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The French Revolution : Liberty, Equality...Conspiracy?

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posted on Feb, 3 2014 @ 11:31 AM
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There are many parallels between the American and French Revolutions, sans guillotine bloodbaths. Notably, in my mind, the origins of the two. The French revolution even had its own version of Benjamin Franklin, if I recall. Some dude with a skin condition that worked some magic over the masses with quill and paper. Add Secret Society involvement, the French use of the Roman Fasces and Napolean landing on top of the scrap heap. Previous to that, he had Jacobian links while in Corsica and strong ties to the Vatican. And running around Egypt, coming up with the Rosetta Stone.

Nothing new under the Sun, here, IMO. And that is not a slight on the thread or topic, merely The French Revolution is part of and more of the same of the very old, very established power structure of the world, IMO.

Bluesma:


It is a cautionary tale in the US. In France, it is still considered a heroic example of the people overcoming abusive power ... It is remembering that power that makes them stop up the whole country when they protest (and get what they want).


Perhaps it might be best for the French to reflect upon how easy it is to whip a discontented public into a murderous, illogical rage, conditioning them to think they have fought for and earned some type of independence from tyranny. About how easy it is to control and infuse the 'wants' and actions of 'the people' ...
edit on 3-2-2014 by RedFunfzhen because: (no reason given)

edit on 3-2-2014 by RedFunfzhen because: (no reason given)



posted on Feb, 3 2014 @ 03:07 PM
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RedFunfzhen
Perhaps it might be best for the French to reflect upon how easy it is to whip a discontented public into a murderous, illogical rage, conditioning them to think they have fought for and earned some type of independence from tyranny. About how easy it is to control and infuse the 'wants' and actions of 'the people' ...

A little part of the French "elite" could think so, but frankly, most of the people here really don't care at all.



posted on Feb, 3 2014 @ 03:25 PM
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Great thread that just reinstates my desire for the mods to create a history forum. Things like the French Revolution, what caused the downfall of the (western) Roman Empire, who was behind the scenes of many of the wars since the Crusades, how the Civil War really went down, and just about any major event(s) that has happened within the last 1500 years or so.

I'm in agreement by the way, there was definitely something going on behind the scenes that they don't talk about. The outcome of the Revolution is proof enough of that, very messy affair.



posted on Feb, 4 2014 @ 04:31 AM
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You have chosen a good historical event to study because it is sufficiently far in the past and not to close to the present to show how "capital" rules.

It is worth remembering that the overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddegh (Iran) was for the longest of time in the realm of conspiracy theory "nuts". Not any more. Same goes for the French Revolution. This was no grassroots movement. The seeds may have been planted there but the "gardeners" were in the upper class. To plant any "seeds" you need MONEY. No money and organization, no revolutions.

The French Revolution IMHO was planned for some time. I doubt it was an overnight affair., as overnight affairs have no lasting energy and there must be someone "feeding" the movement.

Lets take a look at what you have proposed,



1) Far from being a spontaneous popular revolt, the French Revolution was a carefully planned coup, orchestrated at lenght by the men who would later be known as the Jacobin Club. It could accurately be defined as a conspiracy.

The people behind the revolution would have to be in a "CLUB". Being in a club allows you to ,
- spread a "web" of individuals around the target
- study the people best suited for the revolt
- have an excuse to frequently meet to discuss plans and objectives
- to camouflage the organization I would have 2-3 tiers of members. Bottom being there to make the CLUB "look" like just a social org.
- level 2 are the CLUB's soldiers and levels 3 are the leaders. 2 knows as little as possible about 3 .

What you have above best fits into the structure called Masonic Movement. The hidden but open "web" of puppets.



French republicanism was a violently nationalistic affair right from the start, with thinly-veiled goals of hegemony and conquest.

