Je Suis Charlie to MacronLeaks? France’s ‘free press’ takes credibility hit

“It’s crucial to know there is not one major media in France which is pro-Le Pen…”

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I don’t understand: I thought the French were passionately in love with liberty of the press?

That’s what they said when they just HAD to publish pictures of the Prophet Muhammad in Charlie Hebdo. And some of these pictures were absolutely pornographic, let’s not forget – they were not respectful, tolerant or even neutral. Heck, one showed Prophet Muhammad actually filming a porn movie.

But I thought it was a question of the responsibility of the press to be brave and publish what may get them in trouble? And the right to political speech? And of personal freedom?

That’s what was self-righteously proclaimed by one French media after another, after another, after another and after another to anyone who would listen around the world.

The common Frenchman, too: I’ve never seen more people in one place than the 4-million person demonstration in support of Charlie Hebdo. I asked some tough questions there in my work as Iran’s Press TV correspondent, despite the pleas of my cameraman to think of our own skin.

And yet it seems the first rule of MacronLeaks is: Don’t talk about MacronLeaks.

The morning after the hacked emails of the Macron campaign were released the French Electoral Commission menacingly warned that nobody was permitted to publish the contents of the leaks. The leaks were tens of thousands of emails, notes, bills and internal discussions.

What was inside? Can’t tell ya – I’m a journalist.

It wasn’t as if the French people didn’t have access to this information: MacronLeaks are all over Twitter and social media.

Imagine if Marine Le Pen had been up 62% to 38% instead of Macron? I’m sure SOME media would have published LePenLeaks, and justified it by “standing up to fascism”...But the French don’t stand up to capitalism. Certainly not when they seem about to elect a Rothschild banker and pro-austerity Macron in around 8 hours. Certainly they don’t stand up for communism anymore.

So this 11^th-hour election twist means that France is living in a state of forced denial, and this denial is forced by the state. A good word for that is “authoritarian”. Hey, due to the ongoing state of emergency (18 months and to be extended by either presidential candidate) this is officially a “police state dictatorship”, after all.

Authoritarianism has become old hat for us in France!

But if this was Russia and it was Vladimir Putin’s chosen successor instead of Francois Hollande and his chosen boy Emmanuel Macron, what would the French media be saying? Stupid question: They’d be screaming “censorship, censorship, censorship”.

It’s appalling: There hasn’t been ONE French media willing to courageously publish when no one else will.

Leaks just don’t sell as many newspapers as naked cartoons, I guess? What happened to the infamous French provocateur? I’d even settle for one of those annoying types right about now.

Imagine if Marine Le Pen was up 62% to 38% instead of Macron? I’m sure SOME media would have published LePenLeaks, and justified it by “standing up to fascism”.

But the French don’t stand up to capitalism. Certainly not when they seem about to elect a Rothschild banker and pro-austerity Macron in around 8 hours. Certainly they don’t stand up for communism anymore.

But boy oh boy, don’t they talk a lot of stuff about their love of a free press? And when you don’t back it up….

Censoring will have the opposite effect of discrediting the media & the election

It’s crucial to know there is not one major media in France which is pro-Le Pen.

This is very different from Brexit, where newspapers made explaining the Brexit rationale a daily occurrence. It’s also different from the US, where Trump at least had Fox News to give his side. Seemingly everybody with power, money and influence - and I mean everybody - is against Le Pen.

Le Pen supporters already had cause to claim, 100% fairly, media bias: The MacronLeaks self-censorship will be also fairly viewed as just another step in this direction.

Whether you agree with the decision or not, the fact is that nearly 40% of voters are expected to vote for Le Pen. Add in some abstentionist sympathizers and we can accurately predict that half the country is going to view France’s media as being in total collusion against their candidate.

They are turning to the “Fourth Estate” for guidance and what they found at the top of the France 24 website was this story: Reproduction of whales and dolphins in captivity banned. How can France’s media not lose credibility with such nonsense?

That’s why Twitter Francais was full of condemnations like this one: “The oligarchy will be scandalized by its methods. This is why people go elsewhere than the mainstream for information. This is all that the journalists of BFMacron can do?” (BFM is one of the two top TV news channels here.)

The French establishment is trying to protect its election (or its preferred candidate, perhaps), but half the country is going to see this self-censorship as undermining the credibility of the election itself. Also from Twitter: The censoring of the French media on the MacronLeaks revelations before the decision of the French people is a reason to invalidate the vote.

This is the anti-Macron camp on Twitter, and they are right.

The pro-Macron camp on Twitter encouraged each other to post pictures of cats. This was in order to bog down Twitter in adorable feline stupidity and not allow their fellow citizens to see what the future president was up to.

So why didn’t I publish the contents – I’m a journalist in France?

That’s an honest question, and I’ll give an honest answer:

That decision was above my pay grade.

Like many journalists, I am not in charge - I’m just a worker. I can decide for myself, but I cannot decide for my media. My views on it appear to be clear.

I think the point of view of Press TV is that: We have already been banned by France’s state-run satellite company during the Hollande administration…what do we need even more harassment for?

After all, I could barely find anybody in France to stand up for Iran’s right to freedom of the press and denounce this obvious censorship. Even the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders refused to give an interview to me to attack this ban and to defend Iran’s rights. LOL at that NGO’s “apolitical” reputation. LOL at their hypocrisy.

I’m not trying to sound “tough” – I was very conflicted about MacronLeaks and it’s not certain I would have revealed the contents if the choice was mine to make. What made it much harder was that, for sure, I would have been the first.

I am a foreign journalist – why aren’t the domestic media leading the way?

They have all the contacts, all the ability to fight in courts, all the language-skills to explain to a judge, all the reasons to defend their press. It is their country, after all – I’m not even a citizen. So I understand Press TV’s view. But there are certainly many French journalists who feel disappointed with their publishers and their colleagues, and they should feel that way.

Rules are made to broken - failing to do so leaves only questions

Ok, 36 hours is not much time to verify the veracity of the leaks, but I ask you: Which media refused to publish the allegations about conservative candidate Francois Fillon and “Penelopegate” over these very same alleged concerns?

Or which media refused to publish the allegations concerning Marine Le Pen and her EU ghost jobs scandal?

The answer is, “none”. So why is Macron getting preferential treatment?

If the answer is, “Because it’s too close to the election,” I find that very unsatisfying. Truth, justice, transparency and the peoples’ right to know does not have a date.

If the answer is, “Because it’s the law,” I find that unsatisfying as well. However, I did not realize just how anally-retentive about the law the French were until I moved here – it goes against the common stereotype. They have been, as we all inevitably are, greatly influenced by their neighbors, the anal-retentive kings – the Germans. France has not fallen far from that tree.

If the answer is, “Because foreigners are trying to influence our election,” I find that unsatisfying as well. Learning the truth about a candidate is the most important – have we not seen how badly Hollande lied and backtracked to the French? Learning the truth is the best safeguard to democracy – the source of the truth and their motives are totally irrelevant.

Macron and his team are asking to serve as public servants: How does transparency not trump their right to privacy? Mustn’t elected officials be held to a higher standard?

This censorship cuts both ways, including against Macron’s rights: By denying all discussion, how can Macron clear his name? Surely some will say that Macron is guilty by suspicion, and that is not fair either. Of course, with a 20+ point lead he just wants to tread water and say as little as possible – this has been his election strategy all this time, in fact.

Ultimately, it is the public which must be made king: Otherwise you have an oligarchy. The media’s complicity in the MacronLeaks affair will only increase accusations that this is the true nature of France.

Plenty of proof that France censors only when it wants to

The fact is that assuming these leaks were some sort of “disinformation campaign” is not based on any proof.

WikiLeaks, who was not behind the leaks, said that they appeared credible. When is the last time such a big leak turned out to be false? Whistleblowers like this have a very good record.

