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Felicitations to our Francophile readers! Per Wikipedia:
During the reign of Louis XVI, France faced a major economic crisis, partially initiated by the cost of intervening in the American Revolution, and exacerbated by a regressive system of taxation. On 5 May 1789 the Estates-General of 1789 convened to deal with this issue, but were held back by archaic protocols and the conservatism of the Second Estate, consisting of the nobility and amounting to only 2% of France’s population at the time. On 17 June 1789 the Third Estate, with its representatives drawn from the middle class, or proletariats, reconstituted themselves as the National Assembly, a body whose purpose was the creation of a French constitution…
The storming of the Bastille and the subsequent Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was the third event of this opening stage of the revolution. The first had been the revolt of the nobility, refusing to aid King Louis XVI through the payment of taxes. The second had been the formation of the National Assembly and the Tennis Court Oath.
The middle class had formed the National Guard, sporting tricolour cockades (rosettes) of blue, white and red, formed by combining the red-and-blue cockade of the Paris commune and the white cockade of the king. These cockades, and soon simply their colour scheme, became the symbol of the revolution and, later, of France itself.
Paris, close to insurrection, and, in François Mignet’s words, “intoxicated with liberty and enthusiasm,” showed wide support for the Assembly. The press published the Assembly’s debates; political debate spread beyond the Assembly itself into the public squares and halls of the capital…
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” — Mark Twain
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Beyond celebrating liberty, equality, and fraternity, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
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hildebrand
Frankly, the new Obama ad is the best Bastille Day present a peasant could want.
rikyrah
Happy Bastille, Day!!
Chris
Yep… a kingdom fell because the rich and powerful were too greedy to pay their taxes and too rigid to cut the 99% a break. Gosh, that never gets old!
Thanks, and happy Bastille Day to you too!
Alison
I’ll be putting my birthday-gift-new-bedding on tonight, WOOHOO :P
Also hoping for a soccer win tonight, which though it’s MLS, it’s *soccer* so it’s kinda European so that’s my sorta nod to Bastille Day I guess. Not really.
dmsilev
Dealing with a work crisis. We use (liquid) helium on a regular basis, and due to a variety of events including a plant failure in Qatar, there’s a global shortage. I told my boss that if fallback plans A & B don’t work, plan C is to go out and mug some clowns and steal their balloons.
I’ve since been told that even in the absence of a helium shortage, plan C would be regarded as a public service.
Jon
The French Revolution: the worst government to take over from the worst government since 2004.
mai naem
Perhaps Obama’s people can translate the ad in french being that the Mittster speaks French fluently. Just in case he didn’t understand it in english. Then we can talk about France and old Europe and the Mittster supporting the Vietnam War but bicycling around in Gay Paree teaching the French about mormonism.
I am just wondering if the Romney campaign is this bad on purpose and that this is some humongous Republican conspiracy to have the Obama people spend all their money on Romney and then have change the candidate in Tampa.
The other piece about McCain not picking the Mittster in 08. I don’t think McCain had the kind of time Obama’s had to look into the tax returns. Also, McCain hated Mitt. You could see it. I don’t think the two have to love each other but I don’t think you can have a Pres and a Veep who hate each others guys. Palin was the game changer. Romney was another rich white guy.
Villago Delenda Est
The 1% seem to be demanding a French Solution.
Give it to them. Tumbrel rides for the lot of them.
Mike G
Thank FSM that could never happen here.
mai naem
OT Stephanie Cutter is the bestest surrogate Obama’s got. I was a Dean supporter in 04 and I remember Cutter and Robert Gibbs who was with Gephardt and was very dickish, but I love that they are on Obama’s side.
Cain
In order of Bastille Day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW72Gmqjse4
Rush – Bastille Day
j
Wow! I thought we had an overly militant anthem. After reading the translation I guess I was wrong.
That thing sounds like it was written by Cheney and William “the bloody” Kristol, with an assist from John Bolton.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I finally made myself read BoBo’s op-ed on the twilight of the elites, inspired by Chris Hayes’s book. He concludes by saying that Hayes wants a French Revolution, BoBo something more like our revolution. I haven’t read Hayes’ book, but he strikes me as an unlikely Robespierre. And BoBo in real time would’ve been a Tory.
