World Jewish Congress: Billionaires, Oligarchs, Global Influencers for Israel
Billionaire Mikhael Mirilashvili and his son Yitzhakis with Israeli minister Yaffa Deri.
By Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | November 24, 2019
The World Jewish Congress (WJC), which calls itself “The Representative Body of over 100 Jewish Communities Worldwide,” held its annual gala at the Pierre hotel in New York City on Nov. 6.
It bestowed its annual Theodor Herzl Award (named after Israel’s founding father) on former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley for her work on behalf of Israel. Some previous awardees have been Joe Biden and Henry Kissinger.
One of the WJC’s main issues is support for Israel. Among its many activities in this realm, it collaborates with the Israeli government to defend Israel from criticisms of its human rights abuses and discriminatory system.
The WJC defines many factual statements about Israel to be “antisemitic,” and labels legitimate opposition to Israeli violence and oppression against Palestinians “antisemitism.” As a result, its top issue, combating “antisemitism,” often consists of efforts to suppress information about Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and to combat efforts on behalf of Palestinian human rights.
At one of its recent international conferences to oppose this newly defined “antisemitism,” US Special Envoy Elan Carr proclaimed that every law enforcement office and every prosecutorial agency throughout the world must “force everybody who has even a hint of antisemitism to undergo a tolerance program.” … continue
Palestinian Journalist Loses Left Eye after Being Shot by Israeli Sniper
Palestine Chronicle – November 20, 2019
Doctors at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem yesterday removed the eye of Palestinian photojournalist Moath Amarneh who was shot by an Israeli sniper on Friday.
A committee of specialists decided that Amarneh’s left eye must be removed along with the bullet which is logged in it. Surgery to do this took several hours.
His family said they had contacted hospitals in a number of countries in the hope of saving his eye but no medical centers were hopeful that this could be done.
Meanwhile, a group of Palestinian journalists organized a protest in solidarity with Amarneh in Bethlehem, but the Israeli occupation forces used force to disperse them.
Amarneh, 32, was shot by an Israeli occupation soldier while he was covering Palestinian protests in Hebron, south of the occupied West Bank.
Witnesses said that he was shot by a sniper, but the Israeli occupation army said he was shot accidentally as he was standing among the “rioters”. … Videos
So much for the #Resistance! While all eyes were on impeachment hearing, House re-authorized PATRIOT Act
RT | November 20, 2019
House Democrats have slipped an unqualified renewal of the draconian PATRIOT Act into an emergency funding bill – voting near-unanimously for sweeping surveillance carte blanche that was the basis for the notorious NSA program.
A three-month reauthorization of the notorious PATRIOT Act was shoehorned into a last-minute continuing resolution (CR) funding the US government, bundling measures needed to avert yet another government shutdown with a continuation of the wildly-intrusive surveillance powers passed after the 9/11 terror attacks. Democrats voted almost unanimously for it, granting the far-reaching surveillance capabilities to the very same president they’re trying to impeach.
A roll-call vote on the bill was split exactly along party lines, with all 230 Democrats standing up for unconstitutional mass surveillance – including progressives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), who spoke out against it earlier. Two other Democrats opted not to vote, but not a single representative dared oppose party groupthink.
Not only did Democrats unanimously stand for the bill, they backed the waiver of a rule that would have at least allowed members of Congress to read it.
Aside from renewing the PATRIOT Act for another three months and keeping Washington’s lights on, the bill hikes military pay and tosses extra funding to the Commerce Department and state highways. Republicans had hoped to pass a “clean” funding bill without add-ons of any kind, so their opposition to the measure did not necessarily hinge on its inclusion of the surveillance provision. Still, the PATRIOT Act was born from a Republican administration and its rejection by the same party, 18 years later, suggests a dramatic shift in the US political landscape.
It’s not just domestic surveillance that has driven Democrats and Republicans together. Despite the contrarian stance of the “Squad” and other outspoken #Resisters against President Donald Trump, House Democrats have largely gone along with Republicans in giving the president all the money he wants to wage war. Just 16 Democrats voted against the near-record ‘defense’ budget in July, a bloated $1.48 trillion over two years that dwarfs US defense spending at the height of the wars in Korea and Vietnam and gives the Pentagon more money than the rest of government combined.
Nor is Tuesday’s vote the first time Democrats have voted with, or to the right of, their colleagues across the aisle to back domestic surveillance programs, despite casually comparing Trump to Adolf Hitler and other fascist bogeymen.
