France Unravels 2016

by Glenn N. Holliman

The news this morning from France speaks of transportation strikes and labor conflicts in the streets of Paris.  President Hollande and his party are trying to reduce the strait jacket of government restrictions on business - particularity the ability of management to dismiss under productive employees and remove burdensome regulations on commerce. Terry Fields, an Englishman of lucid and strong opinions, offers this take on the disturbing state of French society and European politics in this year of 2016. He concludes his article with a bit of tongue in cheek humor.- GNH

What is France becoming?

by Terry Field, an Englishman in Normandy

We all see the paroxysm of social disorder and violent strife overtaking France. This little note tries to suggest where France goes from here – and why.

The attempted preservation of a sealed and isolated economic condition, not affected by the pressures of the global economy, are more significant for French self-awareness than is understood overseas. France has constructed a patrician, top-down, protective society replete with a social religion of mutuality of obligation and ‘fairness’ that dominates all thought .

Economics is prostituted as a distorted servant of political, and through that, cultural delusion.

The French idea of the Euro was part of the French insane asylum of creating a ‘counterweight’ to the American ‘hyperpuisance’.

The reality now is a little different. France is as shattered an integrated economy as is Britain. Both societies harbour a delusion of authority and potential at variance with the ‘facts on the ground’.

The newly powerful, unified and untrammeled German power controls Europe. Just as the British predicted before 1914 disturbed the pond.

Germany extends its power and control as the United States wanes in the Atlantic and moves to the Pacific.

Russia is faced across its whole western boundary by a German authority, dressed as NATO, even though the American guarantor now, in the strongest political language from the present and conceivable future administrations, removes itself from its unequivocal acceptance of the fifth clause.

Strange that the ground to air missiles are placed in Poland and Romania, but if I were this particular Bundeschanzelerin, I would be content, doubly so since Mr Putin states – Poland and Romania are in his ‘cross-hairs’. After all, that is what my buffer states are there for!

No guesses for who encouraged the Ukranians (now slav-haters to a man in their ‘west’) to ‘employ’ Mr Rassmussen as an ‘adviser’.

SO with Germany in the ascendant, and once again confronting the Slav enemy in the East, how will France behave?

Just like the dying days of the USSR, its elite says that the prime function is to promote and protect ‘French Culture’, no matter the state of the economy.

All that is just blather.

Terry, left, with dining mates on the Queen Victoria January 2016 sharing views on desert and the human condition.

As the French economy collapses under the weight of its own contradictions, there are two possible immediate outcomes – 

The next election will see a rational reforming government – a sort of Madame Thatcher ‘light’, or, in similar manner to the British were they to choose Brexit, the selection of a right wing, but in their case also racist government that repudiates the European Union and attempts to build an autarkic state. That is precisely what its leader has said the French want – to be ‘protected’ from the world.

The former choice would cause the Euro to collapse under the strain of reform, industrial decline, agricultural decimation and the slow replacement by anew free-enterprise unprotected economy, that latter choice a collapse of the Euro as the European program of required fiscal and social integration to complete the construction of a controllable new monetary system is fully and rapidly abandoned. 

Either way, France is going to become something new.  And war with Russia in the East is now a possibility.

I am preparing for future events by applying a program of laying land-mines around the perimeter of my estates, and developing a program of remotely controlled machine gun nests at strategic locations.

I suggest visitors advertise their intention to visit in advance of the event! - Terry Field in France

Comments welcome as always....

From Down Under, Steph observes....

Picture below of Stephanie explaining how to speak Australian to Canadian Ron Marshall in 2014

Great to hear your balanced calming mediator’s voice again.

I must admit David Lott’s views re. Brexit are winning the argument with me, but I’m aware I’m an outsider from Downunder. However, some UK friends wrote this to me the other day: ‘We are going to vote 'Leave' and take our chances on the outcome.  We managed on our own before the Common Market vote in 1975 and we can sure do it again.  We learn that the EU are awaiting the outcome of our vote before putting up the amount every country  has to contribute.  They wouldn't do it before - they're not stupid.  Unfortunately most youngsters (those under 35) are predicted to vote to remain as they know nothing else but most of us oldies will vote to leave’

Also, from an Aussie POV, there’s a big split in the population when it comes to control of our borders and how to do it. Many people, who in my opinion are short-sighted but well-meaning and claim to be so much more compassionate than hard hearteds like myself, insist that Australia should virtually open its doors to boat people. The Liberal Government is saying ‘no. anyone who comes here by boat will NEVER be allowed to settle in Oz. They will have opportunities to settle in other Asian countries, or to return to their countries’. Now, even the Labour opposition leader has agreed that this is the best big picture policy, to avoid all the drownings we were witnessing but also to spread the word and to stop the flood of migrants which, as in Europe, would be never-ending and which would eventually ruin this country.  Trouble is, many of the Labour team believe that we are being inhumane, and so there is great division within the Party itself, even though the boats have stopped, and now we have to wait for those (900 mostly young men) in the offshore detention centres in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, give up hopes of entering Oz and choose where they wish to be repatriated.