Someone on an earlier thread mentioned Paul Begala telling Ed Rendell, who’s Very Concerned about Obama’s tone, and will probably stroke out when he sees the Singing Willard ad, to STFU. I made a google to see what Begala said, and it’s a good think Begala isn’t running for office, ’cause I think I would have to send him money I don’t have for this. I hope he saves some of this for his old partner, too.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mai naem:
What the two have in common is what I suspect (IANAPsychiatrist) is a pathological belief in their own greatness. Two people like that are unlikely to enjoy sharing the same room.
Valdivia
My favorite rendition of the Marseillaise
j
@Alison: Just overindulge with wine and chocolate. And maybe some cheese & escargot.
Then you can fall into the new bed linens and sleep until noon.
Haydnseek
@Alison: Hey Alison–Portland fan or Galaxy supporter?
Phylllis
@Valdivia: Mine too. I get misty every time I see it.
Haydnseek
@Villago Delenda Est: You handle the tumbrels…I’ll sharpen the Guillotines…
Dee Loralei
@Alison: I got new bedding for my birthday too! Some great huge thread count sheets and a matelasse, matelaisse? bedspread and pillow shams. Exactly a month ago. I love my new bed stuff. The sheets stay cool all night too. Happy birthday, LOL.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Valdivia:
Mine was the one in Victory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4SJv61i6Bo
dmsilev
@Valdivia: A true classic.
j
@dmsilev: HA!
ruemara
I spent the morn fomenting for revolution and registering voters at the local OFA table. There I got into … a debate… with some one who was parroting nearly exactly every MYDD, FDL complaint since election night 08. Up to and including “60 vote supermajority” and “bully pulpit”. I really doubted those people existed in real life. Oddly enough, even though she agreed with the facts presented to her, she still felt that there must have been more Obama could do because, durr president, durr. It amused.
scav
Alison
@Haydnseek: Galaxy :) Though my best friend is a Timbers diehard, so tonight will be interesting, LOL.
Walker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
BoBo’s argument is almost exactly the same as Hobbes’ defense of the monarchy (as opposed to filthy democracy). Damn straight he would have been a Tory.
Alison
@j: Heh well…I don’t drink, am a vegetarian, and am on an illness-related-restricted diet, but thanks for the thought, LOL
Alison
@Dee Loralei: Thanks! My mom asked what I wanted that I might not buy for myself, and I thought a new bed set would be a nice change. She got the comforter/pillowcase set and I splurged and got myself some 500-thread count sheets. Purple, cream and gray colors, very purdy :)
slag
@ruemara:
Good on you! I’m still slacking, and you’re doing an excellent job of inspiring guilt about that. Keep talking about your GOTV efforts, please, so that I will eventually succumb to the peer pressure!
Speaking of peers…I just listened to the Chris Hayes show and realized I was inadvertently channeling Katrina Vanden Heuvel in my expressions of appreciation for the Occupy groups in helping to create a fertile environment for the Obama campaign’s current messaging. And when I clicked on to MHP, I heard Melissa Harris Perry discussing one of my favorite theories: a Republican is someone who never quite grokked the most basic lessons of Sesame Street, which also explains why they don’t see the value of public broadcasting. These two shows on MSNBC are revealing to me that I’m now a full-fledged member of the liberal zeitgeist. We’re doomed.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@j: Personally I would have a hard time seeing Cheny and Kystol celebrating an armed uprising of their fellow citizens. I would imagine if they were French in 1797 they would be found in Philadelphia.
handsmile
A many-tentacled project has largely consigned me to lurker status hereabouts of late.
On this topic, however, I did want to comment that earlier this week I saw Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1966 masterpiece, The Battle of Algiers. I had not seen the film for many years and in that time my personal politics have become much more radicalized.
To those unfamiliar with it, the film depicts, in the style of a newsreel documentary, the early years of the Algerian war of independence (1954-1962) against the French colonial government. Appropriate for Bastille Day, the film offers much to reflect upon on the ethics and efficacy of direct action/guerilla insurgency against an oppressive and unjust state apparatus.
