Friday, March 27, 2009

Zeitgeist: London Protesters Threaten Bankers, Evoke Executions

From Bloomberg:
Mark Barrett, a professional tour guide, spent last Saturday painting Barack Obama’s election catchphrase “yes we can” on a banner that protesters will carry as they try to occupy London’s financial district April 1....

...Beheading Charles I

Class War, an anarchist newspaper, has produced a special edition to promote the protest with an image of former Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc CEO Fred Goodwin, whose house was vandalized this week, on a guillotine under the headline “Ready to Riot.” Another shows people dancing around a fire with the slogan “How to keep warm in the credit crunch -- Burn a Banker!” Public anger erupted at Goodwin’s 703,000 pounds annual pension after RBS was bailed out by the government.

The English Revolution culminated with the beheading of Charles I in 1649, ending the so-called divine right of kings in England. Today’s protesters say they draw inspiration from 17th century radicalism....MORE

I don't think it will come to necklacing bankers à la Soweto but if it does, we should remember this, from 1999:

... television networks around the world carried pictures of a Johannesburg inventor's solution to the carjacking crisis: a chassis-mounted flamethrower that roasts anyone within three feet of the car. A police superintendent bought one....

From This is the City:

Only The Brave Or The 'Stupid' Admit To Being A Banker These Days

This has been building for a while. We first posted

"...Here's the rondo from Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 2.
Music to hunt bankers by. "
over a year ago:



And joked about the pecuniary potential of angry populism in October's "Go Long Pitchforks: How To Profit From The Coming Populist Backlash.".