Britain’s political class could see a revolution like they’ve never seen before, yellow vests warn

The Yellow Vest movement is not on course to end anytime soon, with British activists taking to the streets of London on Friday. They donned the appropriate yellow high vis vests and blocked traffic, chanting pro-Brexit slogans.

One yellow vest protester tells of their want to reclaim Great Britain as told to Sputnik: “We don’t want to be part of the federal European superstate that’s going to erode our rights and take away democracy.

“This is Britain. We are not European. We have never been European. This is our land and we are taking it back. If the political class don’t like it, they will see a revolution like they’ve never seen before.

“It is time to take up the spirit of Oliver Cromwell, rise up and reclaim what’s rightfully ours.”

The yellow vests were outside Downing Street, Westminster Bridge, Tower Bridge and London Bridge on Friday, saying they aren’t going anywhere, determined to support Brexit as well as other issues:

“The yellow vests is just a start. This will spread out to the whole country”.

As Prime Minister Theresa May is trying to push her Remainers’ Brexit deal through, the British Yellow Vests are saying what they want to see:

“We don’t want the deal. Dump the deal. No deal Brexit but trading under World Trade Organisation terms. Our fishing industry was decimated by the European Union.

“We have seen mass migration. We’ve the outsourcing of all of our factories going into the EU. We can’t have this anymore. This country is being raped and pillaged. It is time we stood up for what we believed in.”

One activist, when asked what the general opinion is of a second referendum on the nature of the deal, asserts:

“If there is a second referendum, there will be mayhem. We will make sure that the polling stations are unreachable.

“The will of the people has to be respected. If it isn’t — you will see riots that make riots in France seem like nothing.”

The Rolling Stones wrote a song 50 years ago in support of the Red protests in the streets in Paris and London in ‘68.

Street Fighting Man is still “relevant” it seems.

Street Fightin’ Man - The Rolling Stones

Ev’rywhere I hear the sound
Of marching charging feet, boy
‘Cause summer’s here and the time is right
For fighting in the street, boy
Well now, what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock n’ roll band?
‘Cause in sleepy London town
There’s just no place for a street fighting man, no
Hey think the time is right
For a palace revolution
But where I live the game
To play is compromise solution
Well now, what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock n’ roll band?
‘Cause in sleepy London town
There’s just no place for a street fighting man, no. Get down.
Hey so…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighting_Man

Originally titled and recorded as “Did Everyone Pay Their Dues?”, containing the same music but very different lyrics, “Street Fighting Man” is known as one of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards’ most politically inclined works to date. Jagger allegedly wrote it about Tariq Ali after he attended a 1968 anti-war rally at London’s US embassy, during which mounted police attempted to control a crowd of 25,000.[5][6] He also found inspiration in the rising violence among student rioters on Paris’ Left Bank,[7] the precursor to a period of civil unrest in May 1968.

Mick Jagger explained in a 1995 interview with Jann Wenner in Rolling Stone: “Yeah, it was a direct inspiration, because by contrast, London was very quiet ... It was a very strange time in France. But not only in France but also in America, because of the Vietnam War and these endless disruptions ... I thought it was a very good thing at the time. There was all this violence going on. I mean, they almost toppled the government in France; de Gaulle went into this complete funk, as he had in the past, and he went and sort of locked himself in his house in the country. And so the government was almost inactive. And the French riot police were amazing.”

(Keith) Richards said, only a few years after recording the track in a 1971 Rolling Stone interview with Robert Greenfield, that the song had been “interpreted thousands of different ways”. He mentioned how Jagger went to the Grosvenor Square demonstrations in London and was even charged by the police, yet he ultimately claims, “it really is ambiguous as a song”

...The song was released within a week of the violent confrontations between the police and anti-Vietnam War protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.[11] Worried about the possibility of the song inciting further violence, Chicago radio stations refused to play the song. This was much to the delight of Mick Jagger, who stated: “I’m rather pleased to hear they have banned (the song). The last time they banned one of our records in America, it sold a million.”[13] Jagger said he was told they thought the record was subversive, to which he snapped: “Of course it’s subversive! It’s stupid to think you can start a revolution with a record. I wish you could.”[13]

Keith Richards weighed into the debate when he said that the fact a couple of radio stations in Chicago banned the record “just goes to show how paranoid they are”. At the same time they were still requested to do live appearances and Richards said: “If you really want us to cause trouble, we could do a few stage appearances. We are more subversive when we go on stage.”[13]

...Jagger continues in the Rolling Stone interview when asked about the song’s resonance thirty years on; “I don’t know if it [has any]. I don’t know whether we should really play it. I was persuaded to put it [on Voodoo Lounge Tour] because it seemed to fit in, but I’m not sure if it really has any resonance for the present day. I don’t really like it that much.”[8] Despite this, the song has been performed on a majority of the Stones’ tours since its introduction to their canon of work.