I would argue that it was not a strictly French nationalistic movement but an "internationalist" movement (lets call it IM). This IM was for centuries accumulating capital on a global scale (in their time) and also studying/learning how POWER works. However IM had a problem, it could not get to sit at the "head of the table". To be a King you had be born into the family. You could not buy it. So how to get around this? Destroy the social order. But since IM was a tiny minority it had to make it look like the common people (majority) wanted this change. So they finance revolution to get what they want. You can not all that you want all at once. So you do it in stages.

So IMHO the equation for Revolutions is
MONEY + CLUB = Desired Change

So how do you "ignite" the fire of the Revolution ? You create an emotional disturbances in society to JUSTIFY the "fire" (protests, Coup d'état, etc). In the French Revolution (RV) it would be
- distribution of pamphlets with inflammatory information (false/true or both)
- artificial shortage of vital products to the commoners and blaming the king (they must be convinced that it is RIGHT to jump into the "fire")
- create an artificial/real scandal involving the target (Affair of the Diamond Necklace, in which Marie Antoinette was blameless) which even if found out will have done its job before the truth comes out.
- involve the king in external/internal conflicts which will pis*off everyone and cost money (he needs to borrow from IM)

So who is in the IM group ? We need to know who was doing business with France on the level of Jacques Necker and above.

I read the book "The Guillotine and the Cross" by Warren H. Carroll. Very good book going in the direction you have chosen but it stops at "How it was organized and financed?". I am convinced that there is more than what he mentions to this whole thing. Perhaps he stoped because this "temple" continues to be used today by the same IM and not documents are available to point the finger at them . IM which made its money from gold, diamonds and slaves.
Trade Routes

We have the same problem that Carroll had (so I believe), no written evidence. We can only speculate and use deductive/inductive reasoning as would be done in Court



posted on Feb, 4 2014 @ 05:53 AM
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I can't see how drought, flood and disease among the crops and livestock of the country was planned by the 'masons'. This is not what I was looking for here the never ending blame of masons for all the worlds ills. A hypothetical diversionary sect that is the never ending buzz word for conspiracy.

An out of touch regime that imposes heavy taxes with little representation among the classes and large amounts of the royal coffers simply dispersed to who know where is again not the blame of a maternal, social and civic service organization that is the one size fits all harbinger of conspiracy.

I'm disappointed, I thought this was going to be a historical discussion.



posted on Feb, 4 2014 @ 09:14 AM
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I can't see how drought, flood and disease among the crops and livestock of the country was planned by the 'masons'. This is not what I was looking for here the never ending blame of masons for all the worlds ills.

So the fact that Trotsky got a US passport allowing him to travel on to Russia from Canada was a "never ending blame of ?? ". A know revolutionary picked up on the "radar" by authorities in UK and Canada and US gets a passport. Who do we blame ? Ahh, he had good contacts !!!

Trotsky traveling (same as above) with $10,000 in cash is LET go. Ahhh, he had good luck?

Lenin, that great revolutionary hater of capitalism and lover of the little guy. Living in Switzerland (a poor man's retreat). Is allowed with his merry band of revolutionaries to travel through Germany on a sealed train (so he doesn't fall out and break his neck) to Russia because ... Because they (Germans) can make a deal with him? This aspect for the LONGEST time was only mentioned in conspiracy circles, well it is a fact and it happened. One of the inconvenient facts.

Capitalism and Communism is like vampire and light. Not really. So lets shed some light ---> Hammer

Read Dances in Deep Shadows to learn how the game is played. It is not the peasants driving these things, it is MONEY, SUPPORT , a NETWORK and lots of patients for the right moment. I'd say it is a little like the work of Derren Brown but on a different level.



posted on Feb, 4 2014 @ 12:42 PM
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reply to post by Bluesma
 



it is held in collective memory as a reminder that the people have huge power at their disposal when needed. The chaotic savagery of unfurling such power is just considered the price to pay.


Well put, and I would agree with this belief.

The revolt against the Catholic Church was a very bloody, long drawn out affair, but definitely worth it in the long run.

