Why we are just one half-revolution – one regional spark – from a free Palestine

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Ramin Mazaheri
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(Ed:  It is particular joy for me to post something from Ramin Mazaheri – this is his first article on Substack and he still writes for PressTV.  Many of you will remember his quirky journalism and his Yellow Vest coverage among other topics, at the Saker).

The intensity of pro-Palestinian demonstrations around the globe has surprised the West, especially Israel and US, who have (so far) largely lost the propaganda war and must now adjust their policies to this new reality.

Do we realise just how close we are to seeing Palestine win their own state, finally?

What Hamas has done is to create a geopolitical situation so unstable that if one major event is added to it, then the entire Middle Eastern order – and beyond – will be remade.

It’s as if Hamas correctly surmised that the West has become so weakened that they decided to take a chance on October 7 and simply hope that something would spin out of control but in their favor. Indeed, considering they live in a concentration camp – what did they really have to lose?

For those who disagree that we are closer to a free Palestine state than in 75 years simply tell me what happens if:

  • A second Tahrir Square erupts? There’s already no way Egypt cedes/sells off Sinai to Israel, as Tel Aviv desires, proven by their offer to pay off Egypt’s debt to the International Monetary Fund. If the “anything to topple the Muslim Brotherhood” dictator Al-Sisi is forced out like Mubarak was in 2011 then war materiel, money and Egyptian mojahedin flood past the Rafah crossing and it’s imperialist game over for Israel.
  • The Jordanian monarchy is toppled? Then the same floods the West Bank via the Jordanian border. Can you imagine the fighting morale in the West Bank if they finally have something other than rocks for the first time in decades? Again, it’s imperialist game over for Israel.

So, of course, the Western mainstream media won’t talk about these things as much as they should. Of course they won’t encourage democracy in these two anti-democratic allies of the West.

There’s already a precedent for – and thus evidence of a popular will for – the Egyptian scenario, while 20% of Jordan is Palestinian refugees. An oil-poor Jordanian king or a democracy-denying puppet Egyptian dictator redux are all that’s preventing permanent, game-changing reinforcements for Palestine. Egypt has always been the key to the Palestine situation from the beginning, but Israel’s flooding of 700,000 illegal settlers into the West Bank over the past 40 years has made Jordan a similar kingmaker (or tyranny-toppler, in this situation).

But wait, there’s more! Please tell me what happens if:

  • Israel foolishly takes on Lebanon: Is Israel dumb enough to take on Lebanon and open up a second front? This is even as Hamas has an unprecedented upper hand, has hostages for years, has tunnels for miles and has never been beaten on their home turf? This is even as Tel Aviv has to arm and protect West Bank settlers, i.e. they already do have a second front? So it’s more accurate to say that Israel is going to open up a third front in Lebanon, even though it’s not 1982 and Hezbollah is stronger, more experienced and better equipped than ever? If Israel invades it’s maybe not an immediate imperialist game over – we don’t really know how many missiles, fighters and capabilities Lebanon has, and if it’s enough to deal a devastating blow the the Zionist project – but Lebanon is an exaggerated version of Gaza in that the longer Israel stays and fights there the closer it gets to Zionism’s funeral.
  • Israel chooses now to attack Iran’s non-existent nuclear program: It is non-existent, and everyone paying attention knows that. The United Nations knows that. This is a stupid question which only serves as a distraction. Iran doesn’t need the bomb anymore, and they’ve said this to anyone who will listen: Tehran feels deterrence (the only reason they would want a nuclear bomb) has been achieved, and they are obviously referring to US aircraft carrier-sinking hypersonic missiles, drones, the most advanced and diverse missile program in the Middle East, a little thing called the Basij (which is better than all the other stuff mentioned), etc. and etc. and etc. The false reason Iran wants a bomb – to allegedly use on Israel – is as stupid as it is untrue. To anyone with a brain who wants to truly understand: Iran with a nuclear bomb is far, far weaker (less popular globally, more overly reliant on one “magic solution”, less able to engage in any diplomacy with the West) than Iran without it, and this explains why Iran has spent 20 years trying to get world to accept that they don’t want a bomb and nor do they even need one. Such is Iran’s strength that if Israel attacks Iran it’s imperialist game over for Israel, should Iran decide so.
  • Israel chooses now to escalate in Golan Heights: 2017 proved that Syria has friends who will come to their aid and fight, and these friends proved back then that their tactics, equipment, electronic warfare, etc., are better than the West’s and NATO’s. Hint: these friends have been proving this same superiority over the best of the West day after day in Ukraine for 21 consecutive months. Hamas was paying attention in 2017, and in 2022, and last month they obviously thought: hey, we can win too! And Hamas’s has friends with this powerful friend. Syria also has other friends who have been fighting the West for 20 consecutive years, and just right next door. Israel taking on Syria could be the spark which frees Iraq from the dregs of the US invasion, or it could also mean taking on Russia as well, or it could result in both, and then it’s imperialist game over for Israel.

These are three more things which could happen which could directly spell the end of Israel’s refusal to negotiate with Palestine.

But wait, there’s more! Please tell me what happens if:

  • The House of Saud collapses? The moral authority of Islam would finally become freed of the English puppet Wahhabis. “Saudis aren’t Muslims, they’re Wahhabis” is a common insult in the Muslim world, but what’s certain is that they shouldn’t be “Saudi Arabians” at all but simply “Arabs”. (The entire Maghreb would be quite happy if you stopped calling them Arabs, certainly.) You may insist that “Saudis” are too complacent – thanks to the largesse of socialist-inspired state ownership of the peoples’ resources – and too genuinely radicalised (reactionary-ised) by Wahhabism to overthrow their leaders? I agree – it’s not as likely as Egypt or Jordan, but the House of Saud cannot stand forever and when it falls it’s imperialist game over for Israel.
  • European-minded Turkey becomes south- and east-facing Turkiye: Foolish neo-imperial dreamers in Turkey finally give way to the genuinely Muslim masses, and a revolution ends 500 years of extremely European-style thinking in favor of a modern Turkiye. Turkiye finally stops playing both sides of the geopolitical divide, ends their French-style secularism and embraces modern Islamism, and then it’s imperialist game over for Israel.

Should either happen would you really be shocked? Absolutely not – they are historically inevitable, and it’s only been the strength of the imperialist West which allowed these situations to even take root in the first place.

The list is now at seven. Seven real things in the immediate vicinity which could create a situation where the West – already at the limits of its military resources and global prestige, and economically dangling by QE, ZIRP, inflation, the petrodollar, endless austerity, insert-your-least-favorite-liberal capitalist policy here  – becomes nakedly incapable of the control it once had.

It’s a new world. You were alive in 1991 but it’s not then anymore, so forget it. You were alive in 2002 but it’s not then anymore, so adapt. Israel is not facing one foe, but more than seven, and only West Bankers are still relying on rocks.

The most important question today: Will the unrest remain limited to Gaza, or will it expand?

If it expands, how far? We can answer this question with near-certainty.

This is the real, established alliance in the event of an ever-escalating multinational war, and not at all some pie-in-the-sky dreaming:

Hamas attacks Israel. Israel attacks Hamas. Hezbollah (and Yemen) attacks Israel. Israel attacks Lebanon. Syria attacks Israel. Israel attacks Syria. Iraq attacks Israel. Israel attacks Iraq. Iran attacks Israel (only after all of Iran’s allies have gone first, crucially). Israel attacks Iran. Russia attacks Israel to defend Iran.

This is absolutely the alliance system and balance of power which has been arranged, and mainly by decades of Iranian perseverance, brave defiance of Western capitalism-imperialism, sound economic management and long-range strategic thinking.

Do not delude yourself into thinking this is wishful thinking: Iran did not give missiles, guns, money, training, fight ISIL, sacrifice Soleimani, bear all these sanctions just to keep the anti-imperialist revolution alive in the Muslim World and beyond, etc. and etc. and etc. to Hamas, Hezbollah, Yemen, Syria and Iraq just for Iran to leapfrog all of them to go directly to war with Israel. What Iran has done has cemented a series of alliances, of which everyone agrees exists, but which eschews the formally declared pageantry of a pre-WWII Europe, for example.

Of course, it’s not like Tehran can just give orders to a Hezbollah soldier or a Yemeni soldier like he is an Iranian soldier. However, if Israel attempts to genocide/ethnically cleanse Gaza Tehran seems certain to say, “Hey, what did we give you all this stuff for if you weren’t going to fight?” And then these soldiers are going to swallow hard and willingly go fight long before an Iranian private formally does. Iran has given materiel, money and morale to these five non-Iranian regions for years, and countless people in these regions are absolutely ready to take the fight to Israel after all these woeful decades.

