With the election year already in full stride, here are several things I absolutely know to be true (and a couple of things about which I am quite certain):
• If Barack Obama wants to get re-elected, he is going to have to drop his Cool Breeze persona and go on the attack. The soul of America is at stake.
• As we’ve been reminded throughout our lives, great civilizations crumble from within. The minute that the American middle class blinks out of existence is the moment when America ceases to exist. Karl Marx believed that for communism to take hold, the middle class had to be obliterated beyond recognition. How much would he be smiling if he learned that the eventual means toward that end would be runaway capitalism?
• What I find sad and embarrassing is the large number of people who, barring that one-in-a-billion lottery payoff, will never rise above their current modest economic status, and yet are willing to suspend their own disbelief by falsely equating what is being perpetrated by the banks and the corporations as just a 21st-century manifestation of the American Dream, which it most certainly is not.
• The American Dream used to involve a good idea, lots of hard work, a ton of discipline so as to resist the urge to cut corners, and even a little luck. The way that far too many people are getting rich these days is through an unholy combination of loopholes, dodges, shady deals and cover fire provided by butt-licking politicians.
• I don’t begrudge Bill Gates his money, or Sergey Brin his, or Serena Williams hers. They’ve earned it. I don’t even mind that the six Walton (Walmart) heirs have as much money as the bottom 30 percent of all Americans combined. At least old-man Sam Walton had a good idea, worked hard and exercised discipline.
• I begrudge every rotten penny taken in by derivative-usin’, money-shufflin’, golden-parachute-havin’ crumbs who do nothing but enrich themselves at the expense of others and the overall American economy. They are like voracious worms eating away at the core of an apple, ceaselessly engorging themselves, knowing full well that their actions will eventually cause the shell to collapse on itself.
• In theory, the rising tide of capitalism lifts all boats. But this is, at best, a bastardized form of capitalism, one that acts like an inversion layer, pushing down from above.
• For people in the middle class to praise and defend those whose actions would hasten the demise of said middle class is an abomination. I have a couple of friends who, like me, are on the down slope of life. These two are creepily effusive in their praise of a broken system that will almost certainly prevent them and their progeny from ever making that time-honored leap from the middle class to the upper class. Their defense of those who, by hook or (mostly) crook, have found themselves on the plush side of the Ever-Greater Divide and have used their ill-gotten positions and connections to see to it that no one else joins them in the land of über-wealth saddens me. It’s one step away from old Rastus saying, “Oh, Massa, he’s all right. He hardly don’t beat me any more, and he lets me sleep in the barn on a rainy night.”
• A recent report in The New York Times showed that, among advanced countries, America is distinguished as being the place where people born into the lower socioeconomic strata are least likely to advance to the upper or even middle class. Most Americans believe the opposite to be true (and the opposite should be true!), but it isn’t.
• Just as there are people these days who are famous simply for being famous, there are people who are rich simply for being rich. They don’t make anything or serve anybody. They just have lots of money. And unlike people in the past, they’re not using their money to make more money; they’re using it to take more money.
• We have to stop equating success with the acquisition of huge amounts of money. Some rich people are successful; many successful people aren’t rich.
• The old Republican mantra used to be: I got mine; now you get yours any way you can. It’s now: I got mine, but I don’t want you to get yours, because it might make mine look smaller by comparison.
• It’s hilarious that the congressional whores who shill for the money-grabbers call for less government regulation. It’s like bank-robbers saying that it would make their lives easier if vaults didn’t have locks.
• This is the scariest statistic I’ve come across in the past year: According to an article by Tim Dickinson in Rolling Stone, the wages for the bottom 90 percent of all American taxpayers have gone up $1.50 an hour over the past 15 years. For the top 0.01 percent over that same period, they have gone up $10,000 an hour.
• The real reason that Republicans keep complaining about “class warfare” is that they’ve already started it on behalf of their corporate and financial masters. If they can get away with it and blame it on somebody else, that’s a 2-for-1 deal.
• There’s absolutely nothing worse than being cheap and greedy. I want to hit those for whom more than enough is never enough.
This article appears in Jan 19-25, 2012.
Well stated, Mr. D. What I find particularly egregious are the numbers of people who, despite being repeatedly victimized by right-wing politicians, continue to support those criminals. Why would any person, while in the process of being robbed in the street, bend down and kiss the mugger’s ass?
