For our friends in France!

[QC]

Run time: 04:14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtoHs0Ua_Tg   Posted on YouTube: February 06, 2008 By YouTube Member: BasileusSendai Views on YouTube: 694135   Posted on DU: July 14, 2011 By DU Member: QC Views on DU: 954

 
Bonne fête!

[somone]

1. Vive la France!

[midnight]

2. Long live the message of the storming of the Bastille....

The storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris on the morning of 14 July 1789. The medieval fortress and prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the centre of Paris. While the prison only contained seven inmates at the time of its storming, its fall was the flashpoint of the French Revolution. In France, Le quatorze juillet (14 July) is a public holiday, formally known as the Fête de la Fédération (Federation Holiday). It is usually called Bastille Day in English.
During the reign of Louis XVI, France faced a major economic crisis, initiated by the cost of intervening in the American Revolution (and particularly never-consummated efforts to invade Britain), 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 bourgeoisie, reconstituted themselves as the National Assembly, a body whose purpose was the creation of a French constitution. The king initially opposed this development, but was forced to acknowledge the authority of the assembly, which subsequently renamed itself the National Constituent Assembly on 9 July.
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.<1> The second had been the formation of the National Assembly and the Tennis Court Oath.
The middle class had formed the National Guard, sporting tricolor 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 color scheme, became the symbol of the revolution and, later, of France itself.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storming_of_the_Bastille

[QC]

3. That message is as relevant now as it has ever been. n/t

[JDPriestly]

5. France had borrowed to support its military adventures (including our Revolution)

France was a rich country, but had to pay enormous interest rates on its debt. (Sound familiar?)

From Wikipedia:

Since it was one of the major trading nations, France needed to raise most of its tax revenue internally, rather than through customs tariffs. Taxes on commerce consisted of internal tariffs among the regions of France. This set up an arbitrary tax-barrier (sometimes, as in Paris, in physical form) at every regional boundary, and these barriers prevented France from developing as a unified market. Collections of taxes, such as the extremely unpopular salt tax, the gabelle, were contracted to private collectors ("tax farmers"), who, like all farmers, preoccupied themselves with making their holdings grow. So, they collected, quite legitimately, far more than required, remitted the tax to the State, and pocketed the remainder. These unwieldy systems led to arbitrary and unequal collection of France's consumption taxes. (See also Wall of the Farmers-General, Jean Chouan, Octroi, Claude Nicolas Ledoux, and the Indian salt tax.)

Peasants were also required to pay a tenth of their income or produce to the church (the tithe), a land tax to the state (the taille), a 5% property tax (the vingtième), and a tax on the number of people in the family (capitation). Further royal and seigneurial obligations might be paid in several ways: in labor (the corvée), in kind, or, rarely, in coin. Peasants were also obligated to their landlords for: rent in cash (the cens), a payment related to their amount of annual production (the champart), and taxes on the use of the nobles' mills, wine-presses, and bakeries (the banalités). In good times, the taxes were burdensome; in harsh times, they were devastating. After a less-than-fulsome harvest, people would starve to death during the winter.

Many tax collectors and other public officials bought their positions from the king, sometimes on an annual basis, sometimes in perpetuity. Often an additional fee was paid to upgrade their position to one that could be passed along as an inheritance. Naturally, holders of these offices tried to reimburse themselves by milking taxpayers as hard as possible. For instance, in a civil lawsuit, judges required that both parties pay a bribe (called, with tongue-in-cheek, the épices, the spices); this, effectively, put justice out of the reach of all but the wealthy.

The system also exempted the nobles and the clergy from taxes (with the exception of a modest quit-rent, an ad valorem tax on land). The tax burden, therefore, devolved to the peasants, wage-earners, and the professional and business classes, also known as the third estate. Further, people from less-privileged walks of life were blocked from acquiring even petty positions of power in the regime. This caused further resentment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_French_Revolution

Too much money spent on the military. Too much exacted in taxes. A rigid class structure with little hope for the poor and middle class.

Sound like the country we are becoming?

We need to learn from history. Here in the United States, the corporations and teh privileged should pay more taxes and the poor and middle classes should pay less in taxes. And we should cut half of our military spending. We are repeating the mistakes of the ancien regime (the royalty of France).

[JDPriestly]

4. The words are powerful and apply to the world today.

Allons enfants de la Patrie
Le jour de gloire est arrivé
Contre nous de la tyrannie
|: L'étendard sanglant est levé :|
Entendez vous dans les campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras,
égorger vos fils, vos compagnes

Aux armes citoyens! Formez vos bataillons!
Marchons, marchons,
Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons.

2. Que veut cette horde d'esclaves
De traîtres, de Rois conjurés?
Pour qui ces ignobles entraves,
|: Ces fers dès longtemps préparés? :|
Français! pour nous, ah! quel outrage!
Quels transports il doit exciter!
C'est nous qu'on ose méditer
De rendre à I 'antique esclavage!

3. Quoi! des cohortes étrangères
Feraient la loi dans nos foyers!
Quoi! ces phalanges mercenaires
|: Terrasseraient nos fiers guerriers :|
Grand Dieu! par des mains enchaînées
Nos fronts sous le joug se ploieraient!
De viIs despotes deviendraient
Les maîtres de nos destinées!

Lots more verses at

http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/french/lamarsei.htm

A translation (not mine)

Let's go children of the fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived!
Against us tyranny's
Bloody flag is raised! (repeat)
In the countryside, do you hear
The roaring of these fierce soldiers?
They come right to our arms
To slit the throats of our sons, our friends!

Refrain

Grab your weapons, citizens!
Form your batallions!
Let us march! Let us march!
May impure blood
Water our fields!

This horde of slaves, traitors, plotting kings,
What do they want?
For whom these vile shackles,
These long-prepared irons? (repeat)
Frenchmen, for us, oh! what an insult!
What emotions that must excite!
It is us that they dare to consider
Returning to ancient slavery!

What! These foreign troops
Would make laws in our home!
What! These mercenary phalanxes
Would bring down our proud warriors! (repeat)
Good Lord! By chained hands
Our brows would bend beneath the yoke!
Vile despots would become
The masters of our fate!

http://french.about.com/library/weekly/aa071400ma.htm

[Voice for Peace]

6. Maybe the politicians would start getting nervous if we sang this at protests

heheh

[JDPriestly]

7. They certainly would, but the protestors would not make

themselves very popular with the American people.

The amount of anger and violence expressed in the song shows just how extremely bad things were and can become when governments get overly involved in wars and do not really represent the interest of the people.

[Capt. America]

8. No hard feeling France about that Womens' World Cup match.