Do you think Israel take all this on and win? You may think so, but I do not.

Israel never wants to publicly admit they are facing the alliance system described above as it is so obviously daunting in 2023, even if it was not in 1993.

In parcel with this denial is Israel’s proposition of a simple “magic solution” – destroy Iran – which is pure snake oil.

I don’t think I need to explain why the idea – so often dangled by a desperate Israel, solely in order to delude their own populace, Western backers and themselves – that a direct attack on Iran, on the alleged “head of the snake”, would solve everything for Zionism. Simply look above: it wouldn’t end the very real grievances which these other regions have with Israel.

So this is the clear chain of events which will happen should war escalate.

Does Israel not understand this? Cool diplomats from Lebanon to Iran are calmly blinking and watching Israel for their answer, and then they will respond however they individually decide. Iran is going to look out for Iranians, and Nasrallah is going to look out for Lebanese, but it’s a big assumption to assume that they will not get involved even if Israel totally confines their atrocities to only the Gaza Strip.

What we are seeing so far from Tel Aviv is the US after 9/11: rushing into a quagmire with no exit strategy. They are fools rushing in where they should be fearing to tread – Israel’s only hope of survival is to pull back.

At the same time, and I’ll continue to be as succinct as possible when dealing with these vast historical forces: If Israel doesn’t win whatever their awful leadership wants to fully win right now – be it control of Gaza, or all of Palestine, or the murder of all Palestinians, or control of southern Lebanon, or whatever it is – such is the strength of the the anti-Israel alliance above (which has barely mentioned its silent behemoth supporters in Moscow and Beijing) that if Israel doesn’t go all in now it will soon be too late.

How on earth can we foresee Hezbollah getting weaker?

And Iran falling so very precipitously into an Egypt-style disarray?

And the West successfully toppling Syria, when they already blew their huge effort?

And Yemen being even weaker than when hundreds of thousands of them were starved to death by the Saudis and the West, a point from which they somehow rallied?

And returning to a situation where Americans in the Green Zone call all the shots in Iraq?

No, if Israel has dreams of conquest it’s now or never. These nations are exponentially stronger than 10, 20, 30, 75 years ago. Just imagine how this informal alliance will only continue to grow further in strength?

Many in Israel know this, and it explains why are they only pushing for complete ethnic cleansing and genocide, and why the dehumanisation campaign of Palestine is so disgustingly virulent.

However, I say it’s already too late for Israel, and can prove why. However, what’s been written already should provide so very much hope and inspiration for those opposed to capitalism-imperialism.

Put aside 1948 – how did the West get to this all-time low point of influence & control?

We can’t just understand one-half of these historic changes – we cannot limit ourselves to understanding how this powerful new anti-Israel alliance arose, and which will be strengthened with every anti-Western spark, and which has achieved military parity (and supremacy in aspects) in the region, and which was unthinkable in, say, 1999. To do so would be to only look at the currently peaking anti-Western strength – but what about the current Western weakness?

Just one more spark, just one more half-revolution and we’ll have a Palestinian state became possible because of specific failures in the United States and in Europe.

In the US the failed Western invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan – imperialist, unjust and misguided (the targeted nations did not create 9/11 of course) – sapped the US in terms of morale, which is always the most important factor in any fight (otherwise explain the Taliban’s victory). The US lost, they know it and the rank-and-file has no stomach for another (foolish) fight. But it goes beyond morale, i.e. the devastation of confidence in their own culture.

American commentators focus on the cost of “blood and treasure”, but we should not underestimate the impact the 2002-era irrational exuberance of, “We’re going to wipe the floor with the whole world” surely helped propel the financial chicanery which led to the 2008 Great Financial Crisis, which sucked out more “treasure” than Iraq and Afghanistan ever could. Americans were promised world domination in 2002, but by 2008 they had economic crisis. This failure is more devastating to internal confidence than losing a couple wars abroad in which only 7,000 Americans were killed.

What is our ultimate question in this section? It is, “How did the West become so weakened – so powerless in the region – that Israel is now one unplanned spark away from permanent checkmate?”

We must add to our explanation: the failure of Europe, i.e. the failure of the European Union, which really didn’t begin until it was undemocratically forced though – amid the Great Financial Crisis – with the Lisbon Treaty in 2009.

Nobody mentions European decline even though their inability to protect their key ally Israel is just as much an indictment of them as it is of the US. Everyone focuses on America’s decline, but many neo-colonies across Africa are well aware of the stupidity of ignoring Europe in favor of an all-consuming focus on the US.

It must be accounted for in any assessment of the West’s performance, and what is our reckoning?

Europe has gutted itself economically, precisely as it’s Americanesque, totally Liberal Democratic (and anti-Social Democratic, and of occurs anti-Socialist Democratic) tenets dictated. The European Union is now losing on its frontier (Ukraine), is totally incapable of organising a military defense of either Ukraine or Israel, and Covid seems to have wiped the memory of the total failure – democratic, economic, social, cultural – of its self-imposed Age of Austerity (2009-2020) which left it so very, very weakened.

Most recall Trump’s famous “this American carnage” line from his 2017 inauguration speech, but why do commentators on the West’s decline ignore “this European carnage”? It was real, too, and I reported on it daily from Paris since 2009. It had less guns and drugs than in the US, and no clear figurehead like Trump, but Europe was a disaster zone during the 2010s – what’s occurring in 2023 is the direct byproduct of that. I encourage people to read my recent book on France’s Yellow Vests to get a clear-headed, in-depth and on-the-ground analysis of Europe’s staggering failure since 2009, and I remind that a failure of Israel is a failure of Europe almost as much as it is of the US.

The West is so weak that we are an unplanned spark away from a Palestinian state

The West is weak, and everyone not only smells this but can prove it with facts like up above. This has been proven on the battlefield in Syria, against Western-backed ISIL, and in Ukraine. It is proven by China’s economic rise amid Western stagnation since 2008. It is proven by not just Iran’s endurance but Iran’s excellence – they just keep prevailing, after all. It is proven by Russia’s overwhelming victory – economically and militarily – despite the unified Western response to Ukraine.

Hamas saw all this – their attack was a surprise but it wasn’t desperation. Hamas is currently winning, no matter how many bombs destroy civilian apartments. It’s admitted by Israeli politicians that Hamas still has the upper hand, and – of course – there is no chance Hamas is going to surrender by Christmas, is there?

What is Israel’s endgame? Is it to ethnically relocate 2 million Gazans, or are they going to add the relocation of 3 million West Bankers to this impossible dream? Or maybe it’s the death of all 7 million ethnic Palestinians in Israel and Palestine? Similarly, is Hamas’s plan to push out all 7 million Israeli Jews, or is it to kill all of them?

All of these scenarios are impossible in the real world, which will never allow either one, I hope.

No, the truth is that we are closer to a two-state solution than we ever have been.

Firstly, a two-state solution is what Palestinians have openly wanted for a couple decades – I believe Palestinians certainly deserve to get what they want, finally. Many want to see the colonial injustice which is Israel replaced with a single state of Palestine – well, you can go fight for that if you want, but Palestinians have made it clear they’re fine with a two-state solution, and I respect their sovereign decision.

Hamas has started half the revolution, but – weakened by 17 years of blockade and 75 years of repression and forced non-development – they need something else to complete the full turn of history. It can come from outside – look at the more than half-dozen possible, certainly logical, seemingly inevitable scenarios I listen above. Or it can come from a misstep by Israel itself.

Frankly, I think Iran has been right with this official line they’ve been pushing for a few years now: Palestine will eventually become free simply because Israeli society is going to implode. After all, how can they live under such tension, cognitive dissonance, repressed guilt, paranoia, hatred for Palestinians and Gentiles and on and on and on?

Oh, the Hamas counter-attack actually united Israel, you say? (I keep calling it a “counter-attack” because Gaza was under a blockade, which nobody denies is an act of war. It is surprising that more people don’t refer to October 7 as a “counter-attack” because it so clearly reveals the moral justification for that Gaza concentration camp breakout.) They are even more united in their unjust Zionist colonial project, you insist? After all, we are reading that the future of Israel is where everyone has a handgun, like the US. And the US is such a safe, united place?

