The French Revolution began in 1789 with the convocation of the Estates-General in May.
The next few years were dominated by tensions between various liberal assemblies and a right-wing monarchy intent on thwarting major reforms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
There are differences between today’s America and France despite the obvious similarities. We have no Liberal Wing of Congress or Press, the Progressive Caucus in the House is a joke they surrender as soon as Obama sneezes.
The closest thing we have to a Liberal Assembile pushing for change is the Left Wing Blogs informing people and getting the majority support of the American People for Government creating jobs,ending both wars now, taxing the rich more, and not cutting Social Security and Medicare.
The Left Wing Blogs have surprisingly managed to do this despite no Main Stream Media coverage. To add insult to injury the MSM’s declining ability to brainwash the American Voters with Right Wing Propaganda is flueing the Growth of the Left Wing Blogs.
The MSM is shrinking in readers/viewers and losing Credibility because instead of informing people about all the ideas about the issues they are pushing only Right Wing ideas to thwart Lefty major reforms. The Left Wing blogs grow because we allow new ideas and give everyone the freedom to argue for or against the ideas presented and to present their own ideas.
We try to maintain some politeness but we still name call sometimes, we do however insist on facts, links to sources, Statistics etc our lowly commentor’s have more Journalistic ethics than NYT writers like David Brooks, Thomas Friedman and of course Judy Miller. Why when confronted with facts we admit we are wrong, after double checking the facts presented of course.
We have more science Cred than global warming deniers and more economic Cred than the Wallstreet TV talking heads who claimed the Bush economy was great…right before the banking crisis.
Adherents of most historical models identify many of the same features of the Ancien Régime as being among the causes of the Revolution. Economic factors included hungerand malnutrition in the most destitute segments of the population, due to rising bread prices (from a normal 8 sous for a four-pound loaf to 12 sous by the end of 1789),[3] after several years of poor grain harvests. Bad harvests (caused in part by extreme weather from El Niñoalong with volcanic activity at Laki and Grímsvötn), rising food prices, and an inadequate transportation system that hindered the shipment of bulk foods from rural areas to large population centers contributed greatly to the destabilization of French society in the years leading up to the Revolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
We don’t have bad harvests but we do have a declining store of corn and other crops we are ill prepared if El Nino and or a Volcano hurts our harvests.
We don’t have an inflation problem however food and gas prices are not factored in when inflation numbers are calculated but that does not mean inflation does not exists.
I remember Gas below $2 a gallon its now $4 a gallon in Illinois my wages assuming I had a job did not double during this time period gas is a necessary expense for workers to get to work. Not using gas prices to factor in inflation throws inflation numbers off and lets the ruling classes lie to themselves about how things are not really that bad.
We do unlike France at the time have a system that ships food quite well but on the other hand we have a system that produces unhealthy food in bulk causing Obesity, Diabetes, Cancer, and Malnutrition these diseases cost our economy as a whole. We may not be starving but we do have serious food issues.
Well we are not starving yet.
Thanks to Global Warming, the Gulf Oil Spill, the Japanese Nuclear problem, coral reefs dying crop and fish harvests are very likely to be lower.
Commodity prices: Stocks for corn and soybeans are very slim, so prices could climb even higher if production shortages develop this summer. It likely will take two years to better restore low stocks, keeping prices strong and volatile until at least the 2012 crop year. “Price volatility sometimes seems very positive for producers when prices are going up for the products they sell but it also means that there could be periods where prices drop very, very quickly,” Hurt says.
http://cornandsoybeandigest.com/...
Fish catch per capita is no longer increasing
For a while, market demand for fish and dramatic developments in fishing technology – larger fleets, open ocean factory ships, transparent lines and nets, huge drift nets, bottom trawlers and electronic fish finders led to increases in annual catch. However, total annual catch has leveled off. The global fishing fleet capacity is nearly double the sustainable supply. Many populations of formerly abundant high trophic level species (such as cod) have collapsed. Fishermen are now fishing “down the food web” – catching smaller species that used to be considered “bait” or were food for the larger fish that are no longer abundant enough to catch.
http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/...
