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| Paris Opera House |
During my visits to Paris — and I've only been there three times, I'm no Jack Clark — at some point, while absorbing another tableaux of magnificence, I'll at one point think something along the lines of, "Of course it should have all been blown to flinders fighting off the Germans in 1940."
Instead the Wehrmacht rolled in, more or less unopposed.
Which the Americans held against them — or at least I did — for a very long time. What was Groundskeeper Willie's phrase? Oh yes. "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys."
That was unfair. Many other nations collapsed in front of the Nazi onslaught at the start of World War II. The fist of totalitarianism can be very strong. Look at the Russian attack hammering Ukraine. A sane nation would have never started the war, or stopped after it became clear that it had become a deadlock. Four years and counting. But Putin, like Trump, enters into bloodshed with barely a thought, and continues it for the same reason. Or rather, due to one, rigid thought: he doesn't want to lose, and one way to keep from being seen as the loser you are is to continue playing after the game is actually over.
Americans taught the French freedom. I get the sense that, with its king and its royal court and guillotines, people are tempted to place the French Revolution before the American one, with our more modest wigs and homespun fashion. The French Revolution seems older. But we declared independence from royalty on July 4, 1776, and the French didn't manage until Bastille Day — today — July 14, 1789, the storming of the Bastille prison during the French Revolution thirteen years later.
Now of course, it is Americans who need instruction in what it means to be free. To refuse the seduction of autocracy, of just lying back and letting strongmen roll over us and do their thing. Freedom is not won, or lost, in a moment. Its loss is a long, wearying, frustrating, heartbreaking process. We've been becoming more unfree for years now. Some of us seem to be getting used to it. Or just tired. Or given up hope.
The president and his family personally made more than $2 billion since the taking of office last year. Mostly from a crypto currency scam. Not a vast personal fortune, on the Elon Musk scale. But enough to want to hold onto. You can see why Trump is so hot to pervert elections so that a Congress that might ask, "Is this legal?" never takes office.
And the American people? Well, we aren't happy, except those of us who are, no matter what. Not pleased with this direction. But what are we doing about it? What can be done? Put our faith in the degraded elections, four months away, maybe? Wait for something good to happen? Hope, as the saying goes, is not a strategy. Meanwhile, unlike the French, our own nation's capital was defaced, not resisting the enemies of freedom, but celebrating them. A physical mess mirroring the moral, intellectual, legal, governmental decay we sink deeper and deeper into, day by day. When is our Bastille Day? Certainly not today, not tomorrow, not anytime soon.
Instead the Wehrmacht rolled in, more or less unopposed.
Which the Americans held against them — or at least I did — for a very long time. What was Groundskeeper Willie's phrase? Oh yes. "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys."
That was unfair. Many other nations collapsed in front of the Nazi onslaught at the start of World War II. The fist of totalitarianism can be very strong. Look at the Russian attack hammering Ukraine. A sane nation would have never started the war, or stopped after it became clear that it had become a deadlock. Four years and counting. But Putin, like Trump, enters into bloodshed with barely a thought, and continues it for the same reason. Or rather, due to one, rigid thought: he doesn't want to lose, and one way to keep from being seen as the loser you are is to continue playing after the game is actually over.
Americans taught the French freedom. I get the sense that, with its king and its royal court and guillotines, people are tempted to place the French Revolution before the American one, with our more modest wigs and homespun fashion. The French Revolution seems older. But we declared independence from royalty on July 4, 1776, and the French didn't manage until Bastille Day — today — July 14, 1789, the storming of the Bastille prison during the French Revolution thirteen years later.
Now of course, it is Americans who need instruction in what it means to be free. To refuse the seduction of autocracy, of just lying back and letting strongmen roll over us and do their thing. Freedom is not won, or lost, in a moment. Its loss is a long, wearying, frustrating, heartbreaking process. We've been becoming more unfree for years now. Some of us seem to be getting used to it. Or just tired. Or given up hope.
The president and his family personally made more than $2 billion since the taking of office last year. Mostly from a crypto currency scam. Not a vast personal fortune, on the Elon Musk scale. But enough to want to hold onto. You can see why Trump is so hot to pervert elections so that a Congress that might ask, "Is this legal?" never takes office.
And the American people? Well, we aren't happy, except those of us who are, no matter what. Not pleased with this direction. But what are we doing about it? What can be done? Put our faith in the degraded elections, four months away, maybe? Wait for something good to happen? Hope, as the saying goes, is not a strategy. Meanwhile, unlike the French, our own nation's capital was defaced, not resisting the enemies of freedom, but celebrating them. A physical mess mirroring the moral, intellectual, legal, governmental decay we sink deeper and deeper into, day by day. When is our Bastille Day? Certainly not today, not tomorrow, not anytime soon.
A scammer, that Trump, who only cares about lining his pockets.
ReplyDeleteAnd an entire party -- republican, conservative, fascist, right, maga -- who allow it.
