You might as well start arguing that the victim with the bat is now the bully cause the victim grabbed the bat from the real bully. If you notice Jack, historically the underdogs have been weaklings compared to the mighty and rich aristocratic oppressors of humanity. When the underdog becomes the top alpha dog, that doesn’t give you or anyone else free reign to say that Ali Kirsti is the intolerant fascist and not the ones who oppressed people like her in her birth country.

Good people don’t become mean and evil if they get power over evil people. And any real historical study will reveal that truely good and wise people do not get corrupted by power, otherwise Washington would have reigned as King supreme and there wouldn’t be an America.

That doesn’t happen very often, and neither does the liberation of crappy countries like Iraq or Afghanistan. When they do happen, people should encourage it, instead of trying to stop it, or trying to argue that America did an illegal and evil thing. They heap fantastical scorn upon fantastical fantasies when they then begin talking about looking out for the interests of the little guy who has nothing, against the big bad secret police dictatorships.

You’ll find little tolerance, Jack, for people who say freedom and economic prosperity is good but that if it comes from the US it then becomes invalid, from me.

Conned can prove he is calm and collected, to you jack, by telling everyone that he supports the liberation of Iraq from the oppressors, and (this is key) this was accomplished by American blood and toil not the freedom loving insurgents. Long wait , I expect.

To go back to the primary point.

Someone living in a fantasy world, harbors a deep hatred of anyone revealing that fantasy for what it is.

It’s a logic statement, jack. Logic statements, are logically, not mind reading mysticism. If you want to single out conned, go ahead. But don’t pretend I did that, since my statement applies to everyone that lives in a fantasy world. It don’t matter who you are jack, humans react in the same manner on the basis of a shared number of stimulis.

Remember the two rules of neo-cons

the brand new third rule. Everybody who agrees with uis right and good and clever.

Courtesy of conned. That might seem substantial or calm to you, Jack, but it is rather apparent to me that it is a fantasy world in which the liberation of Iraq by classical liberals sometimes now called neo-cons becomes not a liberation, but a doctrinaire and close minded war of exploitation.

If you want to defend conned, Jack, you have two obstacles before you. You have to explain how and why you took a general statement that applies to everyone, and applied it specifically to conned without any recognition of the fact that it can also apply to other people. The reverse logic then becomes, why did you accuse conned of applying to the standard, not why I applied my statements to conned. 2nd, why conned does not apply to the standards of living in a fantasy world by his own words. You don’t think he does, so obviously you should be able to explain why.

Last of all, I’d appreciate not putting words into my statements that weren’t there. That’s like getting nncon here to say that wars of conquest and exploitation are wrong, therefore nncon has said the Iraq War is wrong. Don’t attach logical conclusions to my logic, and act as if it follows. If I wanted to accuse conned of living in a fantasy world, I would have brought along direct quotes of conned. This characterization of yours, jack, is not based upon either good reasoning nor good logic. In fact, if you wanted me to accuse conned of living in a fantasy world, the best thing you could have done would be to get me on the defensive with an accussation that I accused conned of living in a fantasy world when you say his comments are calm and substantial. To which I would reply with the obvious rejoinder that they aren’t. But as a reminder, I didn’t start out on that path, jack, until you brought the subject up. So let’s be clear on who pulled the first hit.

Conned didn’t put illegal invasion in quotse, why should I?

it is unpopular because it was an illegal action

So as a summary. When I first brought up fantastical worlds, I was applying it in a very general manner. When you brought it up, you were thinking of conned because that was who you were replying to. Since I was replying to you, I wasn’t thinking of conned as much as you were. But I was thinking of conned when I replied to you, cause you accused me of specifying conned as living in a fantasy world, when I didn’t. So I obviously had to defend my statement both on what I meant by it and the accuracy of how it applies to conned.

It is not that the other side is wrong it is that they are; weak, stupid, cowardly, psychologically disturbed, incapable of putting together a proper argument etbloodycetera. - conned

Is my meaning clear enough now to avoid unintended distortions and misunderstanding? I prefer to avoid this in the future.

