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Monday, June 15, 2009

A Brief Theory of History

Posted by on Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 9:16 AM

The Iranian Revolution
afc9/1245080931-iranianrevolution1.jpg

Tiananmen Square
dff0/1245080853-tiananmen-square-hero.jpg

Battle for Seattle
3df8/1245080834-300537385_d3ac001602.jpg

The Twitter Revolution
a73d/1245080812-iranian_protest_election_results_40.jpg


The rhythm? 1979, 1989, 1999, 2009. Also each represents a major political or power shift. Around 1979, the rise to power of Thatcher and Reagan, the consolidation of the neoliberal agenda, and Soviets enter Afghanistan. In 1989, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the release of Nelson Mandela and the initiation of democratic reforms in South Africa, and the Soviets end the war in Afghanistan, the beginning of the end of Japanese economic expansion. In 1999, the initiation of a sequence of anti-globalist activisism that ends with 9-11. 2009, the collapse of neoliberalism and its zombification, the election of a black president, the speech in Cairo, and, presently, the popular and violent rejection of an election that handed a more than dubious landslide victory to Ahmadinejad.

Conclusion? The last year of the past four decades has been the point at which the pressures of the decade explode. (1969 almost fits this scheme, but most of the major political events happened in the year before, 1968: the assassination of MLK and Robert Kennedy, and the student and worker uprising in France.)

 

Comments (29) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment
1
", the release of Nelson Mandela and the initiation of democratic reforms in South Africa,"

YEAH that sure worked out AWESOMELY didn't it? From a first-world country to a third-world shithole with the #1 rape and murder rate in the entire world in only about 10 years.

That is some real progressive progress right there!
Posted by Bix Nood on June 15, 2009 at 9:21 AM
DavidC 2
One of these things is not like the other...
Posted by DavidC http://members.shaw.ca/karenanddavid/ on June 15, 2009 at 9:30 AM
General Jack Ripper 3
That's it? That's your analysis of revolutionary patterns? Really? I have come to expect something more than this.
Posted by General Jack Ripper on June 15, 2009 at 9:39 AM
4
I think the Beatles did a song about this.
Posted by guy on June 15, 2009 at 9:42 AM
PTrig 5
None of these gives me particularly hopes for the future.

My daughter, on the otherhand, does.
Posted by PTrig on June 15, 2009 at 9:46 AM
Loveschild 6
Nine does seem to be a transformative number in world history.
Posted by Loveschild http://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php/articles/responding_to_haiti_earthquake/ on June 15, 2009 at 9:54 AM
Fifty-Two-Eighty 7
Number nine . . . number nine . . . number nine. . . .
Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty http://www.nra.org on June 15, 2009 at 10:00 AM
8
Perhaps the most insane post by Charles ever. The battle in Seattle which did nothing to stop world trade leads to 9-11 leading to a black president leading to Iran. What a total load of crap.

Oh and those demonstrations and riots of the late 1960s ?

Are best viewed as 100% successful results of right wingers' knocking off MLK and JFK with the intent of provoking riots in order to ensure conservative rule prevails for decades -- we got Nixona and Reagan as a result.
Wow, what a success, mmmm?

OKay let's est the theory:

1989 nada
1999 really nada that WTO thing was a blip dude.
1979 nada.
1959 nada
1949 nada
1919 not really much, just russia
1909 nada
1899 nada
1879 nada -- it was 1871 chuckie
1869 nada
1859 nada
1849--okay that is a hit, 1848
1839 nada
1829 nada
1819 nada the south american revolutions were actually more like 1823-25
1809 nada
1799 nada
1789 okay another hit you know if you studied this statistically it would prove the opposite of what charles is saying but who needs facts or logic or history? mental "playing with yourself" is so much more fun.

These little essays of his sound like sophomoric writing in political economy 105 -- the papers that get a D because the student just isn't grasping that this isn't English lit where you can just make up anything you want!
Posted by PC on June 15, 2009 at 10:02 AM
9
I really must start reading bylines before clicking. I keep accidentally reading Mudede posts and losing IQ points.
Posted by Hypatia_II on June 15, 2009 at 10:02 AM
Banna 10
@4: My first thought wasn't the Beatles, it was this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKu2Qaytm…
Posted by Banna http://www.ucp.org on June 15, 2009 at 10:03 AM
11
Nice try, Giambattista Vico Jr. But no sale on the cycle you're selling. For one thing, WTO was just a bunch of asshole punks from Eugene just looking, as the brilliant Ward Sutton cartoon said, "to break some stuff." But you couldn't find anything for 1969, when there was one portent you inexplicably overlooked: "Sugar, Sugar" hit Number One for four weeks. One for each horseman of the apocalypse!
Posted by Tim Appelo on June 15, 2009 at 10:15 AM
12
Nice try, Giambattista Vico Jr. But no sale on the cycle you're selling. For one thing, WTO was just a bunch of asshole punks from Eugene just looking, as the brilliant Ward Sutton cartoon said, "to break some stuff." But you couldn't find anything for 1969, when there was one portent you inexplicably overlooked: "Sugar, Sugar" hit Number One for four weeks. One for each horseman of the apocalypse!
Posted by Tim Appelo on June 15, 2009 at 10:15 AM
The Amazing Jim 13
*sigh* It's going to be a long summer. Chuckles doesn't go back to high school for 3 months.
Posted by The Amazing Jim http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?id=100000076496291&ref=profile on June 15, 2009 at 10:23 AM
Charles Mudede 14
PC, please read: "The last year of the past four decades has been the point at which the pressures of the decade explode."

also, it is a note. i'm making a note. this is not an essay. a note.

lastly, the theory extends from one first presented by professor susan buck-morss. (http://falcon.arts.cornell.edu/sbm5/buck…). i never pull anything out of the air.

to my critics: some times you have to accept the fact that i might have read a little more than you.