But if the whistleblower thought this would have an effect like in the United States, he was sorely mistaken. The French are not going to go hog-wild over conspiracy theories like the Obama Birther Movement in the US.

What’s more likely is that the whistleblower had the data, and realized he had no smoking gun. So he waited until the campaign ended, hoping that innuendo would do what his hacked data could not.

Am I even allowed to print that? Dear Paris prosecutors, please note I am only hypothesizing that there is no smoking gun, maybe there is!

I have had to make that same half-serious, half-pathetic plea for other cases in France recently: covering “apology for terrorism” cases. That’s another example – hundreds of examples – where France clearly cared nothing for freedom of speech: you had minors, drunks and mentally ill citizens accused by hearsay, jailed, tried and sentenced over just a few days.

French media doesn’t like to make a fuss about that, either.

Back to MacronLeaks: By releasing this so close to the election there’s a fair case to be made that this is not whistleblowing but manipulation, and those are two different things.

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. But the first rule of MacronLeaks is that we can’t talk about them.

About the author

RAMIN MAZAHERI, Senior Correspondent & Contributing Editor, Dispatch from Paris

Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His work has appeared in various journals, magazines and websites, as well as on radio and television.

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What will it take to bring America to live according to its own self image?

Leftist Melenchon to serve as Le Pen’s Minister of Finance

That is what’s known in the news business as an “untrue headline”.

IIt’s a great move, not because Nicolas Dupont-Aignan brings 5% of the 1^st round vote, but because he helps show that a National Front cabinet will not be filled with only bozos, racists and fascists.

The 4^th-place candidate, leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon, and the 2 far-left presidential candidates have thus far only said they will not oppose Le Pen. This lack of support for Emmanuel Macron is a damning indictment of his policies and person.

These candidates are being raked over the coals by the mainstream media for failing to stop the Brownshirts from coming to power. If you are reading this, you already realize the mainstream media are great stenographers but useless when it comes to intelligent political analysis.

My question is: Why is the Left stopping there? For the first time in decades the Left has some power and political influence, and they are not using it!

Leftists appear to be the swing vote in this election: will they vote Macron, Le Pen or stay at home (aiding Le Pen)?

There are no circumstances where Leftists can work with Le Pen?

I don’t know if Le Pen would make the offer for a top post in her government, or if Melenchon would accept it, but let’s explore the idea:

Interior Minister – the nation’s “top cop” – and Defense Minister seem reserved for the National Front. The best way to keep them occupied is giving them the chance to dress up and march around.

That leaves Foreign Minister and Finance Minister as the top portfolios. Melenchon would have a tremendous amount of domestic influence if Le Pen traded him the Finance Minister post in return for his support. Melenchon doesn’t have the training for Finance Minister, you say? Oh, did Macron? He got his degree in public affairs.

So why did Macron get a job chez Rothschild? Because he had the right ideology, that’s why. The ideology of: I want money and will ruin anybody else in order to get it.

Economy is not a hard science – it is not even a science. If it was, we’d have found the answers by now. The “technocratic” lie should be totally debunked following years of Eurozone stagnation. Ideology is everything in economics – “how should tax money be spent” is a question filled with moral implications.

Le Pen and Melenchon’s biggest difference is on the economy: Le Pen rejects Melenchon’s call for 100 billion euros in (much-needed) investment to be financed by a return to progressive taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Wouldn’t – shouldn’t – Melenchon work with Le Pen for the good of France if she is willing to make this political horse trade in return for his support?

All of Europe needs a new Varoufakis: Imagine Melenchon, the best orator in France, going to EU and G20 meetings of finance ministers and reading them the riot act against austerity and capitalist cannibalization? Before I get into the moral and intellectual defense of working with Le Pen, let’s prolong our enjoyment of this idea just a little longer before cold reality comes crashing down. Let me relate a personal story about France’s future prime minister (hopefully).

Trump-like, Le Pen’s future PM means increased chances for global peace

Here’s an interview I did with Dupont-Aignan where he proved to be an uncommon politician, and an admirable one.

It really shows why everyone outside of France should be praying for a Le Pen victory in the same sense that everyone outside of the USA should have been praying for a Clinton loss.

In my work as Press TV’s Paris correspondent I have to follow all of France’s foreign interventions, and there are many. The least-known one is France’s war in their former colony of the Central African Republic, the country subjected to more French military interventions than any other nation. It’s a complicated story, but to be brief: C.A.R. leader/French puppet François Bozizé moved closer to China, and in punishment France stopped intervening militarily to save him. Instead, they allowed a group of opposition “rebels” known as Seleka to take power.

It was surprising for multiple reasons: France had bombed Seleka for years; Seleka had no coherent political program as they were fairly described as bandits; they were Muslims in an overwhelmingly majority-Christian nation.

Yet France did a 180 and starting supporting Seleka, who overthrew Bozizé in March 2013. Later that year, France completely wrote a UN resolution getting that body’s support for Seleka to govern. Everyone was surprised yet again.

And then two months later France shocked everyone yet again by summarily pulling their support for Seleka, and also sending in 1,000 troops. This coup de grace totally destabilized an already unstable situation…which was, of course, the neo-colonialist/capitalist point from the very beginning. (So it should all be clear to you now.)

Things went – as everyone predicted – terribly: Seleka was totally unable to govern and spurred the outbreak of religious violence. Thousands have died, there are 500,000 refugees internationally, 400,000 internally displaced refugees, and 99% of the nation’s Muslims fled the country.

Yet another horrific crisis started by France to serve its own interests…it’s now called “The CAR Civil War”. The centuries-old peaceful cohabitation between Muslims and Christians is now a memory – a loss of historic societal proportions for the CAR.

That’s the story, and it’s not at all my fault if nobody has brought up Hollande’s humanitarian disaster in the CAR even once during the election campaign.

Dupont-Aignan

For a report on the situation in 2014 I went to French Parliament’s weekly (or twice-weekly) media day to get someone to admit France’s obvious guilt. I saw Dupont-Aignan, and he listened to my facts and gave an honest answer:

“We were very wrong at the time, and that’s very obvious today,” said Dupont-Aignan.

I normally wouldn’t use a short quote like that, but he said exactly what was necessary. (He also didn’t know anything about the CAR, but that only makes him the same as every French parliamentarian).

But I would only expect such honesty from a far-left politician. Believing your country is always right is not patriotism, but jingoism; it is akin to religious extremism.

I tried to find another honest politician but could not. I settled for a mainstream conservative, and you can see me arguing with him in that link, trying to get him to admit France’s errors in the CAR. Instead I got cut off and got vive la France:

“This is pure rubbish! We have been accused of the same thing in Rwanda and we were the only one to avoid genocide. So this is the Anglo-Saxon (sic) or many others who try to criticize France, but this is pure rubbish! Our aim is to stabilize the country. We are not against the Muslims, we are not against the Catholics – what we want is that this country be stabilized and live in peace,” said Jacques Myard, of the conservative UMP Party (now Républicain Party).

Quite sorry Mr. Myard, but your quote is total rubbish – about the CAR, about Rwanda and about what France truly wants for Africa.

Who is the danger to the CAR – Le Pen’s future prime minister or the mainstream parties?

Who is the extremist jingoist, and who represents a much-needed change which could encourage global peace?

Can I add that Le Pen wants to abolish the CFA Franc – another little known crisis-inducing piece of capitalism in 14 African countries?

If Dupont-Aignan had been a fellow communist I would be holding my nose in the air right now over our moral superiority; but because he isn’t, does that make him less moral or correct on this key question of foreign policy?

It is this type of blind party loyalty which is going to put Macron in power, despite an ongoing crisis.