Did America truly become more united after 9/11, or did the very unjustness of America’s wars create so much militarism, wasted taxpayer money, cognitive dissonance, irrational exuberance and unmet expectations that it resulted in Trump’s “this American carnage” speech? No, injustice has a price, and Israel is certainly unjust. Like America its carnage is internal as well as external.

A two-state solution has long-been denied by Israel – anyone paying attention knows that the injection of 700,000 settlers into the West Bank was done expressly to undermine the possibility of a two-state solution – but when they are faced with total defeat then they will finally acquiesce to sharing Palestine. Finally. It is only military parity which will ever expel any hardened colonists, and I have described the military parity which the anti-Israel alliance has achieved and which is seemingly impossible for Israel to beat even with its weakened Western allies.

And colonists will have to be expelled – but this is not new.

Former French foreign and prime minister Dominique de Villepin made his bones in 2003 on building the case for France not go to war in Iraq, and he hasn’t deviated from this line of thinking, to his great credit. He recently shocked France into remembering that at the end of the Algerian War for Independence (1954-1962) the previously unthinkable happened: a million French people had to be “resettled” in France. This is what will have to happen to 700,000 Israelis in the West Bank – how can there be two states when the West Bank is not remotely contiguous with not just Gaza but also with itself?!

You still say it’s impossible that Israelis would leave? History says no, they are not special, and logic says it’s the only way to a two-state solution. Israeli settlers will ultimately be no different than French pied-noirs, because both are on the losing side of humanity and human history. Algerians and Palestinians come from very different historical backgrounds than American Indians and Australian Aboriginals, after all – neither will be forced to accept permanent reservation status.

A two-state solution must be pushed because it’s what Palestinians want, and it’s also the path to the least bloodshed. Of course, I’d prefer a single state of Palestine with as many Jews there who want to live there – that’s the historical norm, and it worked until the advent of Zionism. It’s also the most peaceful solution, because the existence of a Zionist state can never be truly peaceful: segregation, racism and a rejection of religious co-existence doesn’t isn’t a recipe to lasting peace.

But we are all following the lead of the Palestinians, and these are spectacularly inspirational times.

Don’t be afraid to sound ridiculous – spectacularly inspirational times!

The Middle Eastern order is on the cusp of being remade or, as I described, if not now then in just a few years. This means the Western order – so financially dependent on the extraction of oil wealth – will be remade, and this has obviously immediate effects for Africa and beyond.

It was said often shortly after October 7 that anything can happen, good or bad, for either side.

I don’t agree with that any more:

The current realities delineated in this article should be inspirational to you because you see the historical forces which have slowly, finally, gratefully swung behind Palestine and against imperialism, Zionism and capitalism. If the West appeared – was proven to be – weak after losing in Ukraine, how weak will they appear when Israel makes whatever move it makes… and inevitably loses?

So I don’t agree anything can happen good or bad for either side – I don’t see how Israel regains the strength, or the West regains the regional control, it had on October 6, 2023. I will never forget this day (and neither will my parents… because it was my 46th birthday).

All moves Israel makes result in their losing. They are currently choosing a very bloody path, and may even continue on this cruel road for months, but their destination will inevitably conclude closer to the Palestinian’s long-awaited two-state solution.

Crucially, should any other people in the region dare a dare such as Hamas did on October 7 – well, it’s staggeringly hopeful how close the world is to political progress away from awful, failed Western capitalism-imperialism.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism as well as I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese. Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009.

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The one article to read if you’re planning to see the new ‘Napoleon’ movie

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.

Ramin Mazaheri

Joaquin Phoenix in Ridley Scott's Napoleon. (Promotional still)

The one article to read if you’re planning to see the new ‘Napoleon’ movie

Napoleon: the most interesting person of the 19th century.
Therefore, Hollywood doesn’t need to make anything up.

I have been quite excited to see the new big budget movie - you can guess what it’s called - coming out over the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States.

I felt that in my book last year on the Yellow Vests, it was with Chapter 3, “Modern Political History Makes no Sense If Napoleon is Not a Leftist Revolutionary”, that it really came alive. This is partially because Chapter 1 and 2 was forced to deal with the tedious toady Edmund Burke, his bootlicking of the English aristocracy and his reactionary belief that the political revolutionary tradition must terminate with the English Glorious Revolution (1688), but it’s also because Napoleon is so very fascinating.

For my 2nd post on this new Substack I reprint that chapter on Napoleon. It could have been twice as long, such is the wealth of data and analysis which proves my thesis, and it’s a thesis which shocks many. However, that’s what you get on this Substack: original ideas, not rehashing of what’s already known, and inspirational leftism, as opposed to endless angry complaining.

It shocks many, just as my book on “Iranian Islamic Socialism” startles many - “How are these things possible?!” Indeed, they are - just read, find out and even debate with me in the comments section. These historical realities - deeply felt by the respective French and Iranian people of their times - are not at all fiction.

Regarding the movie, I saw the trailer and I must say I was quite disappointed. Napoleon does not need any creative license to become interesting, but I forget that many people do not find leftist revolution interesting. Indeed, many find it threatening, and this explains why Hollywood appears to have made a megalomaniacal monster of the French Revolution’s the French Revolutionary public’s most popular hero.

It’s as if they read the first paragraph of Chapter 3 below, and decided to do exactly what I cautioned against!

The goal of this is obvious: Liberal Democracy and capitalism-imperialism must ensure that no leftist revolutionary can ever be portrayed as a positive figure - that imperils the Burkean counter-revolution and thus the rule of the 1%. [Actually 0.001%]

Oh well, I will likely see it and review it anyway. Perhaps I am wrong and it will be a good rendering, but what’s certain is the following statement:

Chapter 3: Modern political history makes no sense if Napoleon is not a leftist revolutionary

“The peasant was a Bonapartist because the Great Revolution, with all its benefits to him, was, in his eyes, personified in Napoleon.” – Karl Marx

To be against Napoleon Bonaparte in the 19th century was to totally reject grassroots, democratic French opinion, and thus to be against the French Revolution itself. It was to cede the view of Napoleon Bonaparte to his enemies: the English snob, an in-bred Austrian king, a colluding and traitorous Italian noble, a Hungarian aristocrat, etc.

Modern Western political history simply makes no sense – it loses the thread of expanding power away from the absolute ruler – if we do not take the view that Napoleon Bonaparte was a leftist, as his citizen contemporaries did. Making Napoleon a demon of bloodlust and ambition, just another fascistic military man, a secret reactionary, etc. – all is designed to obscure the importance of 1789 and to reverse it.

The willing desire to lose the thread of progressive history was especially evident in the awful reporting surrounding the 200th anniversary of his death, in 2021. The coverage in France was surprisingly sparse and can be summed up with three words: “tyrant” and “controversial legacy”. A fake-leftist, and thus totally deluded, view was routinely proffered, typified by state media France24’s article: “Napoleon: Military genius or sexist, slaving autocrat?”

The official anti-Napoleon smokescreen was personified by President Emmanuel Macron’s speech on the bicentenary, which ended with: “I have no intention to say if Napoleon realised or instead betrayed revolutionary values. I will of course steer clear of such territory.” Of course he will steer clear – Western Liberal Democrats always do, because they are the ones who work to ensure that the revolutionary values of 1789 are never realised.

Here is your simplest retort to those who accuse the “tyrant”: Napoleon was voted First Consul for life and then emperor by millions of people, and the “voted” part is what made these appointments spectacular political advances for its era. The other monarchs of this era were merely more unelected [hereditary] dictators. Secondly, his constitutions were also ratified by many millions – another spectacular leftist advance. These things simply cannot be dismissed because it would be more than a century before they would be emulated in most of Europe. The number of referendums on monarchy in global history only total a few dozen, and nearly all were after 1950.

Simply ask if the king of Saudi Arabia, Morocco or the behind-the-scenes monarchs of Europe would ever put themselves to a public vote? When it comes to the schism between the Muslim and Western worlds perhaps the single largest problem is that the latter totally forgets the violent threat, the crude insult, the perpetual crime which is hereditary monarchy. Because the West forgets this they also fatally misunderstand their own European history since 1789, and they fail to see Napoleon Bonaparte as a leftist hero.

Making Napoleon Bonaparte worse than his absolute monarch peers is a preposterous revision of history and totally excludes the political view of the European peasant and working class. Ask a subject who never voted for his monarch: There is no “controversial legacy”.

