Revolution Evolution

In ancient times, kings, queens and emperors ruled tribes and nations. But along came an Enlightenment, that opened up people’s minds to more modern ways of governance and security. The modern mode of politics took a turn toward democracy in 1215 when King John of Britain endorsed a reconciliation with British subjects (citizens), the Magna Carta. Englishmen expanded that arrangement in 1642 when they put the peoples’ pressure on King Charles I to allow a Parliament. , , thanks to Oliver Cromwell and his roundheads. Later. . . the word “revolution” was upgraded during g the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, when British political confusion was simplified with the accession of King William and Queen Mary. Then in the next century, the 1700’s, democracy expanded in leaps and bounds when We the feisty American people inflated of a new wind of Liberty around the world, with a shot heard round the world. Our bold, feisty Revolution—long story short— blew a liberating wind over the ocean and ultimately around the world. After that, folks around the world became more comfortable with their own pursuits of life. liberty and happiness. But after that, all hell broke loose. One revolution after another. The French caught a whiff of the new Liberte’ and Egalite’ and took it to a new level. We yanks had only rejected a king, and told his troops to go jump in the lake (the big Atlantic lake. The French used a guillotine to solve their problem of control freaks on thrones. In France, things were going down fast. But moving right along, or left. . .The so-called Enlightenment of the 1800’s hatched science to replace some religion, and revolutions to replace revelation. Declarations and Constitutions became the order of the age. . .literacy propelling scripture, philosophy replacing theology. 17th-century thinkers like Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Spinoza, John Locke and David Hume had sparked a revolution in thinking that sparked new flames of democracy among the people and the proles. . . to replace monarchy. The 19th century hatched revolutions all around the world. . .in France, in multiple colonies of the Americas. . . Then a funny thing happened on the way to the modern world: the Dialectic. A German thinker, George W.F. Hegel, came up with a new way of analyzing history, a thing called the Dialectic, which, long story short, sort of applied the principles of physics to human history. . something like the “equal and opposite” reaction observation that Isaac Newton had theorized when he saw an apple fall from a tree. So the outcome of all that cerebral dialectic materialism was (long story short) the modern world, and the evolution among multiple revolutions that accompanied all that reactionary politics of the modernizing world. In the big picture since those days, we the people of this world have had reports about revolutions in multiple European countries in 1848, south American countries, central American countries, the Caribbean. . .and moving right along. . . the Russian revolution, which was the biggest of all. Then a couple of revolutions in China, in. India, many Aftrican nations. . . Algeria. and crossing the Atlantic. . . Cuba, Nicaragua. . . all iterations of revolutionary rhetoric and militarism. My boomer generation won’t forget hearing about the Cuban revolution. . . that little turn of events. . . nuke missiles on the island 90 miles from US! . . . our deep state freaking out with their dread of the commies trying to take over. We baby boomers had our reactionary response, an improvised a cultural revolution, as Ringo had put it. . .with a little help from our friends. . . that included a lysergic turn on tune in and drop out. Eventually it just drifted away as we grew up. We outgrew it. In the late 1960’s Beatle John Lennon even wrote a song about Revolution. He sang:“You say you want a revolution. . . well you know we all wanna change the world.” Well. . . yes, sure. . .Full disclosure of this blogatary process: I was prompted to write about revolution, by an article I had noticed somewhere online about Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the North Vietnamese Viet Cong who wanted to run our US soldiers out of Vietnam, back in the day, 1960’s. He had cultivated his revolutionary ideas when, in his youth, he went to European universities to learn what this world is all about; also noteworthy is that he visited Soviet Russia. It was western ways of thinking and doing things that got him all hyped up to start the revolution in Vietnam. Then our American deep state tried to drum up a military strategy to put a stop to his Viet Cong. But hey, in the big picture. . . maybe the Vietnamese were just like US, trying to run their own show, instead of taking orders from a bunch of wise guys from the other side of the world. At the end of the day, y’all. . . its all good. At least we hope so. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, the one who died on the cross in order to show us that there’s a lot more to life than trying to beat up on other folks. Blessed are the Peacemakers.

Glass half-full