Macron’s oratory – high in cliché, low in clarity
I hate to be the bearer of this news to the French nation, but Emmanuel Macron truly is the World’s most predictable New World Order bumboy.
Any electorate veering off the global monopoly agenda is blasted, punished and undermined (Great Britain); any leader doing the same becomes the focus of petulant “jokes” at Davos (Trump); any organisation spotting his desire to tax opposition out of existence is infiltrated and smeared (Gilets Jaunes); no opportunity to lionise a two-bit ham actor sculpted, groomed and bribed by NATO is missed (Zelenskyy); every violation of rights given to Russian speakers in the Donbass by the 2014 cease-fire is ignored (Ukraine); while every chance to up the geopolitical tension and prod the Bear into retaliation is taken and relished (Putin’s Russia).
The little shit just never lets up on the pressure. In his speech to to the European Parliament in Strasbourg last Monday, he pledged to work towards “a union of potential candidates working together as a democratic bulwark towards one day joining the EU”. Unsurprisingly, his list included Moldavia, Georgia and Ukraine. Ukraine, the site of bloody battles to turn back the Nazis for good in 1942, and Georgia – the homeland of the Sovyet leader Josef Jugasvilli, aka Stalin. I will never be an apologist for the Man of Steel: but tell me, where would the Allied Victory in 1945 have been without Uncle Joe? They chose to supp with him, not me.
Macron chose Putin’s imminent celebration of May 9th – a crucial Sovyet remembrance of The Great Patriotic War – to turn the knife in Russian skin. But as ever, the heartless, slippery electric little eel wants tiny non-EU members to take on the task….so every attempt by President Putin to retain buffer States will be presented as naked aggression.
We never hear anything from Macrony about the latest product of the québécois family Trudeau’s totalitarian laws against the Truckers, nor do we know if this limp-wristed Head of State has a view on the enforcement by existential blackmail of outrageous attacks on bodily Civil Rights in Austria….or indeed if he ever gives any thought to the casual ease with which he promoted fascist legal instruments in France itself by whingeing about how “your desire for liberty is my prison”.
Oh dear me, yes – do excuse us for getting in the way of your blatant power grab.
Sloggers’ Roost here in la bordelle qui s’appele la France – that’s the one that used to be la belle France – is not only up for sale, it is pretty much sold. The Fat Lady has not as yet begun singing, but she has the throat spray pointing at her open gob….and short of the Notaire declaring a Second 1789 including guillotines and Napoleons, he promises that the sale will go through this week.
[I sincerely hope that this isn’t a predictor of things to come, but for the rest of this post I shall have to abandon the WordPress text format on the grounds that it is not so much unpredictable as interminably impenetrable]
I’ve been a francophile for half a century this year. It’s rarely been better than a scratchy relationship, much of it based on the low price of beer and wine, and the slow pace of rural life. Along the way however, I have come to admire the apolitical foot-stamping of French artisans who seem to me to display more libertarian instincts in their toenails than the French intelligentsia are ever likely to manage in what exists between their ever-keen ears listening for the chance of collaboration.
This isn’t because the bobeaux Citadans are stupid – far from it. It’s because they realise that Macron is going to look after them and their money long before he gets round to the lower orders. In the meantime, he struts around Europe saying not very much at great length.
His speech in Strasbourg four days ago was the usual self-congratulatory “great project of ours, our democratic values” and of course yet more NATO BS about “plucky Ukraine”. He spoke of
“….the contributions which a living Europe can bring to civilization are more crucial than ever. These creative efforts are fitting for the times we are living in and are today undoubtedly more necessary than in the past. They are fitting during these times in which war has returned to our continent – as you have all so accurately said -, at a time in which a European people, the Ukrainian people, is fighting for freedom. They are fitting at a time in which you, European citizens, Members of Parliament, Ministers, Commissioners, political leaders and citizens with real experience, as you said earlier, have completed a democratic exercise which has never before been seen in our history or in the history of the world. You are the representatives of this living, creative, democratic Europe, this Europe of action, and it is up to us to be its artisans, here in Strasbourg, in this European capital which we hold so dear”
Anyone who says “democracy” twenty three times in one speech is either protesting too much or has nothing else of any substance to say; in this instance, it was a mixture of both:
“Launched a year ago, in circumstances that were a bit different, as we all remember, here in Strasbourg, in this capital of European fraternity which has been regained, in this Parliament which houses what is most dear to us: our European democracy. This new phase is marked by an unprecedented democratic exercise, which does not consist in presenting our citizens with perhaps overly simple alternatives, for and against, but fully involving them in discussions on the future of our Europe. What you have done, and what has never been seen before, is to be fully involved in the design, at a challenging time in our history, and to create through collective deliberation, intelligent debate, exchanges of ideas, and solutions, some of which could be applied immediately, others which need to be developed, but all working towards building this Europe of today and tomorrow.”
