Newman sets out to explain why a revolution occurred in France, but not England, using a multidisciplinary methodology. She investigates the origins of the French Revolution using demographic patterns, land-tenure and inheritance systems and comparative research.
France prints colonial money for Burkina Faso, which is one of the poorest nations in the world, although it has gold and uranium. In return France demands 50% of everything Burkina Faso exports. Burkina Faso's uranium supplies 30% of French nuclear plant needs, but 80% of Burkina Fasoans have no electricity. Gold mined by child-labour mostly ends up in French state coffers. The French government wants the deposed president reinstated. So, is this a coup or a revolution?
Called, "DiEM TV: Another Now with Yanis Varoufakis," this, one of several Varoufakis videos, focuses on how to break up Amazon dot com - but then passes on to how to break up the feudal world order. Varoufakis has unique experience of the global financial-political system, and so he does a good analysis of Amazon's engulfment of the real world and of feudal capitalism. Most interesting is his advice on how to break this behemoth down to size via Lilleputian-style exploitation of the financial system. Part of the video involves Varoufarkis reading from a novel he recently published about a global-democratic revolution after the 2008 financial collapse, Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present. You may or may not hold Varoufakis's communistic value solutions, but his methodology could also play out with many different new kinds of polities. I enjoyed this mixture of Socratic style and Swiftian analogies. You may wonder at his aiming ammunition at Amazon dot com, when his books sell there, but he says his publishers choose to market them there. This does not detract from his analysis. You may also wonder about his understanding of alternative energy resource-limits, but that also should not prevent you from learning from this analysis. Video inside article.
Although we commemorate those who died on Remembrance Day 11 November, the courage and sacrifice of those who fought to prevent World War One from ever happening and who tried to remove from power the criminals who had caused that war, and others that followed, is never acknowledged.
On Remembrance Day, 11 November Australians and people from some of the countries of the previous Britsh Commonwealth of nations, commemorate the courage and terrible sacrifice of those who fought in the war of 1914-1918. In that war, 18 million died, including 60,000 Australians, Back then that war was referred to as the "War to End War".
Those who labeled the First World War the "war to end war"were clearly naive at best. Barely 20 years later 60 million more people were to die in yet another even more horrific world-wide conflagration. Many other wars occurred right up to Remembrance Day 2017 and are continuing.
The courage and sacrifice of those who fought to prevent World War One from ever happening and who tried to remove from power the criminals who had caused that war, and others that followed, is never acknowledged.
Where is the commmoration for those sailors of the German Navy who rebelled against the German government on 3 November after being ordered to sail on a last suicidal battle against the British Navy? (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiel_mutiny.) Where is the commemoration of all thoser German workers who rose up in many parts of Germany over the next few days, making it impossible for the war to continue? Where is the commemoration of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebkencht who opposed the war at its outset? They were to lead the Spartakist uprising in Berlin from 1918 until when it was crushed by Freikorps mercenaries, many of whom were later to don the Nazi swastika. Where is the commemoration of their sacrifice?
Where is the commemoration of those French soldiers who were court-martialed and executed in 1917 for their mutiny against the war? Where is the commemoration of Australians and British who blocked their governments' plans to introduce conscription? Where is the commemoration of those German Communists who fought from 1919 until 1923 to wrest from power those who had led their country into war?
Clearly the ruling elites and their newsmedia only want us to commemorate the sacrifice of those who were duped into fighting and dying to further the selfish interests of those elites who sent them to war.
In 2016, much of the credit for the prevention of war can rightly be claimed by people labeled 'right-wing', 'far right' or 'extreme right'. Examples include Marine Le Pen of France, Nigel Farage of Britain and United States' President-elect Donald Trump.
Paradoxically, one hundred years ago, during the first inter-imperialist slaughter of 1914-1918, it was the Communist 'far left' that opposed war.
Whilst Australian histories tend to give credit to Australian soldiers led by General John Monash for defeating Germany on the Western Front in November 1918, the capitulation of Germany may, in fact, have been the result of the uprisings of 9 November 1918 in Germany led by the anti-war Spartakusbund of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. The Spartakusbund was later to become the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (KPD) or Communist Party of Germany.
The uprising was preceded on 3 November by a mutiny of German sailors, who refused to sail to fight a suicidal last battle against the British Royal Navy.
Sadly, the uprising in Berlin was crushed by right-wing Freikorps mercenaries and Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were executed by them on 1 June 1919.
A number of times in subsequent years, the German Communists came close to success. The last occasion was in September 1923 when German Reichswehr troops invaded Saxony and Thuringia to crush the strong communist movements in those states and to overthrow the elected left Social Democrat governments.
Had the German Communists succeeded in 1923, Adolf Hitler would have become a small footnote in history and the subsequent war in which 60 million were to die would have been prevented.
It is now 1:10 in the afternoon and as the daily life in Tripoli unfolds that includes teachers, staff, and children at school, shopkeepers working in their businesses, street sweepers sweeping the streets, people moving to and fro in the cars, on bicycles, and on foot, Tripoli has thus far since around 11:00 up to now, received at least 29 bombs.
Interestingly, the efforts of the Washington Post, New York Times, Associated Press, and others to portray Libya claims on the bombings as "absurd" are patently false and are merely efforts to defend in the court of public opinion, the indefensible bombing of civilians going about their lives in a heavily populated area. The Washington Post headlined "Libya government fails to prove claims of NATO casualties" and the Los Angeles Times headline blared, "Libya officials put a spin on a conflict."
These bombs and missiles are not falling in empty spaces: people are all over Tripoli going about their lives just as in any other major metropolitan city of about two million people.
Meanwhile, NATO has a spin machine of its own: NATO says it is making "significant progress" in protecting Libyan civilians. "What we did target was the military intelligence headquarters in downtown Tripoli," the alliance said.
I am currently with a delegation of former MP's and professors from France who are here in Tripoli on a fact-finding mission. The program for today was to visit the camps of internally displaced persons in this part of the country. However, we are not able to complete our program while Tripoli is under attack. I will do my best to visit some of the areas bombed today when/if this attack lets up.
What were you doing today between 1:00 and now? The people of Tripoli endure the trauma of repeated bombings in their immediate environment.
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