The Tragedy of the Second Spanish Republic

As constant civil wars and political infighting over a disputed succession had crippled the Kingdom of Spain, in 1870 the Spanish government tried to start over fresh by importing the Italian Duke of Aosta to become King Amadeus I of Spain. However, none of the opposing factions reconciled and the result was a loss of faith in the very idea of monarchy itself. In 1873 King Amadeus I abdicated and happily went home to Italy while Spain established its First Republic. Fortunately, the First Spanish Republic was so inept and so badly received that it collapsed by its own incompetence very quickly and the monarchy was restored under King Alfonso XII. Unfortunately, however, the precedent for republican government had been set and would not be forgotten by those who were ideologically opposed to monarchy or who were simply disgusted with the endless struggle between the two feuding dynastic factions for the throne. Republicanism had become a possibility, it had happened once and many were determined to make it happen again. The fact that it had utterly failed made no impression on the ardent radical revolutionaries. If anything, they became even more extremist over time and were quick to take advantage of any opportunity to seize power. Their chance came in 1931 when King Alfonso XIII was forced into exile and the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed.

Manuel Azana

The first Prime Minister of the new republic was Manuel Azana, an atheist who immediately began trying to eradicate Christianity from Spain. Catholic schools were shut down, the Jesuits were expelled (again) and all religious symbols were removed from the public square. The communist bent of the new republic was also seen in how rapidly the government began nationalizing almost everything. Any moderate, liberal republicans were rapidly shown to be a small minority as the halls of power came to be dominated by an assortment of socialists, communists, anarchists and revolutionary syndicalists. Opposing the new regime was both monarchist factions, the Falange (a fascistic nationalist party) and the moderate traditionalists of CEDA (Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-Wing Groups). The initial villainy of the republic seemed to spark a conservative backlash when CEDA was voted into power in 1933 but they were soon discredited by an assortment of scandals and the leftists stepped up their methods to attain power by any means necessary. By 1936 they had prepared the way for electoral success and the hard-left Popular Front swept to power. Led by Largo Caballero, they effectively declared war on the history and cultural legacy of Spain. Any reminders of past glories (which were all tied to the monarchy or the Church) were destroyed, national traditions were forbidden, anything connected to the former monarchy was denounced and the Catholic Church came under the most intense attack.

Calvo Sotelo

All Church property was confiscated and the republican government was an active participant in the bloodbath that followed. Priests and nuns were persecuted, churches were desecrated, horrific acts were committed specifically to offend Catholic sensibilities, such as raping nuns, burning churches, the “execution” by firing squad of a Sacred Heart of Jesus statue, defiling corpses and the mass murder of priests were staged by the republican forces. In a matter of mere months the Spanish Republic had more people put to death than the allegedly harsh Spanish Inquisition had done in all the centuries it had operated. Of course, there were still faithful, loyal people in Spain but they were divided and often powerless. However, such atrocities as the increasingly Marxist and increasingly vicious republicans were carrying out caused a rising resentment among many in the Spanish army. When a traditionalist leader, Calvo Sotelo, was assassinated by republican police officers, it was the last straw. Those opposed to the republic, usually referred to under the blanket name of nationalists (as opposed to the communistic inter-nationalists of the republic) decided to take action. A military uprising was planned by General Emilio Mola and General Francisco Franco. General Mola died in a plane crash the following year and General Franco would become the leader of all the rebel nationalist forces.

General Francisco Franco

The republicans, in a frenzy of revolutionary hatred, massacred thousands of people in the first few months and would go on to butcher tens of thousands more over the course of the Spanish Civil War. Some have tried to portray such crimes as sporadic but they occurred in every republican controlled area but one and almost a quarter of all religious were wiped out before finding safety with the nationalist forces. For those counter-revolutionary rebel forces under Franco, no area was more supportive than Navarra which had long been a stronghold of the monarchists of the Carlist faction. When Franco asked for hundreds of fighting men, they gave thousands and every man would be needed as the nationalists lacked practically everything. Still, though fought on, with 100,000 Catholic monarchists who specifically referred to it as a Crusade against the enemies of Christ and the Church. That, by the way, was no propaganda slogan but a simple statement of fact. The republic had grown increasingly radical, increasingly anti-Catholic and ever more pro-communist. This worsened all the more with the outbreak of war during which time the republican authorities were forced to totally sell out to the Soviet Union to gain the funds and military support to hold on to their power. The Second Spanish Republic became, effectively, the first and only Soviet satellite state in Western Europe.

Franco & Mussolini

Of course, no one can talk about the Spanish Civil War without making mention of the foreign sources of support General Franco received, specifically from Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. However, many people have a totally incorrect view of this situation. In the first place, the support sent by Adolf Hitler was quite minimal. The air support was extremely helpful, undoubtedly, but by far the biggest source of assistance for Franco was Mussolini. The Italians were the first to help and Italy supplied hundreds of thousands of rifles, air transport, combat aircraft, naval support and altogether about 50,000 Italian military personnel served in Spain for the nationalists. It was also Mussolini who helped convince Hitler to lend a hand as well, it is not as though it was all the doing of General Franco. It was also not an alliance as is obvious by the fact that Franco refused to join his former benefactors in World War II. Franco was not a Fascist and he was not a National Socialist (though he had the Spanish equivalent in his coalition) as he is often portrayed. He was a conservative, military strongman in the old, Latin tradition. Also, his forces were not the only ones receiving help. The Soviet Union was the biggest benefactor of the republican government but while the liberal powers of America and Western Europe did not intervene officially, they sent huge amounts of support to the republican side as well. Mexico openly sided with the republic and of the major powers the French Republic came closest to intervention but finally agreed to non-intervention while still sending considerable assistance to the republicans covertly.

International Brigades

Socialists and communists from all over the world poured in to support the Spanish republic and their war against the entire cultural heritage of Spain. Radical leftists from Italy, Germany and Austria were among them and volunteers came from a multitude of countries. The largest numbers were supplied by the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain, Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary and Canada. The idea that Franco owed his success entirely to help from Hitler is entirely untrue. Most of his foreign assistance came from Italy and while the help he received was certainly very significant, the republican side was given far more and would not have been able to keep the war going as long as they did without being propped up by foreign money, foreign guns and many thousands of foreign soldiers. And, whereas Franco refused to surrender Spanish independence in foreign policy or any other area in return for assistance, the republican government completely sold out Spain and the Spanish people. To keep their grip on power they needed military advisors, tanks, planes, guns and technical support from the Soviet Union and the Soviets knew they could force the Spanish republicans to pay anything so they charged exorbitant prices for their assistance. The Spanish republic signed away no less than two-thirds of the entire Spanish gold reserve to the Soviet Union.

