Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny

"Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny" is a documentary film exploring the life and work of the German-American political theorist Hannah Arendt, focusing on her insights into totalitarianism and the human condition. The film, part of the PBS American Masters series, examines how her experiences as a political prisoner and refugee during World War II shaped her thinking about political power, the rise of authoritarianism, and the dangers of unchecked power.

1984 - the 1956 film adaption

"The Anti-Sex League is Watching You"

Step into the dystopian world of "1984" (1956), now AI remastered in 4K from a public-domain, low-resolution source. An exploitation of the groundbreaking novel by George Orwell, this adaptation was funded by the CIA.

It brings to life the chilling vision of a totalitarian future where the fascist state in the form of Big Brother watches your every move. Starring the remarkable Edmond O'Brien, Jan Sterling, and Michael Redgrave, this classic film is more relevant than ever, and now you can experience it with stunning clarity and detail. Whether you're revisiting this iconic story or discovering it for the first time, this 4K remaster may be the best way available to watch the rare 1956 film adaptation of "1984".

👁️ Plot Synopsis: Set in a bleak, totalitarian future where the state exercises total control over every aspect of life, "1984" follows Winston Smith (Edmond O'Brien), a low-ranking member of the ruling Party. Winston works at the Ministry of Truth, where he alters historical records to align with the Party’s propaganda. However, as he becomes increasingly disillusioned with the oppressive regime, Winston begins a forbidden love affair with Julia (Jan Sterling) and secretly questions the Party's authority. His rebellion leads to a dangerous confrontation with O’Brien (Michael Redgrave), a high-ranking Party official who has a terrifying plan for Winston's reeducation.

👥 Main Cast:

Edmond O'Brien as Winston Smith: The conflicted protagonist who dares to question the Party’s absolute power.

Jan Sterling as Julia: Winston’s love interest who shares his desire for rebellion.

Michael Redgrave as O’Brien: The enigmatic and ruthless Party official who controls Winston’s fate.

Donald Pleasence as Syme: Winston’s colleague at the Ministry of Truth, who becomes a victim of the Party’s purge.

David Kossoff as Charrington: The antique shop owner who plays a crucial role in Winston’s story.

📜 Film History: Directed by Michael Anderson and released in 1956, "1984" is one of the earliest film adaptations of George Orwell’s seminal novel. The film was produced at a time when the world was grappling with the tensions of the Cold War, making its themes of surveillance, censorship, and totalitarianism particularly resonant. Though it was made decades ago, the film’s stark portrayal of a dystopian future remains eerily relevant today. With this 4K remaster, viewers can now appreciate the film’s powerful imagery and gripping narrative with a new level of detail and clarity.

🌟 Critical Reaction: Upon its release, "1984" received critical acclaim for its faithful adaptation of Orwell’s novel and its compelling performances, particularly by Edmond O'Brien and Michael Redgrave. The film has since become a classic in the dystopian genre, admired for its exploration of themes that continue to resonate in contemporary society. This new 4K remaster allows audiences to experience the film in a way that was never possible before, with every detail of Orwell’s dark vision brought to life with stunning precision.

🎥 4K Remaster: This AI remastered version of "1984" presents the film in stunning 4K resolution, enhancing its stark, atmospheric visuals and bringing new life to its chilling world. The improved picture quality reveals details in the set design, costumes, and cinematography that were previously obscured, while the upgraded audio ensures that the film’s dialogue and score resonate with maximum impact. This 4K remaster is the ultimate way to experience one of the most important dystopian films ever made.

🔍 Keywords: 1984 1956, 4K Remastered, George Orwell, Dystopian Film, AI Remaster, 4K Ultra HD, Classic Cinema, Full Movie, High Definition, Vintage Cinema, Michael Anderson, Edmond O'Brien, Jan Sterling, Michael Redgrave, Donald Pleasence, Totalitarian Future, Orwellian Dystopia.

Wag the Dog

Wag the Dog is a 1997 American political satire black comedy film produced and directed by Barry Levinson and starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro.

The film centers on a spin doctor and a Hollywood producer who fabricate a war in Albania to distract voters from a presidential sex scandal. The screenplay by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet was loosely adapted from Larry Beinhart's 1993 novel, American Hero.

