Doug1943

I would like to start a thread on the above-named subject(s). I propose to exclude the military aspects of 'classic' guerilla wars from discussion, i.e "countryside surrounds the city" wars, like Cuba and China, although I would include measures taken by the guerilla forces to win popular support. But this proposed exclusion is just a preference and nothing anyone posts is likely be barred. I would like to see reference to the 1789 and 1830 in France, 1848 in European countries where uprisings took place, the Paris Commune, Russia 1905 and 19-17-1921, Germany 1918-1923. These are are suggestive examples, not an exclusive list. Since none of us, I suspect, are possessed of much detailed knowledge in this area, I would expect, initially, most posts to be references to books and academic papers. Better too much than too little. Technical/military details of Urban Counter-insurgency stuff is not really what I'm looking for but it might turn out to be of interest. So don't be inhibited in posting references. My main interest is not the technical/military aspects of insurrection -- how to take building, for example -- but the psychological aspects. My interest was sparked by the so-called 'insurrection' in Washington on 6 January of this year. As I read about it and watched videos, I kept thinking ... 'Boy, do you guys ever have no idea about what an insurrection is'. And then I realized I didn't know all that much myself. I'll start things off with the following four classics, all available for freedown load: https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/hrr/index.htm Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution. How to do it. https://libcom.org/library/armed-insurrection-neuberg-1928 The collective work of various Comintern worthies. How not to do it. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/index.htm Marx's take. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/ch05.htm There must be many historical monographs and other academic papers on this subject. I have access to JSTORE and will eventually do a search there, but if anyone has suggestions now, please post them.

Yes, you're right. He was foolish in having his people spy on the Democrats, and paid the price. But in general he was a smart man, and not burdened with any moral constraints. Would we had his like now!

Well, if he's well-educated and talented, why does he shoot himself in the foot so often? He's driven several million people away from the Republican Party, when just saying some nice words would have kept most of them in. It's not like the horrible things he says are necessary to keep his base. They're like gratuitous insults. Admittedly, I have to answer the implication of that old question, "If you so smart, why ain't you rich?" or rather the countra-positive (inverse? ) of it, "If he's so dumb, why is he rich?" and frankly I cannot do it. All I know is that if an intelligent, amoral man like Richard Nixon was in his place, my side would be polling, now, at 70% or more, and we'd McGovernize the Democrats. (Thank you, AntiFa! Thank you, BLM! Keep it up.) As it is, we may well lose, and not just the Presidency, but the Senate. We -- the whole species -- lucked out with Churchill, a historic accident. If that taxi in New York that knocked him over in the early 30s had been going ten miles an hour faster .... Without him, the Tories would have done a deal with Hitler, and Hitler would then have conquered the Russians, the Japanese would have taken the British empire, and the Americans (and Canadians) would have been left all alone, after Hitler repudiated his deal and finished off Britain. Trump is the anti-Churchill. When you gamble, you may well have a winning streak ... but if you keep playing, eventually you will have a losing streak. We can't get out of the game of history, we have to keep playing, and Mr Trump is the losing streak we're having.

Wasn't it Bismarck ... or someone .. who said that the next big war would be set off by "some damned thing in the Balkans"? What the USA should do is to get together with the Russians, the Turks, and the Israelis -- probably too much to ask the Iranians, but that would be good if it were possible -- and say: "No one wants a real war. So let's come up with some compromise." Now I know ZERO about Ngorno-Karabakh, but presumably, we've got Armenians living in what the Azeris claim is their territory. So ... what about dividing it, with the Armenians paying the Azeris (ie Uncle Sucker doing it) compensation, and the Armenians on the wrong side of the border moving to the Armenian-controlled part.. Of course ... really, Armenians and Azeris should all mix together in one polity, because, as our Lefty friends tell us: "Diversity is Strength!"

I think Trump is a terrible person, but to 'hate' him, I would have to believe he is much more self-aware and intelligent than he obviously is. If he were someone like, say, Richard Nixon -- then I would hate him and see him as a conscious threat to democracy and the Republic. But someone as narcissistic, ill-educated, and stupid as Trump, is, thank God, incapable of seriously threatening the Republic. As the US heads for whatever terrible fate awaits it, he'll be forgotten.

To jump in here out of nowhere ... I don't think Trump was being 'cynical' because that would imply he knew that his intervention -- Trump, the executioner of Solemeini -- would be like the kiss of death for that poor guy. He's just too stupid to realize that. The interesting question is, what does this shocking execution say about what is happening internally in Iran? I have no inside information sources, nor any real specialist knowledge, but my first thought was -- regime in trouble, and trying to put the frighteners on the opposition. Or may some internal split among the gangsters and mullahs? Too bad they don't have a Second Amendment in Iran.