Walter Cronkite honored at the World Federalist Foundation boasting he'd gladly sit at the right hand of Satan (as his critics accuse) if it meant ushering in a one world government

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oFS-KT377M

(from the transcription at: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3190358/posts)

I am greatly honored, quite obviously by the Norman Cousins Global Government, uh, Governance award. I’ll try to get it right, since I will be referring to it frequently of course, from now on. First, well there are two reasons really why I’m particularly grateful and honored by this award. The first, I believe as Norman Cousins did, that the first priority of humankind in this difficult era is to establish an effective system of world law that will assure peace with justice among the peoples of all the world. Second, I feel rather sentimental about this award and this organization because half a century ago, Norman Cousins offered me a job as the spokesman and a Washington lobbyist for the really nascent organization called World Federalist. I was honored. He and Oscar Hammerstein met me in the Waldorf, and twisted my arm quite vigorously, to get me to take the job to take the place of Ted Waller, who was the first lobbyist and a noted supporter of the world federalist movement.

I chose instead, it turned out, to continue in the world of journalism. For many years, I did my best to report on the issues of the day with as much fairness as I possibly could and in objective of a manner as possible to achieve. When I had my own strong opinions, I tried to put them aside for the moment in the interest of fairness. I didn’t communicate them, I hoped, to my audience. Now however, now however, my circumstances are considerably different. I’m in a position to speak my mind, and by God, I’m gonna do it.

You know, those of us who are living today can truly influence the future of civilization. We can influence whether our planet is going to live or die. Whether it’s going to drift into chaos and violence, or whether through a monumental educational and political effort, a monumental effort, we will achieve a world of peace under a system of law where individual violators of that law are brought to justice.

(video skip)For most of this fairly long life I have been an optimist harboring a belief that as our globe shrank, as our communication miracles brought us closer together, we would begin to appreciate the commonality of our universal desire to live in peace and that we would do something to satisfy that yearning of all peoples. Today I find it harder to cling to that hope. (video resume)

For how many thousands of years now have we humans been what we insist on calling ‘civilized’? And yet, in total contradiction, we also persist in the savage belief that we must occasionally, at least, settle our arguments by killing each another.

While we spend much of our time and a great deal of our treasure in preparing for war, we see no comparable effort in establishing peace. Meanwhile, emphasizing the sloth in this regard, those advocates who work for world peace by urging a system of world law and order, a world government if you please, are called impractical dreamers. Those ‘impractical dreamers’ are entitled, it seems to me, to ask their critics, ‘what is so darn practical about war?’

(video skip)It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace. To do that, of course, (video resume) First, we Americans are goingto have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That’s going to be to many a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith, a lot of persuasion for them to come along with us on this necessity. (video skip)But the American colonies did it once and brought forth one of the most nearly perfect unions the world has ever seen. The circumstances were vastly different, obviously. Yet just because the task appears forbiddingly hard, we should not shirk it. We cannot defer this responsibility to posterity. Democracy, civilization itself, is at stake. Within the next few years we must change the basic structure of our global community from the present anarchic system of war and ever more destructive weaponry to a new system governed by a democratic U.N. federation.

Let’s focus on a few specifics of what the leadership of the World Federalist movement believe must be done now to advance the rule of world law. For starters, we can draw on the wisdom of the Framers of the U.S. Constitution of 1787. The differences among the American states then were as bitter as differences among nation-states in the world today. In their almost miraculous insight, the Founders of our country invented ‘federalism,’ a concept that is rooted in the rights of the individual. Our federal system guarantees a maximum of freedom but provides it in a framework of law and justice. (video resume) Our forefathers believed that the closer the laws are to the people, the better. Cities legislate on local matters, of course; states make decisions on matters within their borders; and the national government deals with issues that transcend the states, such as interstate commerce, foreign relations. That’s what we mean by federalism.

Today we must develop federal structures on a global level to deal with world problems. We need a system of enforceable world law, a democratic federal world government You know, what Alexander Hamilton wrote about the need for law among the 13 states applies today to the approximately 200 sovereignties in our global village: all of which are going have to be convinced to give up some of that sovereignty to the better, greater union. Hamilton said, and it’s not going to be easy. Hamilton said, ‘To look for a continuation of harmony between a number of independent, unconnected sovereignties in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages.’

