This is the Revolution

Sign seen at one of the riots in France: "Don't gas us, we're not Jews."

Really, what else can one say upon seeing a sign like this?

And for the lookie-loos who might chance upon this blog and want to argue "It's fake! It's AI!", well, here you go:

This ceased being about education and class sizes the minute the first Molotov cocktail was thrown. This ceased about redressing grievances after the first shop—likely run by an immigrant—was torched. This ceased being about anything other than hate when that person held up that vile sign.

What does Gaza have to do with class sizes? Are Jews in control of the French government? Well, of course, the answer to that second question would be something along the lines of "Yes, all of the West is Zionist-occupied. All servile lickspittles to the true rulers of the world."

The West is committing suicide. And by "the West", I mean specifically Western Europe. It has grown fat and lazy under America's military umbrella. While the US defended it against first the Soviets, and then the Russians, Western Europe was able to prosper and grow rich while contributing very little towards its own defense. The US is partly to blame for this; on the one hand, "burden sharing" was a constant refrain; but equally, when Europe made any move to become more militarily self-sufficient, that, too, set off alarm bells in the halls of DC power. But, of course, it's not like Western Europe then insisted on shouldering more of the burden. "Fine, we'll keep things as they are."

Now Western Europe is in a dilemma. It is confronted with an America under the governance—if it can be called that—of a madman who is dispensing with any notion of being an ally. He is, in fact, moving towards his master in Moscow at an increasing pace. Western Europe has also allowed to suck at its teat the very people and forces now burning it down. The US is no paradise; but it is an immigrant nation, and has, more or less, been able to incorporate millions and tens of millions of immigrants into the Republic. What the current regime is doing goes against the past sixty years of American policy and ideals as regards immigrants.

But Western Europe? Immigrants flooded into it after the Second World War, recruited to rebuild a continent in ruins. A Mexican-American like my boss will both honor his country of origin and proudly declare himself American. But Western Europe had no experience in assimilating mass migration. It simply had no experience in doing so. America is not a nation of blood and soil; that is not the case with Spain, Germany, Italy, or France. And the so-called "real" Spaniards, Germans, Italians, and French simply do not and will never consider those migrants their equals. Which is why those migrants, aside from the lucky ones who become star athletes or musical artists, get the short end of the stick, even more than they do in the US.

At the same time, migrant communities remain insular to a degree which is not common in the US. They willingly segregate themselves as much as they are segregated. The footballers are the exceptions; for every Kylian Mbappe, there are a hundred migrants or descendants of migrants who have given up. That is both their own choice and the choice foisted upon them by the dominant society.

Does the man holding that reprehensible sign think that it will make his life better? Does he care? Because what it is doing is this: it shows the current French government as impotent; and that impotence is going to drive the French voter not towards the left, but towards the far-right National Rally which has as its manifesto dealing with people like him. He is, quite simply, slitting his own throat. (No, the far-right hates Jews as much as the left. But the far-right knows that being seen as philo-semitic wins votes, and acts accordingly.)

Western Europe is committing suicide. Not because it invited in migrants. But because it invited them in, and then treated them as an underclass. They were good enough to work, but not good enough to be full members of society. And now we're seeing the fruits of that strategy. It was always doomed to failure; that it has taken this long is a sort of miracle. But now with a disengaged America, Western Europe is increasingly on its own, and it has no political or moral resources to avert the disaster which is coming for it. Much as in this country, it didn't have to be like this. And yet, here we are.

"Don't gas us, we're not Jews." I doubt he'll be as flippant once Marine Le Pen comes to power.