One of the most bizarre sights of the protesting throughout America has been the mock guillotines that have been displayed. For instance, in August, a guillotine was wheeled up to the police bureau in Portland. The same month, protesters put a life-size doll of President Trump inside a guillotine outside the White House.
But why guillotines? The imagery is not only bizarre but also chilling. The guillotine, after all, is perhaps best known for its lethal use during the reign of terror in France. The “protesters” who are deploying mock guillotines in America’s streets today are obviously aware of this, and yet they are just as obviously displaying guillotines to send a frightening message.
But comparisons between the French Revolution of the 18th century and the mayhem in America today are not limited to guillotines. Famous British statesman Lord Acton observed of the former: “The appalling thing in the French Revolution is not the tumult but the design. Through all the fire and smoke we perceive the evidence of calculating organisation. The managers remain studiously concealed and masked; but there is no doubt about their presence from the first.”
And so it is in America today.
This Intelligence Brief “Special Report” takes a hard look at five groups helping to foment the civil unrest in our country. As will become quickly evident reading this material, the orchestration includes not only interlocking connections among these and other groups active in the streets, but also connections to those who occupy positions of wealth and power who are aiding and abetting the rioting.
Of course, there are many Americans who sincerely believe (though they are mistaken) that racism and brutality are systemic in police departments and America as a whole. They have the right to peacefully protest — a right enshrined in the First Amendment to our Constitution. But revolutionaries who want to subvert our constitutional order are exploiting issues we can all agree with — e.g., both racism and police brutality are wrongs — to gain popular support.
In this, too, there is a similarity with the French revolutionaries. Instead of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” their toppling of altar and throne resulted in terror and tyranny.
Fortunately, there are huge differences between what happened in France and what has happened thus far in America: Real guillotines have not been used, and countless thousands have not been killed. Let’s keep it that way by exposing the revolutionaries and their subversive plans.
— James F. Fitzgerald, President, LECF