Wag the Dog was released one month before the outbreak of the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal and the subsequent bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan by the Clinton administration in August 1998, which prompted the media to draw comparisons between the film and reality. The comparison was also made in December 1998 when the administration initiated a bombing campaign of Iraq during Clinton's impeachment trial over the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal. It was made again in the spring of 1999 when the administration intervened in the Kosovo War and initiated a bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, which coincidentally bordered Albania and contained ethnic Albanians.

The film grossed $64.3 million on a $15 million budget and was well received by critics, who praised the direction, performances, themes, and humor. Hoffman received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance and screenwriters David Mamet and Hilary Henkin were both nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Ruby Ridge | American Experience | PBS

 

Shortly before dawn on August 21, 1992, six heavily armed U.S. marshals made their way up to the isolated mountaintop home of Randy and Vicki Weaver and their children on Ruby Ridge in Northern Idaho. Charged with selling two illegal sawed-off shotguns to an undercover agent, Weaver had failed to appear in court and law enforcement was tasked with bringing him in. For months, the Weavers had been holed up on their property with a cache of firearms, including automatic weapons. When the federal agents surveilling the property crossed paths with members of the family, a firefight broke out. The standoff that mesmerized the nation would leave Weaver injured, his wife and son dead, and some convinced that the federal government was out of control. Drawing upon eyewitness accounts, including interviews with Weaver's daughter, Sara, and federal agents involved in the confrontation, Ruby Ridge is a riveting account of the event that helped give rise to the modern American militia movement.

The Shadow Of The Caravans - Afghanistan before the Russian Invasion (1979)

 

This film is a glimpse of the traditional life of the Afghan people, their culture and their music, just before the Russian invasion in 1979. 

About Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion in Dec.1979. Border unrest, trade routes blocked and the Afghan mujahideen is about to take up arms against the intruder. In April 1978, the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in a bloody coup d'état against then-President Mohammed Daoud Khan, in what is called the Saur Revolution. The PDPA declared the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, with its first leader named as People's Democratic Party general secretary Nur Muhammad Taraki.

The Saur Revolution (/saʊər/; Dari: إنقلاب ثور‎ or ۷ ثور (literally 7th Saur); Pashto: د ثور انقلاب‎), also romanized Sowr Revolution, and alternatively called the April Revolution or April Coup, was the process by which the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) overthrew Afghan President Mohammed Daoud Khan on 27–28 April 1978, who had himself taken power in the 1973 Afghan coup d'état. Daoud Khan and most of his family were killed at the presidential palace by military officers in support of the PDPA. The revolution resulted in the creation of a Soviet-aligned government with Nur Muhammad Taraki as President (General Secretary of the Revolutionary Council). Saur or Sowr is the Dari (Persian) name of the second month of the Solar Hijri calendar, the month in which the uprising took place.

The revolution was ordered by PDPA member Hafizullah Amin, who would become a significant figure in the revolutionary government; at a press conference in New York in June 1978, Amin claimed that the event was not a coup but a revolution by the "will of the people". The coup involved heavy fighting and resulted in many deaths. The Saur Revolution was a significant event in Afghanistan's history, marking the onset of 43 years of conflict in the country.

Capitalist Realism and the New Hollywood

An exploration of Mark Fisher's concept of capitalist realism as it manifests itself in the films of the New Hollywood, such as The Godfather and Five Easy Pieces. The New Hollywood at once reveals the dominance of capitalist realism and, at times, attempts to pose a challenge to it.

END:CIV

This film examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations. Based in part on Endgame, the best-selling book by Derrick Jensen, END:CIV asks: “If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?” // Franklin López, Canada, 2011, 115' // 

The Occupation of the American Mind: Israel's Public Relations War in The United States

The Occupation of the American Mind documentary

Over the past few years, Israel's ongoing military occupation of Palestinian territory and repeated invasions of the Gaza strip have triggered a fierce backlash against Israeli policies virtually everywhere in the world -- except the United States. The Occupation of the American Mind takes an eye-opening look at this critical exception, zeroing in on pro-Israel public relations efforts within the U.S.

Narrated by Roger Waters and featuring leading observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. media culture, the film explores how the Israeli government, the U.S. government, and the pro-Israel lobby have joined forces, often with very different motives, to shape American media coverage of the conflict in Israel's favor. From the U.S.-based public relations campaigns that emerged in the 1980s to today, the film provides a sweeping analysis of Israel's decades-long battle for the hearts, minds, and tax dollars of the American people in the face of widening international condemnation of its increasingly right-wing policies.

