Since the French Revolution, the first violent modernist revolution, there’s a recurring pattern: the people who start the revolution are rarely the people who survive once power finishes consolidating.
The French Revolution itself was arguably a bourgeois or early capitalist revolution. It pitted the rising middle class against a rent-seeking aristocracy and dismantled feudal privilege in favour of legal equality, property rights, and market participation. In that sense, despite being revolutionary and sharing many of the same ideas that would propogate to the Marxists, it wasn’t anti-capitalist at all. It was part of capitalism’s emergence.
What failed, however, wasn’t capitalism so much as modernist political reasoning applied at revolutionary speed. Once legitimacy stopped being inherited and became ideological, loyalty replaced tradition, and deviation became dangerous. Many people outside normal social boundaries were swept up in revolutionary enthusiasm, only to be executed during the Reign of Terror when the new regime needed stability instead of disruption.
The same structural pattern appears in the Russian and Chinese revolutions. Early on, broad coalitions are tolerated because they help destabilize the existing system. Once power is secured, those same differences become liabilities.
The same thing happened under German National Socialism. In its early phase, the movement showed tolerance toward certain fringe groups. Once power was consolidated, that tolerance disappeared very quickly.
Marx later absorbed the unresolved failures of the French Revolution into his theory, but the modernist assumption remained: grand narratives are just, “we” possess objective truth, and those who don’t share it must be corrected in service of an inevitable telos. Once that assumption is in place, the same historical resonances tend to repeat.
There is value in recognizing a structural feature of modernist revolutions, of which communist revolutions are prime examples. They are permissive while tearing something down and restrictive once responsible for maintaining their own system. Focusing only on early phases misses how these systems behave over time.
And so, consider the idiots presently tearing down Minneapolis. Useful idiots, the sort a Stalin or a Hitler or a Mao would make use of in the early days. Once the revolution is over, the new powers that be have no use for revolutionaries, and in fact such revolutionaries are dangerous -- likely to engage in another revolution, you understand. It's been happening for centuries, revolution after revolution, but the useful idiots don't read, so they don't know the historical precedent. Robespierre ultimately experiences his own guillotine blade, assuming they even get that far. Until that moment, useful idiots believe the guillotine is their ally and will never turn on them.
Ironically, unlike the Jacobins and the Marxists and the National Socialists, there is no revolution in America. They're just tools of one part of the establishment butting heads with another part of the establishment. Once election season is over and the midterms are over, there's no place in the palace for them, just a return to ignominy.
The French Revolution itself was arguably a bourgeois or early capitalist revolution. It pitted the rising middle class against a rent-seeking aristocracy and dismantled feudal privilege in favour of legal equality, property rights, and market participation. In that sense, despite being revolutionary and sharing many of the same ideas that would propogate to the Marxists, it wasn’t anti-capitalist at all. It was part of capitalism’s emergence.
What failed, however, wasn’t capitalism so much as modernist political reasoning applied at revolutionary speed. Once legitimacy stopped being inherited and became ideological, loyalty replaced tradition, and deviation became dangerous. Many people outside normal social boundaries were swept up in revolutionary enthusiasm, only to be executed during the Reign of Terror when the new regime needed stability instead of disruption.
The same structural pattern appears in the Russian and Chinese revolutions. Early on, broad coalitions are tolerated because they help destabilize the existing system. Once power is secured, those same differences become liabilities.
The same thing happened under German National Socialism. In its early phase, the movement showed tolerance toward certain fringe groups. Once power was consolidated, that tolerance disappeared very quickly.
Marx later absorbed the unresolved failures of the French Revolution into his theory, but the modernist assumption remained: grand narratives are just, “we” possess objective truth, and those who don’t share it must be corrected in service of an inevitable telos. Once that assumption is in place, the same historical resonances tend to repeat.
There is value in recognizing a structural feature of modernist revolutions, of which communist revolutions are prime examples. They are permissive while tearing something down and restrictive once responsible for maintaining their own system. Focusing only on early phases misses how these systems behave over time.