However I suspect that this “long war” business is going to drag out and get more complex and bloody and covoluted in a whole host of ways that none of us can guess at. This particularly applies if no serious attempt is made to engage with moderate islamic opinion in many parts of the world. onsistent beligerance will only push many muslims into the arms of the radicals.

It doesn’t necessarily happen as a result of “revolution.” Sometimes it occurs after dictatorial governments are defeated militarily as in the case of Germany, Japan, and now Afghanistan and Iraq.

I can undertand opposing wars in general and the Iraq War in particular. However, at some point it seems to me that those who oppose the Iraq War need to address the full picture of Iraq, not just those aspects that support their opposition.

Iraq is now a far more democratic and less oppressive country than it was before, and it appears to be getting better–knock on wood–at a steady rate.

Someone living in a fantasy world, harbors a deep hatred of anyone revealing that fantasy for what it is.

nnc is posting substantively and calmly.

Someone living in a fantasy world, harbors a deep hatred of anyone revealing that fantasy for what it is.

I like the
Velvet Revolution and the various “color” revolutions that we’ve seen in Europe and the Middle East.

I don’t think it would be out of line to call what is happening in Iraq a revolution either, assuming one is truly concerned about oppressed peoples taking action to free themselves and create non-oppressive, democratic governments–even if they do get help from the United States.

The Scots-Irish and immigrants of Germanic descent really contributed. Demographically, if we get all the dredges and exiles from Europe, and we combine a philosophy that says everyone is equal regardless of class or heritage, then we have a people willing to grab this belief without having to kill anyone for it for oppressing them.

It is a lot more peaceful to go out into the wilderness and risk life and limb to carve out a new future for you and your family, than it is to try to take away power and land from the ruling party back in Europe. Not always peaceful, but it is more peaceful than trying to fight a civil war in Europe.

So we got demographics. People who would rather run the risk of being eaten by a bear and killed by an Indian than stay in the class society that is Europe. Then we have the environment. a Harsh frontier which promotes individualism and not socialism.

The Founding Fathers, in a way, constructed a belief system that individuals could ascribe to. Not because they were forced into it, but because it benefits them. When the people freely enter into a contract that is of mutual benefit to the contractee and the contractor, there is much less instability and revolutionary tendencies.

The Anglo-Saxon argument has some merits. After all Canada and Australia, as former colonies, got their freedom, eventually anyway. So did India.

It’s not easy to get a revolution going if people are already satisfied. It is also hard to get individuals to buy onto the propaganda of socialism and revolution. Americans didn’t sign up instantly for the Revolutionary War for example. Individuals tend to want to check out the deal before buying into it.

When people live in decadent civilizations, or tribalistic cultures, it is easy for populist leaders like Chavez and Komeini and Mao to get power. You either have a bunch of college students that have relied upon their parents and their government for support. Or you have a bunch of people who don’t know any history cause they’re too busy starving, and desperate enough to buy into any hope by the communists.

There are anti-Revolutionary safeguards. Without those safeguards, revolutions tend to get out of control and catastrophically fail.

But it’s not just the ideals in themselves that matter here — the values underlying the American Revolution didn’t differ that much from those of the French Revolution after all — but the limited nature of the goals as well, and here’s where the American and French models of revolution diverged significantly. The latter, influenced by the continental Enlightenment generally, and by Rousseau in particular, was really the first major attempt not just at a political revolution but at a cultural revolution, a transformation of society and of the people making it up, top to bottom. This ambition was a direct result of a fatal hubris contained in the Enlightenment notion of Reason — the idea that, if only we have access to the full power of the state, human beings, their lives, and their social structures can be manipulated or “engineered” in the same way that we manipulate any other instruments or materials in nature. And that idea, in turn, lies at the basis of much of the historical tragedy of the modern era.