Colonel Moscardo, defender of Alcazar

Undoubtedly, the Spanish Civil War was a brutal affair and cruelty was meted out on both sides. However, while the nationalists targeted enemies, the republicans were often indiscriminate in their killing, targeting people who were no threat to them at all, had taken no action against them but who they believed were guilty of “wrong thinking”. Wherever the republican forces held sway the religious, the defenders of tradition and eventually any who were not hardcore leftists were persecuted and often butchered outright. Much is often made of the cruelty of the forces on the nationalist side while the barbaric acts of the republicans are often ignored. In the epic Siege of the Alcazar, for example, in Toledo, the republicans threatened to murder the son of the nationalist commander if he did not surrender. His son was later killed by the republicans but the Alcazar put up such an inspirational fight that Franco diverted forces from his drive on Madrid to relieve the siege. The republican atrocities were more often of a much more personal nature and more tortuous and disgusting that civilians killed in a bombing raid or captured soldiers shot by a firing squad. Republicans resorted to vicious mutilations, one group had a priest thrown into a bull ring to be gored to death, priests and nuns were killed if they did not renounce their vows, historic churches were burned to the ground all over the country and every conceivable act of sacrilege and desecration was committed.

Franco victory parade

Eventually, the nationalists were successful and on April 1, 1939 the last republican forces surrendered and Generalissimo Francisco Franco became the undisputed dictator of Spain. And as much as the republicans and the supporters of Franco hate each other, anyone inclined to sympathize with the republicans should note that there would have been no Franco without the republic. It was their overthrow of the monarchy, their divisive policies and their overreach and outright oppression that made it possible for a man like Franco to dominate Spain and, to the eyes of many, made a man like Franco necessary. The republicans detest and vilify Franco while never accepting any of the responsibility that they have for a man like him ever coming to power in the first place because, remember, the Spanish monarchy was overthrown in 1931 and the rebellion led by Franco did not begin until 1936. The whole war, the cleaning up that following and the dictatorship of Franco would not have happened if the republicans had not overthrown the monarchy in the first place and tried to create their own vision of a new Spain by force. When the monarchy was finally restored under King Juan Carlos I in 1975, he made sure that this would not happen again by having a constitutional structure that would allow both sides to make their cases to the public with a monarchy to make sure no one went beyond the law and attempted to use force to have their way; which he demonstrated by suppressing the attempted military coup in 1981.

nationalist crowd in Madrid

The most dangerous thing is thinking that none of these horrors could ever happen again. Already, the republicans in Spain today have shown that they have no loyalty to their country, which is a monarchy, or to the will of the people as the public still supports the monarchy. More frightening is the way that the Second Spanish Republic and the Civil War is remembered and anyone can see this for themselves. The crimes of the nationalist side are emphasized and denounced all the time but the atrocities of the republicans are seldom mentioned at all. Moreover, when they are mentioned, they are minimized and often even defended and justified. In other words, they don’t think the Second Republic did anything wrong and if it was okay then, it stands to reason that it would still be okay now. And before anyone says that the European and international community would never allow such things to happen today, all I can do is point to other areas of Christian persecution or specifically Catholic persecution in places as close as North Africa and the Middle East and even Europe itself which no one took any real action over.

republican mob in Madrid

The idea that anyone, absolutely anyone, in Spain today has any nostalgia to say nothing of support for the idea of a republic is extremely disturbing and displays a level of historical ignorance that is nothing short of dangerous. The First Spanish Republic was so incompetent that it collapsed before it could do much harm. However, it set a precedent and the Second Spanish Republic brought the country nothing but poverty, oppression and violence as well as fostering an extremism than provoked an extremist response. The restoration of the Kingdom of Spain gave the country a chance to settle its differences peacefully and to provide a framework of stability that would allow the country to prosper. If things have been less than ideal lately, the public would do well to look to the political leaders they elected to office rather than to the King who has stood guard over their constitution for all these years. The history of Spanish republicanism teaches us that a republic would be disastrous for Spain and that each successive republic has been worse than the one that preceded it, meaning that a Third Spanish Republic is an idea that should be too horrific to even contemplate.

Mad Rant: The Red Menace

WHY?!?! This drives me up the wall! Why am I constantly being told that I am crazy, deranged or at least hopelessly “out of date” whenever I talk about the threat of communism today? “Get with the times”, they say or, “the Cold War is over” they say. As if the Berlin Wall coming down was the death of Marxism altogether everywhere in the world! Yes, it is true, the “Iron Curtain” came down in Europe but many of the same people were in the communist party in those days are running the continent, east and west, today in the ruling clique of the European Union. Even more pronounced is the fact that, while the “Iron Curtain” came down in Europe, the “Bamboo Curtain” across Asia is still going strong -and being reinforced by American and European currency as well. Why does everyone pretend as though every communist threat disappeared when Germany was reunified? I don’t understand the mentality! And why do so many tell me that I am “out of date” for pointing out actual communists causing trouble all over the world while these same people are always comparing every villainous national leader to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis? No one says to them, “World War II is over, get with the times!” No, in fact, there are still groups that comb the earth looking for any surviving Nazis to arrest them and imprison or execute them. No one calls them out of date, so why are communists treated differently. There are plenty of victims of communism in the world today because, unlike the Nazis, there are numerous communist parties still in power in countries all around the world. So why is worrying about communism “crazy” and “out of date”?

People can call names as much as they like but facts are facts and the fact is that communism is not dead and buried (I would think that would be obvious) but is alive and well and still working its insidious agenda even in North America and western Europe. The President of the European Commission is Jose Manuel Barroso who was a Maoist revolutionary working to bring down the corporatist state in Portugal. Since then he has said he is not a communist but his actions say something else and would it matter if someone had been a member of the Nazi Party in their youth? The President of the United States had a Marxist mentor as a child, his communications director, Anita Dunn, said she admired Mao Zedong, he even had a Mao Zedong ornament hanging on his Christmas tree at the White House. Some conservatives shouted about this stuff, but most just ignored it. Would everyone have reacted the same to a White House communications director saying she admired Adolf Hitler or if the President had a Christmas tree ornament with Hitler or a swastika on it? Everyone knows the answer to that, it’s obvious. Well, Mao Zedong killed more people (by a considerable margin) than Adolf Hitler did and unlike the Nazi Party which is dead, buried and outlawed, the Communist Party of Mao Zedong is still in power today ruling the largest country on earth with the largest military and an arsenal of nuclear weapons. Why is this not alarming? Or, at least, why is it “crazy” and “old fashioned” for people like me to be alarmed by it?

In Russia, the man in charge is President Vladimir Putin, a former officer of the Soviet KGB. Now, I am not saying that Putin is a communist, it would be hard to pin him down like that. On the one hand he said the fall of the Soviet Union was a terrible thing, on the other hand he has privatized industries rather than nationalizing them but regardless of what you think of his actions today, if you consider him a hero or a villain (because there are those in Russia who think Stalin was a great guy and at least they have been kept out of power) but just consider where he came from and, again, ask yourself if the world would tolerate or do business with a President of Germany who used to be an SS officer? At commemorations of World War II in Russia the old Soviet flag is still paraded. Do the Germans still parade with Nazi flags on historical occasions? No, of course not but, again, Stalin killed more people than Hitler did. Stalin invaded peaceful countries, neutral countries as well. So if everyone agrees that Hitler was evil, if everyone is constantly on the lookout for “the next Hitler”, why is it considered a throw-back to the 1950’s to be worried about communism? And worse than the various communist parties (which still hold power in countries from North Korea to Cuba) is the spread of the Marxist philosophy under other names.