Record-high unemployment, rampant corruption, complete 180-degree reversals on campaign platforms which are the antithesis of democracy, the grim prospect of achieving a lost decade due to the imposition of right-wing austerity which lacks any democratic majority consent of the people, youth unemployment which will set back the lives of our future generations, etc.

This crisis is made and sustained for obvious reasons: To repay bankers who made poor business decisions, and to lower the price of labor costs in order to increase profits.

When Francois Hollande couldn’t get what he wanted democratically, he simply bypassed Parliament in order to please the corporate class. What could be more fascistic than that?

Getting rid of the mainstream parties is not worth making a deal with the devil, but the National Front is not the devil, and they are certainly less devilish economically than the Socialists or conservatives.

If the Left joins Le Pen they may be able to implement many long-held leftist goals, help destroy the current mainstream political establishment, give the National Front’s non-fascist economic plans like Frexit legitimacy, create a workable coalition in Parliament and rein in the fascist elements of the National Front as best they can instead of giving them all the power to run amok.

What good will the Left do to simply sit on the sidelines and criticize, again?

Isn’t it more patriotic, more moral, to support Le Pen (who is no longer the leader of the National Front) and say, “It is I who am taking responsibility for protecting France from her reactionary aspects”?

Isn’t that really the moral thing to do: accept a burden instead of allowing people to suffer? Too bad Western Europeans don’t do “martyrdom”….

Isn’t the Left finished with their delusion that they can work with the mainstream?

Have you seen how far to the right the mainstream has moved economically since the fall of the USSR? In France, how could any Leftist not be equally ashamed to work with the Islamophobic, State of Emergency-imposing, Parliament-bypassing Socialist Party?

Melenchonistes should realize that they will NEVER be accepted into a mainstream cabinet. Heck, Socialist Party presidential candidate Benoit Hamon and others resigned from Hollande’s cabinet over austerity, and these were defections are by people who are pro-EU, anti-Russia, anti-Assad – i.e. not leftists, but centrists. And they were “too left” for the Socialist Party!

Is the Left’s plan to never punish the Socialists for doing wrong? The idea seems typical of fake-leftists: “never spank”, and ultimately give up when you can’t keep the hand from repeatedly going into the cookie jar.

Or is Melenchon what many have claimed: an egotistical demagogue?

Is the idea to wait 5 more years and then hope Melenchon wins the presidency? Jean-Luc wants it all or nothing at all?

I see no reason why Melenchon can’t join forces with Le Pen, if only to get her elected and end austerity. His “not one or the other and also not telling how I’ll vote” attitude is totally ineffectual – as if the election won’t be held on May 7^th without him.

Melenchon can join Le Pen, and then if he can’t rein in her worst impulses he can say so publicly and drop out like Hamon. Hamon’s leftist bonafides were improved by that – what is Melenchon worried about? The failure is not in failing, but in not trying.

Bottom line: Is this what Western democracy is? Don’t accept the results and just look down your nose at the winners, obstructing like hell for the opposition’s entire term? Why the hell should that ever be exported to any Colored nation?

Shouldn’t Western democracy be: compel the politicians to accept the results which the people have decided, working with the good and the flawed?

The other option is that we on the Left can sit back and watch the National Front fail. And when they inevitably do – Seleka-like – the public will finally realize that the right has proven themselves unable to govern, the center has proven themselves unable to be trusted, and therefore voters will finally rush into the arms of the Left and give us the credit we deserve and a utopian love affair will begin and never end.

It’s a nice story. We Leftists tell it to ourselves often.

Hey, we are closer than ever since 1989 – it only took 30 years of turmoil and a decade of worldwide economic crisis. Maybe Macron will, like Hollande, last only one term?

Five years…the title of a David Bowie song, and one which is the “Thin White Duke” at his most insufferable, overly-arty and totally unfunky. He did that type of stuff a lot….

That ain’t my kinda Left: whiny, self-indulgent, gender-bending, Bowie-esque – fake leftism. When Bowie acted in a play by matchless leftist playwright Bertolt Brecht he chose a work which totally predated Brecht’s leftist enlightenment. “Baal” is poetic but its politics are 100% nihilist: all the Brecht cachet and none of the substance. I know the guy just died, but Bowie’s awesome rocker “Suffragette City” has lyrics which contain nothing about feminist liberation, even though the musical results disappointed nobody…LOL, clearly I’m getting absurdly sidetracked here and just posting music links now.

France’s final-week campaign song should be Five Long Years by blues emperor Freddie King.

“Have you ever been mistreated? Then you know just what I’m talking about. I worked 5 long years for one woman – and she had the nerve to kick me out.”

Freddie the King was right, and I have no idea what his preferred political label was, other than “the Texas Cannonball”.

No way I vote for Macron and five more years of mistreatment. You?

About the author

RAMIN MAZAHERI, Senior Correspondent & Contributing Editor, Dispatch from Paris

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What will it take to bring America to live according to its own self image?

Obama & Macron: Brand changes courtesy of the capitalist empire

Politically, Macron is the product of incest because the Socialists and Républicains have enacted the same policies so as to become indistinguishable: state of emergency, austerity, anti-refugee, anti-Muslim, foreign intervention, obeying Brussels, etc…

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON.

If leaders lead and followers follow, then we’ll have to wait another election cycle to be rid of Emmanuel Macron.

Since Sarkozy, "l’américain," France is a follower. He buried the independence which was a key part of Charles de Gaulle’s worldview. France now follows the lead of American capitalists. In NATO, in globalization, in subordinating the EU to the US, in subordinating French national interests to the EU, in rolling back the communist-inspired reforms it took us average people decades to win, etc.
.
Brexit and Trump [despite the latter's utter lack of any principled ideology and current enthusiastic embrace of the deep state commands] are examples of two nations, two populations, refusing to follow. Unfortunately, Emmanuel Macron appears likely to win.

If he does, the powers-that-be will have installed him in office for the same reason that Obama was installed over Hillary in 2008 –the regime needs a new face, this time in France.

From an international point of view, the French brand will be hugely tarnished by a National Front victory. But it is a lie that a vote against the National Front will mean progress because it is a vote against racism, allegedly.

I don’t want to be cruel, but looking at Francois Hollande is no picnic. Look at my picture and you won’t be surprised when many commenters say the same thing about me – we who displease the eye have a right to be frank without being accused of shallowness.

It’s not about faces, though, but electability. Prior to round one, I had about as good a chance of being voted President of France as Hollande and I’m not even a French citizen. I think with a better haircut I could surpass Hollande’s 4% approval rating.

But Macron is about to become president because the powers-that-be realized that there was no way that historically unpopular Hollande could win, and so he's gone. Those nefarious powers did not get to where they are by being loyal.

Yes, Macron is 100% Clintonian, but what’s happening in France right now is best understood as a replay of the US election in 2008. The much-ballyhooed arrival of Obama proved to be only a brand change – the capitalist/imperialist product remained the same.

Give credit where it’s due: It was a GREAT brand change – it won the Nobel Prize for Advertising, after all. Excuse me, I meant the Nobel Peace Prize.

Because if Obama was if not the puppet of Hillary Clinton and her fellow Democratic oligarchs he was certainly their willing servant: bailouts, drones, deportations, surges, regime changes – on only a handful of issues would I say that Obama didn’t do exactly what Hillary would have done.

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]ith the same Brussels-kowtowing economic austerity plan, the same capitalist/globalization fervor and the same DC-designed foreign policy, Macron has been selected to be the shiny new face of the exact same product.

But I thought we all agreed that we hated Hollande?

Hollande himself has endorsed Macron as being a continuation of his policies. Sensible journalists should be screaming from the rafters: “Well then how can you vote Macron for president?” This is truly the most sensible reason to vote AGAINST Macron, given the one-term reality of Hollande.

If France thinks Macron will give them something seriously different… then that is a case of willful blindness, and that can only end badly.