I find that extract in particular hugely offensive. Every year now for nearly two decades official EU consumer research has been asking what they’d like to see more of in the Union. Citizens always give the answer, “More democracy”. Every year they say it, and every year Brussels and the Strasbourg MEPs ignore it. So for Macrony to blather on about
“…..an unprecedented democratic exercise, which does not consist in presenting our citizens with perhaps overly simple alternatives, for and against, but fully involving them in discussions on the future of our Europe”
is nothing short of delusional: mendacious fantasy wrapped in empty rhetoric and boxed in a Disney-designed pack covered in cherubs, hearts and fluffy kittens. With every speech, he more and more closely replicates the banal oratory of Uncle Tombama. Below I award myself a little bit of interruptory critique:
“End this war as swiftly as possible. Do everything in our power so that Ukraine can hold out to the end and that Russia can never triumph. Safeguard peace on the rest of the European continent and avoid any escalation.”
What end is Ukraine holding out until exactly, and what triumph does Russia want? Why did EUNATO tell Zelenskyy to pipe down toute de suite when he mentioned a compromise solution last week?
“So that justice prevails, we are fighting and will continue to fight against the impunity of unspeakable crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine”.
The only evidence you offer of war crimes in Ukraine are those proffered by the same thug police who kill journalists. The word of those Nazis in Azov is up there with the late unlamented Josef Goebbels in terms of value.
“However, we are not at war with Russia.”
What’s in your Ukrainian biolab, Manny? G’wan – be a cheeky boy: give us the heads-up
The rest of the verbiage is best presented in the form of pastiche. It’s only a gentle pastiche, mind – nothing more is necessary when it comes to The Great Centrist…..
“I would like to make sure that this exercise is not just an exercise of style, oh no…rather, one where we reap without sowing, protect a climate that blows hot and cold, and develop viruses we can treat with bioweapons because biodiversity, health, fairness, freedom, gender equality, defence of the rule of law, independence, effectiveness, democracy and three chicks for every guy are inalienable Human Rights and we will only get that with more independence and sovereignty for all of the grands fromages so we can, when the time is right, pass them onto you. If you behave yourselves.
“We see the thread of a strategic agenda here and, in order that you don’t see it just yet, we shall continue to work out financial crises, deathless pandemics, useless vaccines and the best way to keep poking Rasputin in the eye until we have a Europe which is the master of its own destiny, free to make its own choices, a powerfully armed Europe which is open to the world but a world in which we can choose our partners and show what big dicks we all have without being dependent and weak and that means war – continuously effective and independently waged war in pursuing the European project and for our democracies, ruthlessly embracing new allies we can turn into bogeymen, investing more on defence, attack, false flags and more and more democracy and freedom, no matter how many foreigners we have to bash up to do it.
“This means preparing ourselves for new forms of conflict, whether they be spatial, cyber, maritime, Greenwich Mean Time, airborne, stillborn, chemical, hysterical, or nuclear-tipped catapults developed in secret by one of Putin’s thirteen children.
“Strength, food, climate, democratic independence and freedom of information, integrity, heroic struggling, free and open science, Me, Brigitte, lots of tall black men with nice pecs, Mario Draghi winning the Champions’ League, forming a Convention to revise our treaties….all these things are now within our grasp. But we will not achieve them unless we retain our focus, and keep virtue signalling gasbag speeches to a minimum.
“Objectives must be clear from the outset. We must continue to make progress and set out how we can show more solidarity, clarify our objectives and the objectives of all our institutions by setting objectives.* Where would we be without objectives? If the objective is not clear from the outset, it is unlikely to be any clearer at the end*. Identifying everything that can be objectified is that starting gun on the diving board from which we can plunge into the dizzy depths of hot water and thus avoid getting tangled in the weeds of subjectivity.
“The despicably unspeakable actions of the Warlord Russian Bear will be his undoing and who do you think you are kidding Mister Putin, if you think EUNATO’s done/ We are the boys who will stop your little game/ we are the boys who will make you think again. In the meantime, I leave all of you today in this great European family of ours to ponder on a bright, perhaps glowing or maybe just cloying, future in which Grandma Ursula is the Matriarch, Joe and Hunter Biden are first cousins, ‘Berlin’ the Dog is in his kennel, Volodomore Zelenskyycia is in the limelight, and I’m in the Pink – but as ever, the Godfather Jacob Rothschild di Corleone is in the Driving Seat”.
*The two sentences highlighted there are word-for-word what Emmanuel Macron actually said on the day.
John Ward will not be in France – or indeed the EU – for much longer. He thinks the hot air emanating from the Elysée Palace is probably a much greater threat to life on Planet Earth than any form of climate change, and that Emmanuel Macron in particular seems intent to create his own personal ozone layer hole or nuclear dustbin. Which of those options he might prefer is hard to discern, because he does not appear to care what the consequences of an open mouth promoting a closed mind might be.
The Slog 