23. Viva La Revolution!

Flipping Tables

This week on the podcast I scratched my original plan. The passage of the Big UGLY monstrous bill the day before July 4th and my recording being that day, it inspired me to change the topic.

I didn't celebrate July 4th the way that I have growing up. But I spent a lot of time thinking about what revolution means, especially at this moment in history. In this episode, I re-read the Declaration of independence and the crimes the crown committed that made the colonists revolt. Then I talk about the American Revolution but focus on the revolution it inspired... the French Revolution.
The French Revolution was inspired largely by wealth disparity. By the late 1780s, France was deeply in debt from wars, including the American Revolution. Food prices got so high that bread took up 80% of a poor family's income. Unemployment and starvation were widespread and while the people starved, the monarchy led by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette spent like the countries coffers never ended. The top 1-2% controlled over 20% of the land and all the political power while 98% of the company could barely survive. The bottom 98% paid all the taxes, including tithes to the church, feudal dues and royal taxes.

Compare that to the US Today, 1% of Americans hold 34% of the nations wealth. The top 10% of the US hold almost 70% of the nations wealth. The bottom 50% of Americans? 2.5% of the wealth.
2.5% OF THE WEALTH.

Half the country has 2.5% of the wealth.

The current wealth gap in the US is the widest its been since the 1920s which led us to the Great Depression. And now we just passed a bill that is the largest upward transfer of wealth from the lowest 10% to the top 10%. And this wealth gap is always predictive of an incoming Revolution.
The world changes when people do. People like Dietrich Bonhoeffer who gave up everything to fight against in justice when he had everything to gain by staying quiet. But his work, his example and his writings would inspire Martin Luther King Jr. the US Civil Rights movement, Desmond Tutu and the fight against apartheid.
Empires always fall. Regimes do not last.
WE, the people, get the final say.
Fight on and Viva La Revolution!