Even the creators of the PATRIOT Act didn’t expect the post-9/11 police state to last forever, and included a ‘sunset provision’ that would have allowed the bill to expire – to die a natural death, legislatively-speaking – when it has outlived its usefulness. Yet Congress has kept the program on life support for years, with bipartisan support.
With impeachment in full swing, mainstream media carefully avoided using the phrase “PATRIOT Act” in their coverage of the vote, aware that the measure that allowed the government to treat its citizens like terrorists doesn’t have many fans.
Also on rt.com:
Facebook hires ‘co-writer’ of the pro-surveillance Patriot Act amid growing concerns over privacy
The Kimberley Process: Israel’s multi-billion dollar blood diamond laundry
By Sean Clinton | MEMO | November 19, 2019
Last week there was a callous, brutal attack on a sleeping family in their home in Gaza which killed a husband and wife, blowing their shredded bodies across a street; the ensuing bombardment killed 34 people including a family of eight. That this was all done by a leading member of the global diamond industry illustrates starkly the magnitude of the “conflict free” fraud perpetrated by that industry.
Few people are aware that diamonds are Israel’s number one manufacturing export, a “cornerstone” of its economy. According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that economy “generates 88 per cent of the vast security budget that funds the Israel Defence Forces, [and security agencies] Mossad and Shin Bet.”
The Jerusalem Post indicates that, “Israel turns over about $28 billion in diamonds a year. The value of exported diamonds is so significant (about a fifth of total industrial exports) that the government reports its figures sans diamonds to ensure the gems do not skew the values.”
All this week, members of the Kimberley Process (KP) diamond regulatory body are meeting in New Delhi to conclude a three year period of review and reform aimed primarily at expanding the definition of a “conflict diamond” in order to outlaw diamonds linked to human rights violations by government forces. That effort is certain to fail. Not a single motion has been tabled to outlaw blood diamonds that enter the supply chain downstream of the mining sector.
Despite the bloodshed, violence and unregulated nuclear weapons funded by its revenue, the jewellery industry claims brazenly that diamonds processed in Israel are responsibly sourced and conflict free. Given the unwavering political, financial and economic support given to Israel by the USA, EU, India, Canada and Australia, and their influence in the KP, none of these countries are ever going to allow the body to ban Israeli blood diamonds; to do so would sound the death knell for Israel’s number one manufacturing industry.
The jewellery industry also wants to keep the lid firmly shut on this Pandora’s Box. Israel is a key player in the diamond supply chain. Unless forced by consumer pressure, corporations and companies won’t cut ties with the Israeli diamond industry without direction from international bodies such as the KP or the UN; that will never happen given the impunity that Israel enjoys and exploits.
This was made clear by Anglo American chairman Stuart Chambers at the company’s AGM in London in April. When I asked why De Beers and Forevermark continue to trade with companies in Israel that generate revenue used to fund war crimes and crimes against humanity he said, “Certainly as a company we would, as you would expect, always respect the political community in their sitting in judgement of national states or countries where they are deemed to have done something which the international community does not accept, they would then be subject to international measure including potential embargoes to trade. Where that happens of course we as an international company would need to take that into account and comply with that. But we as a company cannot sit in political judgement on something which is very difficult to get to the bottom of until such time as the international community has decided that.”
Anglo American thus tries to absolve itself by framing the issue as a political problem rather than an issue of human rights and corporate fraud.
De Beers and Forevermark sell diamonds crafted in Israel and claim that they are 100 per cent conflict free even though the industry there is a significant source of revenue (€1bn/yr) for a regime guilty of human rights violations. Indeed, De Beers sightholders companies ABT Diamonds Ltd and the Steinmetz Group company, Diacore, directly fund the Israeli military. Since this was raised at the Anglo American AGM in April the page confirming this on De Beers’ website has been removed from public view, but an archive of it can be found here. ABT and its owner have “made significant contributions to the Israeli military”.
The Steinmetz Foundation “adopted” a unit of the notorious Givati Brigade. This Israeli army unit was responsible for the Samouni family massacre in Gaza, a war crime documented by the UNHRC and other human rights organisations. Diacore manufactures Forevermark diamonds which frequently adorn the stars of the most prestigious high society red carpet events worldwide.
