US becoming like Nazi Germany you say? More like the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.

I have heard a great many people saying that America is going the way of Nazi Germany. But I have to disagree, the signs I see emerging points more to a French Revolution style situation.

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 widespread famine and malnutrition, which increased the likelihood of disease and death, and intentional starvation in the most destitute segments of the population in the months immediately before the Revolution. The famine extended even to other parts of Europe, and was not helped by a poor transportation infrastructure for bulk foods. (Recent research has also attributed the widespread famine to an El Niño effect following the 1783 Laki eruption on Iceland,[1] or colder climate of the Little Ice Age combined with France's failure to adopt the potato as a staple crop.)[2]

Another cause was the fact that Louis XV fought many wars, bringing France to the verge of bankruptcy, and Louis XVI supported the colonists during the American Revolution, exacerbating the precarious financial condition of the government. The national debt amounted to almost two billion livres. The social burdens caused by war included the huge war debt, made worse by the monarchy's military failures and ineptitude, and the lack of social services for war veterans. The inefficient and antiquated financial system was unable to manage the national debt, something which was both caused and exacerbated by the burden of a grossly inequitable system of taxation. Another cause was the continued conspicuous consumption of the noble class, especially the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette at Versailles, despite the financial burden on the populace. High unemployment and high bread prices caused more money to be spent on food and less in other areas of the economy. The Roman Catholic Church, the largest landowner in the country, levied a tax on crops known as the dime or tithe. While the dîme lessened the severity of the monarchy's tax increases, it worsened the plight of the poorest who faced a daily struggle with malnutrition. There was too little internal trade and too many customs barriers.[3]

There were also social and political factors, many of which involved resentments and aspirations given focus by the rise of Enlightenment ideals. These included resentment of royal absolutism; resentment by the ambitious professional and mercantile classes towards noble privileges and dominance in public life, as many of these classes were familiar with the lives of their peers in commercial cities in the Netherlands and Great Britain; resentment by peasants, wage-earners, and the bourgeoisie toward the traditional seigneurial privileges possessed by nobles; resentment of clerical advantage (anti-clericalism) and aspirations for freedom of religion, resentment of aristocratic bishops by the poorer rural clergy, continued hatred for Catholic control, and influence on institutions of all kinds by the large Protestant minorities; aspirations for liberty and (especially as the Revolution progressed) republicanism; and anger toward the King for firing Jacques Necker and A.R.J. Turgot (among other financial advisors), who were popularly seen as representatives of the people.[4]

Finally, perhaps above all, was the almost total failure of Louis XVI and his advisers to deal effectively with any of these problems.

French [email protected]

Sound at least alittle simular?

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows


Very interesting theory. I've never heard anyone relate present day United States of America to 1789 France. I think that it does have familiar issues. But I really don't think that America will have a revolution, or turn into a Fascist dictatorship. Sure it might seem like that to some people, but there is obviously a propaganda war going on in the news and the web.

A star and flag for introducing a great theory that should be noted by many on ATS.

reply to post by Trams


I really hope your right but I can't help but think we are headed for an Americanized version of the Reign of Terror.

This is what I think is going to happen:

First...people will be angry with government.

Second....the people will go after the rich.

Going after government is nothing but a symptom. Government is corrupt because of massive amounts of corporate money and special interests.

Eventually...I don't know how long it will take....people will be going after them. You can only keep people poor for so long as they watch the rich continue to get richer.

Ideology can only carry people so far.....survival will take over.

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows


Will Michelle Obama state,"Let them eat cake?"

Interesting post.

S&F

Funnily (?) enough, the theory of TimeWave Zero shows that the "resonances" that we are currently are going through relate directly back to the time period of the french revolution So it's very interesting to me to see you bringing this forward, because the similarities are DEFINITELY in place, and have been for a while now.


Very good!

reply to post by mikerussellus


Funny thing about that is Marie Antoinet didn't say anything of the sort.

Although commonly attributed to Marie Antoinette, others have pointed out that there is no record of these words ever having been spoken, but rather that it actually first appears in The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his putative autobiographical work, where he wrote the following in Book 6 (1736):

« Enfin je me rappelai le pis-aller d’une grande princesse à qui l’on disait que les paysans n’avaient pas de pain, et qui répondit : Qu’ils mangent de la brioche. J’achetai de la brioche. »

"Finally I recalled the worst-recourse of a great princess to whom one said that the peasants had no bread, and who responded: "Let them eat brioche..."

Rousseau does not name the "great princess", and it must be noted that he was an eighteenth-century philosophe and fiction writer, not a historian or a journalist, of whom one of his biographers wrote:

he was a mentally sick man . . . The conviction of total rectitude was a primary symptom of his illness . . . Evidence is cunningly fabricated, history rewritten and chronology confused with superb ingenuity . . . the truths Rousseau presents often turn out to be half-truths

So since he frequently made things up and this anecdote has no other source, this story is also probably his own invention. Suggestively, he also wrote to one grand lady: ‘It is the wealthy class, your class, that steals from mine the bread of my children’ and admitted to ‘a certain resentment against the rich.

SOURCE:en.wikipedia.org...

Which funnily enough sounds like sentiments enspoused in the post above yours.

