The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Rootman's picture

    I Like Pikes

    By Rootman on Sun, 10/09/2011 - 9:47am |

    Dickens describes the post-Bastille populace parading through the City of Light with the head of Louis XVI's finance czar, Foulon de Doué, on a pike.

    "If those rascals have no bread, then let them eat hay," Foulon had famously said during a famine. Well-fed himself, he broke several ropes while being hung by the farmers and tradespeople of Paris, who resorted to a sidewalk beheading.

    The festive crowd marched around the city, taking the head on a tour of Foulon's favorite places. They taunted his son-in-law, chanting, "Embrasse papa. Kiss papa."

    A journalist of the time wrote that the severed head of Foulon, with hay stuffed in its mouth by the mob, “announced to tyrants the terrible vengeance of a justly angered people.”

    Now a wag at #OWS has a replica head of a Goldman Sachs czar on a pike.

    To which I say, "Nice reference!"

    A lot more evocative than a bunch of folks with their arms crossed in disapproval of corporatism.

    I think of the writings of Robert Bly, who concerned himself with myth and the enrichment of the unique experience of maleness. He talked about the modern man's fear of "showing his sword." This has been helpful to me.

    So call me a piker. Wall Street has killed and it will kill again.

     

    Comments

    I have, for a long time, objected to the characterization of white-collar crime as non-violent. When you see the results in the lives and families of the dispossessed, you see that violence has been done to them.


    by Donal on Sun, 10/09/2011 - 10:01am

    A few years after the French Revolution, the women of Lyons, their children starving because of monopoly pricing, took up pikes, demanding and enforcing a reduction in the price of foodstuffs.

    City officials, in their last act in power (while they still had their heads), urged the women to "return to your homes with confidence in your magistrates." Their husbands were admonished to get their wives back to housework and "keep them within the bounds prescribed for them by nature."

    Pikes. It's not just a guy thing.


    by Rootman on Sun, 10/09/2011 - 10:17am

    I think that is true and a very good point.


    by AmericanDreamer on Sun, 10/09/2011 - 11:39am

    With respect, Rootman, we disagree on this one.  If you think conjuring images of the French Revolution (for the minority who initially will make those connections or for the larger minority who with Fox News' help will make them in the way Fox News wants them to) is helpful in the context of a budding American phenomenon(?) such as this, I think we just have different takes on that.


    by AmericanDreamer on Sun, 10/09/2011 - 11:38am

    It's long past time to stop worrying what Fox might do and for them to consider what the people might do.


    by Rootman on Sun, 10/09/2011 - 12:02pm

    Whereas I want "the people" Fox has to worry about to constitute as large a part of the public as possible--it won't be 99% but that's ok.


    by AmericanDreamer on Sun, 10/09/2011 - 12:05pm

    What the people might do is recreate the appalling terror of the French Revolution and then the imperial counterrevolution and bloody continent-wide wars that followed it.   But I think what they are more likely to do in America is simply repudiate the small number of people trying to arouse these fears and threats of violence, and then move further to the right in reaction.


    by Dan Kervick on Sun, 10/09/2011 - 9:00pm

    It is just a replica of a head on a pike. (Premature to have real heads.) But what I would like about seeing more of the symbolism of pikes with effigy heads is that it identifies the 1% so that the rest of America knows they are in the 99 and not in the 1. It defines the two warring camps in the class war. Effigies in tar and feathers or in a pillory are OK---but graphically, in a crowd, you just can't beat the head on a stick. Especially if they are Wall Street celebs and not political characters.


    by Rootman on Sun, 10/09/2011 - 9:53pm

    Sorry, but it will never be the case that 99% of Americans believe in putting heads on pikes, either in reality or in effigy.   Most Americans are decent people and instinctive democrats who believe in defeating their opponents through the democratic process.

    A movement for progressive change and equality should be reaching out to folks such as the liberal churches, and to the experienced practitioners of non-violent change through solidarity and organization.  The revolutionary mob-in-the-street, sans cullottes aesthetics are all wrong for America, and will only alienate decent people.