The education system in First World countries around the world has become dominated by teachers unions that all have a Marxist mindset and a Marxist agenda. I’m sure people will say that sounds crazy but the facts are the facts. Schools all over the First World (and these are targeted because the Marxists target success because they think success can never be legitimately earned) teach their students to be ashamed of their countries, to despise their own people, to look down on their forebears and to scorn national pride and love of country. Americans will remember, not so long ago, the uproar over teachers unions in Wisconsin. Governor Scott Walker tried to limit collective bargaining rights for public employees and faced massive opposition from the teachers unions who tried (unsuccessfully) to remove him from office. They had plenty of insults to throw at the man and plenty of names to call him but one of the ones most used was “the Midwest Mussolini”. Now, why would they call Governor Walker “the Midwest Mussolini”? Why not “the Midwest Mao”? Probably because the people running the teachers unions do not consider Mao Zedong to be all that bad of a guy, just like the President they support. It is the same across both oceans from America. Despite the stories you may have heard from China or Korea about textbooks, in Japan the children are taught to be ashamed of their country. The teachers unions in Japan resisted so fiercely even flying the national flag or singing the national anthem that one school principal committed suicide because of his failure to reconcile the two sides of the issue. They opposed fiercely the law which officially designated these long-held symbols to be the national flag and anthem of Japan. Why? Because the flag was the same as that of the old Empire of Japan and the national anthem is a hymn of praise to the Emperor and as people with a Marxist mentality they totally despise these symbols and what they represent. The situation across the Atlantic from America is no better.

I always knew from American textbooks that in the American War for Independence the colonial rebels are naturally portrayed as the “good guys” and the British and loyalist Americans as the “bad guys”. Whatever your opinion is, that makes sense for American schools to teach that. But, knowing that, I always assumed that in British schools the textbooks would teach the opposite point of view. I was genuinely shocked the first time an English friend of mine informed me that, no, when he went to school they were taught that the American rebels were right and the British government was wrong. Later, this same friend, who has English roots going back to the conquest and is as staunch and proud, “Queen and country” patriot as you would ever hope to meet, shocked me again when he admitted that he didn’t know the words to “God Save the Queen”, the British national anthem. I explained to him how, in American schools, everyone is taught the national anthem and we say the pledge of allegiance to the flag every morning. This doesn’t happen in the United Kingdom. The national anthem is not taught there, no pledge of allegiance to the Crown even exists for school children and, I was told, aside from certain public holidays, almost no one ever flies the national flag, the “Queen’s Colours” as they were once called. I was as shocked by this at the time as I am still shocked when people act as though they think radical nationalism is running rampant in Japan. No, the same problem exists in the British Isles; Marxist-dominated teachers organizations are teaching children to be ashamed of British history, to have no respect for their forebears, no loyalty to the Crown and no love of country.

But, if you point these things out, everyone says, “you’re living in the 1950’s” and it is ridiculous. Why does no one say the same thing about the Southern Poverty Law Center that is still monitoring the Ku Klux Klan in America, even though the KKK has not been a major national movement since the 1920’s? For all intents and purposes, the KKK doesn’t even exist anymore. A Klan gathering these days is nothing more than one or two families getting together to wear sheets and set things on fire, but concern about them is legitimate while concern about communism is “crazy”?! Just to be clear, for any half-wits in the audience, I am not saying any of these targeted groups are good, I am only saying that there should be just as much concern about dangerous groups that actually exist today as is shown to dangerous groups that existed in the past but are almost totally gone at present. I could go on forever. Everyone in the world, the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, all trades with Red China which is still ruled by the Chinese Communist Party and which still has the huge portrait of their hero-dictator Mao Zedong hanging over the Tiananmen Gate of the Imperial City. Would all these countries have the same economic ties to a Germany that was still ruled by the Nazi Party and had a huge portrait of Hitler hanging on the Brandenburg Gate? Would these countries trade with Italy if the Fascist Party were in power and a huge portrait of Mussolini was hanging on the Coliseum? I think we all know the answer to that. Yet, everyone trades with China, Europe and Canada trade with Cuba, South Korea even does business with North Korea and those who oppose these things are called “out of touch”. But, of course, Hitler didn’t have any of those adorable panda bears, they’re so cute!

Communist ideology is rampant throughout the world, on every continent and in almost every country to one degree or another. Yet, if you point this out, you’re accused of living in the past, of peddling “McCarthyism” (who actually found actual communists if the truth matters to anyone) and just being hopelessly out of touch. So what if Franklin Roosevelt was the first president to recognize the Soviet Union, so what if he orchestrated the government takeover of whole sections of the American economy, so what if he only got into World War II after Hitler invaded Soviet Russia, so what if his administration was crawling with communist agents and so what if he and his hapless allies handed over half of Europe to Joseph Stalin and so what if an unfortunate side-effect of World War II was making the world safe for communism -that is all pure coincidence with no substance to it at all. Why do I bring it up? Because World War II was the great moment of glory for communism as is obvious by how they cling to it. They got to be the “good guys” and that is why every world leader that is not a communist who gets put on the ‘naughty list’ is referred to as or compared to Adolf Hitler, that is why Communist China always points the finger at Japan and invokes World War II whenever anyone looks too closely at their own gross misdeeds. They want everyone to just remember the war and keep chasing those Nazi, Fascist and imperialist bogeymen while they continue to tighten their grip on the future of humanity.

Communists may not always be honest about who they are but their ideology is still around and still spreading. Communist dictatorships still exist and they are still dangerous and growing more so with every passing year as the rest of the world embraces them. I do not mind saying so, I am a monarchist and being called “out of date” is rather mundane for me but the fact that so many will point to other horrors of the much more distant past while willfully ignoring the real and current threat that communism poses in security, in international relations and in education, makes me a very, very … Mad Monarchist.

The "Third Force" That Never Works

In the aftermath of World War II, there was a great deal of infamy, betrayal and simply absurd actions on the part of the victorious Allies. Countries throughout Eastern Europe were sold out by the western powers to be handed over to Soviet subjugation. Britain and France, for example, had gone to war because of the German conquest of Poland yet were perfectly willing to allow the Soviet conquest of the same country. The United States, meanwhile, was establishing itself all over the world with a considerable military presence in places from West Germany to North Africa to South Korea and Japan while at the same time condemning the colonial empires of their own British and French allies. Much of this, it must be said, was done in a noble effort to prevent the further expansion of communism. However, to be fair it must also be said that the United States and Great Britain had, only a short time before, been heavily supporting and subsidizing these same communist forces. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, before his death in office, had made it clear that while he was fighting alongside Britain and France, he was an enemy of their colonial empires around the world and wished to see them brought down. With the onset of the Cold War, the ideological successors of FDR had their chance though, sadly, it would result in disaster for both the peoples in question and the United States.