By contrast, the American Revolution was influenced much more by the British or Scottish Enlightenment, which had a clearer understanding of the limits of reason (small “r”) as well as of state power. If the figure of Rousseau, and the baleful, incipiently totalitarian notion of the “General Will”, stands in back of the French Revolution, it’s people like Locke, Adam Smith, and Tom Paine, and the powerful emergent notions of the modern individual and the self-organizing community, that stand in back of the American. And it’s those ideas that lie at the basis of much of the historical achievement of the modern era.

What other revolutions are considered acceptable? And what shoudl be the reaction of those people who findthemselves the victim of oppression? Passivity? Acceptance that a revolution will only make things worse?

Overall, some interesting semantic arguments here. The ‘rebel/revolutionary’ distinction is a nice compromise. I think any serious comparison of the French and American Revolutions will show the difference of result, and rarity of the continuing American republic success, against all historic odds.

Destination unknown, I’m a long way from home
Destination unknown, I’ll be gone, gone, gone
Destination unknown, Destination unknown

ELO

…A lil’ musical humor there.

So I think I’ll stick with this- for the most part, revolutions fail (in the long run) and rebellions sometimes succeed. Probably in no small part because revolutions invariably start to self-immolate from the internal friction of ideological purity and the paranoia of tyrants.

Re: Movies/books- If you’re a highly visual reader, seeing the movie after reading a book is always a dicey affair…

This site is also really helpful. The point i made about heaven on earth is true. Some of cromwell’s men where seriously radical- religious revolutionaries - and not so keen on romwell.

“Was the earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at ease, and for them to bag and barn up the treasures of the Earth from others, that these may beg or starve in a fruitful land; or was it made to preserve all her children?”

Gerrard Winstanley The New Law of Righteousness, 1649

the Diggers were serious about very radical change

Either the populist propaganda sounds good so they jump on the bandwagon. Or they are useful idiots straight out of college or in college, and they don’t know enough history to fill a condom.

I’m not sure about the English revs starting out to build heaven on earth. I think they just wanted Charles to behave himself (and stop being Catholic). But the Puritans and their religious fellow-travellers turned out to be the most powerful factions ideologically and financially, so they got to set the agenda. I guess that’s an important aspect of any revolution: who gets to say what it’s “about.”

I’m not the expert, though - especially concerning the Protectorate and the Restoration. Did the English under Cromwell feel like their revolution had succeeded? Failed? Or was it another case of simply welcoming somebody strong who could impose order on chaos?

And again, regarding current revolutions - why do people keep doing things that have failed (or at least been only questionably successful) expecting that this time it’ll be different? Socialist revolution. Islamic revolution. Are we really that bereft of ideas now? Nothing new on the horizon?

Evolution seems to work better than revolution.

This idea that dictatorship is a successful result of a revolution because it “improves” the welfare of the “people” has a problem, and not a slight one at that. Simply because there has been no dictatorship, except benevolent dictatorships, that have improved the standard of their followers.

You would think that this idea or “philosophy” that anything is better than nothing because nothing is the worst, should have applied in people’s treatment of the US invading Iraq to install democracy. Presumably people living in democracies prefer to live in democracies and not anything else.

The Cuban people actually had a higher living standard than they do today. As reporters have found out in Cuba, many people can’t find jobs, so whoring is a way to make some quick bucks to pay for education.

There is a logic gap present. When people believe dictatorship is better cause well you know the Cubans had nothing but whorehouses before, and now they got more whorehouses now so it is better. Well, the logic would work if it really was better. However, would people have tolerated Batista’s so called “illegal” government if it meant giving the people of Cuba a good economy? Isn’t that the logic shown here, that even dictatorships should be tolerated if it is good for the “people”?

The argument then in the end is whether the Cubans and Iraqis were better off before or after. Nobody’ll ever agree on that, simply because the West is too busy playing power politics than try to improve the lives of Cubans and Iraqis. The one time that the US spent any attention in the worst places of the world, they were upbraided for disrupting the status quo.

Can anyone comment on two different revolutionary characters: One who wants to restore an old order or repair an existing one vs. one who wants to destroy the existing order and put something new in its place? Is one frequently more successful than the other?