Yellow Vest: “We are here to protest against the abusive government and this kingship-presidency of Emmanuel Macron. The Yellow Vests are here to promote a true vision of democracy and to redistribute our nation’s wealth. Every election there is more and more abstention because people don’t believe in mainstream politics anymore.”

(Note: this book intersperses over 100 quotations taken from actual, marching Yellow Vests which were originally published in news reports on PressTV.)

What an objective view reveals is this: Revolutionary France saw not just one but seven “Coalition Wars” to restore monarchy, privilege, feudalism, torture, inequality, racism and the oppression of an aristocratic elite. From 1792-1815 Europe’s elite refused to make peace with the socio-political advances of the French Revolution, which the French people democratically chose again and again and again. England was the only nation which participated in every war, and it repeatedly paid off other nations to join them.

The obnoxious myth, perpetuated to this day by the Anglos and their reactionary class allies around the globe, that Napoleon was nothing but a tyrannical upstart that capriciously bathed Europe in blood (a meme more recently recalibrated to demonise Vladimir Putin), is nothing but an indecent mauling of history. We are fortunate that people with intellectual integrity and solid grounding in the subject, such as the author, have taken the time to look at the facts and set the record straight.—Editor

The simplest retort to those who call the French Revolution “imperialist” is this: The French Revolutionary Empire at its greatest height – in 1808 – was the result of defensive wars which it won. All the Empire’s territory was gained as punishment for aggressive wars against France or lost by rebelling populaces choosing to side with France, with the sole exception of Portugal. All seven Coalition Wars were attacks on France, all to prevent democracy from spreading across autocratic Europe.

The “Napoleonic Wars” have absolutely no reason to be set off from the more accurate “European Wars Against the French Revolution” unless that reason is obfuscation. This 23-year period must be looked at as a whole, because it wouldn’t have mattered if it was Napoleon in charge or not as long as the ideals of the French Revolution were being employed – the Revolution would have always been aggressed. Like Iran, Cuba and the USSR know, 23 years of military invention by royalists or Western Liberal Democrats to stifle progressive, anti-elite political systems is simply de rigueur.

This chapter is not a whitewashing of Napoleon Bonaparte, but a refusal to say that his entire revolutionary career from 1789 to 1815 should be judged on the basis of the last few years. Napoleon’s primary leftist and anti-revolutionary failure was his development of dynastic intentions. However, we are not talking about this turn to personal gain until 1810, when he married Marie-Louise, a princess of the Austrian Hapsburgs, the corrupt and wasteful absolute monarch ruler of most of the continent. In Napoleon: The Myth of the Savior, Jean Tulard, perhaps the pre-eminent French historian of this era (and not a pro-Napoleon one in my estimation) wrote, “On St. Helena, Napoleon, ‘brutally awakened from his dream of monarchic legitimacy’ confided that he should have married a French woman and, above all, not a princess. He saw clearly, but too late.”  Napoleon’s error was in forgetting that he already enjoyed more leftist legitimacy than any monarch ever – he was the first to be voted in. The counter-revolutionary monarchs of everywhere else would never accept that because the French Revolution was – above all – against unsanctioned autocracy. Similarly, putting his brothers in charge of countries which willingly joined France was another leftist error in line with dynastic intentions, but this wasn’t really unpopular until the imposition of Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain, who replaced the feudal Bourbons, in 1808. Napoleon himself said that one of his greatest mistakes was reintroducing the ranks of the nobility, also in 1808. The three criticisms here are all related – the restoration of elite privilege and hereditary oligarchy – but we would be inaccurate and unfair to not emphasise that this trend occurred two decades into Napoleon’s spectacularly successful revolutionary career!

Was Napoleon’s vision of the French Revolution that of the left of the Revolution, epitomised by Robespierre and the Jacobins? No, but calling a lifelong revolutionary soldier like Napoleon Bonaparte a “non-revolutionary” because he was not completely on the left side of the revolutionary spectrum is to absurdly say there is no “revolutionary political spectrum”. It is to say that the “revolutionary political spectrum” is the same as the non-revolutionary, typical “political spectrum”, in a total falsehood. It is to undemocratically excise the revolutionary viewpoints of his millions of comrades, and also of the democratic majority of his time. What is certain is that it is to reveal essentially no first-hand experience with any real revolution at all, as such a view of revolution is a fool’s fairy tale of pure idealism.

By distorting Napoleon – by saying that Elvis was always “fat Elvis” and never the king of rock and roll who shook the world – today’s 1% can keep 1789 totally dead. Napoleon is the key to keeping 1789 alive and continuing to implement its most progressive, leftist ideals.

It is simply astounding that the left doesn’t find so much to embrace in Napoleon Bonaparte. As much as I would like to write 10,000 words about Napoleon’s career in order to give a modern leftist appraisal, I simply do not want to alienate readers (and translators, LOL). I promise that I could. What I list before the conclusion section is only the absolutely critical facts of his political career which demonstrate his leftism.

The 1790s: Napoleon’s leftism was vetted over and over by the revolution

Prior to the Revolution, Napoleon was born a minor noble in Corsica, putting him in the top 2% of France. However, being a minor noble in poor Corsica was to have title and little property – it’s not Burgundy. When half of France’s nobles exiled themselves over the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen Napoleon was already in the 1%. Napoleon Bonaparte – like Mao, Castro and others – was another leftist hero who defied the dominant view of his elite class.

Napoleon grew up in the aftermath of the repression of Corsica’s independence movement. The incredibly progressive Corsican Republic (1755-69) included a liberal constitution, the first implementation of female suffrage and was the first-ever practical application of the modern political ideas of people like Voltaire and Rousseau. France took control of the island, and they were a big improvement from the previous landlord, Genoa. When the French Revolution began Napoleon saw it as capable of bringing even more progress to Corsica. Thus Napoleon was one of the very first of many “foreigners” (he was born shortly after France took control of the island, and thus was truly French) to seek domination not by France but by the ideals of the French Revolution.

As the 1790s went by Napoleon was obviously vetted over and over by the Revolution. In 1793, Napoleon was friendly with none other than Augustin Robespierre, Maximilien “The Irreproachable” Robespierre’s brother, who surely would have sniffed out someone not committed to the ideals of 1789. When the brothers were executed in 1794, marking the end of the leftist Jacobin era and the start of the Directorate era (1794-99), the Directorate tried to get him to quit by downgrading him to the infantry.

Lucky for them Napoleon refused to leave: in Paris on October 5, 1795, he would save the Revolution from a major royalist revolt using what was the undoubted foundation of his military genius – his knowledge of new artillery technology.

He became a national hero, and thus the Directorate spied on him to check for dangerous traits. Their spying general wrote back to the Directorate: “It is a mistake to think he is a party man. He belongs neither to the royalists, who slander him, nor to the anarchists, whom he dislikes. He has only one guide – the Constitution.” Facts: Robespierre was anything but an anarchist, and being a constitutionalist in Europe in 1796 made one a revolutionary. Failure to accept this will create misperceptions which will extend to misunderstandings of our present day.

Confidence renewed, the Directorate gave Napoleon command of the Army of the Alps. He started by immediately court-martialing two of his soldiers for shouting “long live the king”.

[The effect of France's revolutionary arms]

The great man-ism inherent in Western Liberal Democracy wants to talk about Napoleon’s military genius in things such as issuing bold flanking orders. It’s foolish: We can credit Napoleon’s military genius for doing something without precedent – storming a bridge under heavy fire – or we can credit the revolutionary inspiration of the actual troops that did the storming. Napoleon’s ability to inspire (well-known, and real) is still not at all the same as the zeal inspired by revolutionary principles.

Napoleon biographer Vincent Cronin writes in Napoleon Bonaparte: An Intimate Biography: “In analysing why Napoleon won battles in Italy, one is also analysing why he always – or nearly always – emerged successful from a battlefield. The first quality was discipline. Napoleon, with his legal forbears, was a great person for law and order. He insisted that officers issue a receipt for everything requisitioned, be it a box of candles or a sack of flour. … In letter after angry letter he condemned sharp practice by army suppliers…. Napoleon was merciless towards these men and when one of them made him a gift of fine saddle horses, hoping that would close his eyes to embezzlement, Napoleon snapped: ‘Have him arrested. Imprison him for six months. He owes us 500,000 ecus in taxes.’”  Here we see the moral legitimacy which won him followers in the army, and that is better than issuing bold flanking orders.