And so, consider the idiots presently tearing down Minneapolis. Useful idiots, the sort a Stalin or a Hitler or a Mao would make use of in the early days. Once the revolution is over, the new powers that be have no use for revolutionaries, and in fact such revolutionaries are dangerous -- likely to engage in another revolution, you understand. It's been happening for centuries, revolution after revolution, but the useful idiots don't read, so they don't know the historical precedent. Robespierre ultimately experiences his own guillotine blade, assuming they even get that far. Until that moment, useful idiots believe the guillotine is their ally and will never turn on them.
Ironically, unlike the Jacobins and the Marxists and the National Socialists, there is no revolution in America. They're just tools of one part of the establishment butting heads with another part of the establishment. Once election season is over and the midterms are over, there's no place in the palace for them, just a return to ignominy.
You're not up there calling for the police to fight the federal government.
I mean, maybe you are. But even if you were, you're not the damn mayor.
I mean, maybe you are. But even if you were, you're not the damn mayor.
People who have to make stuff on their own and convince someone else to buy it know that you really have to think about your audience, or at least try to make something you think people would want to buy.
Most of these idiots grew up thinking that wet roads cause rain, so the only reason big companies had stuff that was so popular is that they have lots of money for advertising, so if they get into the big companies they can make whatever they want and the big companies can advertise it and everyone will have to watch whatever dreck they puke up.
Most of these idiots grew up thinking that wet roads cause rain, so the only reason big companies had stuff that was so popular is that they have lots of money for advertising, so if they get into the big companies they can make whatever they want and the big companies can advertise it and everyone will have to watch whatever dreck they puke up.
There's a bill called the "NOPE act" that the Democrats hoped would end political prosecutions.
Not sure exactly why 34 time convicted felon indicted in dozens of states who has racked up hundreds of billions of dollars in civil judgements and who nearly got shot to death would sign that quite yet, but I'm not a strategic genius.
Not sure exactly why 34 time convicted felon indicted in dozens of states who has racked up hundreds of billions of dollars in civil judgements and who nearly got shot to death would sign that quite yet, but I'm not a strategic genius.
LLMs can be clever at times, but anyone who has ever tried to use one to solve a hard problem and gotten "This proves it. We're on the right track" for a few hours where it is clearly not on the right track knows agentic AI isn't necessarily such a good idea.
We all laughed at the whole "the world will end in 2012" meme...
... We sure laughed ...
... We sure laughed ...
Even if you like cops, they still have guns and the entire government behind them, so they're dangerous.
Even if you like bears, they still have retard strength and will probably find you delicious, so they're also dangerous.
In both cases, you have to treat things that can kill you with respect, and that means going into each situation doing whatever you need to do in order to not provoke either into deciding it's a good idea to mess up your day.
Even if you like bears, they still have retard strength and will probably find you delicious, so they're also dangerous.
In both cases, you have to treat things that can kill you with respect, and that means going into each situation doing whatever you need to do in order to not provoke either into deciding it's a good idea to mess up your day.
Satan isn't clever or evil enough to come up with something as horrible as online dating.
This is rough. When it's January, you can end up with everything frozen so bad your only choice ends up being leaving things until spring and praying it lets go without doing too much damage to the pipes.
The View: "There shouldn't be a death sentence just for not wanting to be arrested!!!"
I feel like French people would definitely hate it if I tried to speak their language, because it'd be an english Canadian speaking terribly mangled Quebecois pig-french.
One time, it was right around halloween, I was at a thrift store and we were almost at the till, and there were hooks on display. So I made every one of my dumbest "I have no hands" jokes. You get it, "That's handy".... And I shit you not, the cashier only had one hand. I mumbled an apology and go the hell out of there.
Why you gotta set me up like that, Salvation Army?
Why you gotta set me up like that, Salvation Army?
Honestly, every year that this doesn't get done is another year you know that the government doesn't do anything good for anyone.
To be fair, he won't be on the run for long because he'll be so weak from eating rice paper dipped in chicken broth instead of real food.
I feel like this helps us understand why you want to get married to a good woman and have her bear your children, rather than doing what Elon Musk did and having more kids than Ghengis Khan and half of them are even more messed up than his kids...