I think that had a lot to do with it. In any case, it was stupid, and I'm not surprised to see that management like that, also managed to get them rated as the worst hotel chain in the UK, seven years running. This is just the sort of thing that the Left loves ... they will use it as an example of the typical behavior of capitalists, when in fact it is not.

his event reminds me why I was a communist in my youth. I've been a conservative now for thirty years, but not someone whose values have changed. And while there are some devotees of Ayn Rand on the right, most of the conservatives I know are like me in this respect. But read on. Summary: the UK is closing down, like other countries. There will be economic hardship all round, no question. And those who own only their labor-power will be hit the hardest. The answer is not government ownership of the economy, but we can argue that elsewhere. However, there is unavoidable hardship ... and then there is being a pig. I just wanted to bring this story to MapleLeaf Web people. We have a hotel chain in the UK, called Britannia Hotels. I don't recommend staying in ione of them under normal circumstances: it has been voted the worst hotel chain in the country, for seven years running. [ https://www.theguardian.com/busines...orst-chain-seventh-year-in-a-row-which-survey ] On the other hand, maybe that's made them lower their prices and the tradeoff would have been worth it. Free market and all that. But now ... here is what these pigs did: they sacked their staff (mainly overseas workers), and evicted them, with no notice. Out on the street, immediately. Here's the story: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...2-staff-over-coronavirus-making-them-homeless Click on it, read it. Of course, these pigs immediately tried to CYA: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...wner-Britannia-Hotels-claims-admin-error.html I've followed the story ... nowhere does it say they rehired the staff or fired the pig who did the sacking. I contacted them. No reply, of course. Stonewall it. No one cares, right? So ... I would like to request everyone to repost this story wherever you can: Facebook, Twitter, whatever other forums you are on. And -- most important -- email them and tell them you will never ever ever stay in their filthy hotels again, and that you are going to spread the word among all your friends to do the same. A couple of days have passed now and they're probably saying, 'Ha, it's all blown over'. No it hasn't. It doesn't matter whether you ever did or ever would stay in one of their hotels. Go ahead and lie. God will forgive you. Here's their contact details. It will take you thirty seconds to type in a message: https://www.britanniahotels.com/contact-us What they did is disgusting purely in its own right. As a tiny footnote, this is what makes idealistic young people become Reds -- by this act they probably recruited five thousand kids to the Incredibly Revolutionary Socialist Proletarian Peoples Party or whatever the toy revolutionaries call themselves nowadays. And I think that it would be just terrible.... really really terrible ... if, in a year or two, when things are back to normal ... if they're still in business ... some Hacktivists made their website an ongoing never-ending target for denial-of-service attacks and the like, unpredictably, every few months. I would cry myself to sleep over that. Capitalism, with all its brutality, is the only system that brings prosperity. There is no alternative. But some of its worst enemies are certain capitalists themselves. Make them suffer.

The French dragged us into Indochina and the British into Iran. We should have intervened in Iran by offering to make up the lost revenues from the British Petroleum fields that Mossadegh was naitonalizing, maybe by a low-interest long-term loan, and then in turn should have offered support to Mossadegh, who would have run into problems with the Mullahs later. A good understanding of this situation can be had from Daniel Yergin's The Prize -- a history of the role of oil in the 20th Century. As for Iran now, someone said it: the urban middle class are like Europeans, the rural peasantry are like Muslim rednecks. But ... the mullahs want a strong modern country, so they're trying to industrialize and educate, thus turning their ignorant base -- or their children -- into modern men. We have to encourage this process -- here, as in other areas, we have to play the long game, looking ahead 25 or 50 years. Above all, we have to free ourselves of the addiction to interfering directly in other countries' internal affairs, especially via our military. We have to shake off the chains of empire.

Not a very high level of discussion here. Even the attempt to be witty was lame. Let's all try harder!

Depends on what you mean by 'reasonable'. And what you mean by 'patriot'.

Wonderful! The mainstream media were full of dire warnings/hopes for violence etc beforehand, but even they could not disguise what really happened: thousands of people, peacefully protesting. Marvellous. Now... we must get organized. Get that AR15 before they're banned, and come to MyMilitia.com to find like-minded people near you.

Not to worry. They probably know such bulges are artificial, and incapable of doing harm to anyone. Impotent, so to speak.

All American patriots who can get to Richmond on Monday should do so. Further information about the rally here, the website of the Virginia Citizens Defense League: VCDL.ORG Find their 'email alerts' page to keep up with last-minute news. Note: do NOT come armed! You won't be allowed onto the main demonstration area if you are. If you are content to be with the crowd on the streets surrounding it, you can carry a handgun. They do NOT want long arms brought. You can absolutely bet that anyone with a Swastika, a Confederate Flag, an AR15 -- preferably all three -- will become the immediage focus of attention for the mainstream media, who will try to make it look like this is a typical attendee. (Any pretence at objectivity in reporting on issues like this vanished in America long ago.) A large, peaceful demonstration will send the right message. Note that the Socialist Rifle Association -- hard-core leftwing gun owners of various leftist political persuastions, from anarchist to Marxist-Leninist -- are also supporting the demonstration. And so they should. If you read about this demonstration elsewhere on the web, you will find plenty of comments from people urging you to come heavily-armed, and maybe even to arrest the governor, etc. These are either from conscious agents provocateurs, or from the usual blowers of hot air and purveyors of bullshit, who will NOT be there themselves. Don't listen to them. These people use firearms as a substitute for their penises. Come as if you were boarding an airline. If there is a large, peaceful demonstration on Monday, even if the Mainstream Media do their best to distort the reality, it will be a huge victory for the friends of American liberty. If not, not. Then go to MyMilitia.com to learn how to get organized.