This is what became known as the “third force” that Cold War America always seemed to be looking for in soon-to-be former colonial nations. In most of these countries, existing traditional authorities had long-standing relationships with the colonial power of Britain or France and after the Second World War both these local traditional authorities and the colonial empires were challenged by Soviet-sponsored communist rebels. So, there were usually, basically, two groups: the royalists and the communists. However, the American elites in Washington could not bring themselves to support either of these groups. So, as a result, America was always looking for a “third force” that was neither communist nor royalist/colonialist to give their support to and so further expand the anti-communist American “non-empire”. Of course, the desire to combat the spread of communism was a good thing but by always insisting on a “third force” successive American governments succeeded only in helping the Red Menace by splitting the anti-communist forces into two camps and setting them against each other. This was, sadly, a rather long-standing policy in spite of the repeatedly disastrous consequences that it produced all over the world.

Also playing a key role was the heavily leftist American labor unions. They too wanted to bring down colonial empires and native monarchies, and to gain influence before others could although they were much less clear about whether they considered the victory of Soviet communism to be all that bad of an outcome. It became standard policy for American organized labor to go to the colonies of American allies like Britain and France to set up labor unions amongst the locals and then to build on those unions as the core of a revolutionary political force. These labor unions would also lobby the government in Washington DC (having especially strong influence with the Democrats) to apply pressure to colonial countries to grant these places independence. When they did, the idea was that the new leader would come from the ranks of the new organized labor movement and they would have all these new countries solidly in their pocket. They could, and did, after all claim that these countries “owed” them their independence because of their lobbying on their behalf in the United States. This would also boost their popularity in America as well as they could portray themselves in a very patriotic light by taking down kings and monarchies while, in fact, they were thoroughly anti-American to their core.

Bourguiba

One early, but often overlooked, example of this is to be found in Tunisia. The last Bey of Tunis, Muhammad VIII al-Amin, had come to power in 1943 when his cousin was overthrown by the Free French forces for having collaborated with the Vichy regime of Marshal Petain (a regime, by the way, which the United States recognized as the legitimate government of France until 1944). In 1956 he proclaimed independence from France and gave himself a promotion to King of Tunisia. By that time, however, he already had a powerful rival in place named Habib Bourguiba. He had started out as a socialist, always remaining very much on the left, and had supported the Allies in World War II. Needless to say he was a staunch republican who wished to tear down the monarchy. What is less well known is that he first gained his “mandate” and widespread support in the American press and with the U.S. State Department in September of 1951 at the congress of the AFL-CIO in San Francisco. The AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) being the largest American federation of labor unions. He launched a coup against the King of Tunisia, deposed and arrested him in 1957, abolishing the monarchy and ruling as a dictator until he was impeached in 1987 by his prime minister who then ruled as dictator of Tunisia until his overthrow in 2011 at the start of the so-called “Arab Spring”.

American labor unions also tried the same sort of tactic in the Kingdom of Morocco, backing Mahjoub ben Seddik in forming the Moroccan labor federation in violation of the laws of the French protectorate. This was part of their overall campaign to support independence while also pushing out French-backed labor unions in favor of American ones. It almost worked in Morocco as it had in Tunisia, however, the Royal Family proved too popular and eventually even those supported by the United States were insisting that pushing for the restoration of King Mohammed V to the throne was a wiser course of action that trying to establish a republic. He had been removed and exiled by the French and replaced by his uncle, Mohammed Ben Aarafa, but was eventually restored and negotiated the independence of Morocco from France in 1956. Still, the seeds that were planted continued to cause unrest and violence in Morocco for many years to come, particularly during the reign of King Hassan II, father of the current Moroccan monarch. All of this certainly did the country no good nor was it of any benefit to the United States. In forcing the country away from France, Morocco was obliged to draw closer to America but the unrest in the country only meant that America had an unstable ally which was surely not the ideal situation.

Nasser

In 1952 Gamal Abdel Nasser planned the military coup that brought down the ancient Egyptian monarchy the following year. Coming from a socialist, anti-monarchy and anti-British Empire background, he had many admirers in the United States. After becoming dictator of Egypt, in 1956 Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, prompting a military intervention by Great Britain, France and the State of Israel. The U.S. administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a betrayal of his former World War II allies, denounced the intervention as a colonialist effort to hold on to empire. Eisenhower used American economic muscle (as Britain and France were still very dependent on U.S. financial assistance since the ruination of World War II) to force Britain and France to pull out of Egypt. Nasser himself praised Eisenhower as playing the “greatest and most decisive role” in ending the crisis. After leaving office, Eisenhower would remember the Suez Crisis as the greatest mistake of his presidency. Britain and France were forced out of the Middle East and America inherited all of their responsibilities and problems. To make matters worse, despite his words of gratitude, Nasser moved more and more back to his socialist roots and was much friendlier with the Soviet Union than he was with the United States. Still, the misfortune spread and the United States clearly learned nothing. Upon taking office, John F. Kennedy began a gushing correspondence with Nasser even while he was intervening in Yemen to fight royalists backed by Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Great Britain. Eventually the royalists were destroyed and North Yemen was incorporated into the socialist People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen to become the Yemen of today which remains a poor, chaotic and violent state.

Along with Africa and the Middle East, the effort to back a “third force” by America left behind a record of failure longer and even bloodier in Southeast Asia. In the case of Vietnam, America managed to be on almost every side of the conflict that engulfed the region at one point or another. Under Franklin D. Roosevelt, the United States funded, organized and trained the communist guerillas who became the Vietminh (and later the Viet Cong) under Ho Chi Minh to fight the Japanese and, perhaps later, the French. While Harry Truman was busy with Korea it became clear that Ho Chi Minh was a communist (which should have been obvious all along) and so under President Eisenhower the U.S. began to support the French and the last Vietnamese emperor in fighting this monster America had a hand in creating. However, the U.S. would not intervene to stop the communists outright at that stage (which would only mean far more extensive intervention later on) and, once again, a “third force” was sought that was neither French/Vietnamese monarchist or communist. The result was the emergence of Ngo Dinh Diem with strong backing from the United States. In 1955 American agents helped push him into deposing the former Vietnamese Emperor Bao Dai and establishing a republic. Royalists were squashed and, through sheer brute force, for a time it seemed that this time the formula might be working. However, after President Diem proved to be a ‘puppet who wanted to pull his own strings’ President Kennedy, who had previously supported Diem in his rule and rise to power, authorized the coup that brought him down and ended in his assassination. South Vietnam was plagued by one coup after another virtually until a relatively stable period from 1965 until 1975 under General Nguyen Van Thieu. In the end, the communists were victorious.

King Savang Vatthana of Laos

President Eisenhower had said that Laos was the “cork in the bottle” of Southeast Asia and, originally, President Kennedy seemed to agree with him and his original focus in the region was on Laos rather than Vietnam. Toward that end, the CIA was sent in to give American support to pro-U.S. and anti-communist forces. The King wanted to keep Laos out of the Cold War entirely but not many others were interested. Laos had, simultaneously, three prime ministers all claiming power; a neutralist one (backed by the Soviets who preferred to fight one war at a time), an American-backed anti-communist one and a communist revolutionary one backed by the North Vietnamese (and thus, indirectly, the Soviet Union as well). The U.S. originally backed the right-wing faction along with even more dependable generals fully funded by the CIA in reserve. However, when Kennedy decided Laos was too messy and Vietnam should be the new focus for America, aid was cut and the right-wing faction was urged to align with the neutralist faction. The result was confusion with intermittent, clandestine support for certain parties by the United States in a civil war with the communists while the Lao Royal Army was stuck in the middle. This disastrous situation continued until the American pull-out from Vietnam left the non-communists high and dry and paved the way for the communists to seize power, making Laos a puppet state of the North Vietnamese.