Egypt: After examining and giving up the idea of invading England, invasion of Egypt was the best way of striking always counter-revolutionary England, and not mere adventurism. Napoleon read the Koran on the way to Egypt and declared it “sublime”. He was inspired enough to say in his first declaration, “Cadis, sheiks, imams – tell the people that we too are true Muslims.” The French Revolution was universal in scope, like Islam, and Napoleon did not believe in the Trinitarianism of Roman Catholicism, like Islam. The muftis found Napoleon sincere as a person but not actually willing to become a Muslim – they proclaimed Napoleon’s God messenger and a friend of the Prophet. With humanitarian ideals and actions, and replete with the famed scientific corps, it is thus totally different from France’s imperialist invasion of Algeria in 1830.

In August 1799 he got his first news from Europe (due to the British blockade) that the 2nd European War Against the French Revolution had begun and that France was collapsing: Russian-Anglo forces in the Netherlands (which had joined the Revolution willingly), Austro-Russian forces in Switzerland (joined willingly as well) and Italy (joined willingly as well), Turco-Russian force in Corfu, Greece. Napoleon waded into that for personal glory, some say – to save the Revolution, say the less cynical.

As First Consul: Good leaders get elected and then re-elected – this truly all started with Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon made a political alliance with none other than Abbot Emmanuel Sieyès, the same “abbé Sieyès” whose 1789 manifesto What is the Third Estate became the manifesto of the French Revolution and the literal groundwork for the entry of the lower class into politics. (The pamphlet begins, famously: “What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been hitherto in the political order? Nothing. What does it desire to be? Something.”) Still not leftist enough for some, though…?

The undoubtedly revolutionary principle of constitutionalism upon which Napoleon rested is reflected in the poster put up after his participation in the coup of 1799 (Coup of 18 Brumaire) and the start of the Consulate era (1799-1804): “THEY HAVE ACTED IN SUCH A WAY that there is no longer a Constitution.”

Was constitutionalism the only demand of the French Revolution from 1789-1799? No, it was simultaneously revolutionary and “middle-of-the-road”. Napoleon never did side with the royalists – that would have been undeniable betrayal of the Revolution – nor with the Jacobins, nor with their executors the less-leftist Thermidorians who ran the 5-man Directorate (one of whom was currently asking for 12 million francs to restore the Bourbons). Instead, Napoleon placed himself above party politics and alongside the concept of constitutionalism which, along with his repeated military defences of France and the Revolution, won him popular acclaim. Of course Napoleon embraced many other primary political ideals of the Revolution: an end to feudalism, an end to absolute monarchy, the division of common land, civil equality, the suppression of tithes and seigniorial rights, and nationalisation of the property of the Roman Catholic Church. What’s vital to recognise is that the social aspects of the revolution – free education, health care, food – weren’t even much discussed until 1796, via leftist hero Gracchus Babeuf, the continuer of the Robespierreian left. Faulting Napoleon for not holding out for free education for the masses is to critically forget that these social questions were in the infancy of political expression, and certainly were limited to the progressive vanguard of an already unprecedentedly progressive revolution.

In 1800 his coup and his constitution were both overwhelmingly approved by millions in a vote – a vote totally unprecedented in scope, reach and political progress. People who wish to ignore these votes are simply baffling, and biased. The coup was bloodless, as well. Napoleon – the alleged new dictator – is credited with giving the new constitution the idea of universal male suffrage and not just for property owners.

France won the Second European War Against the French Revolution – a bit of peace, finally. Napoleon the general became Napoleon the elected public servant. His administrative energy was as amazing as his martial energy: “The ox has been harnessed – now it must plow,” he said.

Napoleon took great interest in consolidating the best of Roman, custom/precedent and Revolutionary laws into the new Code Civil: equality before the law, end to feudal rights and duties, right to choose one’s work, inviolability of property, right to divorce and freedom of conscience. All were unprecedented leftist advances. The Code Civil is not at all the “Napoleonic Code” but more accurately the “French Revolutionary Code”. It was “an instrument of war against feudalism,” to quote Tulard, and its influence is inestimable and global.

Napoleon curbed widespread brigandage and pacified rebellions which had lasted years. He brought peace to France after a decade of civil war, and yet he did not give the army a privileged position. He even forbade them from getting involved in civil matters, something he considered “madness”.

He declared an amnesty for those living abroad, which anyone personally familiar with revolution knows has an inestimable positive effect, but also some negative ones.

Napoleon ended yet another war in 1801, when French churches finally reopened after the signing of the Concordat. The agreement okayed French nationalisation of Church lands (the sales of which did the most to effectuate the economic revolution downwards), maintained religious freedom, did not declare Roman Catholicism the official religion of the state, allowed the French state to pay clerical salaries (giving them a decent standard of living), had the clergy swear an oath of allegiance to the state, and banned nearly all the monasteries (viewed as parasitical and useless in France, whereas the useful teaching nun orders would soon be doubled). Of course, the recently-installed Pope would ultimately side with the monarchists against the Revolution, but there’s no doubt that Napoleon secured the Revolution’s aim in neutering the Church’s power in France, a major goal.

On only two occasions did he involve himself in local governance of the prefects: one of them was to stop a prefect from forcing vaccinations. Draw your own inference regarding the coronavirus epidemic of 2020-22.

The currency never had to be devalued, the cost of living became stable, he spent more on education than anything else, built three great roads, canals and ports each, attained full employment, stable prices, positive trade balance, increasing population, and presided over a 180-degree shift in public spirit after a decade of civil violence.

So of course he was popular – he was making the principles of the French Revolution law, which broke with the absolute monarchy which reigned essentially everywhere else.

Elected emperor: Democracy combines old forms with new ideas – conservatives are overdramatic

writes Tulard.

In 1802 he was was voted Consul-for-life by 3.5 million people (against 0.008 million opposed), a staggeringly progressive occurrence for the time – ignoring this is to lose the entire thread and principles of the French Revolution! However, it’s easy to lose this thread when one ignores the constant attacks on your country’s revolution, which is not allowed to evolve in peace. [Sounds familiar?—Ed]

“It was in fact precipitated by the renewal of conflict with England (in 1803). … Rather, there was a tendency to increase his power in order to ensure the defence of the land. A dictatorship of public safety was needed. How could it be entrusted to anyone other than Bonaparte? At this moment the Royalists inopportunely chose to renew their plotting…. The revolutionaries saw in the consolidation of the First Consul’s power… the only bulwark against attempts to restore the monarchy.”

It is with this lifetime appointment in 1802 that many Republicans were dismayed and many leftists say the Revolution ended. If one wants to call it “despotism”, it’s false: it’s “elected despotism”. It’s a paradox, it’s revolutionary, it’s provoked by foreign aggression, it’s better than anyone else’s around, it’s an emperor and empire but it’s still leftist! “It seemed, above all, to be the surest means of maintaining a stable government putting an end to intrigue and plotting. This in no way represented the acceptance of a Bourbon-style dynasty. The Empire was first and foremost a dictatorship of public safety, designed to preserve the achievements of the Revolution.”  Again, that’s from an author who is not strongly pro-Napoleon – he is, however, a Frenchman who understands his country’s history.

Napoleon has still not betrayed the revolution at this point in any serious way! In a move which was preceded by much discussion, he took the crown of Emperor from the Pope’s hands in a public coronation (another first) not because of the bosh about how it was his own arrogant and usurping personal power which won the crown, but because it was the people which had crowned him, and no one else. This is all a huge difference from the divine, theocratic right of kings, which Prussia, Russia, Austria and countless other local kings would insist on in total autocratic form until 1914.

If the French Revolutionary Emperorship was a typical emperorship – and thus no ideological threat – why did it not cause the European Wars Against the French Revolution to stop? The answer is obvious to those who are objective.

In 1806 the Fourth Coalition saw Prussia and Russia attack – France wins again and Prussia is compelled to finally renounce serfdom.

In 1808, popular revolt against the Spanish king in the “Tumult of Aranjuez”, which is still celebrated today, ended the Bourbon dynasty. The overthrow of the Bourbons, and the sheltering of the new ideals of the French Revolution, allowed Latin America to win their independence.

The French Revolution has spread to the New World. It had already spread to the oldest of the Old World: Mohammad Ali founded modern Egypt in 1805 after France had defeated the Mameluks.

The French Revolution starts to topple – revolutionary zeal starts to wane following decades of foreign attacks

This is where things start to turn badly: 1808 Spain is not yet at the point of 1789 France. Proof? After 1815 Spain is the only place where feudalism would actually be restored. The guerrilla war saps France, which is supported by Spain’s progressives, abolished the Inquisition and ended feudal rights – hardly a terrible legacy.