Keeping control of who enters each country is vital. Recently we’ve had instances of Muslim immigrants refusing to obey our laws and stand up when a judge or magistrate enters the court room, and recent outraged letters to the paper reflect that the mainstream Australians are fed up with certain immigrants who have gladly taken all that we have to offer, all the freedoms and the tolerance and the services, and are now laughing in our faces. Somehow we must ensure that those coming here have respect for our laws, our democracy, and our women etc etc.

That’s a roundabout way of saying that I do sympathise with those Pommies desperate to leave the EU so that once more they may have some control over their country before it is too late.

From a College Chum of Yester-Year in Tennessee....I Join you wholeheartedly regarding your "thesis" about listening!


From a Distinguished Barrister in Pennsylvania....

You must admit these are interesting times.....this is certainly not a Tweedledee--Tweedledum election as many elections have been in the past when the presidential candidates for the two major parties would race to the "middle" to get the moderate, independent votes.  Unfortunately, there is not much left to the "middle."  Now what we have is one candidate saying the other candidate is completely unqualified to be President and the opposing candidate saying that the other candidate should be in jail.  Let's assume that the winner gets 55% of the vote and the loser gets 45%.    How will the 45% ever accept the winner as legitimate after being told that the winner is completely unqualified to be President or that the winner is a criminal and should be in jail?   Good luck to the winner in trying to govern with the halo of illegitimacy hanging overhead. So sad.....how to govern afterJanuary 20, 2017?  Maybe the loser will be the lucky one.

Brexit - David Lott Responds

by Glenn N. Holliman

David Lott has written with lucid candor and anxiety in this blog before.  He is a great patriot of his nation and a founding member of the United Kingdom Independent Party. His father lost an eye in the 1940 Battle of Britain as a fighter pilot against Hitler's Nazis. David, a retired airline pilot, served many years himself with the Royal Air Force during the Cold War.  

The referendum in the U.K. will be held on June 23, 2016 to decide if the country will remain in the European Union.  Some argue Europe will become more unsafe with an exit by the U.K. and that the E.U. could disintegrate.   These are David's observations on the history of the Middle East and on going threats to France and the U.K. - GNH

Well done Glenn; you seem to be stirring up a hornet's nest!  

Right, David's garden in Normandy, France, a paradise of flowers. 

Since I last wrote the polls are now moving in the direction of Brexit and this after Obama's highly publicised 'decisive' intervention and all the data published by various learned bodies warning of dire consequences for the British people and the world as a whole if the UK were to leave the EU. These bodies are the same that advised us to join the Euro with similar warnings of gloom and doom if we were not to do so.

It seems, just as in the US, that the ordinary people, who form the backbone of society, have finally have had enough of PR, propaganda, smoke and mirrors or whatever you wish to call it and now see with 20:20 vision that the emperor has no clothes.

On the question of the British nation and its peoples'  security can I expand a little because it will set the scene for the truly gigantic upheaval of vast numbers in the Middle East and Africa. There are two issues here and they are closely connected: immigration and national security.

Since the mid 1950s when the US intervened on the side of Egypt during the Suez crisis with the UK and France, the owners of the canal, on the other side, foreign policy has been hopelessly mismanaged. The Shah was forced upon Iran with disastrous consequences that led to the rise of fanatical Islamic mullahs. Intervention after intervention based upon false premises stirred the pot to boiling point. President George Bush Senior got it right when he stopped at Iraq's borders. He is the only one so far who has. Please understand that I am not criticising just the US as Britain and France have also got it spectacularly wrong.