Likewise, in Cambodia, there emerged an American faction, a communist faction and a royalist faction. King Norodom Sihanouk was trying to keep friendly with all sides, showing the sights to Jackie Kennedy one day and vacationing with Chairman Mao the next. He looked the other way to North Vietnamese incursions into Cambodia and to American CIA agents trying to buy influence for Cambodia coming into the war on the side of the United States and South Vietnam. In 1970 the U.S.-backed prime minister, General Lon Nol, staged a successful coup against King Norodom Sihanouk who was out of the country. A republican government was established which was quickly recognized by the United States under President Richard Nixon. The King was sentenced to death in absentia, his wife to lifetime imprisonment and even his mother was placed under house arrest. The new republic immediately went to war with the communist Vietnamese but deposing the King had forced him into the arms of the Khmer Rouge, the local communist insurgency, whose numbers swelled dramatically as a result. In the end, the Khmer Republic lasted only as long as American aid did, which was cut off after the U.S. government gave up on South Vietnam and with the collapse, the Khmer Rouge filled the vacuum. They disposed of the no-longer-necessary monarch and established a communist state that was murderous on a scale almost unequalled in world history. Such were the fruits of a “third force” in Cambodia.

Chin Peng, communist leader in Malaysia

All of this was a far cry from what happened in Malaysia, which provides a stark contrast to American mismanagement in fighting communism. At first, the situation could be seen as somewhat similar to that of America in Vietnam. In Malaysia there was a communist subversive movement, led by the Chinese, which was all about hostility toward the Empire of Japan (and this was prior to the Japanese war with Great Britain) due to the war in China. When World War II spread to Southeast Asia and Malaysia was invaded by Japanese forces, the British Empire, like the United States in Vietnam, gave support and training to these communist guerillas to fight against Japan. Of course, once the war was over, they intended to make a revolution in Malaysia to replicate the success of their communist brethren in China. However, the British did not attempt to create a “third force” in Malaysia but sent in combat units (Australia, New Zealand and Rhodesia contributing as well) to fight alongside the Malaysian forces in defense of their existing state monarchies. The result was that the anti-communist forces were united, the counter-insurgency campaign was successful and, in the end, the communists were defeated and the Kingdom of Malaysia was able to continue on to become an independent member of the Commonwealth and is still today a prosperous constitutional monarchy.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said of Indonesia. Here again was an anti-colonial war that the United States reacted to but, even more outrageously, not by backing a “third force” but by backing the primary enemy of the colonial power, another World War II ally, the Kingdom of The Netherlands. Under the leadership of another socialist revolutionary, Sukarno, Indonesian rebels waged a guerilla war against the Dutch. Queen Wilhelmina of The Netherlands agreed to a compromise by which Indonesia would be granted complete autonomy as the United States of Indonesia while remaining under the Dutch Crown, rather like modern-day Aruba is a “constituent country” of the Kingdom of The Netherlands. However, the rebels rejected this offer and continued to wage war on the Dutch population. Their offer of good will being rejected, the Dutch responded with military force and were quite successful. They were positively winning the war when the United States, under President Harry Truman, decided to intervene. After threatening to cut off all Marshall Aid to the Netherlands (on which the country depended after World War II) unless the war was stopped, the Dutch had no choice but to concede total Indonesian independence and hand power over to Sukarno, retaining control only over western New Guinea as a safe haven for Dutch settlers who were suffering immense persecution.

Sukarno

Even then, the aim was not to maintain a Dutch colony in the region but to prepare Netherlands New Guinea for independence as its own country. Still, Sukarno used every means at his disposal to regain the territory including lobbying the United Nations, military attacks and ethnic cleansing of the Dutch living in Indonesia. Still, Netherlands New Guinea held out until 1962 when Presidential brother Robert Kennedy was sent to The Netherlands to demand that the territory be handed over to Sukarno. Once again, the Dutch had no choice in the face of American pressure but to give in and abandon New Guinea. And what was the result for America? A dictator in control of Indonesia who, during the Johnson administration, took his country firmly into the anti-American camp, making friends with Communist China, North Korea and North Vietnam. To make it all even more ironic, during World War II, the United States had considered Sukarno one of the foremost collaborators with the Axis powers in the world because of his cooperation with the Japanese. Previously, the United States had vetoed the continuation or restoration of monarchies in Korea, Manchuria and Vietnam all ostensibly because their monarchs had been in some way associated with Japan in World War II. Yet, a republican of socialist background, for some reason, was not held to the same standard. Instead, he was given American support and he used it to establish a firmly anti-American regime.

There are still other examples that could be cited but the point seems well made. All around the world, anti-monarchy bigotry on the part of U.S. foreign policy served to benefit no one but the very communists it was ostensibly intended to oppose. In some cases it was anti-imperialism that was the primary, motivating factor (such as in Africa where the U.S. backed rebel groups that were anti-Portuguese as well as anti-communist, the communists inevitably winning as a result) but then there are cases in which the colonial power was clearly going or already gone in which the U.S. seemed to oppose a national leader simply for being a monarch. Incredibly enough, the idea that such an anti-imperialist attitude was rather at odds with the fact that the U.S. had a military presence stretching from West Germany to Central America to Japan seems to have never occurred to many occupants of the White House and members of Congress. In spite of the facts surrounding them, the consistent attitude seemed to be, ‘it’s only imperialism when someone else does it’. Finally, this is in no-way an attempt to encourage the ever-present “blame America first” crowd that is so popular around the world. Just as much as what the U.S. did, at issue here is the fact that it did NOT work. The policies did not benefit America in the least. It led to defeats on the world stage that made America look weak and it undermined trust in the United States. Many would shake their heads in agreement with the bitter words of Madame Nhu that, “Whoever has the Americans as allies does not need an enemy”. If the American situation is to improve, Americans have to understand these facts and for future foreign policy success the United States needs to learn from what has happened and drop the knee-jerk rejection of any and all types of monarchy.

Story of Monarchy: The End of Afghanistan

As most readers of this weblog at least will probably know, Mohammed Zahir Shah was the last King of Afghanistan. He was a member of the Barakzai dynasty which had held power in Afghanistan since 1826 after the fall of the Durrani Empire. Chaos had ensued after the fall of the Durrani and Afghanistan fragmented into warring tribal factions, something which will sound familiar to people today. Out of that chaos arose Dost Mohammad Khan who made himself the Emir of Afghanistan. Later, he lost power as a result of the First Anglo-Afghan War but was later restored and his family would rule Afghanistan until the monarchy came to an end. The Emirate of Afghanistan became a kingdom under Amanullah Khan who took Afghanistan out of the British sphere of influence and tried to modernize the country only to be met with a civil war and be forced to flee the country, finding refuge, ironically enough in the British Empire of India. His son was likewise chased from the country though his successor was soon deposed as well, allowing for a return to some normalcy with the reign of King Mohammed Nadir Shah who came to power in 1929. He had British support but still faced opposition from radical tribal leaders, pressure from the Soviet Union and periodic rebellions. In 1933 he was assassinated which left the throne to his son, King Mohammed Zahir Shah.