The war in Spain coincides with when Napoleon starts to let the emperorship go to his head and thinks more of preserving his dynasty than of the Revolution – he is always thinking of France, however. His Continental Blockade against England would have bankrupted them… if France didn’t also have to fight in Spain and Russia, too. The French Revolution is always attacked from all autocratic sides – this must be remembered because it so greatly shapes their possible choices. After a few years the Continental Blockade turns into pro-French economic imperialism, in a non-leftist mistake. Spain, the Blockade, dynasty – these are the three key mistakes Napoleon made. However, he does not deserve a permanent “Ogre” caricature for these three because two of them are fights against autocracy.

The Fifth Coalition of 1809 saw the awful Hapsburgs’ last stand, the arrival of huge modern wars of attrition, conscripted armies, and the growth of nationalist movements which Revolutionary France had expressly fostered.

Tsar Alexander refuses to allow Napoleon to marry into the royal family, so he marries into the Hapsburgs instead. The marriage did not cement an alliance for peace – which was entirely the aim – because Austrian royalty, like the simply awful Metternich, were not only Teutonic racists but completely aware that France represented revolutionary change which was incompatible with autocracy. It was Metternich (who takes the mantle from France’s Talleyrand as the most dreadful and shameless politician of his generation) who is credited with the propaganda theme of “Napoleon as mere personal ambition”.

France invades Russia because Moscow refused to end their threats to the revolution – first Russia, then England, then peace, finally, was the plan.

Napoleon was keeping 250,000 seasoned troops in Spain at this time, let’s recall. He said his two main mistakes were not wintering in Vitebsk, Belarus, and instead going to Poland. He ignores the original option – staying in Moscow – which had plenty of noble-abandoned supplies to live off of. The second was in trying to get peace from the Russian monarchists, who never wanted peace, like all monarchists. “I thought that I should be able to make peace, and that the Russians were anxious for it. I was deceived and I deceived myself.” The Tsars liked their autocracy, old Nap!

After the disastrous retreat the monarchs of Europe jumped on Revolutionary France in 1813 with the immediate Sixth Coalition, the first knockdown blow to the French Revolution after 20 years of trying. Not far from Paris Napoleon resolved to die in battle – to pass the throne on to his son – and though he went where fire was thickest and his uniform was tattered by shot he was not killed.

The fall of Paris was shocking: Paris, which hadn’t seen a foreign invader since Joan of Arc 400 years earlier, spectacularly fell without even a full day of fighting because the re-propertied nobles had spread defeatism, paid for subversion and colluded to reverse the French Revolution, which of course they still hated. The elitist concept of royalism would still play a major role in French politics for another 65 years, keep in mind.

After decades of fighting not only were his marshals old and worn out, but so was the original revolutionary generation. What Napoleon needed was a Cultural Revolution to refresh the ideals of the French Revolution, but of course such a thing had not been invented yet. Such a leftist idea would have led to more civil war in France, which was only able to end its civil war with the moderate Napoleon adopting many of the forms of monarchism, after all.

Banished to Elba, he famously returned. When France saw that the Bourbons wanted to push the clock back to 1788 this did have the immediate effect of a Cultural Revolution, restoring the vitality of the ideals of the French Revolution. Napoleon landed and dared people to fire on him all alone, ever the anti-civil war patriot. He was literally pushed all the way to Paris by the peasants and urban proletariat – the army would only rally to him later. He entered like a hero and totally avoided bloodshed – all it took was the sight of him in his overcoat and bicorne hat. It’s really rather stunning, and something only a leftist – a man of the people – could have ever done.

The Bourbons fled, of course. The “Additional Act” was added on to the Constitution, which added checks to the power of Napoleon, granted total freedom of expression, an enlarged electoral college (Napoleon again oversees a broadening of democracy), the right to elect mayors in towns less than 5,000 inhabitants, trial by jury and was approved by 1.6 million voters. It wouldn’t be until 1867 that Britain’s electorate would reach that size.

The vote enraged royalist autocrats continent-wide, and they resolved to immediately overturn the progressive democratic will of France, again. Metternich spread the fiction of Napoleon as ambition personified and rejecting peace.

Above all, what France needed was a period of peace to consolidate these changes – Napoleon’s aura was not the same, liberal ideas were taking further root and France had been awakened to the fact that their revolution was powerful but not invincible. They almost had it: Wellington declared Waterloo “the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life”, but instead of wiping out Wellington the next day Napoleon spent the morning visiting the wounded – Napoleon the quick had become a sentimental old soldier. The Coalition refused to make peace – of course. Instead of dissolving the National Assembly, as a dictator would, he trusted it and asked for full powers: they told Napoleon to abdicate or be deposed.

Now the French Revolution was truly over. It would be 33 years until there would be another vote.

The defeat of Napoleon – tyrant, slaver, sexist – heralds not a left-wing renaissance, but a right-wing one, really?

Just as Napoleon and the French had warned for decades, the clock was wound back across Europe: Poland was re-wiped off the map by Russia and Prussia, Hapsburgs in north Italy, Bourbons in Naples and Spain, Pope Pius VII restored the Inquisition and the Jewish ghettoes, England responded to calls for parliamentary reform with the massacre at Peterloo – vicious counter-revolution everywhere. The censorship imposed by Metternich is total, with spies everywhere – Europe is a true police state for the benefit of monarchs and aristocrats… again. The French Revolution was truly over because a monarchical oligarchy conspired to stop it.

In 1821, living in cruel imprisonment imposed by Britain on the island of St. Helena, Napoleon died of stomach cancer, like his father, at the age of 51. His last words: “France – army – head of the army – Josephine”.

They act as if Napoleon waged wars on the peoples of Europe, instead of on the autocrats of Europe?

They act as if he won his royalty by birth, marriage or violence, instead of by vote?

They act as if his administration was marked by corruption instead of revolutionary ideas, progress and domestic unity?

Bah… the haters of Napoleon – what can be done? He deserves the longest chapter in this book, because to smear Napoleon Bonaparte is to smear the French Revolution. The two are not synonymous, as Napoleon once claimed – but now, I think, you know what he meant.

In 1823 his memoirs, The Memorial of Saint Helena, would become the 19th century’s best-selling book, moulding the worldview of several generations.

It is truly amazing how relatively few things there are in France named after Napoleon. However, his stunning tomb at Invalides is – thankfully – not a military shrine but a monument to his 10 greatest achievements as a domestic revolutionary politician. It’s truly amazing: comparing the negative view which so many have of Napoleon, and the 10 progressive political advances etched in marble at Invalides.

The common leftist criticism that Napoleon Bonaparte used foreign war to liquidate the revolution, domestic conflict and class conflict completely ignores the fact that the Seven European Wars Against the French Revolution were defensive and not initiated by France.

The criticism which equates Bonaparte with Bourbon – calling them two absolutist systems, with the former merely being more allied with the nouveau riche bourgeois class – completely ignores the historic votes, constitutions, and the quality of governance. It also totally ignores the peasant gains stemming from the French Revolution’s ending of feudalism.

The claim that the French Revolution was “imperialist” totally ignores the fact that the French Revolution wasn’t even “French”: Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium – these are just the countries where the people were able to join the Revolution, and certainly many more wanted to. [Even many Englishmen and Irish—Ed]

bourgeois rights were advancements; peasants, not nobles, getting land should not be derided as a “bourgeois revolution” but were advancements. It is the West’s total blind spot regarding the social evil of monarchy [or hidden forms of tyrannical, autocratic power and monarchy, such as the modern magacorporation.—Ed]– which is the only accurate standard of comparison Napoleon and the French Revolution can be compared to: their peers – which blinds them to the obvious historical truth.

We can expect the right to paint Napoleon poorly, but what the left seems to ignore is that what every historian eventually admits is that the peasants and the working class – the mass of the people – wanted, trusted, elected and re-elected Napoleon Bonaparte as the French Revolution’s chief. This makes Napoleon Bonaparte just like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Khomeini, etc.

Now we grasp the Western Liberal Democratic campaign against Napoleon’s legacy: he was a true, beloved leftist.

Napoleon truly must be reclassed with those figures along the left. We cannot allow reactionaries to say that Napoleon, the dominant personage of that 26-year era – somehow did not embody it, but rather embodied its negation. What an absurdity!

