My latest for The Rebel: On July 28 of 1540, Henry VIII beheaded yet another former close associate, Thomas Cromwell, his right-hand man in his break with Rome including beheading Thomas More, and later in beheading Anne Boleyn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BrIcTxcqkg
The audio-only version is available here: [podcast title="July 28 Rebel"]http://www.thejohnrobson.com/podcast/John2016/July/160728Rebel.mp3[/podcast]
https://youtu.be/xWNWu5ZnHn4
The audio-only version is available here: [podcast title="Robson Rebel, July 21"]http://www.thejohnrobson.com/podcast/John2016/July/160721Rebel.mp3[/podcast]
My latest for The Rebel: On July 14 1933 Adolph Hitler banned all political parties in Nazi Germany except his own. Which was obviously in retrospect part of a plan to impose totalitarianism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVo6ergLQKc
The audio-only version is available here: [podcast title="Rebel audio, July 14"]http://www.thejohnrobson.com/podcast/John2016/July/160714Rebel.mp3[/podcast]
My latest for The Rebel: Happy Sharia Day, or not. July 7 is the anniversary of the 1980 introduction of sharia law in Iran.
https://youtu.be/y23ZMrZCYK8
The audio-only version is available here: [podcast title="Rebel audio, July 7"]http://www.thejohnrobson.com/podcast/John2016/July/160707Rebel.mp3[/podcast]
In my latest National Post column I express surprise at how often Gerald Ford said very wise things about limited government and social cohesion.
On Canada Day I was happy to appear on Ezra Levant's Rebel Media show to talk about patriotism, Magna Carta, our national identity and Justin Trudeau's postmodern incoherence. https://youtu.be/voMKblrlZ9s
My latest for The Rebel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w0BYHSJ9pI
On June 30, in 1688, William of Orange received a letter from the “Seven Immortals” inviting him to bring an army to England, oust James II and assume the throne along with his wife, James’s Protestant daughter Mary.
The “Immortals” were aristocratic toffs, Earls, Viscounts and Bishops, not the sort we’d expect to champion the rights of ordinary people. Indeed not people whose names we can recall today without Googling.
But they were statesman who crossed party lines and risked reputation, estate and life to defend the liberty of citizens. Whereas today the studiously common-touch politicians we elect by mass voting are partisan hacks who continually expand the powers of the state.
Perhaps we should recall the Seven Immortals after after all.
The audio-only version is available here: [podcast title="Rebel, June 30"]http://www.thejohnrobson.com/podcast/John2016/June/160630Rebel.mp3[/podcast]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JfQb-P-CPA July 1, 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the notorious World War I Somme offensive. But this battle deserves a second look. Long a byword for futile slaughter, for callous unimaginative generals sending a generation to their pointless deaths, it was in fact a necessary operation to relieve pressure on the desperate French at Verdun. And it succeeded.
It did not merely prevent the Germans from breaking through on the Western Front and winning the war in the fall of 1916. It so battered the Kaiser’s army that the Germans withdrew into the Hindenburg Line and launched the unrestricted submarine warfare that brought the United States into the conflict and assured Allied victory.
The conditions were appalling and the cost horrific. But neither the generals nor the politicians had a choice, other than surrender to an aggressive regime that had begun the war by attacking its neighbours and occupying much of their territory.
So yes, we must recall the cost. But also the victory it bought, tactically in 1916 and strategically in 1918.