King Zahir Shah

A highly educated man and forward thinking, his reign saw Afghanistan become a more well established country rather than just a war-torn backwater. Afghanistan joined the League of Nations, established diplomatic relations with the United States, had trade agreements with countries from Europe to the Empire of Japan and he gave assistance to the Muslim rebels attempting to establish an independent East Turkestan. However, these forces were defeated by the Republic of China whose forces massacred all the Afghan volunteers. Still, particularly after World War II ended, Afghanistan under the King continued to improve itself. The first university was established, a new constitution was enacted, genuine elections were held and the country became a functioning constitutional monarchy. Innovations included things like universal suffrage and even rights for women. Unfortunately, rival factions continued to be a problem and not just in the countryside but in the palace as well. Mohammed Daoud Khan, a cousin of the King, had served as Prime Minister in the 1950’s but his administration was a disaster and the King had dismissed him. Given what happened later, it is important to understand why.

Daoud Khan was an egotistical and extremely ambitious man who ended up being the ruination of his own country. Despite the fact that there was still a great deal of work to be done in his own country, he looked beyond Afghanistan and put progress there to the side while he pursued his dream of uniting all the Pashtun people into a larger Pashtun nation-state (the Pashtun being the dominant ethnic group of Afghanistan. However, there were a great many Pashtuns living in the still fairly young country of Pakistan and the Pashtun nationalism of Daoud Khan provided no small amount of antagonism to Pakistan. Never a wealthy country, Daoud Khan poured money into Pashtun militias on the Pakistani border and quarreled with Pakistan over where the border was. Pakistan cut off trade with Afghanistan as a result, leaving the Soviet Union as the sole source of economic support for the kingdom. The Soviets were, of course, more than happy to provide all sorts of support to Daoud Khan but at a heavy price of course with the result being the Afghanistan became more and more dependent on the Soviets and the Soviets became more demanding about having greater influence.

Daoud Khan

Fighting broke out between Afghanistan and Pakistan during this time and things did not go well for the Afghans. In addition, the economy was suffering and the non-Pashtun minorities were growing resentful and rebellious of the regime of Daoud Khan which was entirely Pashtun dominated. The King finally dismissed him in 1963 and tried to win back the support of the minorities by removing members of the Royal Family from the Council of Ministers with his new constitution. He also tried to reestablish good relations with Pakistan and, indeed, the border was reopened. However, Daoud Khan held a grudge and was determined to seize power again but next time he intended to do away with the monarchy completely so there would be no King who could remove him from office. It is also worth remembering that, even though they were never a majority, Daoud Khan had been supported durin his time in office by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, the communist party which was, of course, favored by the Soviets. They wanted to make Afghanistan a socialist state like the Soviet Union and were quite pleased to see the failed policies of Daoud Khan draw their country closer into the Soviet orbit.

The communist poison was sitting there in Afghanistan, almost unnoticed but certainly deadly and Daoud Khan would be their path to power even if he was too ignorant to realize it. As has almost invariably been the case in countries around the world, from Russia to China to Cambodia, it is not the communists who overthrow monarchies and seize power (they are usually not strong enough to) but rather some other, more moderate, regime that does so first. The communists then come in, sweep away this younger, weaker regime and take absolute power for themselves. Such was the case in Afghanistan. In truly cowardly fashion, Daoud Khan plotted his revenge against his cousin but did not take action against him in person. Rather, he waited until the King was far away in Italy having eye surgery in 1973 when he launched a palace coup. Daoud Khan seized power and for the first time in Afghan history, declared himself President rather than king and the country became the Republic of Afghanistan. He thought he had won and immediately consolidated his power, killing off potential rivals and establishing a single-party state ruled by the party he established of course, the National Revolutionary Party. All political opposition was persecuted and that included his former communist “friends” of the PDPA. Relations also cooled with the Soviet Union as Daoud Khan, anxious to be his own boss, sought economic ties with India and Iran and the Middle East rather than Soviet Russia. Needless to say, the communists were soon plotting his downfall.

PDPA flag

Old enemies also rose again such as Islamic fundamentalists who were given aid by Pakistan which had not forgotten how Daoud Khan had tormented them in the past. Also, despite his attempts to change direction from his more socialist past, nepotism and corruption were as widespread as before. The Soviets helped unite the communist subversives in Afghanistan around the PDPA (other than the Maoists) and in 1978 Daoud was assassinated in a communist coup that brought the PDPA to power. However, there were still deep divisions among the communists and chaos ensued with one faction overthrowing another. However, a socialist state was established, land reforms (as they were called) were enacted and state atheism was imposed on what was still a zealously Muslim country. Almost immediately there was an anti-communist resistance movement and the rulers called on the Soviet Union for help. Despite some initial reluctance, by the end of 1979 the USSR invaded Afghanistan to prop up the communist government. Most probably know what happened next. Soviet military power was able to hold the cities but the countryside remained dominated by anti-communist, mostly Islamist, guerilla forces support by funds and war materials from the United States. This soon brought about a stalemate and increasing frustration for the Soviets in a situation that resulted in many referring to Afghanistan as “Russia’s Vietnam”.

The exiled King Zahir Shah had been barred from the country by the PDPA and an Afghan civil war was the last thing he wanted to see. Nonetheless, during the Reagan administration he was sought out as an opposition leader and cautiously and tentatively agreed to become the leader of a government-in-exile for Afghanistan. However, this was something the most powerful rebel factions would not agree to as they were determined to have a theocratic republic rather than a monarchy and so the concept fell apart. By 1989 the last of the Soviet military forces left Afghanistan (in utter disgust and frustration) while in Afghanistan the fighting continued between the Afghans themselves. The King had little to nothing to do with Afghan politics during this time, though he was still a sufficiently contentious figure that he was nearly assassinated in 1991. Another government emerged but the country was still almost completely lawless and it was opposed by the Taliban militia that was supported by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. In 1996 the Taliban secured control of most of the country though areas remained contested by the United Front opposition.

