fire to scare the corrupt politician-puppets out of power! 

Maybe one day we shall have the strength, wisdom, and courage to take our destiny into our own hands like the French have done. Maybe we’ll even experience that “First American Revolution” that our poorly written history textbooks tell us our ancestors once participated in. Until then, pass the Fritos and hand me the remote. It’s my turn to pick the channel.

 


Related Links:

UPDATE: The French People Battle Pension Reform in Paris (video)https://unicornriot.ninja/2023/the-french-people-battle-p ension-reform-in-paris/ 

Patrick Lawrence: French Streets and American Sofas
https://scheerpost.com/2023/03/30/patrick-lawrence-french-streets-and-american-sofas/

France Burns! What the F*ck is Going On?! (video) https://youtu.be/drIYG3J86tI

Protests Rage In France For A Tenth Day https://popularresistance.org/protests-rage-in-france-for-a-tenth-day/

'The Movement Has Spread': Strikes Across France Aim to Block Macron Attack on Pensions
https://www.commondreams.org/news/france-protests-macron-pensions-mar-7

Macron Loses Control - Train Tracks Blocked https://youtu.be/lnXOkJzP63U

Women’s rights at the heart of the fight over pensions in France
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/03/07/womens-rights-at-the-heart-of-the-fight-over-pensions-in-france/

Macron Faces National Strike in France (video) https://youtu.be/ChpZ3p6MT9A

Despite Government Attacks: Workers, Students In France Stay Strong  https://popularresistance.org/despite-government-attacks-workers-students-in-france-stay-strong/

Workers in France are still refusing to back down to Macron’s pension reforms  https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-news/2023/03/23/workers-in-france-are-still-refusing-to-back-down-to-macrons-pension-reforms/

Covering Up Anti-War Protest in US Media https://scheerpost.com/2023/03/31/covering-up-antiwar-protest-in-us-media/

How The Rich Are Prepping For End Times & Why (video about the petrodollar crashing) https://youtu.be/bW1bibPhJfA

CNN Pushes Propaganda on French Protests (video)
https://youtu.be/0_KtcRvxJnY

Fresh Clashes Rock France As Protests Shift To Water Dispute
https://popularresistance.org/fresh-clashes-rock-france-as-protests-shift-to-water-dispute/

No to French unions’ “mediation” with the state! Mobilize workers to bring down Macron!  https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/03/30/yyvw-m30.html


Rubbish collectors lead last-ditch strikes against France’s pension reforms https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-news/2023/03/15/rubbish-collectors-lead-last-ditch-strikes-against-frances-pension-reforms/

Massive Anti-NATO Protests Erupt in France (video) https://youtu.be/_sZcC8QAojU

Protesting French Students Denounce Trade Union "Mediation" with Macron https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/04/01/summ-a01.html

UN Security Council Won’t Probe Nord Stream Bombing
https://popularresistance.org/un-security-council-wont-probe-nord-stream-bombing/

Bad Faith UN Report On Nicaragua Whitewashes Violent US-Backed Coup
https://popularresistance.org/bad-faith-un-report-on-nicaragua-whitewashes-violent-us-backed-coup/

Congress Has Been Captured by the Arms Industry
https://scheerpost.com/2023/03/28/congress-has-been-captured-by-the-arms-industry/


The US Has Seen 50 Chemical Spills or Fires This Year, and It’s Only March https://truthout.org/articles/the-us-has-seen-50-chemical-spills-or-fires-this-year-and-its-only-march/

At Least 39 Asylum Seekers Dead After Fire at Migrant Jail in Mexico  https://truthout.org/articles/at-least-39-asylum-seekers-dead-after-fire-at-migrant-jail-in-mexico/

Google founder, former Disney exec to get subpoenas in JPMorgan Epstein lawsuit  https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/31/google-founder-former-disney-exec-to-get-subpoenas-in-jpmorgan-epstein-lawsuit.html

 

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