In 2008 Obama benefited from a huge historical subterfuge: The concept that voting for a Black man (any Black man) could only mean progress. But, more importantly, it was about restoring America’s global brand after Dubya Bush.

Macron’s historical subterfuge is perhaps less compelling, but only because France’s crimes are not Dubya-era America’s crimes. From a domestic point of view: Macron is 39-years old, and the desire for young blood in France cannot be underestimated. In the UK if you lose you’re out. In the US less so. In France, get in and you stay in.

Anyone think “Penelopegate” Fillon won’t be running for president again? The guy he surprisingly beat in the Républicain primary, Alain Juppé, was convicted of corruption and initially barred from holding office for 10 years. That his sentence was later reduced to 1 year can only be called due to…the word is “corruption”. The French, as they have no problem telling you, are fed up.

From an international point of view, the French brand will be hugely tarnished by a National Front victory.
But it is a lie that a vote against the National Front will mean progress because it is a vote against racism, allegedly.

It’s not that the National Front is not racist – it is – but so are all the other political parties in France except the far-left (and even many of those rabid Je Suis Charlies). It’s also not true that racism does more societal damage than right-wing neoliberalism, which touches everybody but the 1%.

To explain or justify a possible Macron victory one must hack through so many layers of delusion, hypocrisy and stupidity, but those are the mental thickets thrown up by incestuous politics.

Macr-Obama? MacHoBama? It’s inbreeding, whatever you call it France has never had a successful, openly “Third Way” politician. It was assumed that only the English-speaking world was gullible enough (and anti-socialist enough) to fall for the ruse of “compassionate conservatism”; this absurd idea that “enlightened capitalism” isn’t an oxymoron. Macron’s “neither left nor right” nonsense is, in the supremely condemnatory French sense of the word, “boring”.

Macron is the baby-faced offspring produced by the right-flank of the Socialists and the left-flank of the conservatives. But this is misleading, because it implies two different sets of DNA were involved.

Politically, Macron is the product of incest because the Socialists and Républicains have enacted the same policies so as to become indistinguishable: state of emergency, austerity, anti-refugee, anti-Muslim, foreign intervention, obeying Brussels, etc.

And that makes Macron miscegenated royalty, and he’s being treated like that by the media: someone with no faults; someone who cannot be criticized; someone with glowing qualities and glowing beauty; someone with a divine right to rule due to his alleged moral superiority over piggish Le Pen.

Macron is the distracting part of the old switcheroo – swap out Hollande for Macron, keep the same policies.
We cannot forget that Macron is an economic extremist – he is as radical, on the other pole, as someone who wants to do away with all private property. That’s what Austro-Chicago school neolilberals are: reactionaries against socialism, storing up as much as they can for the day they know is coming – the communist democratic victory of the people over the 1%. Hell, we’d settle for just beating the 0.000000001% - the 1 billionth - the 8 people who own half the wealth in this world of 7.5 billion people.

On foreign policy Macron says nothing – he says as little as possible on anything but the most inoffensive subjects – but it’s certain he will be interventionist: because that is what neo-imperialism requires. That’s what globalization requires. An outlook of avoiding conflict is fundamentally incompatible with capitalism and you can’t talk your way out of that one.

Let’s talk hashtags and let’s talk fast, because we’ve less than 2 weeks.

Frankly I think “MacHoBama” is the most accurate, but the “Ho” makes it a bit crude for my Oriental tastes. Feel free to use it, though.

The day after the first round vote the top Twitter hashtag in France was #SansMoiLe7Mai - “Without Me May 7th”. This is to express support for neither Le Pen or Macron.

France worries more about abstention than many other countries, and first round abstention was 1/3rd lower than the doomsday predictions and only a couple points higher than historical averages. Not bad, considering there are two terrible right-wing candidates.

Frankly, I think France doth protest too much: every article about abstention is less space for debating the issues, and 70% of France said the campaign failed to address France’s economic and social problems. It is a pathetic shame that France won’t count the “blank ballot”, but they don’t want to reveal just how widespread the dissatisfaction is with the establishment politicians, the political system and the current capitalist economic policy.

Many voted for Donald Trump on the basis of ABH - Anyone But Hillary: France needs to realize the slogan needs to be ABM – Anyone But Macron.

They are predicting that leftists will be the group which stays at home in the largest numbers. Well, nothing like fake leftists to destroy an election – why stop after 40 years? It was the idiot, IDIOT Socialist Party Benoit Hamon supporters (6% of the vote) which undercut the actual leftist (not far-leftist) Jean-Luc Melenchon, handing the election to the right. Ugh.

I’m drawing a blank on more motivational slogans…Remember the Macralamo? Wrong country. The larger problem is that France is well-aware that Macron is economically right-wing, but…France will suffer as long as it remains hypocritical.

Juppé

I brought up Alain Juppé earlier, and he is indeed a great example of how France’s politicians are recycled more often than hippie compost despite committing the antisocial misdeeds that get you Chinese Water Torture treatment in China, and perhaps worse.

But Juppé is also another telling example of French hypocrisy: Despite his crimes, Juppé has been for some time the most popular politician in France!

He recently fell to the 2nd-most popular politician behind failed leftist (not far-leftist) candidate Melenchon, who roughly 70% of people approve of…but who only 20% of the country decided to vote for? Where do I start explaining the lack of logical consistency among the French? Why aren’t they voting for the candidate they personally approved of? How can they support a candidate who was godfathered by the most unpopular president ever? How can they forget that they protested for months over the “Macron Law” set of austerity reforms?

It was so unpopular even among the ruling Socialist Party that the Prime Minister invoked a rarely-used constitutional clause (the 49-3 “bazooka”) which gave Parliament only two choices: Vote “yes” in a confidence vote, or dissolve and hold fresh elections. Unsurprisingly, parliamentarians did not vote to fire themselves, and the Macron Law passed without a democratic vote.

And yet, much to the dismay of my chronically distended bile ducts which will surely collapse under the appalling strain on May 7, people will vote Macron and call themselves “leftist” just as Americans called themselves “leftist” for backing Barry in 2008.

Le Pen has 2 weeks to get creative, and she already has. Le Pen is ten times as effective as Macron when it comes to speaking and campaigning, if only from watching her media-savvy father. She has already played Macron for a fool at a Whirlpool factory, where Macron was jeered in a most unpresidential fashion. Those “basket of deplorables” and anti-Macronites had the gall to remind Macron of his industrial policy as Economy minister: sell the assets to the Americans & build nothing.

Le Pen should be able to debate rings around him at the only debate, May 3. Macron looked terrible in the first debate between the five principal candidates. During the 2nd debate between all 11 candidates prosecutors eventually decided they didn’t have enough evidence to jail him for illegally disguising himself as part of the furniture.

"Everyone knows what side Emmanuel Macron is on – he is on the side of the corporations," Le Pen told workers outside the Whirlpool factory. "I am on the workers' side, here in the car park, not in restaurants in Amiens."

If this quote from Le Pen resonates with you, you will vote Le Pen. If this doesn’t make sense or scares you, you are either an unrepentant capitalist or a total airhead and will vote Macron. It will ALWAYS come down to class…unless you are fooled into thinking it's race. That’s what they did with Obama, and that’s what they want they want to do with Le Pen.

These are 2 terrible candidates, but at least there is a clear choice: You are either with the haves or the have nots. There is no race there. Theoretically, at some point Macron has to get off racism. Well, Le Pen has never held any power – the National Front holds just 0.4% of all elected offices in France. They are the ultimate paper tiger, but they are the only real “outsider candidate” in this election.

Le Pen simply has to keep following Macron around and bringing up his record and his proposals, and hopefully the French will see the light. If not, then history repeats itself as farce and we’ll get at least 5 years of Macr-Obama: smooth face, smooth lies, smooth concrete under the bridge where you and your family will soon be jostling for space.