Posted by Charles Mudede on June 15, 2009 at 10:54 AM
15
Linking to some weird German bleach-blonde "professor" of theorybabble who looks like she fucks dogs does not do anything to make me think you are smart.

Maybe you have read more than me, but probably not, and most likely you just wasted your time reading postmodern babble bullshit, which in my opinion makes you a bourgeois idiot with too much time on your hands.
Posted by People Who Annoy You on June 15, 2009 at 11:00 AM
16
Typical story from post-apartheid SA:

sowetan. co. za
/News/
Article .aspx?id=
1018281

Man rapes 1-year-old baby, teenager rapes child

15 June 2009


A 37-year-old man was arrested in Katlehong on the East Rand for allegedly raping his niece, aged one.

The mother of the baby apparently heard her crying in the bedroom of their home in Mavimbela section on Saturday night, Gauteng police Captain Mega Ndobe said.

“When she went to investigate, she found that a 37-year-old uncle raped her baby”.

Police were informed and the man was immediately arrested.

He would appear soon in the Germiston Magistrate’s Court.

# A 14-year-old boy is also expected to appear in the Germiston Magistrate’s Court on two counts of rape.

He was arrested last Thursday after he was found allegedly raping a 7-year-old in a toilet.

He is also believed to have earlier raped a 14-year-old.

# Meanwhile on the weekend, Katlehong police arrested 149 suspects for various crimes including assault, theft, malicious damage to property and shoplifting. Police also recovered five stolen vehicles.
Posted by TNB Muh Dik Sparkling Wiggle! on June 15, 2009 at 11:42 AM
Banna 17
Charles,

I try to give you the benefit of the doubt, but that "read more than you" retort just makes you sound like that grad student in the bar from Good Will Hunting.

My retort is: "Of course that's your contention. You're a first year grad student. You just got finished readin' some Marxian historian -- Pete Garrison probably. You're gonna be convinced of that 'til next month when you get to James Lemon, and then you're gonna be talkin' about how the economies of Virginia and Pennsylvania were entrepreneurial and capitalist way back in 1740. That's gonna last until next year -- you're gonna be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood, talkin' about, you know, the Pre-revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization."
Posted by Banna http://www.ucp.org on June 15, 2009 at 11:45 AM
18
Sorry, wto does not fit in this category despite the recreational protesters' delusions of grandeur. No one was putting their life on the line in 1999.
Posted by matt! on June 15, 2009 at 12:04 PM
19
Here's a quote for you:

"History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction."

-Calvin and Hobbes
Posted by matt! on June 15, 2009 at 12:08 PM
StillNon 20
Charles is NOT an academic, Banna. He is not in college, nor has he been.

The most pathetic part of his retort (14 via 17) is that this theory is not even his- unreferenced in his post (which is intellectually LAUGHABLE that he'd try to 'take credit' for it)

As someone else said in an earlier thread in response to a rediculous thread, Charles is but a chirping bird repeating what he has heard in the houses of actual intellect --or something along those lines.
Posted by StillNon on June 15, 2009 at 12:10 PM
21
we all beez created equal nshit - the founding babydaddies said so
Posted by Groidle O'nuccas on June 15, 2009 at 12:28 PM
Charles Mudede 22
@20, i have no idea what it is about my post that makes you all worked up about academic credentials. it was a fucking note. as for that house of "actual intellect" it was probable the house i grew up in, with two actual academics for parents. you fucking dodo. know where i come from!
Posted by Charles Mudede on June 15, 2009 at 12:37 PM
23
@20,

He's a professor, dumbass.
Posted by keshmeshi on June 15, 2009 at 12:39 PM
24
@23 I think you meant to write "He is a professor of dumbassness"
Posted by TNB on display everyday from Chuck Dick on June 15, 2009 at 12:42 PM
25
"it was probable [sic] the house i grew up in, with two actual academics for parents."

Africans don't count
Posted by Zimbabwe sucks shit on June 15, 2009 at 12:43 PM
StillNon 26
Ehhh, you could have fooled me. According to a wiki you occasionally lecture English at SPU?

Still non-impressed.
Posted by StillNon on June 15, 2009 at 12:55 PM
Charles Mudede 27
PLU.
Posted by Charles Mudede on June 15, 2009 at 1:41 PM
lark 28
Charles,
I find your take interesting especially in light of this book review about 1959:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB12450222…

I shall read the book ("1959" by Fred Kaplan). You might have a point. I find the events of 1979 & 1989 extremely important.
Posted by lark on June 15, 2009 at 2:53 PM
29
Isn't the third photo in Vancouver, not Seattle?
Posted by asin on June 15, 2009 at 10:58 PM

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