Original version Narrated by Roger Waters / Featuring Amira Hass, M.J. Rosenberg, Stephen M. Walt, Noam Chomsky, Rula Jebreal, Henry Siegman, Rashid Khalidi, Rami Khouri, Yousef Munayyer, Norman Finkelstein, Max Blumenthal, Phyllis Bennis, Norman Solomon, Mark Crispin Miller, Peter Hart, and Sut Jhally.

The Angry Brigade: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Britain's First Urban Guerilla Group (1972)

Between 1970 and 1972 the Angry Brigade used guns and bombs in a series of symbolic attacks against property. A series of communiqués accompanied the actions, explaining the choice of targets and the Angry Brigade philosophy: autonomous organization and attacks on property alongside other forms of militant working class action. Targets included the embassies of repressive regimes, police stations and army barracks, boutiques and factories, government departments and the homes of Cabinet ministers, the Attorney General and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. These attacks on the homes of senior political figures increased the pressure for results and brought an avalanche of police raids. From the start the police were faced with the difficulty of getting to grips with a section of society they found totally alien. And were they facing an organization—or an idea?

This documentary, produced by Gordon Carr for the BBC (and first shown in January 1973, shortly after the trial), covers the roots of the Angry Brigade in the revolutionary ferment of the 1960s, and follows their campaign and the police investigation to its culmination in the "Stoke Newington 8" conspiracy trial at the Old Bailey—the longest criminal trial in British legal history. Produced after extensive research—among both the libertarian opposition and the police—it remains the essential study of Britain's first urban guerilla group.

More Information:

http://www.pmpress.org/content/article.php?story=GordonCarr

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Angry_Brigade

https://my-blackout.com/2018/09/16/the-angry-brigade-communiques-and-documents/

Benjamin Zephaniah on Windrush, anarchism and his time in North Korea

Poet, writer and activist Benjamin Zephaniah talks to Krishnan Guru-Murthy about the Windrush scandal, how the political system should be torn down and why he spends so much time in China. 

Warning: offensive language.

Paolo Pasolini Salo 120 Giornate di Sodoma

Paolo Pasolini´s Salo 120 Giornate di Sodoma is based on the book The 120 Days of Sodom, by the Marquis de Sade. The story is in four segments, inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy: the Anteinferno, the Circle of Manias, the Circle of Shit and the Circle of Blood.

Director John Waters said "Salo is a beautiful film...it uses obscenity in an intelligent way...and it's about the pornography of power." The film was trying to present fascism in visionary terms rather than as the logical or historical consequence of Sade. The viewer becomes complicit in the objectification of the human through the visual regime of the film. For this reason it is an anti-fascist film.

The tone of Pasolini polemic is “apocalyptic, not merely critical of Western society’s immorality, using sex in Salo as a metaphor for power relationships, after having taken the opposite position a few years before in his cinematic adaptations of The Decameron (1971), The Canterbury Tales (1972), and Arabian Nights (1974), where he depicts sexuality as a space of transgression and a vital rejoinder to every act of domination. 

Bambule/Riot (1970) by Ulrike Meinhof

Ulrike Meinhof's television play, was published in script form in 1971, while Meinhof was still on the run. The publishing house of Klaus Wagenbach, which had been an unwitting partner in the ruse to free Andreas Baader from prison custody in May of 1970, published "Bambule."

This TV movie was pulled before it was to air on German TV in May of 1970; it seems that the writer of the script, Ulrike Meinhof, had become a terrorist shortly before the air date, and the film was shelved. In 1996 German TV finally showed "Bambule."

Bambule was the TV movie that Ulrike Meinhof had written about a group of girls rioting in their youth home. It was scheduled to air on Sunday, 24 May, at 8:15 PM. But Meinhof had helped free Andreas Baader from prison custody two weeks earlier, and Bambule never aired. It was eventually aired on German TV in 1997. The script was published in book form in 1971. 

Catastroika - Privatization Goes Public

It was at the beginning of 1989 when the French academic Jacques Rupnik sat at his desk, in order to prepare a report on the state of the economic reforms in Mikhail Gorbatsov's Soviet Union. The term that he used in describing the death rattle of the empire was "Catastroika". In Yeltsin's time, when Russia instituted maybe the biggest and least successful privatization experiment in the history of humanity, a group of Guardian reports assigned a different meaning to Rupnik's term. "Catastroika" became synonym of the country's complete destruction by market forces; the sell off of public property; and the steep deterioration of citizens' living standards. Now, Catastroika's unit of measurement was unemployment, social impoverishment, declining life expectancy, as well as the creation of a new cast of oligarchs, who took over the country's reins. A few years later, a similar effort to massively privatize public property in unified Germany (which is presented as a model for Greece) created millions of unemployed and some of the biggest scandals in European history.


