civilian_number_two, on 07 April 2010 - 02:27 PM, said:
Deuc: not one of your examples is of some kind of grass-roots populist rebellion. All are organized events involving armies. The exchange of political power was in every one of those cases engineered at a political level. The "Iranian Revolution" was a period of street fighting followint the country's leader simply abandoning his country afetr some public protests. After the brief period of violence, an ELECTION was held and a new guy came in. That is not the same as a coup. The military wasn't even defeated, though it was destabilized enough for Iraq to try to destroy it (and it failed). Even Britain granting independence to much of Ireland was a political concession that came as a result of political pressures and the trouble of concurrent struggles, a home war and an international war. India gained its independence too after a Britain weakened by an international war just couldn't afford to rule it. In none of your examples, and in none that I can think of, did the people didn't just step out of their homes with their assault rifles and take down the government. So, I am not saying the ideal of protecting one's self from tyranny is a bad one, it's just not the reason for soccer moms to keep loaded pistols at toddler-level. Again: firearm education. Again: Canada smarter, fewer infant handgun deaths. Boo, NRA, for not promoting firearm education as strongly as it promotes redneck white pride.
A coup followed by an election doesn't neglect the fact that political power was quickly seized and the former regime thrown out and replaced. In Romania and Nepal they used assault rifles. In the rest they used what they could find. Regardless: guns, or the threat of armed violence, is what coerced the government to step down or what overthrew the government outright. These are just a few examples, though. There's others, I'm sure, all over Asia, Africa, South/Central America and Europe. And those were examples of popular uprisings, not necessarily armed uprisings.
civilian_number_two, on 07 April 2010 - 02:27 PM, said:
JM: The Wind That Shakes the Barley is a fairly even-handed account of a single man's involvement in rebellion, and the gradual change in his ideals when he sees his comrades become the new animal farm. It has some overdramatized bits, and the "brother versus brother" metaphor goes a bit too far IMO, but it is a strong movie. Of course, it helps if you already think the English were bastards at that time. But if you don't, you might appreciate seeing how the Irish became bastards too. You should see this movie.
Is that that story about the two brothers sniping each other over Belfast? Man, was that a shit story.
"I felt insulted until I realized that the people trying to mock me were the same intellectual titans who claimed that people would be thrown out of skyscrapers and feudalism would be re-institutionalized if service cartels don't keep getting political favors and regulations are cut down to only a few thousand pages worth, that being able to take a walk in the park is worth driving your nation's economy into the ground, that sexual orientation is a choice that can be changed at a whim, that problems caused by having institutions can be solved by introducing more institutions or strengthening the existing ones that are causing the problems, and many more profound pearls of wisdom. I no longer feel insulted because I now feel grateful for being alive and witnessing such deep conclusions from my fellows."
-Jimmy McTavern, 1938.