This page has been removed from the Steinmetz Foundation website
Governments that benefit from the diamond trade have controlled the KP from the outset. Instead of outlawing all blood diamonds they restricted the scope of the KP regulations to “conflict diamonds” which are narrowly defined as “rough diamonds used by rebel movements or their allies to finance conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments”.
Blood diamonds, both rough and polished, that fund human rights violations by government forces were given a free pass and remain fully legal. This was a major coup for the industry as it kept media and the public focused on “conflict diamonds” and away from the high value cut and polished diamond sector which conceals a blood diamond trade worth over $10 billion each year.
The World Diamond Council (WDC), which represents all sectors of the diamond supply chain from mine to market, moved to cover up the glaring gap in the KP regulations by introducing a bogus System of Warranties (SOW). The WDC claims that the SOW “extends the effectiveness of the KP beyond the import and export of rough diamonds”, an utterly false assertion.
Using the SOW, sellers can declare blood diamonds that aren’t funding rebel violence “conflict free” simply by including a printed statement to that effect with each invoice. Jewellers tell patrons that the Kimberley Process and System of Warranties guarantee that a diamond is conflict free, which is another blatant falsehood.
Of course, the term “conflict free” has never been defined. Cecilia Gardner, the former Counsel General of the WDC, said this about it: “As for ‘conflict free’ – well this claim is so vague as to have no real meaning.”
Those who promote the KP emphasise the overarching cooperation between governments, industry and civil society facilitated by the body’s tripartite structure, but that too is a gross deception. The governments involved are guided by what the WDC will agree to. The KP scheme was originally designed by the WDC and it was the latter that put forward the latest proposal which continues to limit the remit of the KP to rough diamonds in the mining sector.
The skeletal KP Civil Society Coalition (KP CSC) which is supposed to represents the interests of civil society is now little more than a threadbare veil. Global Witness, Impact Transform and others have withdrawn from the KP. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch declined to join and have published reports scathingly critical of the KP’s failure to outlaw diamonds that fund government violence.
The KP CSC is now led by the Antwerp-based IPIS Research, a supposedly independent non-governmental organisation with a budget of over €1.4 million in 2018. When I asked for a breakdown of the source of its funding I was referred to its 2018 Annual Report, which doesn’t actually provide any such details. The IPIS website indicates that it receives structural funding from a number of Belgian government bodies. It also received funding from EU agencies and other bodies on whose behalf IPIS carries out research.
Biting the hand that feeds can be a difficult proposition for any organisation that isn’t funded independently. This is especially so for IPIS, given that Antwerp is one of the world’s leading diamond trading centres.
The other members of the KP CSC are poorly resourced local civil society groups from countries in Africa impacted by diamond mining. Their participation is supported by a voluntary fund from KP members.
Even though Palestinians are the biggest victims of the diamond industry there isn’t a single voice in the KP CSC to represent them. Diamonds that fund the shredding of their bodies, the sundering of their limbs, their imprisonment without trial, the demolition of their homes, the bombing of their hospitals, schools, libraries, theatres, water and sewage treatment plants, electric generating stations and other vital civic amenities aren’t blood diamonds according to the KP CSC.
The coalition’s latest report, Real Care Is Rare, doesn’t require forensic scrutiny to discover the limit of its tether. The opening sentence of the executive summary spells out the boundaries the coalition dare not breach: “brutal human rights abuses, including killings, torture and sexual violence… in certain diamond mining areas… ” (emphasis added). Blood diamonds in the supply chain downstream of mining are a bridge too far.
The report refers to blood diamonds as “diamonds obtained using serious violence irrespective of who the perpetrator is” (emphasis added). Diamonds that fund “serious violence”, though, aren’t considered blood diamonds, apparently.
The KP CSC report lists the usual suspects at the mining end of the supply chain: Zimbabwe, Angola, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Lesotho, which the industry hold up to public scrutiny, but it has nothing to say about Israel. And yet, in 2018, Israel exported $2.9 billion of rough diamonds, twice the combined value of the aforementioned African countries. According to a UN monitoring group, in 2018 Israel also killed 295 Palestinians and wounded 29,000 others. These jaw-dropping facts are conveniently absent from the KP CSC report.
The KP CSC is a captive coalition that is tightly embraced by the WDC and governments which need it to provide the KP with a veneer of public accountability. It is beyond farcical that those who profit from blood diamonds should have a veto over reform of the system. That is the situation which exists within the WDC and the KP.