Nevertheless, Catastroika is a virus that attacks not only the countries that radically change their economic system (like Russia) or countries under financial occupation. In fact, maybe the most unsuccessful privatization examples occur in financial superpowers that theoretically have the financial strength to control their negative consequences. However, its consequences are the gravest and most frightening in countries which fell in the trap of foreign lenders and are obliged to proceed to mass privatization. The public property sell-off which takes place in Greece has been tried several times in similar circumstances.

The procedure always follows exactly the same steps: In the beginning, the government, in collaboration with mass media, starts a forceful attack against public servants, who are presented as responsible for all the country's financial woes. The myth of the overextended public sector is often based on manipulated data from organizations supported and supporting the government of the time. Concurrently, specific public organizations are deliberately left unsupported, exasperating citizens due to their inefficiency. The process is completed by the sell-off of even the most profitable public organizations at a fraction of their real value.

Catastroika's team is already travelling in many countries, collecting images, information and material on deregulation and privatization programs that have been implemented at the so-called "developed" world. The final result of the research is never black or white. The divide between the "social character" of the public sector vis-à-vis the inhumane face of the free market is equally simplistic as the theories of Milton Freedman that professed the need to privatize even the air that we breathe. The Greek case however supersedes the simple theoretical discussion on the role of the country in the economy.

Once more, the documentary will be distributed online under creative commons licence. The free circulation of Catastroika is not just an "obligation" to our co-producers. It is our deeper and, if you prefer, philosophical belief that each product of intellectual creation should be freely available to all. The current financial system, while based all the more on the production and management of information, is incapable by its nature to find a way to secure the remuneration of information creators. This is probably one of many dead-ends in the development of the economy's productive forces, which may soon threaten the bases of the current financial system. Because, as it is well known, every system that stopped the development of the productive forces fell apart -- and you can ask the feudalists about that...

http://www.catastroika.com

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King

A portrait of two different voices whose demands for black equality gave rise to gains in American civil rights.

A half-century after their deaths, Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X remain two of the world's most revered political activists. They were both respected leaders of the American Civil Rights movement, struggling for racial equality and freedom. But at the start of the 1960s, the media were constructing a conflict that stirred the civil rights debate: Malcolm X versus Reverend Martin Luther King.

While King advocated non-violent direct action and passive resistance to achieve equal civil rights, Malcolm X was the spokesman for the Nation of Islam (NOI), the black Muslim movement which violently rejected white America and its Christian values, and preached the supremacy of blacks over whites.
He promoted a segregationist approach that sought to instil in blacks a pride in their African heritage, whereas Martin Luther King believed that self-respect would come through integration.

"King was working to take down signs that prevented black people from riding buses where they wanted to, and to ride in trains, public transportation, preventing them from voting, and all of those things that black people were prevented from doing in the south. In the north, blacks always could vote, but as Malcolm said 'You may have the vote but you ain't no voting for nothing because they've already decided that you are not going to have any power'," explains historian James H. Cone.

King once told the press that "the method of non-violent resistance is one of the most potent, if not the most potent weapons available to oppressed people and their struggle for freedom."

However, for Malcolm, turning the other cheek was a weak strategy that was unacceptable.

"Malcolm comes from a black nationalist tradition that does not believe that you can get your freedom, your self-respect, your dignity by simply letting somebody beat up on you, and you do not try to defend yourself. That's why Malcolm emphasised self-defence. But King emphasised non-violence because if blacks had responded, tried to defend themselves, that would have brought the police department down on those demonstrators and whites would have loved to have the chance to kill black people indiscriminately. So King and Malcolm had that tension," says Cone.

Malcolm X regularly criticised King, accusing him of bowing to whites and subjugating blacks to the very culture that had historically denigrated and abused them.




"The white man pays Reverend Martin Luther King, subsidises Reverend Martin Luther King, so that Reverend Martin Luther King can continue to teach the negroes to be defenceless. That's what you mean by non-violent: be defenceless. Be defenceless in the face of one of the most cruel beasts that has ever taken a people into captivity. That's just the American white man," Malcolm X said.

