Sipsey Street Irregulars: The Arab 1848?

Sunday, January 30, 2011

The Arab 1848?

Barricade on the Rue Soufflot by Horace Vernet, 1848.

The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, Springtime of the Peoples[3] or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe. Described by some historians as a revolutionary wave, the period of unrest began in France and then, further propelled by the French Revolution of 1848, soon spread to the rest of Europe.

Although most of the revolutions were quickly put down, there was a significant amount of violence in many areas, with tens of thousands of people tortured and/or killed. While the immediate political effects of the revolutions were largely reversed, the long-term reverberations of the events were far-reaching. -- Wikipedia.

First Tunisia, now Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen. It is beginning to look a lot like 1848 in the Arab world. Not all outcomes may be for the best, however. Egypt: Three Possible Outcomes.

7 comments:

Steven M Nielson said...: A little revolution from time to time is said to be a good thing... even if it makes the muslims more radical... the enemy of freedom will always be the enemy of freedom, be it christian, muslim, or hindu... We must steady our shot on the heart of tyranny in any form. Let the middle east revolt. there are hopes that a republic can be born from the ashes (enough of this 'Democracy' B.S. - we want REPUBLICS!); January 30, 2011 at 11:02 AM
Pat H. said...: The "Forty-eighters" as those socialist revolutionaries were called left Europe under threat of arrest and lengthy prison terms, many of whom fled to America. They ardently supported Lincoln's War Against Southern Freedom, as did Karl Marx, hundreds joined the Union Army and were among the most brutal in their conquest of the Confederate States of America.

The progressive/fascist government in the District of Columbia has been meddling in the middle east for over 80 years, it'd be a surprise, to many of us at least, for them to adopt an attitude of friendship towards that government now.

As for how this affects Israel, who cares?; January 30, 2011 at 1:08 PM
Anonymous said...: "This will be the biggest disaster for the region and the West since the Iranian revolution 30 years ago. And in some ways it will be worse."

If the Muslim Brotherhood should bring down the Egyptian government, it will embolden the radicals in Turkey, as well. If Turkey falls, Iraq will have enemies to the north (Turkey), east (Iran), and west (Syria).

The patchworks alliance that holds Iraq together will likely fracture from the strain, and the billions in treasure that were pored into Iraq will have to be written off as a complete loss.

Lebanon will become a Syrian client state. Israel's continued existence will be called into question.

Hosni Mubarak may be a bastard, but he is *our* bastard. We can ill afford to lose him.

MALTHUS; January 30, 2011 at 1:36 PM
Defender said...: Foreigners urged to to get out of Egypt, Sunday Jan 30.
And the Left says Rush Limbaugh is xenophobic for making mock Chinese words when he complained that President Hu wasn't being translated on TV. Few of us speak Mandarin or Cantonese. "All you heard was ching chong ching."
Maybe Hu was saying 'We will bury you, and you'll be paying the gravedigger"?; January 30, 2011 at 5:00 PM
Defender said...: Pro-Arab Pro-Muslim al Jazeera news ordered to close Egypt offices.
What?
Maybe they're worried about supreme Muslim Brotherhood nastiness being seen in real time by the world. It won't look like a people's revolutoin any more.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/egypt-bans-arabic-broadcaster-al-jazeera/; January 31, 2011 at 12:52 AM
Sean said...: Pat H., I will always care how this effects Israel, and it is well known on the internet how much you seethe with hatred of the Jew. You, like your Nazi brothers, are going to get just what you're looking for. I really don't care what you believe in, but you are on a side that is not going to win. I pity you.; January 31, 2011 at 7:42 AM
Defender said...: Monkey Moon calls for overthrowing capitalism to save the planet.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/un-sec-gen-calls-for-revolution-world-economic-system-is-global-suicide-pact/; January 31, 2011 at 3:07 PM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Sunday, January 30, 2011

The Arab 1848?

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