When the WDC tried to broaden the definition of a conflict diamond in 2015, Shmuel Schnitzer, then president of the Israeli Diamond Exchange and uncle of the Magnitsky Act-sanctioned Dan Gertler, blocked the reform as “it would be disastrous… especially for Israel”.
The KP is a clear example of corporate capture. The diamond industry has used its political and economic influence to neuter civil society efforts to end the trade in blood diamonds. However, civil society by way of consumer pressure can bring the change needed to curtail this bloody industry. Just as the slave trade, the ivory trade and the fur trade have been curtailed greatly by public rejection of such inhumane enterprise, so too will the blood diamond industry.
Israel justice ministry contradicts police on killing of Palestinian
MEMO | November 18, 2019
Israel’s Justice Ministry has contradicted the police’s account of the killing of a Palestinian, stating that officers shot the man after he had emerged from his vehicle, reported Haaretz.
The ministry’s department responsible for investigating police misconduct announced yesterday that the police officer who shot Fares Abu Nab, from Ras Al-Amud in occupied East Jerusalem, did not in fact shoot the suspect during a car chase, as previously claimed by police.
A gag order has been placed on releasing the name of the police officer involved.
According to police, officers were chasing suspected car thieves when one of the drivers “endangered the lives of policemen and other users of the road”, without specifying how.
“He was shot in order to neutralise the threat he posed,” the original police statement added.
According to Haaretz, yesterday three other Palestinians from occupied East Jerusalem were arrested “on suspicion of belonging to the gang of alleged car thieves that included Abu Nab”.
The three men arrived in court “with signs of violence on their bodies”, and their lawyers “said they had been beaten by policemen”.
The paper noted that “six people have died so far this year in incidents that involved the use of force by the police”, but that “none of the policemen involved has yet been indicted”.
Furthermore, “only in two of the six cases did the Justice Ministry department that investigates police misconduct question the policemen as suspects.”
One of these cases was closed, while the other, “the shooting of Ethiopian-Israeli Solomon Teka by an off-duty policeman in Kiryat Haim in June”, is awaiting a decision by the State Prosecutor.
Cyprus police seize former Israeli intelligence officer’s surveillance vehicle
MEMO | November 18, 2019
Police in Cyprus confiscated a van on Saturday with high-tech surveillance equipment inside, news agencies have reported. Police officers took its Israeli owner for questioning after reports that the vehicle was used to spy on people.
According to the Cyprus Times, police took an interest after reports by Forbes magazine in August that a high-tech surveillance vehicle was in Larnaca with the capability of intercepting WhatsApp messages, Facebook chats, telephone calls and all the content of smartphones. This prompted the main Cypriot opposition part, Akel, to ask on Friday how and why such a vehicle was present in Cyprus and whether it had been inspected at customs.
Officials said that the vehicle is owned by a former senior Israeli intelligence officer called Tal Dilian. It is said that he operates in Cyprus through a registered company with Cypriot shareholders.
The vehicle and equipment are together said to be valued at around $9 million. It was apparently confiscated and taken to police headquarters.
Arab48.com reported that police in Israel have said that they have not received any information about the case from their Cypriot counterparts. The Israeli Foreign Ministry made no comment.
According to Haaretz, Dilian said that his services are intended to track terrorists and criminals, but his company merged in 2014 with NSO Group, whose malware has been used to target activists and journalists, including a close friend of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
New Legislation Will Throw People in Jail for Disrespecting Cops—Seriously
By Matt Agorist – The Free Thought Project – November 15, 2019
Albany, NY — In the land of the free, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution explicitly prohibits the government from abridging the freedom of speech. However, we’ve seen citizens pepper-sprayed, assaulted, and arrested for there acts of free speech, showing just how little law enforcement cares about upholding the oaths they swore to this very Constitution. Now, a new piece of legislation that is quickly passing through the legal process in New York goes one step further.
If you annoy a police officer in upstate New York, you could find yourself facing massive fines and even jail time. Seriously.
In a vote this week, lawmakers in the Monroe County Legislature passed a proposal in a 17-10 vote to fine and/or jail a person who annoys, alarms or threatens the personal safety of an officer. The jail sentence is up to one year and the fine is up to $5,000.
According to the legislation, the anti-disrespecting applies to all first responders, not just cops.
Naturally, those who have respect for the constitution and freedom of speech in general, are up in arms over the passage of such a tyrannical piece of legislation.