In Washington, King continued his political work with a group of senators sympathetic to his ideas. He opened historic collaborations with the white community - joining the debate on the civil rights draft bill initiated by President John F Kennedy - that culminated in the March on Washington in 1963 and the signing of the Civil Rights Act in July 1964.

The Antifascists (Full Film 2017)

A low-intensity war is being fought on the streets of Europe and the aim is on fascism. This critically acclaimed documentary takes us behind the masks of the militants called antifascists.

In 2013 a group of armed nazis attacks a peaceful demonstration in Stockholm where several people are injured. In Greece the neo-nazi party Golden Dawn becomes the third largest in the election and in Malmö the activist Showan Shattak and his friends are attacked by a group of nazis with knives and he ends up in a coma.

In this portrait of the antifascists in Greece and Sweden we get to meet key figures that explain their view on their radical politics but also to question the level their own violence and militancy.

Subtitles available in CC.
Support our new project by donating to http://paypal.me/antifadoc

For more info, screening license or contacts:
http://www.theantifascists.se
http://www.facebook.com/theantifascists
http://www.instagram.com/theantifascists

Subtitles: English, Spanish, French, Greek, Polish, Indonesian

Manufacturing Dissent

Manufacturing Dissent from Radical Times on Vimeo.

This video presentation is a documentary-based analysis of the role of the media in the political strategy of former Queensland Premier, Sir Johannes Bjelke-Petersen.

The video documentary was submitted as part of a thesis for a Master of Arts degree at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in July 1997.

The documentary was compiled by Debra Beattie, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Sources include:
The Sunshine System (1986) Quentin Dempster and Ross Wilson (50 minutes)
The Moonlight State (May 1987) ABC Four Corners, Chris Masters (reporter), Andrew Olle (presenter) and Peter Manning (executive producer) (59' 59")
The Battle For Bowen Hills (1975) Peter Gray and Garry Lane (Crowsfoot Films) (21 minutes)
Earth First (1987) Gaia Films Jeni Kendall (director/producer) and John Seed (producer) (54 minutes)
If You Don't Fight, You Lose (1978) Leslie Mannison, Joseph Monsour and Ian Curr (24 minutes)
The Whole World Is Watching (1982) Amanda King and Peter Gray (25 minutes)
Friends And Enemies(1987) Tom Zubrycki, Jotz Productions (88 minutes)
Portrait Of A Premier (1978) Brian Benson
State Of Shock (1989) David Bradbury
Joh's Jury (1993) ABC Television, Ken Cameron (98 minutes)
Bruce Dickson footage (1977)

Laurie Anderson's "The Dream Before" is sung by Christine Johnson, recorded at one of the early performances of Women In Voice at the Sitting Duck (cafe and performance venue) in Brisbane in the early 1980s.

Lyrics: History is an angel being blown backwards into the future
He said: History is a pile of debris
And the angel wants to go back and fix things
To repair the things that have been broken
But there is a storm blowing from Paradise
And the storm keeps blowing the angel backwards into the future
And this storm, this storm is called Progress.

Inspired by Walter Benjamin
Lyrics by Laurie Anderson
Performed by Christine Johnson

Get Rid of Yourself

Get Rid of Yourself from zoo on Vimeo.

Get Rid of Yourself is a video-film-tract addressed to those who anonymously embody the return of political activism within Empire. While its initial sounds and images were filmed during the riots in Genoa, 2001, these materials are pulled apart and recomposed in order to locate the intensity of a shared experience, rather than producing one more documentary version of the programmed and hyper-mediatized confrontation of the G8 counter-summit. Elaborating a complex and rhythmic form of address via sound/image disjunctions, cheap video effects and performance, the film declares its own exile from a biopolitical space-time where nothing ever happens. The crisis it announces is the sudden return of history, but this time without characters or a story, and of a politics without subjects.

Provisionally aligning itself with the so-called Black Bloc' movement with the arrogance of its discourse as well as the force and style of their resistance Get Rid of Yourself is an encounter with emerging, non-instituted or identity-less forms of protest that refuse the representational politics of the official Left. Edited in the aftermath of 9/11 - a period of doubt, reflection and heightened security measures worldwide the film also attempts to measure the strange distance these events have crossed, and the increasing repression under which the feeling of civil war' has been buried in the meantime. A filmed essay that works by betraying its own form, Get Rid of Yourself tries to approach what is most open in an event, rather than capturing and completing it as something recognizable.