Perhaps the whole point of this chapter – to fellow leftists – is to prove: We can admire Robespierre, Danton, Marat and Babeuf while also admiring Napoleon. Napoleon certainly must be reclaimed from today’s aristocratic bourgeoisie – this chapter should make it clear why they would never even want a leftist like him.

Gaining the trust of the democratic mass explains – more than any other factor – how Napoleon was able to lead France to stability in 1799 and beyond. Western Liberal Democrats haven’t been able to do either – gain the trust of the masses or provide stability for them – from its very conception. As de Tocqueville observed:

What was unwanted across Europe in 1848 was the success of the counter-revolutions, which successfully refused to implement the ideals of 1789. In France, however, what was quickly unwanted was the first implementation of Western Liberal Democracy.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV 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. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.

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Great unsaid in US election: Love for ‘forever war’ is what cost Democrats

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DEFEAT CAPITALISM AND ITS DEADLY SPAWN, IMPERIALISM
ecological murder • by Ramin Mazaheri and cross-posted with PressTV

The US party system is running on fumes. People are finally learning it's really a "uniparty" with two faces that does not represent them at all.

It is an American rite of passage to realise that the Democratic Party never achieves what they claim to want to achieve.

Some Americans achieve this realisation at 13, whereas the truly insufferable – because they lie about the past and are forced to deflect from those lies with aggressive self-righteousness – can persist in this self-harming delusion even past 63.

Losing control of the House of Representatives means the election was a major loss. Democrats are spinning the idea that “We could have lost worse” actually represents a positive outcome, but only committed Democrats are able to delude themselves into thinking that such pathetic logic is actually believed by the average person.

Democrats might also lose the Senate, but it’s already a done deal: the United States will be stuck in two years of gridlock, with each party voting down each other’s legislation. An America badly in repair will have only have bipartisan agreement on the usual: increasing military spending. Republicans now have the ability to introduce and discuss legislation which Democrats greatly fear, such as the handling of the coronavirus, the anti-Trump efforts of the FBI, the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, etc.

It’s true that the sitting party’s president almost always loses Congressional seats in the midterm election, but what really cost the Democrats was their commitment to the American Dream of “forever war”.

The Pentagon just announced that they will be in Ukraine for “as long as it takes” and unveiled a new command center in Germany to help train and equip Ukraine’s military. Goodbye Afghanistan, but hello Ukraine.

What cost the Democrats on election day is the failure of the economy, and while Americans might have passively stood for another two years of inequality, poor wages and precariousness (what’s 2 more on top of 40?), Washington’s choice to reject diplomacy and fuel war in Ukraine is what sent the economy into a tailspin at warp speed. The economic crisis was the number one issue for voters, and this pain was self-inflicted by the warmongering Democrats.

Just as the economic sanctions on Russia have rebounded so awfully against the West, so did the Democrats’ war drive rebound in their own sanctioning at the ballot box this week.

They did do better than expected, so just imagine how Democrats might have done if the economy was merely stable, instead of the current awful? They could have kept the House and won true control of the Senate – not the often-useless 50-50 split they eked out in 2020.

It’s completely accurate to say that the Democrat-led war drive in Ukraine is the reason why Democrats lost control Congress, but it’s forbidden to say such things in the Western media.

What drove Democrats to be so reckless with the well-being of the everyday American?

Some will say it’s Russophobia, just as Islamophobia after 9/11 smoothed public opinion for a 20-year murder spree across the Muslim World.

You can’t demonise a nation every night on MSNBC and every day in The New York Times for 5+ years and then be surprised when their readers and leaders exacerbate a war with the object of demonisation. Those are Democratic Party mouthpieces and not Republican ones, which can have very different ideas on Ukraine. Democratic Party leaders are obviously driven by an unjust need for vengeance against Russia – whom many Democrats falsely blame for influencing the 2016 election – and to hell with the costs on the working-poor class.

For Democrats, this vengeance is the highest display of political morality, just as vengeance towards Muslims was the highest display of political morality after 9/11. The war campaign against Russia took longer to work, but there was no bloody flag to wave to rally Americans around the president’s latest war – Russians killed no Americans.

However, going back six years is a very short measuring stick. America has been at war since always. The world used to consider Democrats brave for saying that out loud, but it is no longer the 1950s – this is now common knowledge among the new generation.

Now being a true progressive certainly must include a desire to end civil and foreign violence. That latter seems to be the domain of the Republican Party in 2022, as they have actually threatened to cut funding for Biden’s Ukrainian quagmire.

That the Republicans are the “peace party” makes no sense, of course. The “CIA Democrats caucus” (Democrats in the House of Representatives who worked in intelligence, the State Department or the military) has expanded to at least 15 people and that makes no sense, either.

But since when has American politics made moral sense? America has always been a deeply reactionary country – its founding revolution was merely against foreign control and not in favor of a progressive reordering of society – and thus its politics has always been defined by hypocrisy, zero memory and even less understanding of this thing we share called human history.

The Democrats’ Russophobia made Russia the target, but the Democratic Party’s truly autocratic and anti-democratic commitment to “forever war” is the root cause of their undeniable electoral defeat this week.

Democrats are more committed to war this time, but it’s absurd to believe that even if Republicans don’t totally back this war that they won’t back future American wars. Simply refer to how France didn’t join the Western coalition against Iraq only to join all the following Western imperialist coalitions, and also spearheaded their usual imperialist domination across the Sahel and West Africa.

What’s the root effect, and the one which is most historically important? 2022 has shown that the US cannot handle its forever wars like it used to – not militarily, not politically and obviously not economically.

That’s the biggest change Americans have to grapple with, and their solution is peace: A top foreign policy poll recently showed that 79% of Americans want peace with Iran, for example. Of course, despite all the insistence in the US and also Iran that a Democratic victory in 2020 will end America’s “forever war on Iran” Joe Biden has obviously disproved that, as well.

However, all the American people could do was punish the Democratic Party – it’s not as if any composition of Republicans and Democrats will actually implement the will of the average American.

The Democratic Party cannot and will not ever grapple with its inability to handle forever wars, which has been laid bare in 2022, because that’s not how Western Liberal Democracy works: it requires forever wars, both foreign and domestic.

Many incorrectly believe that the Democratic Party can somehow save Western Liberal Democracy, but not that many Americans engage in such wishful thinking – simply look at the vote results after two years of Democratic control of Washington.

This is box title
France’s Yellow Vests: Western Repression of the West’s Best Values’. He is also the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’.

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Why Ukraine is always winning the war

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.

by Ramin Mazaheri for the Saker blog

The British media has outdone even the Americans in their obnoxious servility to the Western oligarchs.

In the United States media editorial policy has not wavered on one subject this year: Ukraine is always winning the war.

From the first week, when the Ukrainian air force and navy were smashed, to last week’s smashing of the electrical grid – this is what “victory” looks like in the Ukrainian language, apparently. The Russians can electorally incorporate territory after territory, but to suggest that Ukrainian victory hasn’t already arrived is verboten in American public spaces.

What is the point of reading American coverage of the unrest in Ukraine when it’s so very absurd?

The point is: to learn what America is thinking, of course. If it’s deluded then – like it or not – that’s the story, and the story always writes itself in honest journalism.

I was talking with a Polish cab driver whom I found extremely intelligent, and not only because he has an Iranian brother-in-law and thus knew and respected Iranian culture. This longtime immigrant cabbie was very pro-Ukraine and anti-Russian, which is his right and not unexpected, and he was a typical Pole in that he was ardently pro-American. However, he volunteered to me that he found Americans to be the most effectively propagandised people in the world – he said they, invariably, merely mouthed whatever they heard on TV news.

It is one thing to dismiss the criticism of your enemies, but the criticisms of your friends merit some refection.

I have also personally found the same iron-jawed retention of dogma: Americans tell me that only in very recent weeks have they heard anyone even suggest the idea that the war isn’t going well for Ukrainians. I agree, as I have yet to hear such a remark (outside of interviews of political analysts for my work at PressTV), and I have gotten many strange stares when I brought up the idea – in my personal life – for discussion.

It is happy news for Americans to talk about, after all: “Hey, did you hear? The Ukrainians are winning the war! Still!” However, it is my role in the US to be a wet blanket whenever discussions turn political, I lament.

When the subject of Ukraine comes up I start with the fact that I have lived in France for over the past decade and – because France is usually at the heart of European diplomacy – I have been reporting on the Ukraine unrest since 2014. At the mention of the idea that Ukraine existed before February 2022 a glaze goes over their eyes.