The people of the Middle East and the Sahara are a fiercely tribal group. Life in these arid areas is harsh and has been for thousands of years. Each tribe jealously guarded its meagre assets as they were essential to its survival be it a waterhole or a wadi that once a year rains would provide fodder for man and beast. These conditions fashioned their character. Life was cruel so they became cruel and regularly raided their neighbours for food and womenfolk. The one thing that knit them in any sort of togetherness was Islam. Then along came great wealth in the form of oil.  Lawrence of Arabia's used Islam and the King of Saudi Arabia as the direct descendent of the Prophet, to knit his marauding force together against the Ottoman Empire.

The Mullahs of Iran, despots of Iraq, Libya and Syria as well as the Royal Families of the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait rule ruthlessly using Islam as the glue. The US, France, UK and other NATO countries decided to 'help' change that situation selectively.

I would argue that the ousting of the Iraqi and Libyan leaders smashed the autocratic balance of power and plunged the whole region into chaos. Removing Assad will add to that. Britain has much blood upon its hands in Libya and more recently Yemen. There to condone Saudi Arabia's illegal attack upon the Houthis causing mass casualties and starvation whilst our arms industry prospered.

What a mess. We even support Turkey who have taken IS produced oil, paid for it with weapons and food to sustain IS in its efforts to wipe out the Kurds in Iraq and Syria. This is the same Turkey with whom Mrs Merkel does business.

We have brought this situation about and our politicians are trapped within the web created by their misbegotten deeds and have to defend their actions by encouraging the biblical mass of displaced millions of people to cross the Mediterranean and Aegean seas where thousands drown. Within them top security agencies report there are 5000 Jihadis. We in the EU are in very serious danger indeed.

Mr Trump said Germany has been ruined by mass migration already. It may be true and by the end of this summer we shall know if Italy has suffered the same fate along with Greece. 

Austria is sealing off its country and Hungary the same. In Sweden a mass crime wave is expected this summer. In Germany dreadful sexual violence has happened with much of it hidden from view by the police. In France and Belgium terrorists have been hard at work. Today in Belgium every citizen is being issued with an Iodine pack in case of a dirty nuclear attack.

We in Britain can defend our culture and our people if we act in time and to do so we simply have to leave the EU in order to protect ourselves. This question of safety transcends any other consideration.

We are an Island and it can be done but only if we have the will.

We do have a responsibility to the benighted refugees, not the migrants, as we along with you in the States are responsible for the current frightening crisis.  No, it has not been caused by the desertification of the Middle East but by the appalling mismanagement of foreign policy.

Huge pressure should now be placed upon the rich states of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and the other Gulf States to take in refugees. A massive fund will be required with those states committing the lion's share share but also ourselves, the US and EU countries as well in order to provide camps and food and ultimately rebuild the ruined countries. But first it will be necessary to annihilate IS wherever it raises its head.

Below, sharing lunch and French wine in Bayeux, France. Left to right, Barbara Holliman, Terry Field and David Lott.

Leaving the EU is just a beginning. Our future will depend upon what our politicians do with our new found freedom and that battle will only begin once we vote to leave on 23rd June.

One last word - Have investors thought of what the EU Tobin Tax (See the 5 Presidents Report) will do to income from investments when it is implemented shortly in order to provide income to fund EU integration. London outside the EU will attract an enormous amount to business from Frankfurt along with the New York and Hong Kong stock exchanges thanks to the EU imposition of this tax?  Just a thought. - David Lott   

Comments?

David Lott emailed the following disturbing note on 19 May 2016 - It has long been the right of every freeborn British person to grumble about our leaders and rulers, our managers and others 'in authority over us'. We call it "freedom of speech". On May 6th the EU removed that right, not that many would know it from the silence in much of the media (source:Daily Telegraph). The European Court of Justice ruled that the right to complain about, or otherwise point out, the failings or wrongdoings of the EU Commission is illegal and gave the Commission the right to legally punish "individuals who damage the institution's image and reputation". Interestingly, from an historic viewpoint, almost the same words were used in the Enabling Act of 1933 which allowed the German government to "abolish civil liberties" including rights of free speech which were not restored in that country until 1945. Don't take my word for it; the complete transcript of the Act in both German and English is available on line. Yet another reason to vote Leave on June 23rd  From Terry Field -  Glenn, David, This is another depressing reality of the hook the British worm squirms on. I do not see that Britain will be more free if it leaves, I wish I did. The condition of modern Britain is itself much closer than National `socialist Germany in very many aspects than that of a free country full of truly free individuals. Obviously the EU is an antidemocratic, German controlled, pan-Frankish horror. I still consider that leaving will make it more dangerous, more toxic, more threatening - I think. This is a new dark age. David is hopeful. I am not. That is the difference between us.