Bernadette Corporation (2003, DV, 61 min, featuring Chloe Sevigny and Werner von Delmont)

http://www.bernadettecorporation.com/getrid.htm

Austerity is a Scam

A searing documentary looking at the pragmatics of what is called Austerity -  "difficult economic conditions created by government measures to reduce public expenditure" - in the UK today.

The present UK Conservative Party government came to power in 2010 but even before that national financial policy favoured the rich over the poor for decades. In 2008 the Labor Government of Gordon Brown responded to the global credit crisis by giving billions of Pounds to the banks. Neoliberalism has been an entrenched defining element in government social, educational and cultural policies in the West since the 1980s. We are now just seeing the endgame of it play out amid economies that have little room to maneuver outside the neoliberal model. When wealth is so concentrated in the hands of those that control the majority of assets, then the majority of the population will be brought to a point of suffering that will only be comparable to feudal societies.

Ten for Two: The John Sinclair Freedom Rally (1971)

The John Sinclair Freedom Rally was a protest and concert in response to the imprisonment of John Sinclair for possession of marijuana held on December 10, 1971, in the Crisler Arena at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The event was filmed and released as Ten For Two.

The reason behind the concert was the arrest of Sinclair, who was given ten years in prison for the possession of two marijuana cigarettes. Shortly after the event, Sinclair was released.

John Sinclair will be making two appearances in Stockholm later this month. At Rönnell's Books and Larry's Corner. 

Oliver Cromwell (A Historical Model for Understanding Donald Trump?)

Oliver Cromwell was a religious fanatic and manic depressive farmer who recovered from his crippling depression and developed a fundamental religious mania as a way of giving meaning to his life. He was a member of the minor gentry in his local area, but conflict followed him constantly, whereby he argued and fought with anyone who did not share his views. He eventually sought the support of God for his beliefs and actions through the Puritan Church. He rose through the ranks of the Parliamentary forces that were fighting the supporters of the King, Charles I. He eventually made himself Lord High Protector of England, Ireland and Wales and then instituted a theocratic system of governance where all festivals and holidays (even Christmas), music, theater, football, pubs and inns were banned. Instead 'Fast Days' each month were introduced where citizens were compelled to fast and pray.

Cromwell believed that women and girls should dress in a proper manner. Make-up was banned. Puritan leaders and soldiers would roam the streets of towns and scrub off any make-up found on unsuspecting women. Too colourful dresses were banned. A Puritan lady wore a long black dress that covered her almost from neck to toes. She wore a white apron and her hair was bunched up behind a white head-dress. Puritan men wore black clothes and short hair.

Cromwell banned Christmas as people would have known it then. By the C17th, Christmas had become a holiday of celebration and enjoyment – especially after the problems caused by the civil war. Cromwell wanted it returned to a religious celebration where people thought about the birth of Jesus rather than ate and drank too much. In London, soldiers were ordered to go round the streets and take, by force if necessary, food being cooked for a Christmas celebration. The smell of a goose being cooked could bring trouble. Traditional Christmas decorations like holly were banned.

Despite all these rules, Cromwell himself was not strict. He enjoyed music, hunting and playing bowls. He even allowed full-scale entertainment at his daughter’s wedding. Life Under Cromwell

Fast forward to 2017 and the resemblances to Donald J. Trump and the conduct of his administration, at least in the popular media from both sides, are startling. This BBC documentary from 2001 looks at the life of Oliver Cromwell (25 April 1599 – 3 September 1658) and in my opinion Old Ironsides would not feel out of place in the present White House, even with his fevered hatred of Catholics and teetotaler lifestyle. The creation of their own power base (Cromwell: New Model Army and the negotiations with its members following the second civil war and the uneasy peace, and the vast array of Right Wing organizations that pledged loyalty to Trump during the campaign of 2016) is another common feature, as well as elevating members of their own families to positions of power. Even the idea that theirs is a mission ordained my God is present in the political lives of both figures as well as an almost schoolboy behavior in times of pressure and stress (Cromwell started a giggling ink fight on the night he was writing the death warrant for Charles I's execution).

In fact it has even been asserted that Trump is a descendant of Cromwell on his mother's side, "Trump, a 12th great-grandchild of Cromwell’s, is connected to his line through his Scottish mother, Mary Anne MacLeod (Irish Central News).