    Also, I think it is important not to be distracted by the desire for sheer revenge and vindictiveness, and to stay focused on real political and economic change.  They key thing is, on behalf of all those young people who don't have jobs, to identify and pursue what concrete actions can get them jobs and a chance for the good life they have worked for and hoped for.   For the millions of Americans who are out on the street, or who can't feed their families, or can't make ends meet and are losing their version of the American dream, it might make them feel better for about five seconds to see Lloyd Blankfein served up on a platter, but when that is over, they will still be unemployed, hungry and frustrated.  Beating up the enemy is a sideshow, and a deflection of energy.

    There is a class war underway, and the way to win the class war is to combat the power of the wealthy few with the solidarity of the not-so-wealthy many.   What Americans need more than an Occupy Wall Street movement is a Fuck Off Wall Street movement.  We need to recruit an army of progressive candidates who are willing to take no money from the wealthy, and who owe them nothing in return.   With a popular mass progressive movement behind them, these candidates can defeat both Republicans and "centrist", ruling class Democrats, even if it takes a couple of election cycles, and then vote through a progressive agenda to change the country.


    by Dan Kervick on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 12:48am

    I think of the writings of Robert Bly, who concerned himself with myth and the enrichment of the unique experience of maleness. He talked about the modern man's fear of "showing his sword." This has been helpful to me.

    For everybody watching this movement taking shape, the question they ultimately pose to themselves is is whether they would prefer to live in a country ruled by people like those they see on the street, or people more like those the people on the street are opposing.  If the average American decides the people on the street are just a gang of angry and potentially violent punks conflicted about their masculinity and itching to "show their sword", they will probably decide to take their chances with Lloyd Blankfein.  The "99% movement" will quickly become the 9.9% movement, and then the .99% movement.


    by Dan Kervick on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 12:57am

    No one is advocating violence and there are no angry punks, but it's important not to be too timid. "Showing your sword" isn't about stabbing people. It's about assertion and not yielding out of fear of being perceived as powerful.

    The effigy of "Doing God's work" Blankfein's head on a pike is funny---and, yet, deliciously intimidating.

    Wall Street is banking on your timidity.


    by Rootman on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 7:48am

    Maybe we could work up a poster with people throwing nerf balls at Blankfein. That would at least reflect reality.


    by Donal on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 8:02am

    The public criticism of this movement is not that it is intimidating. On the contrary, it's that it lacks focus and is too deferential. Read the conservative site comments. They are mocking it for being too nice.


    by Rootman on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 8:12am

    Who cares what the conservatives say?


    by Dan Kervick on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 9:08am

    People who claim Fox News will use pictures of pikes against us, that's who.


    by Donal on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 9:15am

    "conservatives are mocking it because it's too nice"

    "who cares what conservatives think."

    In a nutshell, thus describes the Jacobins of the Occupy [LA, NY, the chip aisle of Whole Foods]. The former commenter cannot read, the latter dismisses them out of hand as "lesser" human beings.

    Bravo.


    by Dar Click (not verified) on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 7:31pm

    We are not smart, but we are many. We will not jump through your hoops. We will no longer feed you, clothe you, nurse you, or even bury you. Instead, we will feast on your warm, raw sweetbreads, and then, drunk with your blood, parade you down Wall Street with your head held high.


    by Rootman on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 9:21pm

    Whoa!  Who's this "we" you speak of?  I'm all for resistance, but I think I'll pass on that part about the "warm, raw sweetbreads, etc.". 

    Thanks, anyway.


    by Ramona on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 9:33pm

    Too harsh? I was torn between that and "we will tickle you until you say 'uncle.'"


    by Rootman on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 9:38pm

    If you do that the moment they say Uncle and you let them up, They'll  say NAH,NAH,NAH NAH,NAH, NAH  

    Had my fingers crossed.


    by Resistance on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 9:47pm

    That's why I do likes me some sweetbreads.


    by Rootman on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 9:50pm

    I didn't say they were lesser.  I just said progressives shouldn't be basing their judgments on worries about what their opponents will think.  It's like when Shirley Sherrod was sacked in a flash because Vilsack was worried that her comments "are going to be on Glenn Beck tonight."  Now not even the wingers listen to Glenn Beck, but the damage was done.


    by Dan Kervick on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 9:38pm