Marie Antoinette in the White House *UPDATED*
Bookworm on Jul 09 2009 at 7:11 am | Filed under: Barack Obama
A few days ago, the University of California at Merced announced that the First Lady’s commencement address cost this public institution a fortune — although it hastened to assure us that most of the cost would be covered, not by California’s overburdened taxpayers, but by private donors.
The nation’s overburdened taxpayers, it seems, are not so lucky when it comes to Michelle’s other expenses. News has now trickled out that her staff is so large the budget is almost three times what Laura Bush’s budget was (and Mrs. Bush, you’ll recall, was First Lady during flush economic times). Scary as those numbers are, they must be worse for Michelle’s tourist jaunt to Europe with her little girls. Despite the fact that you and I paid for it, the White House refuses to release that bill.
As Marie Antoinette learned to her cost, during an economic down time it is dangerous to engage in conspicuous consumption using other people’s money — especially money from people who aren’t voluntarily donating it, but are forced at gunpoint to give it. In this case, it is particularly galling because Our Esteemed Leader has appointed himself green preacher-in-chief, telling us that, in order to save the world, we have to drive tin cans, live and work in freezingly cold or bakingly hot buildings, stop eating meat, and generally return ourselves to all the discomforts of a preindustrial era. Meanwhile, he and the missus jet off for out of town for dates, have Kobe beef dinners, keep the White House at sauna temperature, show off expensive clothes (although those, I suspect, are gifts), and generally live high on our hog.
I’m feeling the urge to storm the Bastille.
UPDATE: We can be grateful, at least, that Barack Obama, his narcissism and pretensions notwithstanding, is more normal, and has less scope for his narcissism, than Kim Jong Il. (As for the latter, it’s possible he is dying, but equally possible that, like Castro, he’ll live on as a semi-dessicated corpse forever.)
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So, so…nouveau! Don’t you know, she’s entitled! That being said, I think this post is very unfair to Marie Antoinette.
The cost of supporting Michelle Obama, as extreme as it well may be, is trivial compared with the cost of all the other people who will be making out like bandits under this administration.
Basically, the extreme involvement of government in all aspects of American life means that the “rents” that can be collected by those who have knowledge of & connections to the political process will go way, way up.
The Daily News reports today that Mickey O carried a sexy black clutch, which Italian luxury house VBH boasts is their shiny black alligator manila bag – with a retail sticker price of $5,950.
The White House says she was carrying the $875 VBH patent leather clutch.
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/fashion/2009/07/09/2009-07-09_michelle_obama_flashes_expensive_taste_carries_5950_black_bag_alligator_russia_.html#ixzz0Kmawl4Sd&D
$875 or $5,950 – who cares which, either one is too much for a purse too small to carry anything. That’s the aides are for.
Greetings:
The information that I have accumulated in regard to Mrs. Obama’s speaking at the UC Merced graduation last month goes like this. UC Merced had budgeted $100K for its graduation ceremony. The bill for the ceremony will run around $1 million.
The funding for the ceremony is still speculative at this point and may end up requiring liquidation of some of the relatively new university’s endowment. The requisite decisions were made by highly paid officials of the university during a period of state deficits running in the billions of dollars.
Budgets, we don’t need no stinking budgets.
Back in my military days, one of my favorite bits of folk wisdom was about the difference between the Army and the Boy Scouts; the Scouts, you see, had adult supervision. Unlike UC Merced.
FWIW, while in a grocery checkout line today I skimmed an article about Michelle Obama in a tabloid. According to the tabloid, Michelle has an “enemies’ list.” HIllary was first on the list. Found the list on the Internet.
Hillary Clinton: Slammed Obama on the campaign trail.
Sarah Palin: Political rival in 2012
Oprah Winfrey: Doesn’t like her influence on Barack.
Larry Sinclair: Claims to have had sex and coke with Barack.
Rush Limbaugh: He blasts Barack.
Jon Voight: Attacked Barack.
Stephen Baldwin: Attacked Barack.
Oscar de la Renta: Blasted Michelle’s fashion sense.
Simon Cowell: Skipped a presidential dinner party
http://www.rightwingnews.com/mt331/2009/06/tabloid_trash_michelle_obamas.php
There is, certainly, a difference between Marie Antoinette and Madame Obama, and other conspicuous consumers.
Marie was a true innocent. Her experiences in life allowed no understanding of the peasants and their hard lives. She was raised and lived in a world of luxury. She never knew any different. Thus her famous comment was perfectly ratrional to her, and a loathsome betrayal of her lack of compassion or understanding to those peasants.
Told that the peasants had no bread, Marie Antoinette replied, “Let them eat cake.” It made perfect sense to her. She wasn’t telling them to starve, she simply did not understand that lacking bread was a deadly condition. She thought they could merely go to their pantries and break out some cake. She had no comparison to reveal the reality of hunger. Her upbringing didn’t provide that lesson.
Madame Obama knows damn well what the American people have been told about the greedy producers – she, her husband, and their supporters played out that insanity to gain the White House. She knows how hard life can be for the average American when the Gubmint takes over and destroys the economy. She knows better. But she has risen above the mundane cares of America and is entitled to luxury.
