March 25, 2009--Le Reign of Terror
At the cul-de-sacs of the Ancien Régime of Fairfield, Connecticut, where assorted hedge fund managers and A.I.G. financial products executives live and play golf, they have their own way of experiencing the latest version of Le Disambiguation, the Reign of Terror for the uninitiated.
Unlike in France in 1793, no one in Fairfield has been dragged off to face what was then claimed to be the newest instrument of egalitarian justice, the guillotine. And class warriors who are beginning to show up at the enclaves of the nouveau aristocrats to gawk as much as express outrage are as likely to have a slice of gateau in their box lunches as those dwelling in their faux-stone, faux-chateaux. Up until now, everyone’s been eating cake. The residents from Payard Patrisserie, the visiting masses from Entenmann’s.
According to a recent report in the New York Times (linked below), the first in what promises to be a wave of bus tours to the homes of what sponsors called the “rich and infamous” was a polite affair. The 40 or so folks who showed up at the security gates of the homes of two A.I.G. executives who received (and subsequently returned) bonuses for as much as $6.4 million were not carrying pitchforks and torches. No cobblestones had been torn up. No cries of “Aux Barricades!” have been heard echoing on the manicured streets of Fairfield County.
They were not casual tourists who had earlier in the day visited the submarine base in Groton or the former whaling port in charming Mystic. Rather they were a group organized and sponsored by the Working Families Party, a coalition of community and labor groups and they were there to protest gently and politely. Hardly the way the revolutionary mobs arrived to haul off poor Marie Antoinette.
They respectfully asked well-mannered security guards permission to place in the mailboxes letters that they had prepared to express their outrage. Before doing so, the group’s leader read the text out loud for the reporters gathered to witness their protest—50 reporters from the national and international press who outnumbered the participants.
“They are all about themselves,” intoned Pastor Marcy Huguley, one of the organizers, “The more they get, the more they want.”
Not exactly “Liberté, égalité, fraternité." But what are you going to do—that’s been used already.
Unlike in France in 1793, no one in Fairfield has been dragged off to face what was then claimed to be the newest instrument of egalitarian justice, the guillotine. And class warriors who are beginning to show up at the enclaves of the nouveau aristocrats to gawk as much as express outrage are as likely to have a slice of gateau in their box lunches as those dwelling in their faux-stone, faux-chateaux. Up until now, everyone’s been eating cake. The residents from Payard Patrisserie, the visiting masses from Entenmann’s.
According to a recent report in the New York Times (linked below), the first in what promises to be a wave of bus tours to the homes of what sponsors called the “rich and infamous” was a polite affair. The 40 or so folks who showed up at the security gates of the homes of two A.I.G. executives who received (and subsequently returned) bonuses for as much as $6.4 million were not carrying pitchforks and torches. No cobblestones had been torn up. No cries of “Aux Barricades!” have been heard echoing on the manicured streets of Fairfield County.
They were not casual tourists who had earlier in the day visited the submarine base in Groton or the former whaling port in charming Mystic. Rather they were a group organized and sponsored by the Working Families Party, a coalition of community and labor groups and they were there to protest gently and politely. Hardly the way the revolutionary mobs arrived to haul off poor Marie Antoinette.
They respectfully asked well-mannered security guards permission to place in the mailboxes letters that they had prepared to express their outrage. Before doing so, the group’s leader read the text out loud for the reporters gathered to witness their protest—50 reporters from the national and international press who outnumbered the participants.
“They are all about themselves,” intoned Pastor Marcy Huguley, one of the organizers, “The more they get, the more they want.”
Not exactly “Liberté, égalité, fraternité." But what are you going to do—that’s been used already.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
6:07 AM
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