As PIX 11 reports, “Iman Abid with the New York Civil Liberties Union said it will have a chilling effect on complaints against police. Abid said she is also concerned over what the legislation could mean for communities of color.”
“Members of the community have every right to challenge police officers, particularly those that engage in unnecessary behavior,” she said in a statement. “At a time when more accountability of police departments is needed, this law takes us incredibly backward.”
But advocates for this tyranny claim that it “looks after those who look out for us” — because people need to be jailed if they talk back to a cop.
“This local law aims to crack down on behaviors of disrespect and incivility toward law enforcement and first responders in the hopes that these smaller incidents do not escalate,” County Legislator Kara Halstead said in a statement.
According to PIX 11:
Delores Jones-Brown, professor emerita at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said courts have found that the use of the words annoying or alarming in statue is overbroad and unconstitutionally vague.
The legislation, she said, could create a situation where people are scared to exercise their First Amendment rights. An officer could be annoyed by a person who asks them their badge number or who records them with a cellphone while on the job, Jones-Brown said.
“This statue definitely has the capacity to make people afraid to do that,” she said
We agree. This legislation is nothing short of tyranny and is paving the way for abuse by snowflake cops who cannot handle citizens talking back or disrespecting their authority. Instead of making respect a two-way street and earning it, this legislation sets out to mandate it through the threat of violence and kidnapping.
In the land of the free, a person can be kidnapped and thrown in a cage for arbitrary sounds made with their mouth or raising their middle finger that causes harm to no one.
Aside from this being clearly asinine, it’s well established by the Supreme Court that arresting someone for swearing and raising the middle finger is unconstitutional.
In Cohen v. California, the U.S. Supreme court upheld a citizen’s First Amendment right to wear a jacket to court that read “F**k the Draft,” the court held:
“WHILE THE PARTICULAR FOUR-LETTER WORD BEING LITIGATED HERE IS PERHAPS MORE DISTASTEFUL THAN MOST OTHERS OF ITS GENRE, IT IS NEVERTHELESS OFTEN TRUE THAT ONE MAN’S VULGARITY IS ANOTHER’S LYRIC. INDEED, WE THINK IT IS LARGELY BECAUSE GOVERNMENTAL OFFICIALS CANNOT MAKE PRINCIPLED DISTINCTIONS IN THIS AREA THAT THE CONSTITUTION LEAVES MATTERS OF TASTE AND STYLE SO LARGELY TO THE INDIVIDUAL.”
What’s more, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in City of Houston v. Hill, that police must tolerate even more abusive speech than an average citizen—which certainly includes looking at someone’s middle finger. The court concluded that “in the face of verbal challenges to police action, officers and municipalities must respond with restraint,” and added that, “the First Amendment protects a significant amount of verbal criticism and challenge directed at police officers.”
Here at the Free Thought Project, we feel there are no such things as ‘bad words’ but, rather, certain words some people don’t like to hear. The same goes with raising random fingers.
The arbitrary nature of government enforcing laws that dictate what vocabulary a person can use and which finger they can display to a cop is as ridiculous as it is tyrannical. Sadly, it remains a part of society and as this legislation illustrates, it is getting worse.
Have we learned nothing from history?
Telling people what words they can and can’t say or which fingers they can raise, to ‘protect’ a cop’s feelings is chilling. Freedom of speech does not come with terms and conditions.
‘Dictatorship has Returned to Bolivia’: Morales to teleSUR
teleSUR | November 17, 2019
The legitimately-elected President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, told teleSUR on Saturday that dictatorship has returned to the South American country, given the recent events that triggered intense repression exerted by the de-facto government chaired by Senator Jeanine Áñez .
“The Bolivian people and the whole world know that we guarantee political stability. They said ‘Evo dictatorship’, now what Bolivia is living in is what we call a dictatorship.”
The Bolivian President said he was appalled by the recent reports regarding the civilian deaths at the hands of this new dictatorship.
“The people will always be united (…) The Bolivian people have never been taken from my memory. At any moment we will be as always sharing a resistance against economic policies, but for now, for democracy, for life, my dear Bolivia,” President Morales said.
On the media censorship imposed by the de-facto government in Bolivia, President Morales said that “now there is no freedom of expression” in the country. “The de facto communication minister who answers to the dictatorship in Bolivia said that seditious journalists, national and international, will be arrested.”
