Last Born In The Wilderness

In this episode, I speak with Alley Valkyrie and Rhyd Wildermuth — co-founders of Gods & Radicals Press and the hosts of the Empires Crumble podcast. We discuss the recent widespread unrest in France (dubbed “Les Gilets Jaunes” or the "Yellow Vest" movement in the English-speaking world) — a response to President Emmanuel Macron's decision to implement a fuel tax hike in France. Alley and Rhyd provide much needed context to what is currently unfolding in France -- tying cultural, historical, and broad economic trends in France and Europe to what is currently unfolding under this movement. In this discussion, Alley and Rhyd contextualize the cultural, historical, and political reasons as to what the Yellow Vest movement is ultimately responding to, including what this fuel tax symbolizes within the broader discontent with neoliberal capitalism in Europe, and with the European Union more generally. What has been most misunderstood and misrepresented in the American press about Les Gilets Jaunes is the politic