WHY SHOULD YOU READ ABOUT PARIS IF YOU HAVE NO PLAN TO GO THERE, OR ABOUT FRENCH OR AFRICAN HISTORY WHEN YOU HAVE OTHER THINGS TO DO ?
The reason is the approach. Observing contradictions to what one is told applies anywhere. So does awareness of the impact of economic change, and understanding how in stable societies generally daily life reinforces those in control ("Your father was a valet!")
In recent years the power of globalized capitalism has become much stronger. The ads that promote the mentality described at the start hover over great cities like divinities...
Richard Nahem
In Paris since 2011
...and now the past is being not only distorted but erased...
...as is so much else that people everywhere hold dear.
 |
| Harald Wolff |
# # #
Mentalities change when the economy does. "What gave you all that wealth? You took the trouble to be born," was the key line of a play to which Parisians flocked a few years before the Revolution, when capitalism had become impossible to contain.
Today the results of oligarchs' greed are so unbearable that civil populations in many countries are rising to stop it.
- Take the appearance in 2024 of a mural that covers a third of a Parisian métro wall, which defies the elimination of class struggle
The platform where throngs of soccer fans arrive for games in Saint-Denis, a working-class town on Paris's northern border.
...bright ones its effect now.
- A third "No Kings" demonstration, on symbolic place de la Bastille, had American and French protestors collaborating for the first time:
Democrats Abroad
Mustafa Orhan Selçuk
LA DIGUE, FEDERER POUR RESISTER (The Dyke, federate to resist)
- An hour later a massive demonstration for Gaza took place on a crossroad there, which had been the site of a barricade during the first massive working-class revolt
La Barricade du Faubourg Saint-Antoine by Gaspard Gobaut, 1848
-- Musée Carnavalet, not exhibited
The struggle is between über-capitalism backed by far-right parties and democratic socialists providing solutions to the problems that face us all.
By revealing a conditioning of which we are usually unaware, these blooks are part of that fight.
 |
| Harald Wolff |
If you find their ideas useful,
please pass on them on.
* * *
No comments:
Post a Comment