Well, I think it has to do with conservatism. I can’t comment on success rates. When I was studying European history and military history, I didn’t exactly catologue how many revolutions were successful and when they happened. I was more concerned with how to win revolutionary wars, not what to do afterwards.

It has to do with conservatism because a society and a civilization cannot sustain itself basically on New Age philosophy. There has to be something solid, something that has been proven to work, to prop up the entire edifice. If you don’t have that, then you’re basically building a skyscraper without a good foundation. Something bad will happen, like when the Tower of Piza started sliding in the mud.

The military is probably one of the most conservative organizations in history, in the sense that the military has always relied upon what has been proven to “work” against an enemy. An army constructed upon entirely new and different training and fighting methods will not succede. A lot of people have died proving that. However, you get a problem. Because when something new does occur, like the carrier in WWII, you have a bunch of battleship admirals that keep fighting the carrier philosophy because they want to go with what has worked before. In peacetime that might be tolerated, in a war of survival, it cannot be tolerated. You cannot refuse a technological or tactical advantage simply because you are afraid to try something new. A society that does not change, will stagnate and die. A society that changes too much, will mutate and kill itself.

Therefore reforming a government is always going to have more chance of success than instituting a new government. The reason why you should not expect a democracy in Kuwaitt (One tribe gets elected to PM all the time) and democracy in Iraq/Afghanistan to look the same as our government. Not because we should not expect them to uphold the same human rights as we do, right to bear arms in self-defense, right to free speech and practice religion. No, we should not expect them to be same because all politics are local. Which means, all politics derives their systemic foundation from the specific societal rituals and histories.

The Arabs are governed by tribes, patriarchy. If you reform it as Kuwaitt has done, and make each tribe a “democratic grass roots organization” with the leader being the “patrician” then you have democracy, but not democracy as we know it here in the US. We have parties and special interests, our organization is not organized around family politics. There IS family politics, but the political organization at the TOP is not based upon families, but PACs, fund raisers, etc.

This has to do also with trying to bring an anarchic nation to full civilization. That does not work all that often because the “stress” upon the society is too much. Engineers probably know more about. There is such a thing as “Social Engineering” but there’s not a job market out for them. “Social Engineering” is what an engineer does if he is asked to rebuild a society from the ground up, to something better. Gradual reformation and improvements are best, like here in America. (Because there really aren’t that many social engineers out there with the power to do anything) Slavery didn’t get eliminated immediately, neither was racism or discrimmination or jim crow. However, if you are absolutely required to jump start a country like Iraq, then if anyone can do it, America can.

Remember how people kept saying that there would be like a more advanced civilization out in the stars, and that they would come and teach us why war is wrong and stupid and all that? That’s social engineering. However, you really can’t engineer war out of the equation, because some things are irreducible and non-transformative. You can’t transform helium to hydrogen, for example, there are some human as well as physical limits to change and engineering.

spoilt middle class brats - well if you are discussing the red brigades etc.

I don’t think the divide is between restorative and destructive revolutions so much as between successful e.g. the us and unsuccessful e.g. Cambodia. It may be that the “great big change” revolutions are more likely to be a consequence of the roe extreme situations.

It is worth thinking that Mussolini came to power by a form of revolution and his whole ethos was restorative of some ill defined glorious past. Also Pinochet’s coup in Chile was restorative in ideology but extremely unpleasant and divisive in practice.

Good point - oppression leads to desperation. Unfortunately, desperation often leads to more oppression. While I can sympathize with the plight of Venezuelans, Cubans, Russians, and others, I think it’s unfortunate that they continue to allow their governments to be hijacked by every el jefe who promises them more money, more security, and by the way Death to America. Did they learn nothing from the Russians, the Germans, the Cambodians?

More importantly, are there any alternatives for them that cannot be subverted by corrupt or foolish politicians bent on hogging all the power? And if there are, can those alternatives be implemented without a lot of bloodshed?

