The cake instead of bread remark

@vandana7 (98526)
India
September 30, 2012 1:14am CST
Was that the last straw? Or did it create intense pain in the hearts of the poor to provoke them into the famous French Revolution? Was the remark innocuous? Or was it a deliberate ridicule? Suppose you all were the judges, and you all had to judge the French Revolution, would you say atrocities were committed by French Royals leading to the revolt and that sentence indicated mental torture? And if so, Have we taken lessons and developed precedents based on that piece of history? If not, What would you have done in the place of peasants back then?
3 people like this
8 responses
@sharra1 (6340)
• Australia
1 Oct 12
Ah a period of history I studied at school. That remark was a trigger, a match that lit the fire. There was a huge gap between the rich and poor. The poor were starving but the Queen wasn't. By the time she said this the peasants were already angry over their poverty and the fact they were poor because the rich were taking every penny they earned in taxes to support an overly lavish lifestyle. The aristocrats were victims of their own greed. I have seen movies and heard people condemn the peasants for executing so many aristocracy but no mention of the peasant hunts these aristocrats used to enjoy. Whenever the peasants got the courage to protest their lot the aristocrats would round them up and hang lots of them to put them back in their place. Had I been one of the peasants I would have been on their side. The aristocrats were too stupid to see the problem and they foolishly wrote the peasants off as not a problem. In such a powder keg of hatred and anger all it took was someone to strike a match and the whole thing blew. The aristocrats forgot that there were more peasant than aristocrats. As to the lessons learned, sadly there appear to be none. Today we have the ultra wealthy and the extreme poor. As long as the poor are not crushed to the point of desperation the society will continue but if they continue to take more away from the poor and giving to the rich then the tables might turn. The poor outnumber the rich and weight of numbers is important in any war. I hope it will never come to that.
@sharra1 (6340)
• Australia
2 Oct 12
I see your point. There will always be lazy people and I have no idea how to deal with them without hurting the others. However, it is not good to go from the particular to the general. It happens all the time in my country where everyone who is out of work or on welfare are accused of being cheats just because some are. I grew up in a middle class family but I have been poor most of my adult life. Not poor by Indian standards but poor by Western standards. I suppose it is partly because I made wrong choices, not wrong for me but wrong for making money. Such is life. I have never had any desire to be rich just financially secure. The problem between workers and employers will always exist as long as there are greedy people. I decided early on never to work for a small employer because I saw so many being unfair to their workers. They needed people to work for them to make money but they hated paying the wages and wanted to keep all the money for themselves. I have also seen larger employers using tools to keep wages low despite using people to make money. If wealth was not such a big thing and people believed in looking after all of society rather than just themselves then it might be possible for employers and employees to work together to build a business. Unfortunately the Western world is focused on individual wealth by keeping the workforce as poor as they can get away with. I also think that life is more important than making money and have no interest in devoting my life to work. I tried that and now I am ill. Although I cannot prove the long hours and no social life contributed to my illness, chronic fatigue syndrome, I firmly believe it did. it is the cult of the individual that is destroying families and society, people are too selfish but maybe because we are socialised to be so.
@vandana7 (98526)
• India
2 Oct 12
I'd say two out of ten women work here, even if you ignore the truly helpless ones like my maid. Within my family, I know that most of my cousins have not worked. They have been housewives, irrespective of the fact whether they were younger or older. And while I am fine with richer cousins not working, I am not fine with poorer ones not working, especially if they sit in front of television or gossip with other friends and relatives, while borrowing from the same people about whom they have bad opinions..lol If they have to borrow, they might as well work. My policy. Yes, unfortunately, I have been through that drill myself. Low wages, working 18 to 20 hours. I have been lucky my health didnt give way as badly as yours. I dont feel fatigued, but yes, lazy. And more than that, fear and nervousness for working. And it has affected my social skills in an indirect way. But I am not complaining because in retrospect, I think I have been saved from a bunch of cheats and liars..lol. I cant be comfortable seeking social approval of people who have no claims to the word good, caring, and human..come on..lol So effectively no loss. Not rich, but not poor either. Just enough, and hope it will be enough for the rest of my life too. :)
@vandana7 (98526)
• India
1 Oct 12
I am fine with ultra wealthy sharra. To an extent poor are often lazy, though not always. Ultra wealthy also get bored of earning so much because they do realize they cant do much with all that money and have no more goals to achieve. There are a few bizarre habits of course which seem strange considering that they used their brains all the way to get to where they are. But ignoring those, they do employ people. In contemporary context, are we isolating or looking down upon any group economic or otherwise that can revolt to the same level, and has several such smaller things that you have cited weighing on their minds? Remember, the peasants were poor and uneducated. This class that we look down upon also has to be poor and uneducated.
• India
1 Oct 12
Hello my friend vandana7 Ji, Well, I think anything un-bearable , even in nature comes to revolt. So is the case with human-beings. Once it crosses the limit, revolts will be there. Now a days , there are many Dharanas/Rallys/bandh only. Let it be in your area/my arae or even French revolution. May God bless You and have a great time
@thesids (22180)
• Bhubaneswar, India
1 Oct 12
and do you believe that these Dharnas or whatevers are for the good of the Country? I am shocked if not surprised... these are all political gimmicks dear and nothing in true contentions for the country... And revolutions... it has been a hush hush word in India since the Non Violence and we will NEVER have any Revolution in India as long as we are alive.
