Revolutions

[DrYouth]

I'm almost done the South American Independence series...

Another great series.

Special mention to Duncan's Macgregor Macgregor special episode... An epic Irish con man of the time.

And Lord Thomas Cochrane - the Sea Wolf.... who was the Scottish Admiral of the Navy that "liberated" Lima.

It was interesting to hear about the British Mercenaries who were instrumental in the independence struggles of Venezuela and Columbia.

Also epic: The Janeros and the Legions of Hell...
Horse mounted lancers who reminded me of the ferocious waves of warriors from the Steppes in Carlin's podcasts.

Bolivar is of course fascinating... mercurial, vain and a liberal "noble" but a fierce warrior immune to hardships... he's in some ways hard not to like... and at other times annoyingly fickle.... a top shelf portrait of a man by Mark Duncan.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Dredging up a classic thread that shouldn’t have died.

Doing a re-listen to the French Revolution series, because it just turned into a blur of French names last time. The Broken Regime episode struck me as a near-mirror image of current-day western society. The ‘republic of letters’, the wealth disparity, the conflicting laws, multi-culturalism. Lots of interesting parallels made me wonder if this will be seen as a Second Enlightenment.

[Hastur]

Not so similar in my opinion.

We now have:
Democracy
Universal suffrage
Freedom of speech
Freedom of the press
Freedom to assemble
Freedom of association
Due process
Modern medicine
A welfare state
Almost no extreme poverty
Education for all
and more

Otherwise it’s pretty close.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Not so similar in my opinion.

We now have:
Democracy
Universal suffrage
Freedom of speech
Freedom of the press
Freedom to assemble
Freedom of association
Due process
Modern medicine
A welfare state
Almost no extreme poverty
Education for all
and more

Otherwise it’s pretty close.

I could easily shoot holes in every one of those, but it may not apply to your country, so much as mine. I really don't know.

Suffice to say, those institutions are pretty damned feeble, at this point.

[DrYouth]

Dredging up a classic thread that shouldn’t have died.

Doing a re-listen to the French Revolution series, because it just turned into a blur of French names last time. The Broken Regime episode struck me as a near-mirror image of current-day western society. The ‘republic of letters’, the wealth disparity, the conflicting laws, multi-culturalism. Lots of interesting parallels made me wonder if this will be seen as a Second Enlightenment.

We also don't have a landed nobility that lives on rents and privileges or a Church that has a heavy hand in the management of the state and controls much land.... or any peasantry to speak of.

The Bourgoisie has seized the day...

And the Working class has developed class consciousness and won many concessions and been duped into buying communism a few times only to see that go up in flames....

The industrial age has been replaced by the digital age... and the age of service industry and the rise of the inflated financial sector...

So not at all a mirror image... but a few parallels exist...

[SuburbanFarmer]

Dredging up a classic thread that shouldn’t have died.

Doing a re-listen to the French Revolution series, because it just turned into a blur of French names last time. The Broken Regime episode struck me as a near-mirror image of current-day western society. The ‘republic of letters’, the wealth disparity, the conflicting laws, multi-culturalism. Lots of interesting parallels made me wonder if this will be seen as a Second Enlightenment.

We also don't have a landed nobility that lives on rents and privileges or a Church that has a heavy hand in the management of the state and controls much land.... or any peasantry to speak of.

The Bourgoisie has seized the day...

And the Working class has developed class consciousness and won many concessions and been duped into buying communism a few times only to see that go up in flames....

The industrial age has been replaced by the digital age... and the age of service industry and the rise of the inflated financial sector...

So not at all a mirror image... but a few parallels exist...

I’m surprised you wouldn’t see the mass media as our modern clergy, dictating the ‘right beliefs’ to the masses, and hammering them with constant appeals for money (commercials).

And we most certainly do have a landed nobility. In similar proportion, and far greater excess of wealth. One could even say that they’re far more abusive to the peasants, poisoning their food and water daily.

