by Ramin Mazaheri If leaders lead and followers follow, then we’ll have to wait another election cycle to be rid of Emmanuel Macron. Since Sarkozy l’américain France is a follower. He buried the independence which was a key part of Charles de Gaulle’s worldview. France now follows the lead of American capitalists. In NATO, in globalization, in subordinating the EU to the US, in subordinating French national interests to the
by Ramin Mazaheri It’s not that the National Front has changed since the 1980s – it’s that the other parties have changed so much for the worse. C’est ça – that’s the point, as the French say, and which translates into English rather ineffectively. Nobody should be happy about having to vote for Marine Le Pen, but please tell me what economic policies has Emmanuel Macron espoused which will end the
by Ramin Mazaheri On the night of April 21st I was in my office in Paris, just 100 meters from the Champs-Elysees, when I got a phone call from a fellow journalist telling me about the deadly attack on policemen there. I was in the middle of working on my latest report on France’s presidential election for Iran’s Press TV. When I got the call, I had just written this
by Ramin Mazaheri So there I was again, on an airplane from San Francisco to New York – the “job creators’ red-eye” – and I had plenty of time to read the New York Times’ Roger Cohen cover the French presidential election in an extended Sunday Review format. Joy of joys! Our “paper of record” has sent Cohen back to cover his old beat for the election. Get ready for some
by Ramin Mazaheri Is the European Union about to lose its modern-day colony in South America? Your eyes should be turned towards tiny French Guiana because it is currently the global epicenter of anti-imperialism amid a 3-week General Strike. It just got even more serious: A “total blockade” until a “new order” has just been announced to start on April 9th. Yes, French Guiana is part of the EU, the
by Ramin Mazaheri Many in the West are finally starting to come around to the reality that their mainstream “left” party is actually quite right-wing. What’s taking longer for Westerners to realize is: the left flank of their mainstream “left” party is actually not left-wing at all. Starting with the United States: What real impact has Bernie Sanders had? As predicted – none. Sanders’ preferred candidate for Democratic National Committee
by Ramin Mazaheri How can we explain that centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron is still leading the French presidential elections, just a month away? Is it possible that every Macron supporter – and not Macron himself – has been brainwashed like in the movie “The Manchurian Candidate”? Maybe it’s a case of “The Manchurian Voters”? That seems unlikely. Lotta work to hypnotize so many millions of people. As a longtime daily
by Ramin Mazaheri Keep asking the fundamental question: Has the European Union brought the prosperity and security it promised? No. Then that will always be a perfectly valid reason for exiting. Because it hasn’t brought prosperity and security, can the European Union be reformed? I have said “no” for years, but it’s been a month of historic changes in Europe, with more to come. After years of rejecting such an
by Ramin Mazaheri White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America (2016) by Nancy Isenberg is a book which is credited with the groundbreaking idea of studying the history of poor Whites in America. It’s a necessary book because it gives us a lot of badly-needed historical information to analyze the major divide in the United States today: between pro- and anti-Trump factions. Hillary Clinton denounced Trump supporters as
by Ramin Mazaheri Americans, whether you like it or not, and whether you admit it or not, this book review is about our family. White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America (2016) by Nancy Isenberg is a book so necessary that it compelled reviews in “The New York Times” and “The Wall Street Journal” because it finally gives White Trash the place in American history that they have
by Ramin Mazaheri I know that if you’re on The Saker you have a ton of great stuff to read, and I don’t want to waste your time, so: Fillon is a French presidential candidate, and no you do not have to care about him anymore. Are you still reading? Well then, we must be related! (Send food/money/fewer pictures) I have put off writing this article for so long that
by Ramin Mazaheri Look, we are just butting heads here, we Muslims and Europeans. Constantly arguing over whose ideology and culture is superior. And all the while the 1% of families who own 99% of the world’s wealth are just looking down and laughing at us as they read their stock tickers. And that 1% is multicultural, multiracial and practices multiple religions. They don’t care about European or Muslim or
by Ramin Mazaheri Imagine my surprise when, on my flight back from San Francisco to New York, that’s what my trusty New York Times revealed to me. My first thought was: I can’t believe how this horrible Donald Trump has set up a Deep State in less than a month?! Surely Russia was involved in its formation. Then again, I strangely find myself thinking a lot about Russia these days.
by Ramin Mazaheri As Communist hero and the “African Che Guevara”, Thomas Sankara, famously said: “A soldier without any political or ideological training is a potential criminal.” France’s police have an ideology, because everyone has one: Only the truly apathetic or the most indoctrinated claim to not have one. I’ll be honest: I have not attended France’s police academy nor read their training manuals so I can’t say for sure,
by Ramin Mazaheri Is this the end of France’s mainstream political parties? The day of reckoning certainly should be near. When 77% of France believes parliamentarians, are corrupt then you have a fundamental problem with your system. If you don’t trust you’re the highest rung of the legislative branch, then that house needs to be purged. It seems it’s going to happen this election cycle for the executive branch, at
by Ramin Mazaheri There wasn’t an official award handed out, but the Islamophobic statement of 2016 in France has to go to the politician who said that Muslim women who wear the hejab are like the “American niggers who were in favor of slavery”. LOL, she did even not say “blacks”, she said “niggers” – “nègres”, in French. You simply cannot use that word in polite society. I know because
by Ramin Mazaheri “The Euro”, both the monetary system and the book of the same name by Nobel-Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, can appear complicated. Take heart from Noam Chomsky, who wrote that nothing in the social sciences cannot be understood by the average bus driver in a couple of minutes – this is not calculus or physics, after all. Give me just three paragraphs to simplify everything: Stiglitz successfully
by Ramin Mazaheri The great journalist Alexander Cockburn famously asked the question “How pure is your hate?” I appreciate the sentiment, but it’s a line which always rubbed me the wrong way just a bit. I always thought it was treating “hate” rather religiously – purification being a routine goal of prayer, fasting, ceremony, etc. Hate, from a religious or moral standpoint, should not be considered “pure”, or at least
by Ramin Mazaheri The French Socialist Party has the first round of their political primary on January 22nd, and as a longtime news correspondent in Paris I thought it incumbent on me to make a fun prediction. The fun, if you couldn’t tell, has already started: the incumbent, Francois Hollande, is not even running for re-election. Let’s bask in what a historically huge loser Hollande is: I cannot recall any
by Ramin Mazaheri It is with great regret that I have to leave Havana after 1 month of special-assignment reporting for Press TV in order to return to Paris. That may surprise a lot of people, but think of what type of work I am returning to: Stories about unabashed capitalism, chauvinistic neo-imperialism, anti-Muslim xenophobia and the upcoming presidential contest in which the only 2 serious contenders are a right-wing