Ya got me - I’m just asking.

I think a lot of it depends on the character and history of the populations involved. I was reading about Wat Tyler’s revolt and comparing that to the Peasants’ Revolt in France. Tyler and his followers marched on London and tried to present their grievances to the King. The Jacques marched through France trying to kill every noble they could get their hands on. If I understand correctly, an English peasant believed he had certain rights - although limited ones, while a French peasant was basically chattel. The Englishman believed someone might listen to his complaints; the Frenchman believed no one would listen. Hence the difference in the character and outcome of the two revolts. (Admittedly, the peasants lost on both counts, but the French ones lost big.)

I’m not familiar with the Greek revolution. Were the Greek people oppressed by their government, with no avenue for redressing their grievances?

And how do you explain the presence in relatively stable, prosperous countries like France, Germany, and Italy, of so-called revolutionary groups who seek to overthrow systems that, while not always fair, certainly cannot be described as oppressive?

No one has said that. However, I would say that not all revolutions are equal and the more history I read the more impressed I am with the American Revolution and the sadder I am about most, though not all, other revolutions.

Also the more history I read the more of mess I realize human life has been from the beginning, and the need to respect those things that have worked and learn from those that haven’t.

I’m not an historian, but it seems to me that the English and their offspring (Americans, etc.) tend to think of their revolts and revolutions as efforts to fix an existing system that’s somehow become dysfunctional. They would consider their form of government to be the most enlightened in the world, but occasionally hijacked by bad characters. From Wat Tyler to the American Revolution, the rebels typically claim that they’re merely seeking the rights due them as Englishmen. The French and various Marxists/socialists, on the other hand, considered their old systems irredeemably broken and sought to replace them with something totally different.

It seems like, in the English case, there is a base of commonality among the parties involved - they’re all Englishmen and they all agree, more or less, about certain basic rights. Their party affiliations tend to cut across social and economic classes. In the other cases, one party or class is clearly identified as the enemy, and must be completely disempowered if not destroyed. The French had their aristocrats, and Marxists their bourgeois parasites - all for the chop or the gulag.

So I’m wondering if “restorative” revolutions tend to be less bloodthirsty than “destructive” revolutions.

For example, the Russian Revolution, one that I am sure is not so popular on this site, was largely the consequence of a highly corrupt and incompetent autocratic monarchy fighting a war in which the lives of poor people were simply wasted. It is very unlikely that Bolshevism would have got anywhere if it were not for the extreme circumstances of the time. It is also worth considering about what the Germans were thinking when Lenin was sent to the Finland Station.

The mayhem then continued as the provisional government was overthrown by Lenin, western forces intervened - ineptly - allowing the red army et al to paint a paranoid picture of a country under threat, then….well i am sure you know the rest of the sorry tale.

The point I make is that it is not simply the revolution that is the cause of violence but the whole process. Authoritarian governemnt, oppression, revolution, chaos and bloodshed as the revolution tears itself to bits. In the end the Russian people were glad of someone to take control of the whole mess. Even someone as murderous and deranged as Stalin.

One of the many reasons why democracy is the best method of government is that it, generally, does not treat its people so badly that they feel they have no avenue other than violence. In the event of violence democratic governments have a, sensible, tendency to avoid a simple crackdown, usually looking to deal with the causes of the outbreak. This puts a safety valve into the system which stops the whole process.

However. The question remains as to what you should do when you are in an extreme situation of exploitation. Remain quiet and put up with it?

or rebel?

Or is the only acceptable form of revolution the American one, and that was a one off and should never be repeated.

For th epoeple of Cuba in the 1950’s the situation was not all sweetness andlight. Castro didn’t become popular because he had a nice beard. It happened because the people were treated like dirt by a nasty little dictatorship supported by US corporations and government. Meanwhile US organised crime was turning the place into an offshore gambling house come brothel.

