Email exchange with Max Parry, including Ramin Mazaheri and Patrice Greanville
My email to Max Parry,
Thanks, Max for including me in your essay, a fine one indeed, as usual for you.
I am copying Ramin and Patrice. I’m sure you know I interviewed Ramin twice about his Yellow Vest book,
Per Ramin’s recommendation, I read the Napoleon biographies of Vincent Cronin (in English) and Jean Tulard (in French).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_Bonaparte:_An_Intimate_Biography
https://www.fayard.fr/livre/napoleon-ned-9782818506448/
Tulard’s book is from the POV of the elites, Thermidors and aristocrat/bourgeois classes. His take on Bonaparte is very snarky and comic-book for me. It also starts in 1799, so we know nothing of the man, except his ginned-up dictator persona.
Cronin’ book is a masterpiece. He starts before Napoleon’s birth and really gets into the historical roots of his populist, socialist philosophy. You mentioned an island where he let back slavery. He was probably in a weak position there and had to compromise with the colonizers to keep the peace. Elsewhere throughout the book, Bonaparte reminds me of Mao Zedong, giving freedom and hope to the masses. I have taken notes to compare the two, but have not found time to write it.
Make no mistake: Napoleon was an 18th century socialist, saying, All for the People! Mao said Serve the People!
What’s the difference? That is why the rest of the monarchial West waged total war on the people’s French Revolution. Bonaparte won 54 of his 56 anti-imperial battles, a military feat unheard of in the last 500 years. Finally, it took them 15 years to destroy the French People’s Dream. Luckily, the Chinese still have Mao’s Dream.
Here in the West, we continue living the imperialist-colonialist-capitalist trillionaire dictators’ aristocratic, liberaloid nightmare to this day.
I’m now on the Epilogue of Ramin Mazaheri’s book, “France’s Yellow Vests” and I think it’s great. I really enjoyed it after reading Jeff Brown’s BIG Red Book on China some years before. The U.S. and other Western countries have given excuses for countless wars on countries bordering China. It’s amazing China has held on to it’s revolution for so long. I saw a History channel take on the French Revolution recently and it made the masses who revolted in France appear to be genocidal maniacs. At least it showed that European countries attacked France from every side after the revolution and were repelled. In my books and films, such as Drugs as Weapons Against Us: The CIA War on Musicians and Activists (and a coming sequel), I try to show how they attempt to undermine revolutionaries more intimately. My more recent Shots: Eugenics to Pandemics, depicts their weakening of our immune systems, along with their incredible racism. In Solidarity with Ramin and Jeff!
Thanks, John. So glad you read Ramin’s Yellow Vest book. It really opened my eyes to how important the French Revolution and Napoleon are to today’s imperial headlines.
Your work is very important and equally important to open people’s eyes to what’s behind those headlines.
¡VENCEREMOS!
Jeff