1 person likes this
• India
3 Oct 12
Hello my friend thesids & vandana7 Ji, Indian soil is not the only soil, where revolutions have taken places. In real term, if children do not follow their parents, there is a revolt in the family and in broader sense, it crosses family and enlarges it's area. Mr thesids, as I viewed few seconds back about our Father of the Nation, truth comes out late than untruth, we Indians have lot of patience. Our cultutre does not permit to do and stand against our own Kins and Kith, though Bhagwat Gita describes differently and corrcetly. Lord Krishna has to take re-birth to expalin again and again. May God bless You and have a great
@vandana7 (98526)
• India
1 Oct 12
MGB..when people start enjoying others plight, and helplessness, it can happen. thesids, I am afraid yes. We all can. The only thing is, we need to pick our battles wisely.
1 person likes this
• India
30 Sep 12
Vandanaji I read history in high school only, long back in 1958, while in class eighth, i will say, if we torture any one, he/she will tolerate to a limit, next burst, and this bursting is enough to trigger a revolution
@vandana7 (98526)
• India
1 Oct 12
So you do think that there was enough water under the bridge and if not that remark, it would have been something else? :) I too feel the same way. :) But how did the rich class get accustomed to ridiculing the peasant class in day to day lives? After all, that sentence is undeniably something that is meant to ridicule. Perhaps when the conversations reach a level when lower classes are treated too low and ridiculed and ill-treated regularly, it is the first indication that there will soon be a time of reckoning. Professorji..yes, perhaps. Even Nazis felt they were in someway superior to the rest, right? And the trend has some similarities.
@thesids (22180)
• Bhubaneswar, India
30 Sep 12
Namaskar sir I wish the rule applied to present day India too... we do need some positive changes here too
@vandana7 (98526)
• India
1 Oct 12
@the sids..:) Long way to go before we rest I guess..lol Things are not that bad in India in present day..especially because we had a real bad to compare it with.
@Kalyni2011 (3496)
• India
30 Sep 12
It certainly created intense pain in the hearts of the poor Vandanaji
@vandana7 (98526)
• India
30 Sep 12
If that was so, could they have been that organized to execute so many of the nobility? Or did you think that they were not really organized, they just reacted to the situation.
1 person likes this
• India
1 Oct 12
I guess they just reacted to the situation instantly.
@rambansal (574)
• India
30 Sep 12
Yes,surely the rulers of India after independence took lessons and taken enough care not to allow any revolution by the people like the French Revolution. The people have not been allowed to have three basic things needed for an uprising against the rulers - health, education and justice, at par with those for the ruling community. Else, if India were truly democratic, her condition at the time of independence demanded free and uniform services to all citizens of the country in these three sectors. With these free and uniform services to all, firstly the conditions today would have been quite different, if not the people must have revolted against the rulers.
@vandana7 (98526)
• India
1 Oct 12
@Rambansal ji, in India, it is the middle class that would be joining forces and revolting I suppose..lol @thesids..Sepoy mutiny was a different thing. It was actually something against both Hindu and Muslim religion. I have to agree about what you said about non-violence.
@thesids (22180)
• Bhubaneswar, India
1 Oct 12
Now I must try to find out which revolutions did we actually had... sepoy mutiny? This is the closest that I can find... And after that... it was all the Gandhian Non Violence... and that made us lazy and uncaring for everyone who gave up his/her life for the Indian Independence... we even didnt dare to call this non-violence way to freedom as war of independence...
• India
1 Oct 12
@Vandana, The middle class is too busy to move to the top class by all possible means - right or wrong, hence can't revolt. It is this class that suffers the exploitation maximum in search for health, education and justice, but still keep on struggling for getting rich quickly.
@richnai2 (104)
• Thailand
2 Oct 12
Hi my vandy! I don't have a clue to what you are talking about...but that is ok. I suppose the revolution was due. I try to avoid one liners but I really do not know what I'd do as a peasant...probably set up a no cost pastry shop close to the local guillotine.
@vandana7 (98526)
• India
3 Oct 12
Well the aristocrats and royal families in France collected too much of tax, in the process peasants reached a stage where they could no longer make their two ends meet. So when Queen Marie Antoinette of France was told that peasants do not have enough to buy bread, she said let them eat cake. Which kind of triggered anger..animosity and a revolution in which most of French Aristocrats were brutally beheaded in public while peasants enjoyed it as a show. Charles Dickens' The Tale of Two Cities somewhat describes that period.
@richnai2 (104)
• Thailand
6 Oct 12
Thanks! I read the book years ago but I forgot about the let them eat cake! Yep! Off with her head!
@thesids (22180)
• Bhubaneswar, India
30 Sep 12
Hi vandana Not much good in History and these Revolutions... but - of course, there is no reason to judge the past. It cannot be undone. For taking lessons from this or other Revolutions... we all learn for a while and then forget and return back to square 1. I have never been a leader kind of a person, so I am quite sure I wouldnt have ever played a leader's role in the Revolution. I might have followed many leaders despite the fact that I dont prefer fights, quarrels and wars.
@vandana7 (98526)
• India
1 Oct 12
Me too. But the kind of person I am, I would like to see no repetition of French Revolution, and the genocide that Nazis unleashed. :) So I spend time thinking what could have been done at what time to prevent such things escalating to that level. And I review them in contemporary context.
@Aaleexix (2290)
• India
30 Sep 12
are you still in my lot ............. I am back
@vandana7 (98526)
• India
30 Sep 12
Yes..I am very much here..:)