For all the occasional invocations on this blog (not merely on this thread) of tumbrels, guillotines, and firing squads, The Battle of Algiers makes evident how remote the prospect of a popular uprising, with its ineluctable and terrible violence, against the Galtian Overlords must be in this country.
If you’ve never seen this film, quite simply you must make sure that you do someday.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Algiers
j
Since it’s an open thread…
Are Mr. Ed (or whatever that soon to be dog food and glue is called – other than $77,000.00 tax write off) and his rider going to be wearing Chinese silks for Mitt’s horse ballet show at the Olympics?
Does anyone know who made the USA uniforms when Mittens was running that bribe filled SLC Olympics?
Come on, Mitt. Tell us how you “saved” the Olympics using federal bucks t bribe people.
MikeJ
@j:
I don’t know about the uniforms, but Mitt was very proud of 9/11 commemorative pins that were made in China.
sb
Celebrating my 22nd wedding anniversary. We’re thinking of going to a French restaurant.
NotMax
@j
Can we put the “$77,000 tax write-off” out to pasture, please? And I’m certainly no Romney supporter.
As it stands currently, the great bulk of that was disallowed at present, and the actual present applicable total of the write-off is a whopping fifty bucks.
Now, one can argue about the merits or lack thereof of companies carrying forward certain declared losses as future offsets, but that is a horse of a different color.
Maude
@Alison:
Have a wonderful sleep on your new stuff. Good for you.
JoyfulA
@handsmile: I agree about that powerful, emotional movie. My French friend, born and raised in Morocco and now a radical USian, said it was one film everyone should see and showed it to me.
MikeJ
@NotMax: That they claimed a $77,000 loss on their hobby is beyond dispute. And yes, so far the tax man has told them they’re full of shit.
So in addition to hiding money in offshore banks, now he’s trying to claim bogus deductions on his dancing horse. I don’t see how it makes the story better for him.
Citizen_X
Hey, you know who was born on Bastille Day, 100 years ago today? Woody Freaking Guthrie!
NotMax
@MikeJ
It may be nuance, but to be more precise it was the company Romney’s wife and the horse’s other co-owners had already set up which claimed that amount as a loss against that company’s earnings, if any.
Mnemosyne
G reminded me that three years ago today, he was walking through the parking lot at his office wondering what was making that really weird squawking noise.
It turned out to be this. Her name is not Charlotte because of Charlotte Corday, but I like to pretend it is on Bastille Day.
MikeJ
@NotMax: Right. Romney’s dancing horse company tried to take a phoney deduction. After spending nearly $80,000 to pamper a dancing horse they wanted to say the money spent on cashmere feed bags should offset the profits that didn’t exist.
Just because it’s not legal to take such a deduction doesn’t mean Romney didn’t try to get away with it.
j
That nag lives better than any of the 99%
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=romney+horse+barn+pics&oq=romney+horse+barn+pics&gs_l=hp.3…1954.9254.0.9710.22.18.0.4.4.0.174.1812.13j5.18.0…0.0…1c.3fBxqP9NwUY&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=798ff7e45f6d12e&biw=1024&bih=563
NotMax
@MikeJ
And the “tax man” didn’t have anything to do with altering the amounts.
This short piece may help to clarify what was originally sloppily reported.
There’s plenty to bring up and use as anti-Romney stuff besides this episode, which can be validly disputed in terms of what was breathlessly spread on the internets.
Mnemosyne
@NotMax:
Don’t worry, we’ll have some horse lovers here in a minute to insist that all of the single mothers who have kids in 4-H incorporate their horses, so by questioning the Romneys’ actions, you’re insulting all horse owners everywhere.
j
@NotMax: You keep missing the “YET”. In both of your posts.
They are taking deferred breaks now. When that swayback goes to stud they will be selling the sperm for thousands of dollars per ounce.
So they ARE taking a tax write off for now, and applying it to future earnings.