The US revolution was a tidy affair in comparison.



posted on Feb, 4 2014 @ 12:45 PM
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reply to post by RedFunfzhen
 


So you think the French would be better off if they had never revolted?

They should have stuck with the King and the aristocracy? Like say, China?



posted on Feb, 4 2014 @ 12:51 PM
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reply to post by tintin2012
 


Have you ever considered that this story line about how an invisible group like the Masons is always being behind the scenes manipulating everything, that nothing good ever came out of these revolutions, could be just a clever propaganda ploy, to convince as many people as possible that resistance is futile?

The overwhelming evidence is that the large number of revolutions carried out in Western European countries resulted in an amazing explosion in cultural evolution.

While in the other parts of the world, where the people never successfully revolted, the people to this day live in poverty, with no rights at all, subject to the whims of their local war lord.



posted on Feb, 4 2014 @ 12:55 PM
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reply to post by tintin2012
 


I completely agree that the rise of communism was aided and encouraged by the ICBs, along with all these propaganda stories that tell everyone that standing up for their rights, fighting for their liberty is a waste of time.

Communism has been a great boogieman for the ICBs to get people to support policies that have stripped them of their rights, throw in the hippie movement in the sixties as well.



posted on Feb, 4 2014 @ 01:06 PM
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RedFunfzhen


Perhaps it might be best for the French to reflect upon how easy it is to whip a discontented public into a murderous, illogical rage, conditioning them to think they have fought for and earned some type of independence from tyranny. About how easy it is to control and infuse the 'wants' and actions of 'the people' ....


I think they see it that way, with the addition- fulfill the needs and desires of the people, or your competitor will.
-And if they don't follow through after your death, then they too, will die and one another will give it a whack.


The moral that people should avoid banding together because it is bad to be part of a collective force.. who does that serve, exactly?
edit on 4-2-2014 by Bluesma because: (no reason given)



posted on Feb, 4 2014 @ 02:37 PM
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Before we go any further, let's stop and take a look at...



The New Class System

Social class played an important part in shaping French history, and thus should not be overlooked. Beside its functional aspect, it also had a profound impact on national identity, as will be shown thereafter. First, let's take a quick glance at the Ancien Régime. Although by then no longer feudal, the kingdom of France under Louis XVI was still a vintage monarchy, highly bureaucratic and hierarchical in nature, with complex systems of privileges and prerogatives and so on. Underlying all this were three divisions of the realm, or Estates, as recognized by law, which constituted broad social classes :

1) First Estate - The clergy, religious leaders and personnel of all ranks.
2) Second Estate - The nobility, aristocrats of birth or office.
3) Third Estate - The commoners, i.e. those who didn't belong to the previous two estates.

As you can see, the determining factors here were occupation and title (or lack thereof). This system involved deep-seated inequalities. For example, the Third Estate bore the brunt of taxation; the First and Second were exempted, and collected from the Third themselves. In theory they had a voice in the legislative assembly, but in practice the other Estates vetoed any change they tried to pass. However, with the advent of Enlightenment, they grew increasingly conscious of those injustices, and intellectual elements called for reform.

Moreover, a shift of perception occured. Representing the vast majority of the population (more than 95%), and being the main actors of industry and production in French society, the Third Estate came to be viewed as more than just a social order among others, but as French society itself, the legitimate people of France, the French nation. This is in effect the birth of French nationalism as we know it. As the Abbé Sieyès said in his 1789 pamphlet What is the Third Estate? : "The Third Estate embraces then all that which belongs to the nation; and all that which is not the Third Estate, cannot be regarded as being of the nation." (by the way, I highly suggest you read this pamphlet if you haven't done so already, it explains this ideology much better than I ever could with my own limited vocabulary).

