Monday Metal

Tuesday Bastille Day Supplemental.

Vive la Frances. Un seul but la Victoire!

Bastille Day: What are we Celebrating Exactly

The great Roger Kimball makes a most important point about Bastille Day and the French:

Since I am writing on Bastille Day, I am prompted to wonder why the French—or anyone else, for that matter—celebrate this infamous date. After all, the “storming” of that royal keep in 1789 was the spark that started the conflagration of the French Revolution. Unlike the American Revolution, in which the rule of law and the institutions of civil society survived the change of governments, the French Revolution was one of the signal bad events in world history. It consumed civil society and the centuries-old institutions of civilization. It was an unalloyed triumph of the totalitarian spirit, and in this respect it presaged and inspired that even greater assault on decency and freedom, the Bolshevik Revolution, the opening act of one of the darkest chapters in human history. The butcher’s bill for the French Revolution is many hundreds of thousands. Soviet Communism was responsible for the deaths of tens upon tens of millions and the universal immiseration of the people whose lives it controlled.

France gave Europe twenty-five years of war that ended with a King back on the French throne.

Jacobin bastards.

The Revolution birthed modern politics with the conservative members of the Chamber of Deputies sitting on the right and the radicals sitting on he left.

One prefers the French Revolution or the American and before that the English Glorious Revolution. Our own Thomas Paine write passionately in defense of the French Revolution, the moron, and Jefferson liked it as well, almost sinisterly so. The more sober Adams and Hamilton thought America should remain close to Great Britain. They were right and Jefferson was wrong.

Oldest ally my foot, who doesn't prefer the English temperment to the French? The Glorious Revolution was bloodless, the French, well...

France Week: Bastille Day

We don't mean to bash France or the French on Bastille Day, but we've always thought it ironic that the storming of the Bastille and the eventual overthrow of King Louis led to a decade of internal turmoil ending with a self appointed emperor.

This is not the American idea of Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite.

The French revolution was not the last revolution, merely the first of many, 1832, 1871...they damn near had a military coup in the 1950s over the Algerian mess.

You can't say that about the American Revolution.

Napoleon was a great man of course, and unique in that he didn't care about one's background, only his competency. Napoleon was very competent. So we're not a monarchist or anything.

Besides, the Napoleonic Wars are totally cool.

7-14-19 in New Jersey: Bastille Day Edition

Bastille Day will be celebrated throughout the state including Jersey City,  Frenchtown will of course be hosting festivities, and Trenten will inaugurate it's first ever Bastille Day Celebration:

TRENTON — Mayor Reed Gusciora and the City of Trenton will be hosting its first Bastille Day Celebration on Friday, July 12 from 4-8 p.m. on S. Warren Street between E. State and Lafayette Street.

The celebration will include several activities such as a Waiters’ Race, with a grand prize of a 4 night hotel accommodation in Orlando, Florida or Las Vegas, Nevada; French cuisine; French entertainment; a Marie Antoinette costume contest; and more. There will also be a competition for dogs, with awards given to the best pets dressed in the French-themed costumes.

At Casa de Stroock  we'll be flying Les Tri  Colour and hosting a ceremonial viewing of Is Paris Burning? Those Allemand bastards...

Vive De Gaulle. Vive Napoleon! Vive Foch & Petain! Vive le France!