The good news? You’ll be jostling with people of all colors.

Main cover image: Image of Macron run by a Spanish newspaper claiming that (yes, they’re at it again) he was already the target of a huge Russian campaign to derail his candidacy, a la Hillary.

About the author

RAMIN MAZAHERI, Senior Correspondent & Contributing Editor, Dispatch from Paris

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What will it take to bring America to live according to its own self image?

Champs-Elysees attack: Perfect timing, for some

“Every terrorist in France since 2012 has cited France’s foreign interventions as their motivation for terrorism. It is not Islam, it is not jihad – it is foreign intervention, and their obviously capitalist motivations…”

On the night of April 21^st I was in my office in Paris, just 100 meters from the Champs-Elysees, when I got a phone call from a fellow journalist telling me about the deadly attack on policemen there.

I was in the middle of working on my latest report on France’s presidential election for Iran’s Press TV.

When I got the call, I had just written this sentence – I was still mulling it over (lotta numbers for TV copy):

“The last week has seen two major surprises which may push undecided voters to the right: the alleged discovery of a 2-man terror plot to attack 1 of the 3 main right-wing candidates, and the surprisingly-timed start of a court case involving 20 people accused of being part of a terror cell in 2012.”

Well…as you can guess, I had to add a third major surprise: the alleged terrorist attack on Champs-Elysees Avenue.

France’s 1^st round vote in the presidential election is just two days away – on April 23^rd – so let’s be very, very clear: The industrial-military-finance-media complex cannot live with a victory by Communist-backed Jean-Luc Melenchon.

If the establishment wouldn’t do “anything” to prevent Melenchon from taking office, they would certainly do “most anything”.

But let’s be level-headed: We know that governments commit assassinations. We know that they often send their soldiers off to certain death to advance unjust goals. The murder of this policeman is going to remind many of Jo Cox’s murder in the run-up to the Brexit vote.

What is absolutely undeniable is that the Champs-Elysees attack will have some sort of political effect.

Tension here is high – the race is currently a 4-way dead heat. It’s too close to call because four candidates are within the margin-of-error.

But even the polls are somewhat useless, because there is an enormous undecided voter rate of over 30%.

I have used some form of “the only certainty is uncertainty” at least a half-dozen times in my reports over the last week, because it truly does bear repeating.

But one thing is certain: all three of this week’s “surprises” – which pushed terrorism, xenophobia, insecurity, fear and hate to the top of the headlines in this final week of unparalleled importance and indecision – have benefitted everyone except for Melenchon.

Melenchon (right) with supporters.

The industrial-military-finance-media complex wants Emmanuel Macron or Francois Filllon to win. Both are a continuation of Sarkozy and Hollande: austerity, globalization, racism, foreign intervention, Eurozone cannibalization of weaker members.

The industrial-military-finance-media complex can even live with a Marine Le Pen victory, even though she is also promising many of the same anti-system/anti-Brussels measures as Melenchon – on Frexit, NATO, the Euro, etc. She goes even further by promising to suspend the Schengen visa-free requirement if elected, and that would make the refugee crisis look like small potatoes, because it would do untold damage to the pocketbooks of the leading capitalists.

Heck, 60% of active cops are going to vote National Front, so they might work in her favor just to get their way, high-finance be damned. God bless the sainted “boys in blue”, eh?

But the establishment absolutely cannot cope with the rise of a leftist candidate in any country, no matter how backwards. Not Burkina Faso, not Nicaragua, not Laos and not any other country most people can’t find on a map.

So for sure it can’t happen here: France, the world’s 5^th-largest economy.

The French say “once does not make a custom”, but 3 times in 1 week?

Of course I have no proof to offer, but the timing of the Marseilles 2-man terror cell “discovery” and the Champs-Elysees “terrorist attack” are going to make them ripe for accusations of being false-flag operations.

Or maybe it’s all a coincidence? I’m a reporter – I need facts. I need to examine all the angles. Coincidences do happen, in fact.

Maybe France truly is being targeted by terrorists during the election campaign, as authorities have repeatedly claimed? They certainly prepared us for that possibility with announcements to that effect.

Maybe the court docket was so full that the unprecedented 20-person terror cell trial simply HAD to start 3 days before the vote? Another coincidence? They don’t decide these court dates by lottery, I know that.

Maybe…but what’s sure is that the industrial-military-finance-media complex is toasting these 3 events, because it aids their 3 favorite candidates.

Because what they don’t want is serious discussion of the problems which touch all French people.

Quickly: record unemployment, austerity, economic stagnation, state of emergency, 2,000+ arrests of democratic protesters last year, cops anally raping with batons, angry riots.

I could go on, but it’s after midnight – need to finish my Press TV report, then do a 2 am interview. Welcome to journalism!

Everyone else has already had their workday. All those voters lying in their bed, wondering who they will vote for, and possibly wondering if another killer escaped from the Champs-Elysees. That rumor was floating around just an hour ago, but at some point you have to switch off the TV.

I am not calling the roughly 16 million undecided voters “weak-minded” for being prey to such faithless, late-night monsters during this last week of campaigning – I simply imagine them to be politically uninterested. Because how can you still be undecided 2 days before the election when you have 4 candidates who have rather radically different platforms? Simple – you are not paying very much attention.

Hey, I’m not looking down on them – I wouldn’t listen to most of these guys unless I got paid, and thankfully I do. I’m interested in politics, but many aren’t. Many don’t have time.

But it’s these people – the huge 30%-plus – who might let themselves be affected by these 3 events.

This is also going to be a huge factor: The abstention rate should surpass the record 28% in 2002. That’s why Jean-Marie Le Pen got into the 2^nd round back then – his right-wing voters got out to vote while the uninterested stayed at home.

These 3 events galvanize not just the undecided, but the both lazy-and-far-right voter.

The complex, the cops, the establishment – all going very well for them

Except for Francois Hollande – what a patsy. He’s actually speaking live right now. Unless he’s apologizing, I have no interest in listening and not even for pay.

Benoit Hamon: the official heir to Hollande’s pathetic “Socialists”. By running, he assures a split in the left vote, hurting Melenchon.

Nobody does, which is why he can’t even run. His Socialist Party’s candidate is down to just 8% – might not even make 5% and get the Party’s campaign expenditures reimbursed, which must be the only reason the candidate hasn’t dropped out: He is just going to split the leftist vote and ruin Melenchon’s chances, most likely.

Hollande didn’t even back his own party’s candidate – he indirectly supported Macron, who Hollande plucked from obscurity to become a minister and who is now absolutely, 100% running on a Hollande-Part Deux platform.

And Macron’s leading…and the French are buying all of this…just like many will not even see the possibility of a false flag situation, or two, this week.

The helicopters have mostly stopped now – must be terrible to be in Palestine and hear that regularly. Or the ghettos of Los Angeles.

ISIL just claimed responsibility for the Champs-Elysees attacks, I just read.

Fabius: French establishment vermin and overt promoter of international war crimes. Above the law, and therefore untouchable.

Makes me wonder if the “false flag” idea would have gained more traction if it was Al-Nusra (Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate) instead? After all, in 2012 France’s foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said of Al-Nusra: “they are doing good things on the ground.”

And for this Fabius is being sued by Syrians – it is rather obvious why: “defending terrorism speech,” is illegal in France. But that’s what Fabius clearly did.

Check back with me in 2032 when that case is finished. Of course, if you are a young Muslim in France and you are accused of “defending terrorism speech” then you’re rushed through the system: accusation, trial, prison within days. They convicted the mentally ill, they convicted the drunk, but they convicted the Muslim above all.

I’m getting off-track here and talking about things which increase citizen alienation and dissatisfaction. The story line is terrorism, always terrorism, right?

Yeah, if it was Al-Nusra, then maybe the “false flag” idea would gain some mainstream traction. Too bad it was ISIL – the two groups are enemies, for those who don’t know. Bad luck, no story there….

The only candidate who will end the state of emergency is, you guessed it, Jean-Luc Melenchon. If the French truly loved “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité” they’d vote in Melenchon just for that….

3 “surprises”, but only 3 facts to remember

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he most important fact – and I even thought about leading this article with this fact – is that seemingly every terrorist in France since 2012 has cited France’s foreign interventions as their motivation for terrorism. It is not Islam, it is not jihad – it is foreign intervention, and their obviously capitalist motivations.

Secondly, France’s establishment wants – above all – to avoid discussions about capitalism and its ineffectiveness.

Thirdly, these attacks are simply not important.

No matter who did them, or why, they simply are not important right now. Whether they are government assassinations or ISIL-led terrorist attacks, you French citizens owe it to each other to make an intelligent vote, not an emotional one.

For the undecided voters: You haven’t made a stand for your political morals yet, but that’s a good place to start.

Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His work has appeared in various journals, magazines and websites, as well as on radio and television.

About the author

RAMIN MAZAHERI, Senior Correspondent & Contributing Editor, Dispatch from Paris

(If you haven’t yet, be sure to read this: Experts: “In a nuclear war between the US and Russia, everybody in the world would die.”)

If a nuclear war is to be avoided, the US should not set any preconditions for direct talks with North Korea.

Yea. What to do? There's no quick fix to the damage inflicted on the US population by decades of passivity, massive ignorance, runaway jingoism and constant lies. Gross mendacity issuing practically from the entire political class and the corporate media will not stop tomorrow—or ever. The whole damn corporate system has to be liquidated for that to happen. In fact, it is possible to imagine that even in the aftermath of a devastating nuclear war, the old lies and liars will still be in power. Wars do not exactly bring sudden political lucidity to severely brainwashed people.

That said, it is imperative that those who do see what is going on, what is at stake, try and do something to derail the mad rush to Armageddon. There's no time to organize Third Parties or a new party by normal processes. So we are stuck with the existing whores in the political class, and these abject people respond only to one thing: their own political and (maybe) personal survival. If these bastards see a mighty surge of people calling and demonstrating with clarity in their demands and anger on their lips, they may grow enough of a spine to stem the warmongering and actually begin to isolate the main carriers of this disease, sociopaths like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, the Clintons and their cliques, and of course, the Liar in Chief and his clique of insane billionaires and militarists.

So call, fax, write and demonstrate, and support the long overdue growth of an antiwar movement. Stopping a nuclear war is the foremost issue of our time. Call your Congress buffoon and state in clear terms that you are fed up, and that you want change or else, and that you won't put up with any votes for more wars—anywhere. This may sound counter-intuitive for us, to be advising you that you call your representative in a false democracy, a person obviously most likely doing the bidding of the plutocracy, those who brought humanity to this pass. But for reasons already mentioned, their own sense of short-term political self-preservation and opportunism, they may actually screw up the courage to do the right thing, for once, something these characters should have been doing all along without needing anyone to tell them to do the obvious. While you are at it, and if you can stomach it, also contact MoveOn.org and similarly pseudo democratic orgs, and challenge them to do the right thing or get lost. Please do this today. Or as soon as you can. Time is precious. Start by finding your Congressional (so-called) representative: http://www.house.gov/htbin/findrep

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What will it take to bring America to live according to its own self image?

NY Times: France can only choose between globalization and racism?

read the New York Times’ Roger Cohen cover the French presidential election in an extended Sunday Review format.

Joy of joys! Our “paper of record” has sent Cohen back to cover his old beat for the election. Get ready for some enlightening, edifying, inspirational analysis! The title is: “France in the End of Days”. Well…Paris can be gloomy in the spring, I suppose.

Now let’s hear the case before we judge, but let’s make one thing clear: The globalization candidate must win, of course.

“For some time France has been a country that does not like itself.”

Well I know America does not like France – they’re pretty much the only country we can make fun of with total impunity – so I’m glad Cohen began his feature op-ed by writing something that already agrees with my assessment. A good columnist plays to his audience, after all.

But, you know, I met a French guy once and he seemed to go and on about how great French culture was, French history, French language, French food, the French countryside, the French cityside, French painting – I mean that guy loved France to pieces. He must have been an outlier….

Cohen started to write about Marine Le Pen, and at that point I started to notice my hands shaking uncontrollably.

I was about to reach for my medication, because I knew what the problem was: I was going through “Russia withdrawal”: I had been interacting with an American news media for nearly 30 seconds without any reference to Vladimir Putin! That bane of everyone’s existence! The reason for what’s wrong in the world! The cause of my childhood problems! Thankfully, I can save my pills for later because Cohen gave me my fix before his 2nd paragraph was done – tough luck Pfizer!

“President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has been meddling, would be happy.”

Ahh, we can’t have that! Never-happy Vladdy! That should be a new slogan! Hell, it’s a damned political platform as far as this patriotic American is concerned!

And just read for yourself– he has been “meddling”…in France, I assume? Or maybe Cohen means just “meddling” in general? Does Vladimir ever not “meddle” – can’t he just ever mildly “tinker” or “fiddle”?

There are non-right wing candidates in the election, apparently, but why waste time on them?

Melenchon: a man (by definition) of “extremes” according to the priggishly complacent Cohen.

“…and an extreme leftist, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, of the Unbowed France movement, whose support has surged in recent days. The left, still singing the Internationale and plotting class struggle, is in disarray.”

Seems odd that the extreme left has done well enough to have “surged” and yet is in “disarray”? The existence of such a paradox must be due to the end of days – and today is Easter, no less!

If Melenchon is an “extreme leftist”, then I wonder what’s a communist or even an anarchist? An “extreme extreme-leftist” and an “extreme extreme extreme-leftist?” This is like “postmodernism” – I don’t get any of it. Best to move on to the Times’ approved experts.

Pascal Bruckner, is the lead quote. Ah yes, I remember him: He helped convince everyone to bomb Yugoslavia. He wrote that great updating of Kipling with The Tears of the White Man, which is exactly what it sounds like. And let’s not forget The Tyranny of Guilt – I wondered why he didn’t add “White” in front of “Guilt” that time?

What’s certain is that Bruckner is not the extreme right, much less the extreme extreme-right: Marine Le Pen is!

After all, she called to abolish the CFA Franc in order to return economic independence to 14 African countries, even calling it a “hindrance to the economic development”? Such extreme right tyranny will make White Men in corporations cry tears of guilt over lost profits! Who is she, Ghadaffi, another extreme extreme rightist?!

Well, let’s hear what these economic extremists have to say:

“’There is no right or left. This election is about patriotism versus globalization,’ Nicolas Bay, the secretary-general of the National Front, told me.”

Macron: The American establishment’s darling, naturally. Pragmatism uber alles.

You know who else goes on and on about patriotism and its corollary of national sovereignty? Must I name the evil name and risk bad spirits entering my body and requiring more medication? My therapist said it was not enough that Rachel Maddow focused on this man for 53% of her reports over a 6-week period, so I’ll be strong and say it: Putin. My therapist agreed with me that Maddow needs to bump that percentage up to 80% over 12 weeks – my fingers are crossed, and my TiVo is set.

Cohen then sat down with Emmanuel Macron, who appears to be the only candidate according to many media. I love Cohen’s description of him: “Small, with glittering blue eyes…” Wow, he sounds dreamy, but manageable.

“In an interview, Macron told me: ‘Look, do you want to strengthen Europe, to have a strong reformed France, or do you just want to leave this world and return to the 19th century?’”