Another cause was the state’s effective bankruptcy due to the enormous cost of previous wars, particularly the financial strain caused by French participation in the American Revolutionary War. The national debt amounted to some 1,000–2,000 million[citation needed]livres. The social burdens caused by war included the huge war debt, made worse by the loss of France’s colonial possessions in North America and the growing commercial dominance of Great Britain. France’s inefficient and antiquated financial system was unable to manage the national debt, something which was both partially caused and exacerbated by the burden of an inadequate system of taxation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
The social burdens caused by America’s huge war along with tax cuts for the rich in wartime made our debt worse. ( I cannot think of any country that cut taxes during wartime from an economic standpoint this maybe the dumbest thing ever in economic history.) Cuts to Social Security and Medicare will further harm the consumer spending our economy is dependent on.
Meanwhile, the royal court at Versailles was seen as being isolated from, and indifferent to, the hardships of the lower classes.
Both the Democrats, Republicans and the Mainstream Media claim to care about the lower classes but their actions vary from their words. Billions to bailout banks, billions for war, tax cuts for the rich all paid for with our Social Security and Medicare money.
Washington is so isolated from reality that our ideas to fix the budget and create jobs like ending both wars, selling the gold in Fort Knox that is earning us no interest by the way, closing tax loopholes or taxing the rich more now to create jobs now get no mention in the press.
Its like we the majority of people don’t even exist. The Press and Washington won’t debate our ideas because they know cutting Social Security and Medicare is unpopular and voters already choose our ideas over their ideas. Yet they claim the only Serious ideas to fix the budget are to cut Social Security and Medicare never mind their plan uses our money to give the rich a tax break. Using Government money to create jobs is of course impossible they say because we are broke. Yet somehow FDR created jobs during the Great Depression is their Counter Argument that America is worse off now than during the Great Depression?
The isolated Rich Elite Ruling Class keep having their fundraisers at strip clubs and drink $350 a bottle wine! Never mind that Party Boy Rep Ryan is now the most unpopular Politician in America the Right Wing Media just does not see the anger of the People or the danger of angering the people Louis XVI’s fate worries them not.
They think scapegoats like Obama, Illegal Immigrants, Gays, Muslims Lefties, etc will let them get away scott free for destroying our economy. They don’t seem to realize that Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck and Fox News were losing viewers even before Rupert’s phone hacking scandal even as the Daily Show gains and remember the Daily Show is not shown in Primetime. I wonder what the ratings and newspaper circulation numbers will be after the phone hacking scandal:)
Rush Limbaugh’s Ratings Have Fallen 30% In The Last Six Months
The just-released Arbitron report reveals that a lot less people are listening to right-wing talk radio.
http://democratsforprogress.com/...
Jon Stewart came right after Ailes said of the folks at NPR that “They are, of course, Nazis.” And who can forget Bill O’Reilly dismissing Stewart’s audience as a bunch of “stoned slackers.”
Well, Stewart is getting the last laugh. His program on Comedy Central averaged 2.3 million total viewers this May and was 19% higher than May of 2010. The Fox News primetime lineup for May averaged only 1.85 million viewers and declined by 10%. In fact, Stewart beat every program on Fox in total viewers except for Bill O’Reilly. However, projections for demographic breaks of 25-54 and 18-49 suggest that Stewart beat even O’Reilly, likely delivering twice as many demo viewers as O’Reilly.
http://www.newscorpse.com/...
While in theory King Louis XVI was an absolute monarch, in practice he was often indecisive and known to back down when faced with strong opposition.
Obama and the Democrats surrender on every issue even before they are faced with strong opposition.
Google Obama and Surrender and you get 14,500,000 results on google in .23 seconds. Google Obama Strong Leader you get 3,060 results in 19 seconds. Obama may think compromise is the way to get laws passed but apparently a majority of voters don’t think he is a strong leader or like the laws he is passing.