He also highlighted how the integration processes promoted by past governments such as those of Venezuela, Ecuador (by former President Rafael Correa) or Brazil (with former president Lula da Silva) seek to be destroyed by the interests of the U.S. empire.
“Unfortunately, some countries subject to the U.S. empire, destroy the integration processes: Unasur a political instance, Mercosur an economic instance, Celag an integration of all Latin America towards the liberation of the peoples,” President Morales continued.
In this sense, the legitimate President of Bolivia stressed that “we, Latin Americans, have the enormous responsibility, regardless of an economic, programmatic or social liberation, to free ourselves from the technological part.”
“Those who seek disintegration are not thinking about technological liberation, they are instruments of the capitalist system that will never like us to free ourselves from the technological part to establish sovereignty in our Latin America,” he added.
France’s year of Yellow Vests protests
By Nebojsa Malic | RT | November 16, 2019
As the ‘Yellow Vests’ protests in France come full circle, some vow to keep fighting for a more just society, while others believe the movement has gone too far. Though rattled, the system they rose up against is still in power.
Every Saturday for a year now, tens of thousands of people all over France have taken to the streets, fed up with not just the neoliberal and austerity policies of President Emmanuel Macron, but apparently the entire political system of the Fifth Republic.
The government has gone after them in force, pushing the police to their breaking point. The mainstream media has demonized them as anti-Semites, homophobes, far-right. Nevertheless, the ‘Yellow Vests’ (Gilets Jaunes) have persisted.
How it all began
A Frenchman marching through the streets of Paris, Lyon, Nice, Marseille, Dijon or any other city this Saturday might recall the very first protest, on November 17, 2018, with 300,000 across the country wearing the government-mandated safety vests as a protest symbol against that very government.
While it is unclear which particular pebble started this avalanche, the general consensus points to that summer’s new speed limit of 80 km/h, ostensibly enacted to cut carbon emissions and fight climate change. That was followed by an “eco-tax.” Whether or not those had the ulterior motive of replenishing the empty French treasury, the people were having none of it.
Trucker Eric Drouet and businesswoman Priscillia Ludosky circulated a petition against the tax in October, which quickly snowballed. Then a resident of Brittany named Jacline Mouraud posted a video on Facebook that went viral. Someone called for a street protest. There has been one every Saturday, ever since.
‘Repression is out in the open now’
Here and there, the protests turned violent. Rocks were thrown at the police. By week two, someone had vandalized the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and set cars on fire. Police responded as they do to riots in the banlieues – suburbs where many of France’s immigrants live in public housing: with overwhelming force.
This kind of repression has been around for a long time, Yellow Vest activist turned journalist Maxime Nicolle tells RT France. Now it’s out in the open, for everyone to see.
Yellow Vests’ Maxime Nicolle (right) speaks with RT France’s Nadège Abderrazak © RT France
Exact numbers are difficult to come by, but French media estimate that over 10,000 people have been detained over the past year. Some 3,000 have been prosecuted and over 400 sentenced to jail time. The carnage on the street has been real as well: 11 people have died over the course of the protests, and over 500 were injured. Of those, 23 lost an eye to “flash-balls,” non-lethal police rounds that maim nonetheless.
Perhaps the most famous among them is Jérôme Rodrigues, a plumber who believes the police deliberately targeted him that January day. Wearing a prosthetic eye, Rodrigues tells RT France he struggles with anger issues and fears for his safety, but if he could turn back time, he would do it all over again.
‘Upside-down world’
The 32-year-old Nicolle, also known as “Fly Rider,” lives in Dinan, Bretagne. His eyes light up with anger when he talks about his compatriots reduced to poverty in their twilight years and his generation sleeping in their cars because they can’t afford the rent and taxes. Meanwhile, he says, the elites are “eating caviar, drinking €500 bottles of wine, living in pretty Paris apartments.”
He rejects the argument that France’s national debt is 98 percent of its GDP and that there is simply no money for social services. Nicolle points out the government takes out loans from private banks, then has to pay steep interest. Why not nationalize the banks, he wonders.
Hundreds of kilometers away, in Paris, the one-eyed Rodrigues argues the same thing. He describes the debt as “numbers in a computer,” and scoffs that somehow there is always money for the wealthy, yet never any for the common man. Corporations have their subsidies and tax havens, yet the working poor have to pay the tax to clean up their pollution. What gives?