You had me at “reformed France”, eyes of blue!

Clearly, There Is No Alternative: more globalism or regression by three centuries. It’s not complicated! America gets this, why can’t France?

“The red state-blue state chasm, in various guises, is the core cultural condition of the West,“ wrote Cohen.

It’s reassuring to have my preexisting assessments confirmed again: the problems with Brussels, Europe’s peculiar history, local specificities – all that is just a “guise,” and not a real difference: France is just like us. Or they should be more like us but won’t accept it! Well, Macron will.

Cohen cites a poll conducted in 2014 that found that 74 percent of French workers felt they were no longer “at home”.

I’m not really sure what that means: they’re French…they’re as at home as can be? I mean, the outside world is not your living room, so c’mon – get hip to geography. But this is the key existential problem, after all: Wherever you go, there you are…and, sadly, you are French. I don’t have that problem, thankfully.

“Europe used to signify stability and peace,” writes Cohen.

That is absolutely the case! What is all this anti-EU, anti-Euro nonsense I’m reading about? All their anti-austerity protests have been happening regularly for years – that’s called stability!

The 30 Years War, one of countless episodes of reckless mayhem in the sociopathic, blood-soaked greed-driven story of Europe. The Continent has been at it possibly since prehistory. Not surprising that Europe’s progeny in the “New World” would eventually spawn the Big Bully.

ISIS would be envious. The butchery of St Bartholomew’s Day over religious nonsense (1572) etched itself in humanity’s memory but taught them nothing. By 1914, with war industrialized, a generation drowned in its own blood. It would only get worse.

Of course, there isn’t peace now in Ukraine, or during the breakup of Yugoslavia, or the Cold War, or WWII, or WWI, or the period of conquering colonization, or the period of religious wars. But history books confirm that there was a day – I think it was a Tuesday – back in the year 1145 where not one country in Europe was at war.

“74 percent saw globalization as a threat (while 68 percent of managers saw it as an opportunity).”

Finally, some common sense from the bosses of the common men! There are a lot of private businesses in France, so I’m going to assume that 68% of managers equals an overall majority – stop denying democracy, Le Pen!

Polls are not always interesting.

I have this co-worker whom I can’t stand – his name is Fazlollah Bittermani. No one can pronounce that, so we just call him Lefty. He’s from…someplace west of China and not Europe. Maybe Western China. Nobody can really understand him, but he keeps talking.

We were talking about France and Lefty told me about a poll: he said that 77% of France thinks their parliamentarians are corrupt, so what kind of a democracy is that to emulate? Before I could respond, he said he knew about another poll which found that 99% of 18-34 year-olds think all of France’s politicians are corrupt.

My coworkers seemed interested in these alternative facts, so I quickly asked Fazlollah where he got this information: he said, “Uh….Rachel Maddow”. I told him the truth: such high numbers of dissatisfaction and popular rejection can only possibly exist in Russia.

I heard murmurs of approval, but perhaps they were of doubt?

“Fazlollah,” I shouted. “When are you going to finally change your crazy name?! It sounds like you took two totally different names and just joined them together!”

Everybody laughed! When things are getting away from me I always just make fun of his name. Or better yet, his accent. Lefty just stalked off and went to eat that weird-colored rice stuff he always brings. Rice is supposed to be white!

Anyway, the real problem is not multicolored rice-ism, but the National Front. Cohen will get to the bottom of them – he was introduced to Florian Philippot, one of Le Pen’s top advisers

“Philippot is a slick operator. He did not have time to talk…”

What? Are you saying that Philippot turned down an interview? He deigned to not be in the world’s greatest newspaper, The New York Times?

The effrontery of the man! You don’t have time for the Times? You make time, baby! If not – you are an agent of Trump! Which makes you an agent of Putin! Upon touching down at De Gaulle Airport Roger Cohen became the most credible, the most important journalist possible: a regular columnist for the New York Times! You’re lucky we’re even covering your lousy election because they should be talking about Russia! Now where are my pills?!

Cohen attended a National Front meeting, where this appalling Philippot guy called Macron an agent of high finance. I mean like it was an insult or something!

“Somebody in the crowd shouted ‘Rothschild!’ and then again ‘Rothschild!’ — a reference to the bank where Macron once worked. The attempt to rid the National Front of its anti-Semitism is clearly a work in progress.”

I’ll admit: I didn’t get this. I didn’t see the link between the fact that Macron worked for the first family of international finance and anti-Semitism.

But now I do: being against the Rothschilds is bad because they are Jewish. And being against any Jew is bad, regardless of what they do personally.

No, wait…I think it’s that the Rothschilds are powerful bankers, and that powerful bankers are Jews, and…wait, that’s not coming out right.

Here it is: The National Front supporters hate the Rothschilds because they are Jewish bankers; if the Rothschilds weren’t Jewish, there would be no problem…because National Front supporters love high finance, like everyone else!

I have a banker friend – I have many banker friends – who said he was glad the Rothschilds are Jewish: said it was a good distraction. I didn’t get what he meant? Maybe he understood what Cohen meant, too? Anyway, forget about that poseur Philippot.

“Le Pen entered to thunderous applause in a black pantsuit. It’s easy to imagine her an everywoman telling it like it is.”

Roger has an eye for ladies’ fashions – very chic of him – but why doesn’t he report on what the men were wearing? I spend big bucks on my French fashions and want to make sure I’m au courant.

The larger point is: what’s more “everywoman” than a pantsuit? Hillary couldn’t have been more salt of the earth, after all, and she popularized the pantsuit! I like to imagine Hillary in a pantsuit while being a supermarket cashier, farmer, cubicle worker, factory worker, farmer, housewife, etc.

Well, the National Front is a problem in France, but they have even bigger problems.

“Over 31 percent of gross domestic product is spent on health, unemployment and other benefits, compared to 24.6 percent in Germany. France has in effect made a structural choice for unemployment. Everyone knows this.”

What is with the French and their insistence on having a benefit which includes health? Health is not a benefit! And everyone knows the French have made a structural choice for unemployment – it’s great to be unemployed in France!

All those Mohammads and Jean-Claudes and Maries living on their 400 euros a month RSA “benefit” without working…appalling. Oh yes, they chose to be unemployed for so long! I wish I got 400 euros a month for being unemployed! Why I’d cash in my stock options and my 401k and I’d be quite happy with my 400 euros per month, splitting time between my 3 residences, I can tell you that!

Everyone also knows that France should have made a structural choice for under-employment instead. Like Germany with their “mini-jobs” or the US with their part-time work.

That saves me a fortune in wages and benefits like health!

I brought that up to old Lefty and he said something about France’s poverty rate being much lower than in the US, UK or Germany. So I told him: “Everyone knows that France should have made a structural choice for under-employment instead.”

He had no response for that one! Stupid Lefty….

What I like about Cohen is that he isn’t afraid to take on the system. That’s why he puts stuff like “the system” in quotes, because the system obviously doesn’t exist:

“Le Pen’s line of attack on Macron is clear: he is the perpetuation of Hollande, the representative of “the system” and a product of “international finance,” with all the attendant innuendo.”

Oh yes, quotes for “international finance” too – it’s like the Mafia, never admit its existence, Roger!

And the “innuendo” is clearly another anti-Semitic trope sniffed out by Cohen! Why, even the New York City WASP bankers are being victimized by this anti-Semitism! The bankers in Hong Kong and Dubai – more victims of clear anti-Semitic innuendo! When will the persecution of bankers end?!

Why are we demonizing the Jews with crazy conspiracy theories when we should be demonizing Russia?! Thankfully Cohen did with his very next line – thank God (Jewish or not) for honest journalism:

“This attack is pretty disgusting, which is not to say it won’t work. Russia is helping.”

