Tea at Trianon: Muhammad & Marx

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, October 12, 2026

Muhammad & Marx

An interesting comparison, although there are those who question whether we worship the same deity as Muslims. The old crusaders saw them as pagans. From Tierney's Real News:

Look closely at how Islam began and how Communism began, and a clear pattern appears. Both took ideas that already existed and worked, then changed them so the founders and their followers could claim ownership and control. The result in both cases has been division.
Both men followed the same logic:
Take something that already functions.
Declare it incomplete or corrupt.
Supply a new, corrected version that puts the founder and his successors at the center.
Use that new version to bind followers together while separating them from everyone else.
The result is a system built for authority and control.
Both men also made a claim of exclusive, final authority. Muhammad claimed to be the last prophet, replacing Jesus Christ, and carrying all news laws from Gabriel. Marx claimed to have discovered the scientific laws of history that would end class conflict. Each claim demanded that everything before it be set aside. Nothing shows the pattern better than Muhammad’s use of Gabriel. (Read more.)