Obama has a popular majority of the voters supporting him rather than appeal to the people to force Congress the people’s Representatives to represent the Will of the People. Obama seems content to just surrender.
While he did reduce government expenditures, opponents in the parlements successfully thwarted his attempts at enacting much needed reforms. Those who were opposed to Louis’ policies further undermined royal authority by distributing pamphlets (often reporting false or exaggerated information) that criticized the government and its officials, stirring up public opinion against the monarchy.[4]
Obama’s opponents undermine his Presidential authority by questioning his very birth, religion, etc. They report false and exaggerated information and even won a court case arguing that freedom of speech means news organizations need the freedom to lie.
Jane Akre and her husband Steve Wilson are former employees of Fox owned-and-operated station WTVT in Tampa, Florida. In 1997, they were fired from the station after refusing to knowingly include false information in their report concerning the Monsanto Company’s production of RBGH, a drug designed to make cows produce more milk. They successfully sued under Florida’s whistle blower law and were awarded a US $425,000 settlement by jury decision. However, Fox appealed to an appellate court and won, after the court declared that the FCC policy against falsification that Fox violated was just a policy and not a “law, rule, or regulation”, and so the whistle blower law did not apply.
The court agreed with WTVT’s (Fox) argument “that the FCC’s policy against the intentional falsification of the news — which the FCC has called its “news distortion policy” — does not qualify as the required “law, rule, or regulation” under section 448.102.[...] Because the FCC’s news distortion policy is not a “law, rule, or regulation” under section 448.102,
http://foxnewsboycott.com/...
Never mind the Racial, anti Woman, Gay, Lefty etc scapegoating that Fox does to rally their 30%er mob of flying monkeys which in other more civilized countries would be called hate speech.
It was the alcohol and drugs talking, not John Galliano.
That’s the defense being used, predictably, by the English fashion designer, who went on trial in Paris today for anti-Semitic rants made at a restaurant in the French capital in October and February. The comments qualify as criminal hate speech in France, where Galliano faces up to six months in prison and a fine of roughly $32,400.
http://blogs.forward.com/...
In civilized countries even the rich and powerful are accountable. In America Lou Dobbs can lie about Illegal Immigrants spreading Leprosy an act I am sure led to some hate crimes maybe even deaths against Hispanics legal, illegal, Mexican and Non Mexican even as Lou had illegal immigrants working on his horse farm. Racist don't ask if your legal they just see your brown or if you have a Spanish accent since some of us are White or Black.
Mitt Romney can hire Illegal Immigrants fire them, rehire them and still be against illegal immigration but the Right Wing Media never calls him or Lou out on this. The rich in America can lie, spread hate, scapegoat Out Groups for the economic problems their lets not regulate the Banks policy created and even attack Obama with lies said on public airwaves.
Fine Obama may not like the Left but can any ruler be called strong if he lets himself be attacked this way?
Can any ruler be called effective if the laws he does pass are too Left for his critics and too Right for the Majority of the People? Healthcare that does not cut rising drug costs or insurance costs, job Stimulus thats to small and mostly tax cuts for the rich are what Obama calls his successes?
Obama compromises to get laws passed rather than fight for effective change. Change for the sake of change in name only is winning Obama no friends from the Right or Left.
America is in Crisis and we need strong leaders with new ideas. We need the rich to sacrifice now and pay more taxes so the government can create jobs. Its been 2 years Obama the rich sitting on their $2 Trillion in savings are not going to create jobs no matter how long you wait hoping like a bride with wilted flowers outside a church after dark hoping that your rich guy in the end will do right by you.
The Right hopes to use the economic crisis as a Shock Doctrine tactic to get power and steal our Social Security and Medicare they want to scapegoat the poor, the dark, the left etc and blame us for America’s troubles.
But as this diary points out America is not Germany after World War 1 its France Pre revolution. Rush and all of Fox News is losing People and if Obama refuses to lead either we replace him peacefully or there will be a revolution.