Blogging the democratic revolution
Awhile back I was disagreeing with someone I respect on the nature of France and its need for democratic revolution, same as the rest of the unfree world. Today, I feel sad but sort of vindicated. The eighth day of rioting in France can’t be called a democratic revolution, but it’s the end result of what happens when you don’t get one. The persistent joblessness, the inability to assimilate immigrants, the government control of every aspect of life and above all the lack of freedom are exactly what’s behind this spreading explosion. Yes, France needs to expand its democracy. Badly.…
I have just published the last in a three-part series the global implications of the attacks in London of July 7, 2005. This last post, After London – The Infrastructure of Terrorism in Pakistan, is the one most relevant to democracy issues because it deals with both the socio-political and the military networks of militant Islamist movements in that country. The post has links back to the first two posts in the series, as well as other posts related to the London bombings. Also note that I have a cool new look for my banner. I’m planning on having multiple…
One of Britain’s two greatest prime ministers of the 20th century, and one of the greatest people who has ever lived, Lady Thatcher, is celebrating her 80th birthday today. The Reuters picture show here shows her in frail health, but looking absolutely beautiful. Lady Thatcher is one of history’s most authentic revolutionaries. She not only put the ‘Great’ back into Britain, she spread freedom all through the entire world. She was a leading revolutionary in the demise of the Soviet empire, making freedom possible for hundreds of millions of people. She ended Argentina’s dirty war, toppling its dictatorship, bringing freedom…
To read some of the news, one might think the U.S. is the only place affected by the rise in world energy prices. After all, we are the world’s largest energy consumer (no value judgment, I add) and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez often makes anti-U.S. statements expressly for the purpose of driving up prices, something he can benefit from. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, Zarkawi, bin Laden, and other terrorists expressly target U.S. economic interests in a bid to wage economic warfare on us. Usually that means attacks on critical energy supply. Sometimes they gain small victories. Europe has diversified…
France is desperately in need of a democratic revolution. Socialism has failed, as it has failed everywhere else, and the French people face a bleak future. Instead, they’re getting a non-democratic revolt. Unions desperate to preserve their privileges are protesting in the streets, trying to shut the country down. Incubating revolution is complicated. The French cannot make themselves repudiate socialism. They’re not like Eastern Europeans. So, there’s all kinds of strife, blaming the wrong things, fighting productivity gains, screaming at the reality of capitalism, and refusing to change and grow – the same mirror of confusion that characterized the May…
The difficulties that Iraqi Shia, Sunnis and Kurds have had in governing their country following their elections have given the world lots of headaches, especially for the United States. But if you really want to see a group of political parties having a difficult time putting together a stable coalition, look to Germany. The best headline I’ve seen in a while comes from the English version of Der Spiegel: Germany Loses Its Own Election. Here are some other English language links from the same publication: Merkel’s Bitter Defeat Who Want’s to be Germany’s Chancellor? Preliminary Results Show Schroder, Merkel Stalemate…
I kid you not. Here they are, in Cologne, Germany, for the World Festival of Youth: Oh Benedict! You’re so dreamy!
Hear that poofing sound? It’s the showering, shattering of electronic pixels as one by one, British Intelligence destroys al-qaida Web sites. The move cuts critical communication lines among terrorists. Suddenly they can’t plot and giggle together through sinful Western Internet technology. They’ll have to go back to inscribing on Stone-Age tablets or something. Or give up terror altogether. In war, it’s not enough to just cut financing lines and indoctrination houses like madrassas – communication lines are important, too. It’s so in any war. Britain and the U.S. should have done this a long time ago. This is war and…
Fausta at BadHairBlog, citing someone named ‘Cake Eater’ has a truly marvellous comparison of the efforts of the McCartney sisters to break the back of the vile IRA terrorists, versus the non-efforts of too many Muslim “moderates” to halt the Islamofascists among them. it’s been speculated that it’s because these moderate Muslims are afraid to speak up, for fear that the Islamofascists will turn on them. Well, it appears that six women—who loved a man as a brother and a fiancee—proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back when it came to the IRA. Robert McCartney, a Belfast…
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams in April called on the IRA to lose its arms after getting totally snubbed by the usual supporters in Irish America. Yes, even Ted Kennedy gave him the cold shoulder. This announcement seems several months in the making, though hardly anyone believed the organization would seriously embrace the message. They are saying that it will only work through peaceful, democratic means to achieve independence from British rule, though questions of their current political legitimacy still exist in my mind, given that they achieved their status through the “armed struggle.” But most importantly right now, if…
France is such a benighted backward place that could be so otherwise. The broadest, brightest light in all Western Civilization in recent years seems to have given all of that up to pursue America-hating instead. It’s insane. Not even the May 29 referendum on the EU constitution was entirely good in results, given the provincialism of a nation that seems to have lost its national confidence. But Franco at Barcepundit alerts us to an important exception in this trend, in an article he found about a friendly Frenchman named Nicolas Sarkozy. He is immensely popular in France, not an enemy…
Franco at Barcepundit reports that it’s official – al-Qaida had every intention of influencing the Spanish election with its atrocity in Madrid last year. They found the evidence and what we suspected was true. It’s well worth reading in the wake of London’s terror bombings as well as the current wretched political situation in Spain. An excellent writeup – read it here.
Nosemonkey from Europhobia is doing something pretty cool. With the absence of need for donations to the Red Cross or likewise organizations in the 7/7 terrorist attacks, he will be accepting and dispersing donations in the form of free pints of beer for police and emergency personnel. I like this idea.