And now they're using an "electomagnetic weapon" (supplied to them by the Illuminati and the Elders of Zion) to manipulate the brains of the Iranian government and make them say that they themselves did it.

The 'Brexit' (and 'right-wing populism') phenomena in Europe, and the Trump phenomenon in the US, are just manifestations of a general trend. It's worth while to step back from immediate events and look at that trend. The whole world is entering a very dangerous phase ... a sort of intensification of the end of the "long 19th Century" which ended in August 1914. Our technological advances have far outrun our social/institutional advances. There are no real objective conflicts of interest among the Great Powers (which means, nuclear powers, or those, like Japan and Germany, which could quickly become nuclear). No one is looking conquor colonies. If the nations of the earth simply traded with each other, and got on with research in genetics, materials science, and other frontier areas, our descendants would have long happy lives. But the coming-together of the Great Powers for mutual interest has not happened. Bad decisions in the past are having very bad effects today: the Third World was given its independence too early and abruptly, and misrule there is forcing millions to try to flee to the civilized countries, where a gigantic racial backlash is brewing. The Americans kept the Latin Americans from modernizing, with a similar effect. The Russians, having discarded Communism and their Eastern European empire peacefully, were treated with contempt and looted, sparking a nasty nationalist backlash in that country. China's rise to world dominance is inexorable - the Americans have not taken on board that they will soon, historically speaking, be Number Two in the world. (If America exists at all as a single country.) And for reasons which are -- to me at least -- obscure, Western culture, led by the US, is rotting from within. The future is not predictable, but it would be unwise to assume that, because today was pretty much like yesterday, that this can be interpolated indefinitely into the future. It would be prudent to prepare for turbulent times. We take for granted a steady supply of electricity and clean water (okay, not in the Third World and Calfornia), that there will be food available in the shops, and that the police will protect us from rampaging mobs. It wouldn't be wrong to spend a few hours thinking about how one would deal with a situation where this was, for a period of time, not true. What preparations should one have made in advance? A few hours thinking, a few hours of effort, a few hundred dollars ... could make a lot of difference should the 'pessimistic variant' ever come about. If it doesn't, you've only wasted a small fraction of your time and resources. It seems to me that this is good advice for both liberals and conservatives, who will want to prepare in almost identical ways. ('Almost' identical: liberals of course will not want to have anything to do with guns, and in case of general low availability of food, will want to share their food with the large numbers of hungry people who will be looking for it. Conservatives, the other way around.) There are lots of 'survivalist' and 'prepper' websites around where you can get advice (and where people are keen to make a dollar by selling things to you), and I'm sure they are worth while. But ... it seems to me that most of them are very individualist. They seem to foresee a single family 'holding out', perhaps in a rural retreat. But in a general collapse, survival will be highest among organized groups. (This is one place where the instincts of the Left are superior to those of the Right.) So something like a 'neighborhood emergency response' committee would seem like the way to go, if you can convince enough of your neighbors to take part. Interesting times! Even civilized, boring, normal Canada may not be exempt! At a minimum, you may have to deal with millions of obnoxious American refugees!

The Iranian regime will only change when it is changed from the inside. It is unlikely that an insurrection of the Iranian liberal-minded middle class will do that. We will have to see some sort of deep contradiction within the current ruling powers develop into a split, in which one side leans on the liberal middle class for support. Either that, or the gradual transformation of enough of the Iranian 'cultural apparatus' -- its teachers, lawyers, doctors, bureaucrats -- so that, following the death of the current rightwing leader, the country spontaneously moves towards democracy. (This is what happened in Spain. it was ruled for more than 25 years by a near-fascist regime, which, however, modernized the country, just like Iran. When Franco died, the country quickly became a modern democracy. How to help this process along? Recognize Iran, trade with her, help build up an educated, internationally-minded middle class. And if the Sunnis and the Shias of that part of the world want to make war with each other ... dear God, let's stay out of it.

We do not, and cannot, know how genuine democracy will come to Iran. It may come via a general strike, followed by an insurrection, which would necessarily cost many lives. But there are a myriad of other paths. Note that most of the dictatorships in Europe and Latin America in the last fifty years were replaced more or less peacefully: Spain, Portugal, Greece, Chile, Argentina, Guatemala .... This happens when the great majority of civil society decided that the old order must go. In Iran, a large section of the population believes this -- but there is also a large section which does not -- at least not right now. Time is on the side of the democrats. In the meantime, people outside of Iran who want to see more democracy and liberalization there should do everything to support peaceful dissidents in that country, by publicizing their existence, bringing the attention of the world community to injustices committed there, and to helping to integrate Iran into the world. (For example, cultural exchanges would be a great step forward.) There are a lot of myths about Iran. This is a great, ancient civilization, with a population which has enormous potential to play a leading role in the intellectual and economic progress of humanity. It's not an Islamist North Korea. A good first step, for those for whom it is possible, would be to subscribe to some Iranian blogs -- there are many -- and maybe even to visit the place sometime.