Similarly, someone recently congratulated me on the Iranian revolution. What a pleasant thing to hear, thank you! Unfortunately, this person was referring to the current anti-hijab law unrest and not 1979. Just as Ukraine is winning the war, so this person was convinced that these protests have effectuated a (counter-) revolution. When it comes to Iran the American “this information cannot be allowed to even momentarily penetrate my mind” eye-glaze starts sooner – it arrives at the very first contrary word I utter.

I bring up Iran to show the pattern: Ukraine has always been winning, is winning currently and will win in the future because the US always wins every war it embarks upon.

After all, the US was always winning the war in Afghanistan. The only internal disagreement ever allowed was regarding their total retreat in August 2020 – was it poorly planned, or not? If the former, then the total US victory was disgracefully (though merely slightly) tarnished by the total US retreat.

The crime committed by the average American is neither malice nor negligence but the fault of naiveté – their expectation that a media dominated by private and not public ownership will ever consistently produce journalism which benefits the people and not the rich owners. Call it Western Liberal Democracy or the American Way or neoliberalism: history shows that it has always failed, is failing and will only fail for the 99%.

The US was always winning the war in Iraq, as well. Shock and awe prevailed from start to finish, with the finish being a total shock at how few positives the US-led war created for either the Iraqis or the Americans. The indisputable fact of the American victory, however: totally awesome, of course.

The Balkanised disaster which is Libya? Another victory. Assad still standing in Syria? Still a victory, though don’t ask for explanations. Cold wars in Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Nicaragua and any other revolutionary country? Victory is so close the US media can see it, they insist.

These foolish political mis-notions cannot be blamed on the average American: all these places are so far away and so far removed from the totally precarious daily rat race/shooting gallery which is American life, and the information they can find is so incredibly one-sided.

Negligence can constitute a crime, indeed, but we must learn that here there is not actual malice: I was not shocked to do a report on a top foreign policy poll which showed that 79% of Americans want peace with Iran. This is even the foreign policy issue which earned the most unanimity, excepting only one: by one percentage point more, Americans want more legislative control over the executive branch’s ability to wage war – i.e., they want more peace.

The crime committed by the average American is neither malice nor negligence but the fault of naiveté – their expectation that a media dominated by private and not public ownership will ever consistently produce journalism which benefits the people and not the rich owners. Call it Western Liberal Democracy or the American Way or neoliberalism: history shows that it has always failed, is failing and will only fail for the 99%.

The US media and politicians know which levers to pull to produce naiveté: note how it’s always the “Ukrainian people” against “Putin” – there are no Russian people. Putin, of course, is not an actual person either – he’s a monster.

Which side could a busy soccer mom possibly be expected to take, especially when trying to have pleasant chit-chat with other busy soccer moms? Why, the only American thing to do is to buy that $25 pro-Ukraine scented candle and display it proudly for others to envy….

In the United States Ukraine will always be winning the war, no matter what actually happens in the war. When their destructive loss is indisputable, that will be unimportant – the US will certainly be in the middle of winning a new war.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
France’s Yellow Vests: Western Repression of the West’s Best Values’. He is also the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’. .

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How ‘Democracies’ Degenerate Into Minoritarian Right-Wing Governments (Aristocracies)

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EXPOSING CAPITALISM'S MULTITUDE OF VICES AND INCURABLE PROBLEMS

Well said, but it should read, "Capitalist Democracy is an Illusion."

In America, a woman’s right to an abortion of a pre-conscious (earlier than 20 weeks) fetus is no longer recognized by its federal Government, though, by a 59% to 41% margin (and 67% to 33% among American women, who are the people directly affected), the American people want it to be. That’s one example of America’s dictatorship (minority-rule). (This statement about it isn’t a commentary on the ethics of abortion, but on the polling on abortion, in America.) But there are many other examples of America’s being now a minority-rule nation.

For example: in February of 2008, a U.S. Gallup poll had asked Americans "Would you like to see gun laws in this country made more strict, less strict, or remain as they are?” and 49% said “More Strict,” 11% said “Less Strict,” and 38% said “Remain as Are.” But, then, the U.S. Supreme Court, in June 2008, reversed that Court’s prior rulings, ever since 1939, and they made America’s gun laws far less strict than the gun-laws ever had been before; and, thus, the 5 ruling judges in this 2008 decision imposed upon the nation what were the policy-preferences of actually a mere 11% of Americans.

Then, in 2014, there was finally the first scientific answer to the question of whether America is a democracy or instead a dictatorship, when the first-ever comprehensive political-science study that was ever published on whether the U.S. Government reflects the policy-preferences of the American public or instead of only the very richest Americans found that, “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy”; and, so, “Clearly, when one holds constant net interest-group alignments and the preferences of affluent Americans, it makes very little difference what the general public thinks.”

“corporationism”), or else noblesse oblige or hypocritically conservative (“liberals”), people who are pretending to care about the public as being something more than merely their markets (consumers they sell to) or else their workers (their employees or other agents, such as lobbyists). When the public are conservative or “right wing,” (not progressive or “left wing”), they are elitist, not populist — and, especially, they are not left-wing populist (or progressive). Donald Trump was a right-wing populist (which is another form of aristocratic policy-fakery, besides the liberal type — either type is mere pretense to being non-fascist). But no aristocrat is progressive, and this means that in a corrupt ‘democracy’, all of the policy-proposals that become enacted into laws are elitist even if of the noblesse-oblige or “liberal” form of that. The Government, in such a nation, always serves its billionaires, regardless of what the public wants. That’s what makes the country an aristocracy instead of a democracy.

As the former U.S. President Jimmy Carter had said in 2015, commenting upon the profound corruption in America:

It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it's just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members. So, now we've just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over. ... At the present time the incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that is already in Congress has a great deal more to sell.

A Yellow Vest protester wearing a mask depicting the French President on which is written the word 'psycho' looks at fellow protesters in Paris on March 16, 2019, during the 18th consecutive Saturday of demonstrations called by the 'Yellow Vest' (gilets jaunes) movement. Yellow Vests are pushing for referenda, as a form of direct popular democacy, but this option has its own set of pitfalls.

In France, one of the primary sources of the dictatorship is the dictatorship’s intensification in 2008 from a new Constitutional provision, Section Three of Article 49, which facilitates rule-by-decree (“executive decree”) from the President, when the Parliament is opposed to his policy-preferences. This Section gives the aristocracy an opportunity to override Parliament if the other methods of corruption (mainly by France’s having no “ban on donors to political parties/candidates participating in public tender/procurement processes” — predominantly arms-manufacturers who are donors) are insufficient to meet the desires of the aristocracy, but, otherwise, France has remarkably strict laws against corruption — far stricter than in Germany, and in Russia — and thus the French Government represents mainly corporations that sell directly to the Government. Consequently, when “all else fails,” and the Parliament turns out to be inadequate (insufficiently imperialistic) in the view of France’s billionaires, Section 49-3 is applied by the President. (America, like France, has strict laws against corruption, but they are loaded with loopholes, and, so, America has almost unlimited corruption. America’s legislature is even more corrupt than is France’s.) Ever since France’s Tony Blairite Socialist Party (neoliberal-neoconservative) Prime Minister Manuel Valls started in 2016 to allow French Presidents to use the 2008-minted 49-3 Section to rule by decree and ignore Parliament, France has increasingly become ruled-by-decree, and the Parliament is more frequently overridden.

After the recent French Parliamentary elections, the current French President, Emmanuel Macron, who has often been ruling by decree, will do so even more than before. As the Iranian journalist in Paris, Ramin Mazaheri, recently said: “Elections at just 46% turnout are a hair’s breadth away from not having democratic credibility, but that must be added with [to] the constant use of the 49-3 executive decree and the certainty of a Brussels’ veto for any legislation they don’t like. It combines to modern autocracy – rule by an oligarchical elite.”

Perhaps low voter-turnout is an indication that the nation will have a revolution. After all, both America and France did that, once, and it could happen again, in order to overthrow the aristocracy that has since emerged after the prior one was overthrown. Someone should therefore tabulate how low the voter-turnout has to go in order for a revolution to result. The post-1945 American Government has perpetrated incredibly many coups against foreign governments, but perhaps the time will soon come when dictatorships such as in America and France become, themselves, democratically overthrown. Both countries have degenerated into minoritarian right-wing governments. At least in France, the public seems to be becoming aware of this fact. Neither Government now has authentic democratic legitimacy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s next book (soon to be published) will be AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change. It’s about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

 

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