"Father of the Nation"

In 2001, after refusing to turn over Osama bin Laden, U.S. and allied forces invaded Afghanistan and destroyed the Taliban regime. Almost immediately there were calls for the restoration of the monarchy under former King Zahir Shah as the only man who could unite all Afghan people and who was not tainted by the long series of civil wars. However, the U.S. government opposed this, preferring the (supposedly) more pro-American Hamid Karzai to be President of Afghanistan. Yet, it seems the former monarch did not want the position in exactly that way anyway saying, “I will accept the responsibility of head of state if that is what the Loya Jirga demands of me, but I have no intention to restore the monarchy. I do not care about the title of king. The people call me Baba (a term for a respected elderly man) and I prefer this title”. So, when the new post-Taliban government was formed Hamid Karzai became President and he granted the former king the title “Father of the Nation” which was abolished after the King died in 2007. There are currently no major political parties or factions in Afghanistan calling for the restoration of the monarchy, some favor the current republican regime, most advocate for a more Islamist government and there is still the (Maoist) Communist Party ever ready to cause trouble. However, recently, Prince Nadir Naim has emerged as a possible contender for power, a former aid and grandson of the last King (the son of a daughter of his) who is attracting some attention and positive press. He is the first royal to official enter the political race since the downfall of the monarchy, is dismissed by some as an outsider but supported by others who see the end of the monarchy as the point when things started going wrong for Afghanistan. Unfortunately, he has, as yet, not said that his goal is to restore the monarchy. He is running for President in the elections next year on a more general theme of national “restoration” as leader of the “Voice of the People” movement. He is also the nephew of Afghanistan’s first president, the one who overthrew his grandfather and ended the monarchy. Only time will tell how he fares in the chaotic world of Afghan politics.

Classifying North Korea

North Korea recently went through another father-to-son change in leadership. It remains to be seen if the latest Kim will be as sadistically whacky as his father and grandfather but it has also brought up some questions about the North Korean government. Whenever North Korea comes up in the news I am invariably asked by someone if North Korea is actually a monarchy. “Father succeeds son, holding total power; that’s an absolute monarchy, right?” WRONG! North Korea is, all in all, one big lie. It is a charade on a national scale. It is half the population of the Korean peninsula being forced to play a game of “let’s pretend” at gun point. They call themselves the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”. That’s a lie to start with. As everyone knows, there is nothing at all “democratic” about North Korea and it can only even claim the most loose definition of being a republic in that it is not a monarchy. And even if it were a monarchy, it would still not be an absolute monarchy. At least not in my book, I realize most people in the world do not share my definition of absolute monarchy. As I have explained before, like French Bishop Jacques Bossuet, I admire absolute monarchy but am not a fan of arbitrary monarchy. I am not a fan of arbitrary power no matter who is wielding it.

The fruits of Communism

According to Bishop Bossuet, there are four basic attributes of arbitrary government. There were (I) that subjects are born slaves and none are free, (II) no one possesses private property, the prince controls all sources of wealth and there is no inheritance, (III) the prince can dispose of the property and lives of all in his realm at his whim and, finally, (IV) there is no law but the will of the ruler. Obviously, North Korea possesses each and every one of those four attributes. It is the perfect example of an arbitrary government in operation. The North Korean people are, as a whole, down to the last man, woman and starving child, no more than the slaves of their government. There is no private property, in fact there is no commerce at all in North Korea. The State controls everything and issues the people what the State deems them to need. There is nothing any person in North Korea can possess, including his life and the lives of his children, which the State cannot take away from him or her at any time for any reason or no reason at all. The people live in constant fear, not only of the State, but of each other. And, of course, there is no law but that of the “Supreme Leader”. Communism provides the justification for the government but the rulers can deviate from Marxist dogma as they choose.

Could North Korea then be described as an arbitrary monarchy? Again, no. North Korea is not a monarchy of any kind. The fact that the country has been ruled by father, son and grandson in turn no more makes them a monarchy than the fact that the Pope is elected makes the Vatican a republic. There is actually no hereditary succession in North Korea. Most people do not realize this. Kim Il-Sung was the first President of North Korea. His son, Kim Jong-Il, never succeeded to that office, nor has his son. Confused yet? Well, you should be because this is how far into never-never land North Korea has fallen. Kim Jong-Un and Kim Jong-Il were never President of North Korea because Kim Il-Sung (who died in 1994) is STILL the President! There is no “The King is dead, long live the King” in North Korea. Nope, living or not, Kim Il-Sung is the “Eternal President” of North Korea and always will be. Kim Jong-Il was “Supreme Leader”, he gave the orders and he was in total control, but he was not the President. The President of North Korea, for the last 18 years, has been a dead man. Christopher Hitchens once described North Korea as a “necrocracy” for this reason.

Where the money goes

A monarchy is something that grows up naturally, over time, in a certain place in accordance with the culture of that place. The communist regime in North Korea was something totally alien that was imposed on the country, suddenly and had to be hammered into place by brute force. Korea, of course, had been a monarchy. Immediately prior to the division of course it had been a colonial appendage of the Empire of Japan and prior had been a vassal kingdom of Imperial China. However, it had also, briefly, been an independent empire of its own but that had grown out of the much older and well established Kingdom of Korea that existed previously. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has nothing, whatever at all in common with that Korean Empire which had reigned during the last period of united independence on the peninsula. It was the most radical break imaginable to that old and glorious tradition. The prior Korean kingdom and empire had been a place of highly advanced Confucian learning, progress and prosperity to a degree that caused even their powerful Chinese and Japanese neighbors to look on them with a degree of envy. Today, Japan looks on North Korea with great concern or worry and China regards them as a rather ill-behaved and embarrassing child they are obliged to support. To put it succinctly, we know what a Korean monarchy looks like and the DPRK is certainly NOT that.

To a large extent, North Korea is, thankfully, an almost unique aberration in the world in the extent of its horror. It is less like any sort of a country at all and more akin to a vast slave labor camp. The level of self-deception on the part of the leadership and brainwashing on the part of the public has reached a level that I doubt any other country has ever reached. Even those regimes with which North Korea is friendliest; the PRC, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic have all in at least some small measure (with the possible exception of Laos which is a puppet of Vietnam in any event) realized that the path they started out on was a failure and have been making at least some changes in an effort to improve things. North Korea has not. It is the picture of a totally arrested society where anything that sustains them is credited to their “Great Leader” and all of their colossal ills are blamed on South Korea and the United States, making any effort at improvement useless to even consider. Given this, North Korea almost defies categorization or any effort to understand the place or apply any sort of reason to it at all. Everyone who has ever visited North Korea has been shocked that such a place could possibly be real. Every journalist I have ever seen interviewed after visiting North Korea has said the same exact thing, that it was an Orwellian nightmare brought to life.

Monarchies all around the world have much in common (as all people do as well) and yet are very unique. In certain regions; Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, south Asia etc they may have much in common from one to another but they are still quite unique. Given that, monarchists are often annoyed by republicans who try to paint with a broad brush and, for example, argue against the monarchy in Belgium by pointing to ancient Babylon or condemn the monarchy of the United Kingdom by citing the example of Saudi Arabia. Republicans will of course hypocritically complain when a monarchist cites to someone from the French Republic such cases as the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany or Pol Pot’s Cambodia. Keeping that in mind, far from being understandable as a monarchy, North Korea does, in a way, represent the ultimate in “republicanism”. It is the example of what happens when a political-economic doctrine is taken to the ultimate extreme, of throwing out history, tradition, morals and values and making the political machine, the “State” the ultimate authority, the ultimate guardian and the ultimate religion. North Korea, in that way, is a shining example of what results from all those who would trust political ideologies to solve their problems and ever bigger governments and government programs to take care of everything for them.

Video: A Tribute to Communism

Warning: This video contains some rather graphic images. In light of the current subject under discussions, all the accusations of counterrevolutionary cruelty, I thought it a good time to give just a little reminder of the established, documented and staggeringly monumental crimes of those the counterrevolutionaries were opposing. Watch and be horrified.