Still costing ME (and you) $77,000.00 in the end.
j
@Mnemosyne: Or rich people like MArtha Stewart who toss 3 sheep on to her lawn so she could claim her estate as a “gentleman’s farm” and cut her property taxes in half.
I know people who grew up like that. The old man built a mansion in the burbs and tied a horse to a tree just to pull a “farmer” tax scam.
“Hey honey! Guess what? I got you a pony!”
“Thanks, Dad. You’re the greatest!”
“Oh, don’t thank me, thank your Uncle Sam”.
NotMax
@MikeJ
Not legal? That’s indisputably not the case. Again, as I stated above, argument about whether it should be legal or not is something else again.
Again, I don’t like that the deduction was claimed (whether against current or future earnings), but twisting the circumstances to fit a bias and continuing to proclaim them as definitive fact only gives ammo to the other side to discredit the messenger’s validity when using other, much more concrete assertions against Romney.
MikeJ
@NotMax:
Meh. It’s not a valid deduction. He tried to take a deduction he wasn’t entitled to. Al Capone tried that too. The deduction, in this particular case, was not a legal deduction. He wanted the rest of us taxpayers to subsidize his hobby, but it wasn’t allowed.
I still don’t see how this is any better.
NotMax
@MikeJ
We can agree to disagree, but the term “disallowed” is not anywhere identical to “illegal.” It carries a different meaning than the common one when used as terminology in the tax code. The disallowance against present income was made by the company which owns the horse, not by the IRS.
SiubhanDuinne
@Valdivia: And once again we are a separated-at-birth mind-meld! That scene gives me goosebumps and makes me tear up every.single.time.
Mnemosyne
@j:
The horse is a mare, actually. Her offspring will probably bring a pretty penny for the Romneys and their partners, but she ain’t gonna be providing any sperm for sale.
HEY YOU
Gerald Celente: “When People Lose Everything, They Have Nothing Left To Lose, And They Lose It”
YellowJournalism
@dmsilev: It’s nowhere née te crisis for you, but I was listening on the news of a balloon store in our area that will go out of business due to the shortage. I just keep thinking o he use in hospitals and other important services.
Richard Fox
I always wished I was born on Bastille Day. I was born two weeks later on the 28th, the anniversary of Robespierre’s getting guillotined, so there’s that connection. Hey I’ll take what I can get..
j
@Mnemosyne: Drat! It’ll make for some pretty average dog food and glue, though.
catpal
@NotMax: its a bs tax deduction. The real question is what income is it applied against and for how many years, its part of a ton of other tax questions that need to be asked and answered, but the Romneys refuse to answer to the public citizens.
“Rob Rom Enterprises LLC, a foreign corporation registered in Delaware that buys and trains dressage horses.”
Since its a foreign corporation from either the Caymans or the Sankaty in Bermuda, we know its all about the Tax Dodging.
pdf
I just read Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities this week (finished this afternoon), without realizing today was Bastille Day. It’s pretty interesting the way he portrays the whole thing – basically, the aristocracy and the peasantry were both wrong, both corrupt, both evil. Probably about right.
NotMax
@catpal
There’s plenty in what you say, but my original point was that the first flush of reporting which either flat-out stated or intimated that the year’s tax bill was reduced by $77,000 on that return was wrong.
Mnemosyne
@pdf:
I dunno. I thought his point about the peasantry was more that Mme DeFarge had allowed herself to be corrupted by bitterness and was taking her anger out on people who had nothing to do with the French aristocracy, not that the peasantry had no right to be angry.
(I just mentioned in the other thread that I’ve been trying to get caught up on “great literature,” so I read AToTC within the past couple of years. Even dressed up as a tricoteuse for Halloween.)
Valdivia
@SiubhanDuinne:
late to this: I knew it! :)
@handsmile:
I so agree powerful movie. Good to see you here.
Mnemosyne
On the Romney horse front, one of the commenters at Tbogg’s place tried to claim that it’s A-OK for the horse to stay in a super-fancy stable because the Obamas rented a nice house when they stayed in Hawaii.
No, really.
Roy G.
I heard Romney lived in Versailles when he was
fighting in Vietnamproseletyzing Mormonism to the French infidels.