Washington, London, and Paris \u2013 the three capitals of the Empire \u2013 are today effectively ungoverned, shutdown, tottering on the brink of collapse or under siege by their own people.<\/span><\/p>\n Their self-chosen Nemeses \u2013 Moscow and Beijing \u2013 meanwhile toast the New Year in a state of considerable optimism and self-confidence. These are the facts, this is the news.<\/span><\/p>\n We should start at the top of the Empire. The United States government has closed down amid stasis and a barrage of inter-governmental howitzers.<\/span><\/p>\n General James Mattis. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n The defense secretary, \u2018Mad Dog\u2019 Mattis, has resigned as have other uniformed subalterns angry at the president\u2019s re-found determination to withdraw from costly and losing foreign wars. The actual \u201cmad dog\u201d<\/em> \u2013 John Bolton \u2013 openly defies President Trump over Syria, Mueller closes in, and the new Democratic majority in the House gears up to \u201cimpeach the mother***er.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Nobody knows if President Trump will be around for much longer, and the merest glance at the views of his putative successor \u2013 Vice President Mike Pence \u2013 recalls the famous picture of President Nixon with his vice president, Spiro Agnew, standing behind him. The satirical speech bubble had Nixon pointing over his shoulder and saying \u201cnobody is going to shoot me with this guy next in line.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n In London, British Prime Minister Theresa May is a dead woman walking; Britain\u2019s exit from the European Union is still a matter of total uncertainty, yet a mere 80 days away. Violence outside the Parliament has begun to erupt, no faction can command a majority, an election cannot be held because its most likely result would be the election of veteran anti-imperialist Jeremy Corbyn whom the \u2018deep state\u2019 would sooner see under arrest (alongside this writer, according to the coup-apparatus Integrity Initiative).<\/span><\/p>\n A no-deal Brexit will see the south of England grind to a halt given the lack of preparation for it, as trucks headed to and from the continent turn Kent, the \u2018Garden of England\u2019, into a car-park.<\/span><\/p>\n A Brexit in name only \u2013 otherwise known as Theresa May\u2019s deal \u2013 cannot pass in the House of Commons next week given Labour\u2019s opposition together with at least 50 of the government\u2019s own MPs and the 10 members of the coalition partners, the DUP.<\/span><\/p>\n A third option, a new referendum, runs the risk of the same scenario being played out (but almost entirely unreported here) on the streets of Paris and other French cities. Defying the result of the first referendum, cheating 17.4 million people of that which they voted for, risks social peace in England. Millions of Brexit voters are among those in Britain with nothing left to lose.<\/span><\/p>\n In France, the Elysee has become Macron\u2019s Bastille and it is not at all inconceivable that it will be stormed.<\/span><\/p>\n Last weekend his own spokesman had to be smuggled<\/a> <\/strong><\/span>out of a back-door after a truck hijacked by protestors smashed through the door of his government building. The very conditions Macron strove so very hard to bring about in Damascus and that France DID help bring about in Kiev are now rocking the very foundations of the French Republic.<\/span><\/p>\n French President Emmanuel Macron (L) escorts Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May as they arrive to speak to the press at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, June 13, 2017. REUTERS\/Philippe Wojazer<\/p><\/div>\n No amount of turning the \u2018Nelson\u2019s Eye\u2019 (when famously England\u2019s Admiral Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar was told that the French Navy were advancing on him, he put his telescope to the black patch covering his missing eye and said \u201cI see no ships\u201d<\/em> \u2013 will alter the fact that for eight weeks and counting, hundreds of thousands of French people of all political stripes have been \u2013 increasingly violently \u2013 on the streets of cities throughout the country demanding that their president resign. And that Macron showering Euros down the Champs Elysees in concessions \u2013 in absolute defiance of the EU\u2019s fiscal rules \u2013 has merely encouraged \u2018les autres\u2019 to keep on demonstrating.<\/span><\/p>\n This week, the EU (and NATO) government of Italy joined the side of the \u2018Gilets-Jaunes\u2019, with Italy\u2019s Salvini personally denouncing the French president as being \u201cagainst his own people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This Saturday, a mammoth demonstration will take place in London, leveling the same raft of anti-austerity demands on the British government as the Yellow Vests are making of Macron. The center cannot hold.<\/span><\/p>\n The old order is dying; the new one cannot be born. If we are not careful we will soon be alive in the time of monsters.<\/span><\/p>\n ***<\/span>![\"General](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Mattis.jpg\")
<\/a><\/a>
\n This feature was originally published at RT International\u2019s OpEd section<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n