"Happy Birthday, Mr. President, Happy Birthday To You." The Land O'The Free and The Home O'The Brave is ruled by instant gratification. What have you done for me today, let alone yesterday, Mr. President? Maximilien Robespierre had his Paul Barras in 1794 and The POTUS has Tom Tomorrow in 2009.This blog offers an HT (tip of the hat) to the memory of Professor Patrick Halley's course on the French Revolution. if this is the (fair & balanced) anatomy of revolution, so be it.
[x Wikipedia] [Dan Perkins is an editorial cartoonist better known by the pen name "Tom Tomorrow". His weekly comic strip, "This Modern World," which comments on current events from a strong liberal perspective, appears regularly in approximately 150 papers across the U.S., as well as on Salon and Working for Change. The strip debuted in 1990 in SF Weekly. Get the Google Reader at no cost from Google. Click on this link to go on a tour of the Google Reader. If you read a lot of blogs, load Reader with your regular sites, then check them all on one page. The Reader's share function lets you publicize your favorite posts.
Thermidorean Reaction
The Reaction began on 27 July 1794, which the French Republican Calendar dates as 9 Thermidor. Maximilien Robespierre and Louis de Saint-Just came under a concerted and organized attack from other members of the Committee of Public Safety. Robespierre gambled and appealed to the deputies of the Right to support him. However, the deputies of the Right rejected his appeal and the Committee almost unanimously voted against him and his close allies. Robespierre and his allies known as The Revolutionary Tribunal used its power to send approximately 1300 people to their death over a period of six weeks. Due in part to this, the Convention began plotting against Robespierre and his followers. The Convention was led by Paul Barras, a follower of Georges Danton, and Joseph Fouché, an ultra-revolutionary Jacobin who was not trusted by Robespierre. Anticipating his own downfall and wanting to have a death of a hero, Robespierre attempted to kill himself and shattered his own jaw with a shot.
The following day, 10 Thermidor (28 July), the new authorities guillotined (without trial, nor even the light formality of a Revolutionary Tribunal) Robespierre, Saint-Just, Georges Couthon, and several other supporters, including members of the Paris Commune (the city government of Paris).
[x Salon]
This Modern World — "Hope For Eventual Change"
By Tom Tomorrow (Dan Perkins)
Perkins, a long time resident of Brooklyn, New York, currently lives in Connecticut. He received the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Excellence in Journalism in both 1998 and 2002.
When he is not working on projects related to his comic strip, Perkins writes a daily political weblog, also entitled "This Modern World," which he began in December 2001.]
Copyright © 2009 Salon Media Group, Inc.
Copyright © 2009 Sapper's (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves
