Recalling the French Revolution of 1789: Lessons for the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street Movements

When I was reading into a book about Adolf Hitler, entitled The Psychopathic God, when I ran across a meaningful quote from a French Revolution-era author, diplomat and orator named Honore Mirabeau. In the book he wrote about his experience visiting the kingdom of Prussia (A Secret History of the Court of Berlin), Mirabeau wrote:
“Prussia is not a country that has an Army; it is an Army that has a country”. That quote piqued my interest so I did some research into the realities in which Mirabeau found himself. My initial thought was to write column about Prussian militarism and the alarming similarities to our own but instead decided to write about the French Revolution, particularly with the early phases of the current revolution going on around the world in the Occupy Wall Street and Arab Spring Uprising movements. There are many lessons to be learned.