DeleteIt may be a commentary on the dismal state of our culture that the first time I ever heard of Bastille Day was from the Rush song of the same name that kicked off their great double live album “All the World’s a Stage”, but in fairness, I was only about 12 at the time, and they simply hadn’t gotten around to teaching the French Revolution in history class yet. By 8th grade, it was taught with great thoroughness (replete with reading “A Tale of Two Cities), leaving me fascinated by the historical insights, and ever more appreciative of Neil Peart’s lyrical talent.
ReplyDeleteThe one genius of the American revolution was there was no internal violence afterwards. The French started killing each other & then even the revolutionaries turned on the other revolutionaries.
ReplyDeleteLook at the other revolutions over the centuries.
The Russians started purging right after 1917 & continued until well after WWII.
The Chinese under Mao, never stopped until they finally realized the Cultural Revolution almost destroyed them. Even then they have been many imprisonments & killings, such as after Tienanmen Square & today, dictator for life Xi Jing Ping imprisons & kills his opponents!
North Korea also endlessly kills anyone that opposes the Kim Family.
Numerous African, Asian & South & Central American countries have experienced that too.
That's what made ours unique. other than Loyalists who fled to Canada, they was no organized killing of the British supporters, maybe a few were hanged, more likely because they contributed to the deaths of revolutionaries, than just because they were Loyalists to the king.
But now we have a would be king with that insane self hating Jew Stephen Miller, emulating his obvious hero, Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Nazi SS, which carried out the murders of six Million Jews!
I believe Miller is easily the single worst person in American history, even worse than his demented & deranged boss!
I believe I just saw something about Trump wanting form a committee to oversee crypto transactions and not the SEC in the name of Lindsey Graham.
ReplyDeleteMy wife and I celebrate Bastille Day every year. It's her birthday.
ReplyDeletei'm with you grizz, i've been celebrating for years. i was stationed in france, along the maginot line, before degulle pulled out of nato. been in love with the place ever since. they have their flaws of course, but the main reason some americans don't like them is that they were reight about viet nam (their personal experience, and mine), iraq, and the current scumbags adventures in iran.
DeletePutin is a psychopath. Causing death and misery is mother's milk to him. It validates his need to dominate and control others. These types will always be with us, but why we let them run countries and inflict their boundless cruelty on the world is a sad commentary on the human psyche.
ReplyDeleteIf we fail in November, and again in 2028, we'll be on shaky ground. After that, if the courts fail to protect us, it's going to get violent. Very violent, very quick. Watch what happens when the government tries to take away all those guns. I keep telling people that the liberals won't ever come for their guns. It will be frightened fascists.
ReplyDeletethat's why our side doesn't have enough of them
DeleteIt won't be after '28. It'll be sooner, rather than later. If Felonious dies tomorrow, there will be spontaneous celebrations and other expressions of joy, just as there were in 2020, when Joe's victory was announced...after four days.
DeleteThe fascists will be angry when that happens. They will retaliate. Brawls. Drive-by shootings. Pickup trucks mowing down crowds. Then the guns will come out. On both sides. And it will only escalate from there. Literally overnight. The gasoline is in place. All that is needed is a spark. And the reaction upon news of his death might prove to be the match.
The real question that follows is this...WWJDD...what will J.D. do? Like his boss, that puppy is pretty sick. Will he order the military to fire on Americans? Will they obey? People like to think that "no more Trump" means our worst troubles are finally over. Not so, Boston. They may be just beginning..
Of course a Vance military would shoot Americans. Trump's ICE is already doing it.
DeleteAnd when I say the liberals won't come for their guns, I mean the liberals don't want to take guns away from citizens. That was never a thing. Let's face it, liberals are liberal. "They're coming for your guns" was always fear mongering by the right.
Come on fellas. We're about to have midterm elections let's hope nobody's going to be shooting anybody that day. Just like nobody shot anybody during the last election. Let alone something resembling warfare in the streets.
DeleteWe have a national guard that would prevent that.
ICE is not the US military.
They are a poorly trained police force.
People are encouraged to disobey or choose to disobey because they don't want to be expelled from this country.
Paranoia is getting the better of you. Griz has been predicting another civil war for years now. Stop looking at your screens and just look out your window everything's fine just look out the window.
Famous last words: everything's fine.
DeleteTwo words: Pearl Harbor. Or Nine-Eleven. Or Donald Trump.
Yeah, everything's fine. No worries. Ask the two women who lost to him.
sometimes it pains me to read and learn, knowing the people who are in most need of this information will turn their noses up at it as propaganda and stupid European stuff.
ReplyDeleteThe people on the Titanic's aft could easily have claimed everything was OK. After all, they were dry and only slightly rising. People are fools to think actions on the other side of the world will not affect them... they will, it will just take a little bit longer to get here.
Death comes for us all, you cannot out run him.