Therefore, if the Third Estate is the nation, then this makes the First and Second Estates totally alien to the nation, and defines them more or less as parasites who exploit France and suck its blood. In this new perspective, the Estates were anathema to republican ideals, and could not be tolerated; they were abolished at the very onset of the French Revolution. Thus died the old class system. Indeed, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen stated that all men are equal in rights...but it did leave space for social distinction founded on public usefulness. A loophole?

This apparently didn't fall on deaf ears, because the committee charged with drafting the constitution established a clear distinction between active citizens, who deserved political rights, and passive citizens, who should only have civil rights. The distribution of rights thus depended on certain merits. And though these concepts met opposition, they proved very persistent and became staples of First Republic. This period saw the birth of new social divisions :

1) Electors – Citizens who paid annual taxes equal to 10 days work a year, and could meet in electoral assemblies to nominate officials.
2) Active citizens – Citizens who paid annual taxes equal to 3 days work a year, and could meet in primary assemblies to nominate electors.
3) Passive citizens – Citizens who didn't meet the above requirements, and had no property or voting rights.

Quite pyramidal, isn't it? Additionally, active citizens needed to be adult, male, literate, francophone, and to have been a resident of France for more than one year. This left about 4 million active citizens out of a population of some 25 million, and only 50,000 men eligible to be electors (by comparison, today all regular adult citizens would be electors). The official rationale behind this division, as far as I can tell, is that they wanted political issues to fall into the hands of educated individuals, reasonable and well-informed about the matters of the state, who could make enlightened decisions. It also served the common good, promoting education and combating ignorance (identified as a great evil in the Declaration) by effectively combating the ignorants. In short, elitism for a good cause. Almost cute.

Now, as I said before, this measure didn't go unopposed. To their credit, some revolutionaries reviled this distinction (as illustrated by the picture above my post) since it just led to further inequalities and had the nerve to call "passive citizens" the men who worked straining manual labor. Also, understand that I'm not blaming the French Revolution for being imperfect. It was their first attempt at a republic, mishaps were bound to happen and old habits die hard. You cannot expect such inequalities to go poof overnight, it is understandable. No, my main beef with this system, and what gets my conspiracy juices running, is not the social injustice, but rather the ridiculous cover-up story. My main beef is the dishonesty.

I immediatly call bull on the whole "informed citizen" rationale. That's a poor excuse if I ever saw one. If that was their objective, they could have easily done so through information campaigns and media, without stripping anyone of his fundamental rights. Even back then, it was no secret that education was mostly a matter of being born in the right place. No, the real and single determining factor here was money. It was the root of the system and its only concern. It was a hierarchy built on money. They didn't care one iota about how well you memorized your Rousseau, or if your library featured Gargantua et Pantagruel or whatever ; what they did care about was your weekly income and your bank account. This system was the work of a group of individuals, namely the bourgeoisie, trying to carve themselves up a nice little niche of privileges and exclusive rights, and worse of all, doing so in the name of reason and progress. It was the result of ideals twisted beyond recognition, and words abused by malicious men.

edit on 4-2-2014 by Cathcart because: (no reason given)

edit on 4-2-2014 by Cathcart because: (no reason given)



posted on Feb, 4 2014 @ 07:43 PM
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Krazysh0t
Great thread that just reinstates my desire for the mods to create a history forum. Things like the French Revolution, what caused the downfall of the (western) Roman Empire, who was behind the scenes of many of the wars since the Crusades, how the Civil War really went down, and just about any major event(s) that has happened within the last 1500 years or so.


^^^
This.


I'm hoping for the same. The demand is there, plus there would be no overlap with other forums. When I created this thread, I had to choose between the Ancient & Lost Civilizations forum (inappropriate) and the General Conspiracies forum (too general). I went with the latter, for lack of a better option. Feels like there's something missing.



posted on Feb, 4 2014 @ 07:57 PM
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reply to post by Cathcart
 
Then a few years later the chaos of the Reign Of Terror starts.Once they had to deal with resistance to the new class system they let Robespierre and the rest loose.



posted on Feb, 4 2014 @ 08:00 PM
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reply to post by Cathcart
 


i just want to reiterate: this is the best thread I have active in my recent threads list. I really, really enjoy the content thus far, and really hope you continue adding.



posted on Feb, 5 2014 @ 06:49 AM
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Where is the fourth estate-the media? Richelieu always seemed to have his hand in what the clergy/state informed all the classes.
From a revolutionary aspect It's hard to see what choice they had in setting up a Republic the way they did.

Actually Milton's opinion on the servitude of the masses is quite clear.

At least it was a system-right out of hell perhaps-as unfair as before-however any plan is better that no plan at all-right?

Seems like to me it's basically criticizing the reins on the horses before the race is even run.



posted on Feb, 5 2014 @ 08:07 AM
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beezzer
reply to post by Cathcart
 


Brilliant thread!

Do you see parallels with todays issues?

Just askin'



Yea, put the country in deep debt, with among other things a "poor" and wealthy class living off government subsides and bail outs, and on the back of the middle class and one day they will pop!



posted on Feb, 5 2014 @ 11:11 AM
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elevenaugust

RedFunfzhen
Perhaps it might be best for the French to reflect upon how easy it is to whip a discontented public into a murderous, illogical rage, conditioning them to think they have fought for and earned some type of independence from tyranny. About how easy it is to control and infuse the 'wants' and actions of 'the people' ...

A little part of the French "elite" could think so, but frankly, most of the people here really don't care at all.


Well, nothing new there, either, nor was I singling out the French concerning this. Matters not our country of origin, race, religion, etc. - human nature remains a constant. That lack of caring is the same, no matter the country. Such apathy, non-concern or even awareness of the "elite", who's power structure I personally believe spans borders and many, many centuries, is what they count on for behavior out of "us". In, fact, it is one of the behaviors they do their best to instill and maintain in us ...



posted on Feb, 5 2014 @ 11:24 AM
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Bluesma
The moral that people should avoid banding together because it is bad to be part of a collective force.. who does that serve, exactly?
edit on 4-2-2014 by Bluesma because: (no reason given)


That's not at all what I said, nor my intent. The simple fact is that the public was whipped up into a murderous rage by a few folks, all seemingly tied to Secret Societies - and other things.

Hell yea, band together. Just make sure it is YOU controlling the banding and revolution. I am obviously of the belief that the French Revolution was much less accident and happenstance, and more the decision of a few people who then manipulated the public concerning the course and outcome of that Revolution, which I also indicated I think was less serendipity and more selection and planning for Napoleon, including the subsequent Napoleonic Wars.

No morals about avoiding fighting back, for real and kicking and scratching with teeth and nails if that is all you have at your disposal, against TPTB from this Mountain Tick knucklehead. Just make sure you are in control of rage, rather than being whipped and lathered up into a murderous fervor, relishing in a bloodbath by those behind the scenes, as I believe occurred in large part during that Revolution ...
edit on 5-2-2014 by RedFunfzhen because: (no reason given)

edit on 5-2-2014 by RedFunfzhen because: 'Cause I don't proofread my posts before I hit 'repl' ...



posted on Feb, 5 2014 @ 12:18 PM
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reply to post by RedFunfzhen
 


The French revolution wasn't occurring soley in France. All across Europe people were speaking out against the abuses of the old aristocracy.

No one was in control. The soldiers turned against their officers, and no one in power was safe.

europeanhistory.about.com...


The French Revolution led to much of Europe going to war in the mid-1790s. Some belligerents wanted to put Louis XVI back on a throne, many had other agendas like gaining territory or, in the case of some in France, creating a French Republic. A coalition of European powers formed to fight France, but this ‘First Coalition’ was just one of seven which would be needed to bring peace to the majority of Europe. The early phase of that mammoth conflict, the war of the First Coalition, is also known as the French Revolutionary Wars, and they are often overlooked by the arrival of a certain Napoleon Bonaparte, who transformed them into his conflict.




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