They are begging us to go all 18th century France on them........

[marmar]

WASHINGTON -- The corporate CEOs who have made a high-profile foray into deficit negotiations have themselves been substantially responsible for the size of the deficit they now want closed.

The companies represented by executives working with the Campaign To Fix The Debt have received trillions in federal war contracts, subsidies and bailouts, as well as specialized tax breaks and loopholes that virtually eliminate the companies' tax bills.

The CEOs are part of a campaign run by the Peter Peterson-backed Center for a Responsible Federal Budget, which plans to spend at least $30 million pushing for a deficit reduction deal in the lame-duck session and beyond.

During the past few days, CEOs belonging to what the campaign calls its CEO Fiscal Leadership Council -- most visibly, Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein and Honeywell's David Cote -- have barnstormed the media, making the case that the only way to cut the deficit is to severely scale back social safety-net programs -- Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security -- which would disproportionately impact the poor and the elderly. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/25/deficit-reduction-council-fiscal-cliff_n_2185585.html

[OneGrassRoot]

1. A most excellent subject line. K&R! n/t

[KansDem]

2. Gravity is the working man's best ally

[Orrex]

7. Guillotine proven innocent...

[WinkyDink]

20. Good one!

[Bohunk68]

21. i call it, "The 1792 French Solution."

Calling Madame DeFarge!!!! Madame DeFarge!!! We have a front row seat for you. You could bring your knitting. I do hear The Donald's hair piece might become available. Great pic! Needs more blood for tempering.

[KansDem]

24. How about the "French disConnection?"

[ChazII]

29. Invented by a doctor

to be more humane.

[Fumesucker]

3. I understand knitting is gaining in popularity lately

[WorseBeforeBetter]

12. Kicking for Madame Defarge. (n/t)

[TheKentuckian]

4. They demand it and the pain will continue to increase until we do

We may have to give on this one.

[caveat_imperator]

8. I will gladly aide the first enshackled CEO who wanted me to be a vitual slave to the platform.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

5. Been saying that for awhile now.

[WinkyDink]

18. Same here. Mme. Guillotine is our friend.

[limpyhobbler]

6. k/r

[AAO]

9. Barbarians and traitors to the greater good.

[JDPriestly]

10. We just had an election.

Obama won on the promise that Social Security and Medicare would not need to be cut.

He had better keep that promise. Americans have voted for third parties before.

[2naSalit]

11. How about we nationalize the banks?

It's mostly our money anyway... banking a trade computers can be reprogrammed, they can go visit their offshore accounts and we can cancel their citizenship.

[SunnyBaudelaire]

13. I thought it was on when those French and Chinese billionaires were murdered NT

[Cassidy]

14. Violence begets violence

I am sure the title was meant to be funny, but threats are never funny, and the thread surely is not.

Maybe we should all take a deep breath and remember that a few short years after the guillotine came the dictatorship of Bonaparte, wars, and more monarchy.

It is not surprising that the frustration we feel makes us want to smash things, but that is not a way forward. Lasting change requires patience and incremental, solid steps. Reference Gandhi. Reference the suffragettes. Put down your swords.

[Marmitist]

16. Your concern is duly noted.

I'd take the unforeseen consequences that would come with exterminating these heartless plutocrats any day over the current status quo of being gradually destroyed by their unquenchable greed and malevolence.

[hobbit709]

17. And what came here after a few short years.

There are many parts of our history that aren't worth bragging about either.

[WinkyDink]

19. "The Bourbon Restoration regime was a constitutional monarchy...."

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

[Occulus]

30. A Revolutionary War destroys your entire premise

When we come to believe violence is never an option, we surrender victory to those who would make us slaves.

[Egalitarian Thug]

34. The change in itself will beget violence, see your own examples.

And BTW, India was and remains a mess after Gandhi, and over a century later women are still far from equal. But those changes, minor as they were, still sparked horrendous violence that continues today. Every ruling class is inherently violent for that is the root source of their power.

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." - Frederick Douglass

[forestpath]

15. Sure can't count on the Democratic Party to do it anymore when so-called "Democrats" are in on it.

[99Forever]

22. The storm has been brewing...

.. for years. That these assholes are now comfortable coming out in public with their agenda, stripping US of OUR means of survival, should tell you just how badly WE are doing.

Understand that there really is a class war going on, and we are being stomped into the ground. Millions are now in the position of having nothing left to lose. The writing is on the wall for all to see.

There will be revolution, the only questions left are when and how violent will it be?

[deutsey]

23. Always think of this passage from The Grapes of Wrath

This is the beginning—from "I" to "we". If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I", and cuts you off forever from the "we".

[AnneD]

25. Over at the

Stock Market Watch thread, we refer to that as the French Revolution Severance Package FRSP for short.

And yes, knitting is gaining in popularity. The classes I take are always packed, and no, I would not even knit underware from Trumps hair.

[xchrom]

26. Honestly - they don't have to beg... Nt

[The Doctor.]

27. Yes, but they have their legions of Faux-fed morons to support and shield them.

If we take extraordinary measures to stop them from continuing to rape the whole country, it will lead to civil war.

[Selatius]

33. We've already fought two major civil wars as a nation.

The first civil war was the American Revolution. That war is never painted as a civil war, but there were loyalist militias fighting on the side of the English Crown as there were rebel militias on the battlefield fighting for an independent nation. After the war ended, many loyalists simply left the country or moved north into Canada.

I hope it doesn't come down to a third civil war somewhere within the next 100 years or something resembling the Syrian Civil War, but if it does come to it, it wouldn't be the first brother vs. brother war in our history books, sadly.

[jsr]

28. The French mechanical solution was very effective and long lasting

[Michigan Alum]

31. Actually, the wealthy was afraid of revolt in the early 1900's and that ended up changing things.

This is actually not too far off from what might happen. I think it will not be done as much by violence but by people voting, economic methods, etc.

The gap between rich and poor was very wide, there were many people living in slums, and inhumane work conditions. The wealthy was afraid there would be a revolt or rebellion so they made a lot of changes.

[Jim Warren]

35. Those "changes"

went kicking and screaming, it too a depression and a New Deal and ten years to effect those changes.

[raouldukelives]

32. Might have to convince them to stop investing & supporting them first.

But hope does spring eternal that every minute in this country someone has had enough, somewhere.