Today the notion of unlimited national sovereignty means international anarchy. We must replace the anarchic law of force with a civilized force of law.

Ours is never going to be a perfect world for heaven’s sake, we all know that. There can’t be a world without some disagreement, probably occasional violence. But it will be a world where the overwhelming majority of national leaders will consistently abide by the rule of world law, if we have our way, and can sell our program. And those who won’t obey the law, the international law with which will be governed, are going to be dealt with effectively, and with due process of the structures of that same world law. You know, we’re never going to have a city without crime, we certainly would never want to live in a city without law, a law to deal with the criminals who are always among us.

The three suggestions with which I’ve been furnished for immediate action that would move us in the direction firmly in the American tradition of law and democracy are these.

First, keep our promises, for heaven’s sakes. We helped create the United Nations of course. We helped develop the U.N. assessment formula, by which it is financed. Americans overwhelmingly, I think every poll shows it, wants us to pay our U.N. dues. Wants us to pay them with none of these crippling limitations that we, with our arrogance seem to want to impose. We owe it to the world. In fact, we owe it not only to the world, we owe it as well to our national self-esteem. How embarrassing it is to go among the peoples of the world, knowing what they know about our niggardliness, please get that word right if anybody quotes me, at the United Nations.

And second, ratify the treaty, ratify several treaties. Ratify the treaty, for goodness sakes, to ban land mines. Why can’t we understand that? Our representatives worked hard and long to get The Law of the Sea Treaty, and we haven’t ratified it even. Selfish interests that dictate not the national interest or the international interest. These are other treaties we haven’t ratified, The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. A treaty with a catchy phrase, a catchy title, The Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. The title may not be catchy, but the idea certainly is. And The Convention on the Rights of the Child. We haven’t even done that. Most important, we should sign and ratify the treaty for a permanent international criminal court. That is now at the core of the world federalist movement’s drive. That court will enable the world to hold individuals accountable for their crimes against humanity.

And the third point, just consider, if you will, after 55 years, the possibility of a more representative and democratic system of decision making at the U.N. This should include both revision of the veto in the Security Council, and adoption of a weighted voting system in the General Assembly. Our organization, The World Federalists have endorsed Richard Hudson’s Binding Triad proposal. George Soros, in his recent book, The Crisis of Global Capitalism, has given serious attention to this concept, which would be based upon not only the one-nation-one-vote, but also on population and contributions to the U.N. budget. Resolutions adopted by majorities in each of these three areas would then be binding, enforceable law. Within the powers given it in the Charter, the U.N. could then deal with matters of reliable financing, a standing U.N. peace force, development, the environment, and of course, human rights.

Some of you may ask, although I think most of you know the answer, why the Senate is not ratifying these important treaties, and why the Congress is not even paying our U.N. dues? Even as with the American rejection, so many years ago now, of the League of Nations after World War I, our failure to live up to our obligations to the U.N. is led by a handful of willful senators who choose to pursue their narrow, selfish political objectives at the cost of our nation’s conscience. They pander to and are supported by the Christian Coalition and the rest of the religious right wing. Their leader, Pat Robertson, has written in a book, a few years ago, that ‘we should have a world government, but only when the messiah arrives.’ He wrote, and literally, ‘any attempt to achieve world order before that time must be the work of the devil!’ Well join me. I’m glad to sit here at the right hand of Satan. (video skip) This small but well-organized group has intimidated both the Republican Party and the Clinton administration. It has attacked presidents since F.D.R. for supporting the U.N. Robertson explains that these presidents are the unwitting agents of Lucifer.(video resume)

The only way we can do it is to organize a strong educational counteroffensive, stretching from the most publicly visible people in all fields to the humblest individuals in each of our communities. That’s the vision and the program of the World Federalist Association. It begins with education, and it ends with success and hope. (video skip) The strength of the World Federalist program would serve an important auxiliary purpose at this particular point in our history. There would be immediate diplomatic advantages if the world knew that this country was even beginning to explore the prospect of strengthening the U.N. We would appear before the peoples of the world as the champion of peace for all by the equitable sharing of power. This in sharp contrast to the growing concern that we intend to use our current dominant military power to enforce a sort of pax Americana.

Our country today is at a stage in our foreign policy similar to that crucial point in our nation’s early history when our Constitution was produced in Philadelphia. (video resume)Let us hear the peal of a new international liberty bell that calls us all to the creation of a system of enforceable world law in which the universal desire for peace can place its hope and its prayers. As Carl Van Doren has written, ‘History is now choosing the founders of the World Federation.’ That was back there at the beginning. And he said, ‘Any person who can be among that number and fails to do so has lost the noblest opportunity of a lifetime.’

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