[DrYouth]

I’m surprised you wouldn’t see the mass media as our modern clergy, dictating the ‘right beliefs’ to the masses, and hammering them with constant appeals for money (commercials).

And we most certainly do have a landed nobility. In similar proportion, and far greater excess of wealth. One could even say that they’re far more abusive to the peasants, poisoning their food and water daily.

Sloppy analogies SUF...
The mass media is nowhere near as entrenched or monolithic as the clergy once was.
There is a substantial "independent" media in our western world... although there is certainly some influence by corporate ownership... this is nowhere near the separate caste of the religious order of 17th century France.

As for the corporate oligarchs of the western world... they have substantial power certainly...

They do have some parallels to the Nobility of France... but their rights are not enshrined in the same way and they cannot pass their titles on as concretely in hereditary fashion.

That being said they do pass very significant wealth on to their descendants... and the corporate bodies have a form of lasting estate like quality.
However even corporate bodies can be challenged in courts in ways that the nobility could not be challenged.
What recently befell Purdue Pharma is a hopeful reminder on the importance of being able to check corporate power.... but it is sadly rare.

Rule of law has come a long way from 17th century France... but we must guard the progress we have made and there is always the risk of losing what we have gained.... on the right to reactionary movements wanting to strip our individual liberties for the benefit of modern "noble privilege".... and on the left to the left wing hoards with their (twitter/evergreen) mobs and guillotines.

So yes... the podcast is highly relevant... but far from a replay of our current world.

[SuburbanFarmer]

I’m surprised you wouldn’t see the mass media as our modern clergy, dictating the ‘right beliefs’ to the masses, and hammering them with constant appeals for money (commercials).

And we most certainly do have a landed nobility. In similar proportion, and far greater excess of wealth. One could even say that they’re far more abusive to the peasants, poisoning their food and water daily.

Sloppy analogies SUF...
The mass media is nowhere near as entrenched or monolithic as the clergy once was.
There is a substantial "independent" media in our western world... although there is certainly some influence by corporate ownership... this is nowhere near the separate caste of the religious order of 17th century France.

As for the corporate oligarchs of the western world... they have substantial power certainly...

They do have some parallels to the Nobility of France... but their rights are not enshrined in the same way and they cannot pass their titles on as concretely in hereditary fashion.

That being said they do pass very significant wealth on to their descendants... and the corporate bodies have a form of lasting estate like quality.
However even corporate bodies can be challenged in courts in ways that the nobility could not be challenged.
What recently befell Purdue Pharma is a hopeful reminder on the importance of being able to check corporate power.... but it is sadly rare.

Rule of law has come a long way from 17th century France... but we must guard the progress we have made and there is always the risk of losing what we have gained.... on the right to reactionary movements wanting to strip our individual liberties for the benefit of modern "noble privilege".... and on the left to the left wing hoards with their (twitter/evergreen) mobs and guillotines.

So yes... the podcast is highly relevant... but far from a replay of our current world.

I can definitely agree with that. But I think you underestimate the rebellion against the mass media - and it's tentacle grasp on all facets of our society.

So, are we living through the Second Enlightenment, or something else?

[StCapps]

Fuck the French Revolution and the horse it rode in on. The American Revolution gave them a false sense that revolution was the solution to their problems, and it just made everything worse. The French Revolution is great example of change for the sake of change being a bad idea, but communists never learn, they always assume society will be better if they just start over from scratch, as long as they are in charge, and it always goes horribly wrong.

[Smitty-48]

"American Revolution" is a misnomer, War of Independence is more accurate.

The American Revolutionaries after all, we're some of the richest Britons in the Empire.

The War of Independence was no disorderly uprising of the masses, it was a tightly controlled military operation.

The Founders were not out to reinvent the wheel, they just beat the British at their own game.

1776 was not a radical break with the order of things, it was more of a natural evolution from 1688.

To wit, the Virginia Company was not a bunch of commies, they just wanted to run their own empire.