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Showing posts with the label monarchy

Not Innocent of the Crown’s Crimes

Man must assert his native rights, must say ;  We take from Monarchs’ hand the granted sway;  — Shelley, an English poet     Separating the “human” from the institution, and the “family” from the “monarchy” has long been a successful tactic in preventing searching scrutiny of the institution. She faithfully served the British imperial project Related Insurgent Empire

The Whitewashing of Empire

The role the monarchy played in the service of UK’s imperial interests

Connolly on George V and the Monarchy

We will not blame him for the crimes of his ancestors if he relinquishes the royal rights of his ancestors; but as long as he claims their rights, by virtue of descent, then, by virtue of descent, he must shoulder the responsibility for their crimes. — James Connolly Monarchy is a survival of the tyranny imposed by the hand of greed and treachery upon the human race in the darkest and most ignorant days of our history. It derives its only sanction from the sword of the marauder, and the helplessness of the producer, and its gifts to humanity are unknown, save as they can be measured in the pernicious examples of triumphant and shameless iniquities. The Right Divine of Labour To be first of earthly things; That the Thinker and the Worker Are Manhood’s only Kings — Connolly
"I’m not a very passionate republican – many things bother me more than the monarchy. But as principles go it is unwavering. We have a  class problem in Britain  and the monarchy exemplifies it. If it’s a guilty pleasure I’m after, I don’t turn to betrothals in real-world feudal dynasties: I have Netflix. The political scientist Benedict Anderson  described countries as imagined communities . Call me a misery guts, but I’d rather imagine one in which I am born a citizen, not a subject, and others are not born to govern me." "The royal wedding" Note: Imagined Communities is a seminal book. It is an essential reading.