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows


I humbly stand corrected.

reply to post by Jomina


Hm, haven't paid much attention to the "Timewave Zero Theory" much. Dismissed it as more millenial hoopla. Perhaps I need to look into it. Thank you.

reply to post by mikerussellus


I thought the same thing before I did a little research about the subject. It is after all a part of popular culture to think she said that. Not so sure she did anymore. Especially considering the source.

*edited because I was talking out my butt

*

[edit on 4-9-2009 by Watcher-In-The-Shadows]

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows


I always thought it was in reference to "cake" being the term used to describe the residue left in the ovens after baking.

And when she "stated" that, the cake she was refering to was the above mentioned.

Oh well, chalk it up to number 4,698 things that I've learned today.

From an essay by my grandaugher.

'Many historians credit the French Revolution as being the beginning of modern politics. The revolution single-handedly crushed the monarchical way of politics, the aristocratic domination up to that point in France, and the dominance of the church in French politics. The revolution abolished the feudal system and was one of the biggest steps towards modernity throughout history. The French Revolution was a successful endeavor on the part of the French people because it reformed social tradition and the hierarchy of French aristocracy by making all men equal, the Enlightenment ideals which the revolution was based on came through to a great extent, and the political structure of the French government went from a monarchy to a very close replica of the modern French government. Before the French Revolution, France was a feudal kingdom. Louis XVI ruled the land, and lords ruled certain manors throughout the kingdom. This meant that peasants, as well as nobles, were born into their respective situations, and could not change who they were and what rank in society they lived.'

The French are proud of the revolution and even today they will not take sh@t from their government. Maybe we ,the UK and USA should take a leaf out of their book, not brutaly but making more of a stand for our rights.

More info.

The Reign of Terror (5 September 1793 – 27 July 1794), also known as the The Terror (French: la Terreur) was a period of violence that occurred four years and two months after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of the revolution." Estimates vary widely as to how many were killed, with numbers ranging from 16,000 to 40,000; in many cases, records were not kept, or if they were, they are considered likely to be inaccurate. The guillotine ("National Razor") became the symbol of a string of executions: Marie Antoinette, the Girondins Philippe Égalité and Madame Roland, as well as many others, such as "the father of modern chemistry" Antoine Lavoisier, lost their lives under its blade.

During 1794, revolutionary France was beset with real or imagined conspiracies by internal and foreign enemies. Within France the revolution was opposed by the French nobility, which had lost its inherited privileges. The Roman Catholic Church was generally against the Revolution, which had turned the clergy into employees of the state and required they take an oath of loyalty to the nation (through the Civil Constitution of the Clergy). In addition, the First French Republic was engaged in a series of French Revolutionary Wars with neighboring powers.

The extension of civil war and the advance of foreign armies on national territory produced a political crisis, and increased the rivalry between the Girondins and the more radical Jacobins; the latter were eventually grouped in the parliamentary faction called the Mountain, and had the support of the Parisian population. The French government established the Committee of Public Safety, which took its final form on 6 September 1793 and was ultimately dominated by Maximilien Robespierre, in order to suppress internal counter-revolutionary activities and raise additional French military force. Through the Revolutionary Tribunal, the Terror's leaders exercised broad dictatorial powers and used them to instigate mass executions and political purges. The repression accelerated in June and July 1794, a period called "la Grande Terreur" (The Great Terror), and ended in the coup of 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794), the so-called "Thermidorian Reaction", in which several leaders of the Reign of Terror were executed, including Saint-Just and Robespierre.

SOURCE:Reign of [email protected]

Am I crazy to see possible parrellels here? We aren't to that point but I think we maybe pointed in that direction.

reply to post by dizzylizzy


Perhaps the ends came out good but the brutallity and orgy of blood letting that characterized it was nothing good. Reminds me a little bit of the actions of Stalin with his purges.

[edit on 5-9-2009 by Watcher-In-The-Shadows]

As the French Revolution may be appropriate/Similar to the current American situation, which I thought was a great comparison, The English Civil War is still appropriate to the UK..

"In the name of God, Go!"

20 April 1653

Oliver Cromwell's Speech on the Dissolution 0f the Long Parliament Given to the House of Commons

"It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God, which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

Ye sordid prostitues have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!"

[edit on 5-9-2009 by thoughtsfull]

This is positively Intelligent

Hits the nail right on the head, for once I don't have much to say.

To see the future look to the past

Star and Flagged dead on...

reply to post by mopusvindictus


Thank you. History does often tend to repeat it's self. I think that's largely because we refuse to learn.

Those who say "becoming like Nazi Germany" probably say so because its more recent and more known and they are not familiar with History beyond that. If more were familiar with the French Revolution, they might see similarities. But in order to express "things are getting worse" they use "Nazi Germany" as a comparison.

I sure hope the Revolution is more gentle and slow than the French one.

So how do you see things playing out in the next years then?

[edit on 5-9-2009 by Skyfloating]

reply to post by Skyfloating


Increase in violence as dissatisifaction with the government grows and the current financal problem's effects deepen. Til it reaches a boiling point or should I say the situation explodes so to speak.

[edit on 5-9-2009 by Watcher-In-The-Shadows]

I have nothing to add but wow.

I will really have to look into this, I need to learn more about history then certain parts, I find myself secluded to certain aspects in history, doesn't hurt to learn all of it I suppose!

S and F.