A perfect example of the Elite Left. Living off the money of the working people, ridiculing those who protest.
Michelle Obama has become the reality of the misunderstood Marie Antoinette.
Leonid Brezhnev hasn’t seen his poor mother in years, so he sends a jet to bring her to Moscow.
He brings her to his magnificent apartment overlooking Red Square and shows her his splendid lifestyle.
“See below, mama? There’s my fleet of limousines.”
“Yes, Leonid.”
“And over there, Mama? That’s the guarded entrance to this apartment, which by the way, covers almost 1,000 square meters.”
“Yes, Leonid.”
“And behind you, Mama. I have Finnish and American appliances, and food flown in daily from France and Italy.”
“Yes, Leonid.”
“Mama, look at how well I’ve done! Yet you seem perturbed. Is something bothering you?”
“Well, yes, Leonid.”
“What? What?”
“Well, all of this is wonderful, but. . .what will happen to you if the Bolsheviks find out?”
When the dims turn on their masters, what will drive their rage the most is realizing what all of us here knew all along: The most monstrous political traitors in history are on the left. The people who talk the most about equality strive with every atom in their bodies to make themselves as unequal as possible. “Thanks, suckahs, for my taxpayer financed jet and Broadway tickets!”
Told that the peasants had no bread, Marie Antoinette replied, “Let them eat cake.”
This is really a complete historical misinterpretation of what happened, so let me defend the name of Marie Antoinette on this one. The term she used was “brioche”, which is less like a “cake” than like a Jewish Challa bread.
At the time, because French agriculture was so backward (as compared to England, for example) and because of an extended period of cold, wet weather, the wheat crops failed. So, the government (which, as we know, doesn’t solve problems but makes them worse) put price controls on the price of bread, to prevent food riots from breaking out among the poor. However, these price controls did not apply to the brioche/challa bread. Since the price of wheat flour was soaring, bakers could no longer money from regular bread and bread supplies disappeared off the shelves, making the problem worse. Instead, bakers turned their limited resources toward making the brioche/challa bread, which they could sell at full price and turn a profit.
This set the stage for Marie Antoinette’s question to the economic advisors that had designed this looney system of price controls (a coterie that no doubt including an ancestor of Paul Krugman). As they tried to rationalize the situation, Marie Antoinette asked the question, “if there is no regular bread but an excess supply of the brioche /challa-type bread, why not let them eat the brioche-style bread?”
Her answer was not flip but displayed a greater practical understanding of pricing and economics than that displayed by the price-controlling economists of her day (and many of those today). Subsequently, of course, her comment was twisted by the Jacobin revolutionaries into the version that is most commonly referenced today and kept alive by their Lefty successors. Unfortunately, she had few friends willing to speak out in her defense back in those days, as penalties for violating that period’s speech codes were rather severe.
A bit long, so I apologize…but someone had to rise to the Lady’s defense.
Very interesting, Danny. All around.
“…penalties for violating that period’s speech codes were rather severe.” I don’t know enough of the history of the country…who imposed this code? why would it affect someone who would defend the Queen? or do you mean defending her reputation after the French Revolution?
Still, the original lesson is one worth remembering. Like so many things in history that get “misremembered”… Sometimes truth is much less impressive than fiction. How did the “George Washington and the cherry tree” story get started? why have we debunked it?
Thus her famous comment was perfectly ratrional to her, and a loathsome betrayal of her lack of compassion or understanding to those peasants.
Well, this is based upon my memory so it is sketchy, but I believe in France at the time that bread and cake were made from different supplies of wheat or some such. Thus when there was a shortage of bread, it may have made sense to increase the production of cake.
Although this doesn’t really address the issues of why there is famine and a low supply of food. As Stalin edumacated us on, it doesn’t matter if you got food, if you can’t or won’t distribute it.
Just read Danny’s comment, and he certainly makes the more well researched case. Course, his last name is partly French so that would be consistent ; )
Course, the lesson we should take here is obvious: don’t believe a damned thing coming from the Left.
I don’t know enough of the history of the country…who imposed this code? why would it affect someone who would defend the Queen? or do you mean defending her reputation after the French Revolution?
The Jacobins, ultimately in the guise of Robbespierre (he also appears in another incarnation in David Weber’s Honor Harrington series, so check that series out) caught the King and Queen as they tried to escape Paris. Some servant or another ratted them out, I suppose. The Jacobins promptly executed the King and Queen.
Thus anyone, at that time, who said anything good about the King or Queen… would have faced the guillotine.
Hey, did that rhyme? ; )
When the dims turn on their masters, what will drive their rage the most is realizing what all of us here knew all along: The most monstrous political traitors in history are on the left. The people who talk the most about equality strive with every atom in their bodies to make themselves as unequal as possible. “Thanks, suckahs, for my taxpayer financed jet and Broadway tickets!”
If I was in charge of the Republican political machine or other Republican offices of power, which I am not, I would find as many traitors, apostates, and defectors from the Left’s Grand Utopia and Socialist Paradise and put them in the highest offices of the land, administrative or executive in nature.