Riots Rock United Kingdom

The spoiled brat brigade have been at it again in London. Teachers, students and union members carried out a "protest" against the cost-cutting measures of the Tory-LibDem coalition government that brought out an estimated 500,000 entitlement junkies in what has been described as the largest union-led riot in London's post-war history on Sunday. 201 people were arrested and 84 people were injuried including 31 police officers. Banks were smashed up, fire bombs thrown, property was destroyed or defaced and so on, as we have seen before, and of course the loyal leftist media was quick to assure everyone that such violence and destruction was only the work of about 300 deranged anarchists amongst the mob. Yes, it is always those crazy no-government anarchists who sometimes seem to turn up constantly amongst mobs of people demanding more and bigger government -odd that. In truth, this was all planned and those doing the planning counted on such violence as their ultimate goal is chaos and destruction. I cannot help but think back to the blot on the otherwise solid reign of HM King George V; the refusal of asylum to the Russian Imperial Family after the 1917 Revolution. The make-up of this latest act of mob violence should be lost on no one. Students have long been the "useful idiots" of the revolutionary elite and, just as it was in Russia, the unions are the nursery of Bolshevism. Also, like the demonic forces that plagued Tsarist Russia these British cry baby battalions are also anti-country, anti-religion, anti-capitalist and anti-monarchy. We all remember how the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall were assaulted by a similar crowd in the past and the riot-ring leaders have made no secret of their plan to do their best to disrupt the upcoming wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. This all should, perhaps, give people a little better perspective of the often-maligned Tsar Nicholas II who is often portrayed as so cold and uncompromising. After all, the British monarchs allowed constitutional government, allowed democracy, allowed people to do or say whatever they wished even if it was treasonous, they have taken the monarchy effectively out of politics completely and yet still they are targeted. There should be no confusion here, the ringleaders have been completely open and honest about their aims: this is not ultimately about the cost-cutting done by "Call me Dave" Cameron. That is only the pretext for launching something that these leftist pinkos have been planning and hoping for over a long period of time: total revolution. The cost-cutting is simply useful in getting the government welfare babies off their hinders and providing the massive crowds to add muscle to the movement. The United Kingdom might be going down the tubes completely and no one will hardly stir but raise the notion that the tax-payer funded gravy train might be cut off and there is bloodshed in the streets. Their goal, like the Bolsheviks in Russia who used others to clear the way for them, is for wealth-redistribution, an end to social inequalities, the overthrow of the monarchy, basically a communist Great Britain. If anyone doubts this, I challenge you to go into to the den of the beast and see what they are saying about the Royal Family. "Parasites" living off the poor, over-burdened public, "unelected elitists", "disgrace to the goal of equality" etc, etc like we have all heard before. In some cases it is much the same language they use against bankers and big-business people but, the pinkos have always been a 'one trick pony' in that way. Everyone is living off the poor -you know, except for the teachers, students, nurses and union members who are totally entitled to live off the taxpayers! Oh, where are the redcoats with a copy of the Riot Act when you need them?

Mad Rant: Uncommon Sense

Yesterday the President of the United States and the President of the People’s Republic of China held a joint press conference at the White House. Much has been made of the leader of Beijing bandit-government claiming that he ‘could not hear’ the question put to him about the human rights abuses in China. Well, not to worry “comrade”, I am sure President Obama did not hear anything about the need to cut spending and lower the national debt either. This of course concerns the Red Chinese since they hold the biggest chunk of U.S. debt and are probably getting a little worried that they might not be getting their money back. Oh, isn’t the dog and pony show of republican politics fun? Obama talks about human rights and Hu Jintao acts like he cares while Hu talks about Red China being such a good friend of the U.S. and Obama acts like he believes him. What is more frightening is the possibility that Obama actually does. This is, after all, the first time America has ever rolled out the red carpet and given full state honors to communist dictator of the Chinese mainland. Take that all you people who think Obama is a communist! Wait…

I speak in jest of course because, as most know, China has been moving toward a more free economy in recent years while the U.S. (particularly recently) has been moving ever more rapidly in the socialist direction. When it comes to capitalism, I am under no illusions that it is a less than perfect system. I support it only as far as I am an ardent and absolute supporter of private property rights. However, it does not take the greatest powers of observation to see that efforts to impose economic egalitarianism do not work. Communism has been tried and in every case it has failed. Socialism has been tried and we need only look at the world around us, particularly in Europe, to see that it does not work. As things stand now, my biggest problem with capitalism is that it seems to be the only system which can make a nation wealthy enough to think they can afford socialism.

It simply goes against the laws of nature for anyone or anything to thrive in bondage. There should be no great surprise (and yet there is) that when you punish affluence and reward penury the result is a society with fewer wealthy people and more poor people. Why should a person work harder for a little extra money if they can get by just as comfortably doing nothing? Why should a person try to improve their financial situation if the only result is that they are put in a higher tax bracket and have their earnings taken from them? If you can keep more of your money in country or state A than you can in state B, who would not up and move to country or state A and leave B to reap the rewards of their own stupidity? Even those who harp the loudest about the need to punish the rich and help the poor see their actions part company with their words when it comes to themselves or their industry. That is why no one makes movies in Hollywood anymore but instead go to Canada or New Zealand -because making anything in California is far too expensive. Yet, even with such a punishing tax code California is still deep in debt and the North American equivalent of Greece at this point.

This is not a difficult concept to grasp. Socialism does not work! Even for those more moderate types who advocate it, they can only grasp at straws that have no real impact on the actual overall situation. We have seen this at least since the French Revolution when the agitators of treason stirred up hatred against the monarchy for claiming that Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were living lives of idle luxury in the lavish surroundings of Versailles, indifferent to the suffering of the people. This, of course, was not true but given the predilection of humanity toward greed and envy it worked. Yet, cutting off the heads of the King and Queen and starving the poor little Dauphin to death did not fill the stomach of one peasant. It did not make so much as one penniless French worker a wealthy man. The forces of revolution have never, despite their claims, NEVER lifted up anyone. All they have ever done was to bring a greater share of misery to the entire population.

You can tax the rich into poverty (or tax them into relocating to Singapore) but that will not make the poor rich. Putting royals on bicycles will not enable anyone to afford a Mercedes and taxes and regulations that force aristocratic families to sell their ancestral estates will not give everyone their own manor house. It is as simple as this: trying to impose and enforce absolute equality is a losing game and always will be. The government, no government on earth, no constitution that has or will ever be written can make life “fair” or give anyone so much as one free lunch. The sooner everyone realizes this the better off everyone will be. We need practical solutions that recognize the truth of natural law and the human condition. We do not need political ideologues who think they can create a Utopia anywhere this side of the Kingdom of Heaven. We need to accept that the politician-class does not have all the answers, that independence and freedom are not the same things and that we are entitled absolutely to everything that is our own and nothing that is not. When that happens, the world will be better. Not perfect, but better. However, at current rates, by the time that change comes, I shall most likely be the late…Mad Monarchist.