Russia is helping to spread anti-Semitism?! Who has Rachel Maddow’s phone number?! This is her lead item from tonight until May sweeps week!

Cohen went back to Macron.

“Modernity is disruptive,” Macron declared, “and I endorse that.”

Yes! That is what the people want! Disruptions, not stability! Peace, land, bread – no! Liberty, equality, fraternity – no! Education and safety – no! Modern people prefer disruption, get with the times!

Are you unemployed? It’s simply disruptive modernity, stop whining! Are you laying on a hospital gurney in a hallway instead of being in a room? Being against disruptive modernity is your only illness – walk it off! Can’t hear me because your pension made you choose between heat and hearing aids? VOTE FOR MACRON AND DISRUPTIVE MODERNITY!!!!!

“When neoliberal economics was triumphing everywhere, we refused to adopt it,” said Macron (as Cohen gazed deeply into his glittering blue eyes.) “And now when demagogues are winning, in France pragmatism is going to win.”

This is my guy: the resistance to the triumph of neoliberal economics (Argentina, Indonesia, Greece, etc.) is the number one problem of Europe.

Macron has the eyes of an angel, and the mind of an artist. Which is why Cohen then referenced the great French writer Michel Houellebecq.

Houellebecq is part of that wonderful French intellectual tradition exemplified by that great humanist the Marquis De Sade and Céline, who found Hitler’s tolerance too generous. I once read a poetry book by Houellebecq – The Art of Struggle – his vision of the world is so depressing that when I put it down I sincerely contemplated suicide. What a great artist!

This was really some great journalism right here: Not only did Cohen dare to go the Muslim suburbs, but he actually got a man to go on the record with his first and last name and then publicly turn in his criminal son:

“My son drifts around the projects selling drugs,” he says. (I’d reprint this father’s name, but I didn’t get the quote of someone accusing someone of a crime – libel laws, and all that.)

But thank God Cohen printed that – I’m sure the police will be immediately notified and his son will be arrested shortly. This is why The New York Times is so good – they find informants, publish them, and help clean up society’s big problems.

I’m sure that guy is quite happy he talked to Cohen! The guy’s wife, too! Happy Easter!

“As I leave (the 30% immigrant suburb of) Sevran, a lanky kid barges into me. “You could excuse yourself,” he says, looking for a fight. We square up; he moves off, muttering insults. Violence simmers just beneath the surface.”

More anti-Semitism? More anti-high finance sentiment? Was the kid Palestinian – they’re hungry, so they must be lanky? Who is at fault here, Cohen? Please be clearer when including the culture-defining moment of almost bumping into someone on the street. (It can never happen here.)

After this short trip to the Muslim “no-go zones”, Detective Cohen decided one arrest was enough, and he resumed interviewing the National Front, this time a mayor, to learn about modern France.

“Another Macron stumble — the decision to go to Algiers to tell an autocrat that France should apologize for its colonial-era ‘crimes against humanity’ — caused the mayor to explode.”

Totally a stumble, Cohen is right – why should France apologize for colonial era “crimes against humanity”? I’m glad to see Cohen wasn’t bashful with those quotation marks!

Let’s recap: Right-wing author for a lead quote, breathless support of right-wing economic Macron, right-wing poet for cultural reference, right-wing mayor for an interview, right-wing politicians turning him down for more right-wing interviews, anti-imperialist Algerian government denigrated as “autocrat” – this is exactly the type of American leftist journalism we desperately need! Sorry, Fox News!

“After the meeting, I am joined by two leftists who worked in education before retirement….”

Ohhh, Roger. You’re getting soft – soft like old, retired leftists.

“Their issue is growing inequality and what they call the ‘pauperization’ of France as the welfare state and workers’ rights and salaries are gradually eroded. They wanted a ‘social Europe’; they got what they see as a Europe of ruthless capitalism.”

Pauperization, social Europe – don’t they just look wrong without the quotation marks?

Cohen was smart: He joined these two ancient, outdated leftists stuck in the past for lunch…and then he immediately cut their nonsense short by inviting the entrepreneurial restaurant owner to give his political views.

“People need to know they can be fired. Otherwise all sense of responsibility is lost. You have to decide in life: Do you want to work or not?”

I say the same thing to my employees: “Do you want to work for ME or not?”

Because my thing is clear: I’m the boss, you are the slave, excuse me, the worker, excuse me that’s too class conscious, the employee.

Anyway, you can’t work for “the people” – we’re cutting government jobs anywhere possible.

So you can work for ME or not work at all, for all I care. I mean, what is this – Russia?

I didn’t really mean to write that last part – it just comes out: force of habit. More pills, please.

Cohen gets to the heart of the matter with his final paragraph – a sad lament of the glorious aristocratic past…which I am currently enjoying in first-class, and I’ll bet Cohen did too.

“Seeking quiet, I wander into a park that was once the grounds of the chateau where Francis I made French the language of the land. The chateau, its roof sagging, its windows boarded up, is collapsing into ruin.”

Francis I and his ruined feudal-era castle…things were so much better then – where did we go wrong? I’m getting misty!

I bet Francis the First was a great man (he was “the first”, after all) but lived modestly in his enormous castle, surrounded by his slaves, I mean his beloved employees, I mean his fellow teammates.

One thing is sure: I bet Francis the First was a wonderful job creator…if the French only listened to him.

Maybe the French will shake off their depressed laziness, embrace their inner American, avoid the end of days, and vote for Emmanuel the First, I mean Emmanuel Macron?

About the author
RAMIN MAZAHERI, Senior Correspondent & Contributing Editor, Dispatch from Paris

Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His work has appeared in various journals, magazines and websites, as well as on radio and television.

(If you haven’t yet, be sure to read this: Experts: “In a nuclear war between the US and Russia, everybody in the world would die.”)

If a nuclear war is to be avoided, the US should not set any preconditions for direct talks with North Korea.

Yea. What to do? There's no quick fix to the damage inflicted on the US population by decades of passivity, massive ignorance, runaway jingoism and constant lies. Gross mendacity issuing practically from the entire political class and the corporate media will not stop tomorrow—or ever. The whole damn corporate system has to be liquidated for that to happen. In fact, it is possible to imagine that even in the aftermath of a devastating nuclear war, the old lies and liars will still be in power. Wars do not exactly bring sudden political lucidity to severely brainwashed people.

That said, it is imperative that those who do see what is going on, what is at stake, try and do something to derail the mad rush to Armageddon. There's no time to organize Third Parties or a new party by normal processes. So we are stuck with the existing whores in the political class, and these abject people respond only to one thing: their own political and (maybe) personal survival. If these bastards see a mighty surge of people calling and demonstrating with clarity in their demands and anger on their lips, they may grow enough of a spine to stem the warmongering and actually begin to isolate the main carriers of this disease, sociopaths like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, the Clintons and their cliques, and of course, the Liar in Chief and his clique of insane billionaires and militarists.

So call, fax, write and demonstrate, and support the long overdue growth of an antiwar movement. Stopping a nuclear war is the foremost issue of our time. Call your Congress buffoon and state in clear terms that you are fed up, and that you want change or else, and that you won't put up with any votes for more wars—anywhere. This may sound counter-intuitive for us, to be advising you that you call your representative in a false democracy, a person obviously most likely doing the bidding of the plutocracy, those who brought humanity to this pass. But for reasons already mentioned, their own sense of short-term political self-preservation and opportunism, they may actually screw up the courage to do the right thing, for once, something these characters should have been doing all along without needing anyone to tell them to do the obvious. While you are at it, and if you can stomach it, also contact MoveOn.org and similarly pseudo democratic orgs, and challenge them to do the right thing or get lost. Please do this today. Or as soon as you can. Time is precious. Start by finding your Congressional (so-called) representative: http://www.house.gov/htbin/findrep

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What will it take to bring America to live according to its own self image?