Protests against Batista’s illegal regime were fiercly put down and the whole mess got going. And yes Castro turned out to be a dictator, but at the time what were the Cuban people supposed to do. Remain low wage sugar workers for ever? Or hope to move into the employ of casinos and whorehouses?

Or have a radical change?

ditto Venezuala and lots of other places that I am sure you all find despicable but whose people did not want to be pushed around any more.

It was interesting seeing the French Revolution from the perspective of someone trying to change things, and in the end simply installed something worse, yet he could not stop. Because the thing he set into motion took on a life of its own, a hunger of its own. Riding the tiger is all good and nice, until you want to get off and realize the tiger is going to eat you if you do.

I was also making a sideways joke about movie quality, given how all my friends were reporting disappointments with current releases, like M:I:3, Da Vinci Code, etc., but the humor in finding a past release “disappointing” too didn’t really come through in my post.

At any rate: What were they — Ghotbzadeh, Robespierre, Trotsky, and the rest — thinking in their last moments? I’ve wondered that myself. I’ve wondered if they thought their revolutions were heading in the wrong directions but were at least still essentially the proper path to follow, or if they had doubts about legitimacy (not “legality”, I’m talking moral legitimacy) of their revolutions themselves. In other words, did they lament the direction but still think the movement good at heart? Or did they, in their last moments, reject the entire endeavor? For some odd reason I suspect it’s the former, but I need to think that through first. I don’t know enough about those individuals to speak definitively yet.

Further follow-up, because I enjoy taking apart posts which start with “Ummm”:

France is now in its Fifth Republic. This means that the French government has collapsed and been reconstituted as a republic five times–the First Republic being the result of the French Revolution and the Fifth Republic established by De Gaulle in 1958 as a response to the Algerian Crisis.

These five republics don’t include the intervening periods of dictatorship, monarchy, and occupation since 1792. France has had neither a stable nor IMO a particularly admirable history since the French Revolution.

However, this does not prevent French politicians from lecturing the world, especially the United States, on enlightened political conduct.

Those who equate the French Revolution with the American Revolution are either ignorant of history or unconcerned with historical results.

Mobs are more like babies, just wanting to have an EFFECT. Listen to our shouting, we want to make a DIFFERENCE.
Off with his head — that’s a difference.
Next.

typo question? “how over the course of time these people compromised and hardened until they were all but recognizable” — unrecognizable?

It is as if they believe they can do so much better.

…and so a moderate and much needed voice was silenced. The shouters at these points in a Revolution drive justice underground. They are like bodiless heads whose shouting [knobless radios] reminds us that we may follow their destiny.

Ah, and there is this little gem, James tried to regain his throne starting in Ireland and using French troops. After the Battle of the Boyne he fled,
“earning the Irish nickname Séamus á Chaca (James the Shit).” Heh.

I admit to a soft spot for Queen Ann and Marlborough, so the era launched by the glorious revolution appeals to me.

Hey, he was dead, what did he care? I think his son was executed, though. Anyway, Cromwell instituted reforms in education, government, and particularly the navy that carried forward. I don’t know that much about the era, but that much I seem to recall.

In 1661, Oliver Cromwell’s body was exhumed from Westminster Abbey, and was subjected to the ritual of a posthumous execution – significantly, this took place on January 30 – the same date that Charles I had been executed. Cromwell’s body was hanged, drawn and quartered. At the end, his body was thrown into a pit. His severed head was displayed on a pole outside Westminster Abbey until 1685. Afterwards it changed hands several times, before eventually being buried in the grounds of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1960.

I don’t think if we treated Washington like this, we could say with a straight face that his Revolution was an unmitigated success.

I wouldn’t repeat that to an Irishman if I were you.

In what sense didn’t he succeed? He retired from office without incident and was succeeded by his son, who likewise soon retired. Charles II himself returned after a new election brought forth a royalist parliament who asked him to back. On the whole, the monarchy was decreased and made subservient to parliament. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 followed soon upon the succession of James II who forgot this fact. Seems to me that Cromwell succeeded wonderfully in changing the nature of British government. Perhaps, however, he didn’t succeed in his own estimation. I don’t know.