Police officers raise a British flag in front of the State Department in Washington, D.C., Thursday, July 7, 2005, in remembrance of those killed in the London bombings. (AP Photo/Yuri Gripas) It was the first time a foreign flag has been raised at the State Department. MORE: Pejman Yousefzadeh notes that after September 11, Queen Elizabeth ordered her personal guards to play The Star Spangled Banner instead of God Save The Queen. As he says, “class engenders class.” If you haven’t already, you may want to fly the Union Jack on your blog today.
We don’t even know the number of casualties yet, but we know who caused them. Search deep down. You don’t want to say it because, after so many years, you think it’s too cliche. But keep digging. A lot of possible culprits are being floated, but only one name seems to make sense. Some say it was anti-G8 protestors, but get real; none of them have the capability nor even the will to organize a massive coordinated bomb attack. They break the occassional car window before going back to their tents, lighting up their bongs, and busting out their signed…
Radio news report that this morning a bus exploded near Tavistock Square in central London. Eye witnesses report that the roof of the bus was blown away and many people were left injured. The incident is cause for concern due to the fact that other explosions have also been reported to have occurred in the London underground, namely between Aldgate East and Liverpool Street Station, Edgware Road and King’s Cross stations. There is very little information available as I write this note, however London has been brought to stand still. Update: Tavistock Place near Russell Square was the location of…
Debunked as it well deserves. I’ve seen this movie before – back in the 1980s. Simon Jenkins obviously saw the same thing in the 1960s. There’s no better debunking of this phony Live 8 revolution than here. How is a sensible person to react to last night????????s Live 8/G8 extravaganza? It defies hyperbole. It steamrollers scepticism. The money swilling, the masses migrating, the greenhouse gases combusting, the publicity bingeing, are beyond all reason. Live 8 claims political status, but the politics is totalitarian, using celebrity to mobilise a crowd. The crowd has a noble place in politics, but it is…
The Times has an incredible piece on how fast and how hard the revolutionary winds of change are hitting Europe. Europeans everywhere are rejecting the Franco-German centralized-welfare-statist model and embracing the Anglo-Roman ideal of freedom and rule of law. It’s happening at breakneck speed, and among people no one ever expected such enthusiastic support from. East and West are uniting under common ideals, not degrading spoils-grabbing. Europeans everywhere are rejecting subsidies, taxes, bureaucracy, privilege, inequality and inertia, in favor of free capitalism and fairness, something that could make Europe the dynamic powerhouse it is meant to be. The Revolution is…
Brilliant Italian journalist Oriana Fallici explains why she’s a revolutionary in an amazing interview with Tunku Varadarajan of the Wall Street Journal editorial page. “In the beginning, I was dismayed, and I asked, how is it possible that we do not have Cavour . . . just one Cavour, uno? He was a revolutionary, and yes, he was not of the left. Italy needs a Cavour–Europe needs a Cavour.” Ms. Fallaci describes herself, too, as “a revolutionary”–“because I do what conservatives in Europe don’t do, which is that I don’t accept to be treated like a delinquent.” It’s all good.…
Zapatero may have given in to Al Qaeda an easy time after the Madrid train bombing, but the Spanish won’t have any negotiating with the Basque separatists. Victims, relatives, and supporters are marching in Madrid against government plans to negotiate with the ETA terrorists. Great photo here. Spain’s prime minister Jos???? Luis Rodr????guez Zapatero faces the first major demonstration against him today when tens of thousands are to march through Madrid demanding he does not negotiate with the Basque terrorist group Eta. Organisers said at least 200 coaches were due for the march, which has the backing of the main…
So the French have rejected the proposed new constitution for the European Union. This is a vote of potentially massive importance for the future of Europe and the Western world as a whole. The European project for an “ever closer union” has long been an elite one, and especially over the past decade the gap between the elites and European populations grew large. All maintream French parties supported this constitution, yet the French people strongly rejected it. The Communists, Greens, hardline socialists and the National Front voted overwhelmingly against the treaty; the moderate socialists and the center-right Gaullists of President…
Of all the disgusting prosecutions, this one, against the great Oriana Fallaci, probably the finest journalist alive, is the most despicable. No one can compare to Oriana, no one has written with more powerful, penetrating insight and determination than she has. You don’t even need to agree with her to appreciate her. I tend to defend Islam, but she is far harsher. Doesn’t matter. No one writes more compellingly than Oriana, a true journalist’s journalist. Which is why the Italian prosecution’s charges against her are so shameful. My own feeling about how nations want to tailor free speech is that…
Alek Boyd has some shocking information about the extent of Hugo Chavez’s international networks. Not only is the Venezuelan dictator suspected of being fully engaged in meddling in the internal affairs of Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Grenada, Argentina, Chile and Mexico – he’s meddling in France! That’s right, the thug is buying up the mainstream media there in France and manipulating it like Telesur. It’s really shocking. Not only that, he’s got maybe some contact with some communist union there about schoolbooks and he’s manipulated history taught in French schools to tell the story of the glorious him. Yes,…
Right on the heels of the U.N.’s oil for food scandal, where much of the U.S. is appalled at the chutzpah of British MP George Galloway and his defensive tantrum in U.S. Congress today over his oil for food take, who should come along but some bureaucrat from Mayor Ken Livingston’s office – that’s ‘Red Ken’ to the London locals – caught red-handed by intrepid Aleksander Boyd setting up a Web site on behalf of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Have you ever heard of anything sleazier? He was so bold and shameless about it that he used the full name…
Leftist ecology outfits are basically money-making operations. The more of a stink they can raise on an issue, the more the cash rolls into their coffers. It has nothing to do with merit, only buzz. And the causes they champion are not based on principle but on how leftwing. Ask anyone who’s ever been involved with an NGO racket. Not one of them is normal. They are all sharks. That’s why their biggest causes aren’t necessarily the most objectively serious ones. Greenpeace or an eco-outfit like them will happily harass a Midwestern farmer over a ‘wetland’ (read: swamp) or sandalista…