Yellow Vests’ Jérôme Rodrigues speaks with RT France © RT France
“Today, if you make €1,500 [a month] in France, you can’t afford rent, you have to sleep in your car. That’s not normal. A working person has the right to live decently,” says Rodrigues. “It’s an upside-down world.”
In separate interviews, both Rodrigues and Nicolle argue that the system itself is unjust, as it thinks nothing of humanity, only of ones and zeroes on the balance sheets. The institutions that were supposed to serve the people have failed, and perhaps it’s time to create new ones. Could the Fifth Republic, around since 1968, be on its last legs?
Almost a revolution
That’s precisely what almost happened within the first month of the Yellow Vests protest, according to one Elysee Palace guard. A member of the special police unit specializing in crowd control (CRS) said this week that the handful of them could not have resisted the 3,000 or so protesters for long.
“If we had been attacked, where I was, we could not have held: the Elysee would fall. In retrospect, it’s really scary,” said the man, who gave his name as Stéphane.
The Yellow Vests did not attack. Macron’s presidency survived. Although the French president has since pledged some €17 billion in tax relief, one-time bonuses and subsidies, he remains determined to reject their demands for systemic reforms. While the protesters never quite numbered the original 300,000, they still turn out every Saturday.
Protests have taken their toll on the police, too, with the rising number of suicides prompting a protest march of their own back in October. The thin blue line is still holding, for now, but it cannot stretch forever.
Parallel to the police repression, the government has implemented a media one. The Yellow Vests were accused of anti-Semitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia, racism – just about every possible issue considered beyond the pale in modern liberal discourse.
Nicolle says it was an attempt to label the movement and put it into a box, which failed. People who took a moment to think saw that there was nothing to it and that the Yellow Vests were not an instrument of any political party, whether on the far right or the far left. The smears did have a negative effect, however, fracturing the movement and sending some members running.
Gone too far?
One of them is Jacline Mouraud, the author of the Facebook video that helped kick-start the protests. She lives in Morbihan, Bretagne and still champions the movement’s social and economic justice values – but says they lost her when the Arc de Triomphe was vandalized in December, and “black bloc” anarchists were allowed to torch cars and loot stores in March.
Yellow Vests’ Jacline Mouraud speaks to RT France © RT France
“Violence is counterproductive,” she tells RT France. “Bad dialogue is better than a good war.” At the start of the protests, 80 percent of the French supported the protests, but the tide has turned and now four fifths of the country want nothing to do with the Yellow Vests, she says. “One should know when to stop.”
The March 16 riot in particular alienated many moderates, Mouraud argues. She had already turned political by that point, launching a political party in January 2019. Called The Risen (Les Émergents), it intends to run candidates in France’s local elections in 2020.
Even though she had split off from the ‘Yellow Vests,’ Mouraud’s party exemplifies their desire to bring more direct democracy to France, a country where the existing political establishment is increasingly seen as out of touch.
‘People will make you great’
President Macron “lives in another world,” Rodrigues tells RT France. The one-eyed plumber described the French leader as isolated from reality, in an ivory tower guarded by police, working for the benefit of “his rich friends” – Macron became a millionaire working as an investment banker at Rothschild & Co after the 2008 financial crisis – rather than the “folks in the rafters.”
“You want to be a great man? It’s the people that make you great,” Rodrigues said, noting that the French history remembers the statesmen who served the nation well, rather than just themselves.
Macron and the media have tried to paint the Yellow Vest as “far-right,” but their platform seems to have more in common with the left of yesteryear. They say they fight not just for their children – such as Nicolle’s 9-year-old daughter – but for the memory of their grandparents’ generation, which fought for the rights the French of today take for granted; the 40-hour workweek, weekends and annual leave.
Not quite a revolution, but definitely not business as usual, the ‘Yellow Vests’ defy categorization. Though maybe not attracting the numbers they once did, the Gilets Jaunes are still going strong. For better or for worse, stopping is the last thing on their mind.
Also on rt.com:
March of the mutilated: Injured Yellow Vests protest police brutality in Paris (VIDEO)
UN Votes to Renew UNRWA Mandate
Palestine Chronicle – November 16, 2019
The overwhelming vote at the United Nations General Assembly’s Fourth Committee in favor of renewing the mandate of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) dominated the front page of the three Palestinian Arabic dailies today.
This issue was given special attention in light of American and Israeli efforts to do away with UNRWA as part of a plan to undermine Palestinian refugee rights in their homeland they were expelled from 70 years ago when Israel was created on their land and in their homes.