Thus I tend to see it as just, and fitting, to recognize the only revolution worthy of the name, one of the few rare successfull Revolutions. And most assuredly, THE most successful Revolution in the history of mankind. It might not have appeared to have been a revolution, and it might not have been intended to upset the history of misery in human affairs, but what it ended up doing was something else entire.

Wars tend to do that. From saving the Union, to a war of liberation. From preserving the safety of Americans and the national interest of America, to a crusade against darkness, ignorance, savagery, and despair in the Middle East.

Another thing was, America already had a self-autonomous system of governance. Therefore the transition was very smooth.

The Civil War was a rebellion by the Southern Rebels. Yet it was obviously not the Revolutionary War. I think the difference lies in political vs grassroots revolutions and rebellions. The Civ War was a political rebellion, but it was not a grassroots revolution or rebellion.

The Revolutionary War required the support of the people, like any guerrila war or revolution. Politically, it is more similar to secession and rebellion than overthrowment and the New Order, but for the people they were rebelling at their leaders. In the Civ War, the people’s leaders were rebelling against the Union. People like Lee went back to their states to fight for the Confederacy because their leaders were their STATES, not the President of the United States.

For many colonists in the New World, King Bush was their ruler.

There’s some complex variations on the theme here.

Yes, I’m aware that the French celebrate their revolution and Bastille Day is coming up (July 14).

However, unless one measures a revolution only by its ideals or by what it overthrows, it’s hard to see how the French Revolution can be called a success. It led almost immediately to despotism and the Reign of Terror. Within ten years Napoleon Bonaparte gained power and established a dictatorship.

Given these historical realities I wouldn’t call the French Revolution a success.

at that time overthrowing kings was revolutionary

Oliver Cromwell tried to revolt against the corrupt monarchy. He didn’t quite succede.

Tianamen Square did not succede. As has been already discussed, the Leftist Revolution in Iran ended up with many of the Leftists being purged, the Revolution for freedom hijacked by the Revolution to rape women and then execute them for it. Which I suppose, might be a success, if one were in league with Dark Forces of humanity that is.

In this sense, Washington was a rebel, certainly, but not a “revolutionary” in the style of Marat and Robespierre.

It really allowed us to avoid the problem of what to do with them, whether to imprison them, deport them, starve them, or just execute them.

Ummm, the French would say their’s was. The English, although it was more of a metamorphosis than a revolution per se, could argue that they were successful. India has a case. China, albeit with some serious stutters. A few others. The Iranians successfully kicked out the puppet Shah and have a nascent democracy.

It depends on your definition of success though doesn’t it. And how you define what is a revolution or something else.

I seem to recall that Gage exalted over the death of one of the brothers, shot in the mouth, the great orator justly served by the furies. I think there was also a woman betrayer, a beauty, who died disfigured by cancer. A certain sense of divine vengence hung about the various denouements. Very Greek, I thought, like the tragedies.

I don’t think Robespierre had regrets, there wasn’t time. Trotsky, a believer in the Marxist science of history, theorised and made rationalizations. I don’t think he ever accepted personal responsibility for putting in place many of the tools of tyranny, and indeed employing them. He did confess that he was too serious for those erstwhile revolutionaries who just wanted to play cards and have a bit of peace and comfort, but that strikes me as a bit too cute. Claiming to be too virtous in a world of lesser beings isn’t a serious confession. Judging by his autobiography the man was a bit of a prig.

I remember talking to Iranians during the revolution; our school excelled in irrigation science and had long cultivated connections to the country, so at the time there were perhaps 100 Iranians on campus. Come the revolution there were demonstrations and fights between those supporting the different factions. Anyway I told them to beware the witch hunts, that no good would come of them, but they dismissed historical precedent. Less than dismissed, they didn’t even note it. So it was.

The beauty of the American revolution was that so little actually changed in law, religion, and custom. It too could have been a bloody mess otherwise. Even so, many Loyalists fled to Canada.