There are two kinds of traitors. Those who sell out their country and ideals for personal gain. And those who sell out their chance for personal advancement in order to protect the ideals they swore to defend, the nation they swore to uphold.
The former is to be despised, executed when caught. The latter are our national treasures.
You can’t buy the latter. You can’t buy people like Neo-Neocon or Bookworm. They have an internal integrity that has withstood countless tests. And if guilt had been enough to allow social pressures to work, they would not be who they currently are.
But look at other examples.
She became head of the NY State Teachers Union and was a member of the CPUSA council until 49. She had been a leader of the CPUSA since the 30s, and was a key player in everything.
Her book, which I have previously mentioned is School of Darkness. Its available online, and I have previously linked to it. (but when I put a link no one reads it, and when I put it here, they complain as to length I am saving some more time).
“The Communist Party operates by infiltrating and subverting social institutions like the churches, schools, mass media and government. Its aim was “to create new types of human beings who would conform to the blueprint of the world they confidently expected to control.”
\\\Dodd describes Communism as “a strange secret cult” whose goal is the destruction of Western (i.e. Christian) Civilization. Millions of naïve idealists (”innocents”) are tricked by its talk of helping the poor, but it cares only for power. For example, Dodd found there was no social research at party headquarters. “We are a revolutionary party, not a reform party,” she was told.
In the book she reveals that the CPUSA (who she was a leader and council member in) had 1100 members become Catholic priests in the 30s. She pointed out in the book that many have been assisted to rise up and have prominent positions. It is assumed others had nastier proclivities and so entered the church with the specific purpose of discrediting it through pederasty and such.
Dodd helped organize the Congress of American Women, a forerunner of the feminist movement.
“Since it was supposedly a movement for peace, it attracted many women. But it was really only a renewed offensive to control American women… Like youth and minority groups, they are regarded as a reserve force of the revolution because they are more easily moved by emotional appeals.” (194-195)
\\\The women have been the biggest force in all this change around us. The men do what women want in exchange for women wanting them. In the past they wanted a great civilization good living and that’s what they wanted, after Dodd and her ladies (sorry Elise but this is history you never read) got through with them, well, they have been following the program.
And all this is a well known documented undercurrent that if you read their dull works and theory papers you see all this same theme and goals for more than 70 years.
“I now saw that with the best motives and a desire to serve the working people… I and thousands like me, had been led to a betrayal of these very people…. I had been on the side of those who sought the destruction of my own country.” (229)
“This is the key to the mental enslavement of mankind. The individual is made into nothing … he operates as the physical part of [a] higher group intelligence… he has no awareness of the plans the higher group intelligence has for utilizing him.” (158)
Courtesy of Artfldgr
This is the Left. This is why I don’t pay attention to Republicans, ‘centrists, ‘moderates’, or any conservatives that want to negotiate with such people.
There is nothing to talk about. The God we call the Creator will decide who is on the side of right in this Trial by Arms.
“I now saw that with the best motives and a desire to serve the working people… I and thousands like me, had been led to a betrayal of these very people…. I had been on the side of those who sought the destruction of my own country.” (229)
You cannot buy people motivated by such guilt, by such internal shame.
You can kill them, yes. Just as you can kill me. But you cannot get them to stop with either money, threats, or social pressure. You can slow them down, but they won’t quit. They have invested too much of their life to quit now. They are INCORRUPTIBLE, which is why I would place them in the highest offices of our land. You cannot buy them, perhaps not even with blackmail, although that remains to be seen depending on the individual in question and the options they perceive open to them.
Because they have an internal motivation, whether it be due to guilt or whatever, that is stronger than all the external forces that can be applied to them put together. This is the strength of integrity.
And it is what made America the greatest nation. The pioneering settlers of America were motivated just as strongly, albeit by different things. But were they all that different in the end? They wanted a better life for their family. We here in the modern time wish that as well, except we also broaden our family to include all of America or even all of the world, all of humanity. Humanity is our tribe.
And such attributes are what we currently lack here today in this America full of ‘Americans’ (Obamacans more or like it). Integrity. Strength. Belief.
Human beings aren’t perfect, nor are they always strong. I’ve said before my thoughts on humanity here. Their fecklessness, their weakness, and their stupidity. I’m not even sure I would be willingly to recognize them as members of my tribe when it comes to the crunch.
But you don’t need to be strong all the time. You only need to subdue certain weaknesses by gaining certain strengths through your life experiences. Just enough for it to matter.
The terrorists told us that we were weak because we loved life while they loved death. We were too weak to kill for our beliefs, too weak to die for them, in the eyes of Islamic murderers and serial killers. Perhaps that is true.
But you know what? That weakness only applies to Westerners that don’t have anything worth fighting for, because they have nothing they believe in. They are not True Believers. Both the 9/11 hijackers and those that stopped them were True Believers. They truly believed, in the end. And btw, the government didn’t stop the 9/11 hijackers. The people did. Humanity is generally weak, except when we aren’t.
And Obama tells us that we, the people, need them? We could wipe them out while they were still sitting to debate who was going to get the billions of stolen wealth.