The US and Israel were the only two states voting against the renewal of the mandate while 170 countries voted in favor.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida said President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the vote.
Kashmir after India’s unilateral move: A story of fear and hopelessness
By Shahana Butt | Press TV | Nov 15, 2019
Indian-Administered Kashmir – More than 100 days have passed since India stripped Kashmir of its autonomous status and divided the state into two federally-ruled territories. The region has been observing a protest close down ever since; with shops, businesses and schools shunned by the people in protest against New Delhi’s move.
Although India has promised the return of normalcy in the region through equal rights and development; rumors are moving the other way round.
The return of check posts and eruption of new security bunkers across the Muslim majority region has pulled back the horror scenes of 1990’s in Kashmir and has all together made it more difficult for the people living in the world’s largest militarized zone.
In the past 100 plus days hundreds of bunkers have been built in addition to the existing security vigil; the prevailing circumstances have further silenced the people of Kashmir.
Press TV spoke to a cross section of people in Kashmir to know how they see this new Kashmir and what they faced in the past 100 plus days.
Since august 5 people of Kashmir are living in a controlled communication zone; with no internet facilities and limited cellular network that was provided after the intervention of India’s top court and international criticism.
In the absence of international concern and given New Delhi’s ‘not so clear’ Kashmir agenda people of Kashmir are caught in skepticism, doubt and fear.
Sooner or later so called ‘normalcy’ might return to the valley of Kashmir. But India’s unilateral move and the world’s turning a blind eye to the issue has left a deep-rooted impact on the lives of people here. This has added to the existing alienation of Kashmir, where people accuse both India and Pakistan of playing the Kashmir card for political and strategic gains.
Featured Video
Did the 9/11 Hijackers Really Fly the Planes?
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
Book Excerpt
Biden’s Closed Circle on Russia
An excerpt from ‘The Great Betrayal’
By James W. Carden | The Realist Review | June 14, 2026
Joe Biden’s presidency may ultimately come to be seen as a cautionary tale. Here was a president who showed little interest in entertaining arguments that might have contradicted his most deeply held assumptions.[1] And there were precious few within the upper ranks of the administration who might have attempted to do so, after all, only policy hands and political operatives who had come up through the ranks of the Clinton and Obama administrations or had longstanding ties to the citadels of the foreign policy community were invited into the fold. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- The Straight of Hormuz is Open for Iranian Business… Oil is Moving and Iran is Getting Paid
- Biden’s Closed Circle on Russia
- Lebanon Accuses Israel Of Violating The Chemical Weapons Convention By Spraying Toxic Herbicide Over Farmland
- Did the 9/11 Hijackers Really Fly the Planes?
- ‘Jewish lobby’ deceived Putin – Lukashenko
- The UK Joins the Pirates
- Israeli government plans to fund extremist occupier group in occupied West Bank with $1.89M: Report
- Press TV reporter wounded in Israeli drone strike on southern Lebanon
- Time for Trump to Tell Benjamin Netanyahu to Go Away!
- Israeli officials: ‘Security zones’ to remain in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza
- If Americans Knew
- Jared Kushner’s Israel-linked island, and other dubious projects
- Why Are Crypto Billionaires and AIPAC Spending $8+ Million to Elect Adrian Boafo?
- Why the Mainstream Media Should Stop Using the ADL as Their Go-To Antisemitism Source
- Censorship and Thuggery Won’t Save Israel’s Reputation
- Israel Searches for a Red Sea Foothold in Somaliland
- They Weren’t Convicted of Terrorism, But These Palestine Activists Got Sentenced as Terrorists Anyway
- “Ceasefire” is not in Israel’s vocabulary – Daily Update
- Did Trump just threaten a nuclear attack on Iran? Another merger for Israel-Firster David Ellison –Daily Update
- Israeli Firm Accused of Launching Smear Campaigns During US, European Elections
- As World Cup kicks off, Gaza amputee girls chase football dreams
- No Tricks Zone
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
- Germany’s Die Welt: “Too Much Is Too Much” … Green Energies Are Cannabalizing Each Other!
- Germany’s Ecological Holocaust… Once Fairy Tale Forests Getting Cleared For Wind Turbines
- A Grand Solar Minimum Has Arrived…Global Cooling Of At Least 1°C Is Expected By The 2030s, 2040s
- European “Expert Commission” Urges COVID-19-Like Global Climate State Of Energency!
Aletho News 