Interesting screed. Not sure how accurate it is. The two most maligned banks are Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase. Both are headed by Democrats ( Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Diamond). Most observers believe that the current economic malaise happened because of the collapse of the housing market due to derivatives and mortgage securitization. This was possible because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gave an implicit US Gov guarantees to the mortgages. The person who ran Fannie Mae when this all started was Jim Johnson who was once Walter Mondale’s campaign chief ( I think that qualifies him as a Democrat). Finally the biggest capitalist of them all is Warren Buffet… yep a Democrat.
If we want to save the middle class, we have to figure out how to create more high paying private sector jobs … they directly employ people and indirectly pay for all the government legions through taxes. I’m afraid that will require getting capital to people who are willing to take risks… like the folks who started Walmart, Google, Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway. The system that get them that capital involves the bankers and PE firms that you seem to disapprove of. Be they Democrat or Republican, I’m afraid that we need the capital market to function, warts and all, or the US middle class will end up like that of Europe…. living off of government subsidies and resentful of those who have it better.
Bueno Tom, Once again an excellent article, cuts to the meat of the matter. Yes, Democrats have been a part of this mess. Bill Clinton- getting rid of Glass-Steagall Act, started it…And Barrack Obama, is surrounded in his Administration with the “Too Big To Fail” big-shot managers…what the Hells with that? But, the Repugnant Party, perpetrate economic inequality. A small group has concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s money, other people’s labor-other people’s lives. What FDR, called these economic royalist-who complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they complain of is that we seek to take away their power. In vain they hide behind the Flag and the Constitution. The Repugnants are frozen in the ice of their own indifference. The Nation is afflicted with a Repugnant Party, thats mantra is: hear nothing, see nothing, do nothing Government, they look away. All these mocking years with the golden calf. While the Nation is in despair, and the lines at the charity kitchens, grows longer. The Repugnants are the forces that are united against the People. Micky Smythe
The interesting thing about Tom’s article is that he includes no suggestions as to how to get out of the mess. Many of us ‘Repugnants’ have been appalled at the rise of monopolies or near monopolies over the past 30 years. I personally have spoken for the need to use a ‘Teddy Roosevelt Trust Buster’ approach to stop these unbelievable ‘mergers’ that turn out to be unproductive. Tom, would you consider advocating for the Repugnant Teddy Roosevelt approach? Murdoch, Turner, NBC, etc., to cite operations in your profession, are worthy of Teddy’s ire. The list would be huge, and the spin-offs would revive the middle class – which arguably arose after Teddy got his way.
Thank you Tucson Weekly/Mr. Denehy. I hope any athlete, sports person games person, etc.,can relate and appreciate a fair match. E.g. I would never play a game of chess with Kasparov or Fisher. A rigged game is the rub and so it goes…
Most humans admire exceptional gifts in any field. A fixed/rigged game is not a win and sorrily we will all have to stand tall before our Creator and have some esplaining to do. Thank you Tom and Tucson Weekly.
Does this list of greedy people include ” honest” Bill Clinton. The Bill Clinton who earned 31 million for making speeches between 2001 and 2005. The Bill Clinton who despite the huge profits he’s made still charges a cool million to speak. I guess it’s o.k. for him as he’s not a dreaded Republican !!
I heard someone say not long ago, don’t know if they said it first, but I think it’s right on: *Nobody* can “earn” a billion dollars…
Statistics can always be manipulated. How much have wages gone up for the top 90%. Nearly all of us are as much a part of that as we are of the bottom 90%. What difference does it make what the top .01% got? Over 15 years that is a constantly changing group. Marx also said that the state would dissolve. Come on Tom, Rolling Stone and Marx aren’t the best sources of unbiased information.
Tom, It sounds like you’re ready to leave the traditional Democratic Party behind and join the Occupy Movement and maybe create a 3rd party or new system of doing things. Warning: you’ll have to deal with vegans/vegatraians, home schoolers/charter schoolers, etc., but hey where with you 100% on above and we welcome you in unconditionally. It must be hard watching your sacred public education system fail you right here in Tucson. I was thinking we might want to change our name to Arabama or Alazona soon. Seriously, we’ve been yelling all along the little guys and gals need help, not the fat cats and their kittens, but no one on the Democratic side except for Raul and a few others can even meet us 1% of the way. You have officially joined the ranks of the disgusted watching the theater of the absurd destroy our society. Time to move on and create something new or just get swallowed up! Welcome Home!
Matt L.
I know Obama (aka: “The One” by his followers) is supposedly an environmentalist (those Raytheon Hellfire missiles he keeps firing from drones GOTTA leave a mess!) however, recycling his speeches is going a bit far. His writing team, which is the most expensive ever, is in desperate need of your help.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDDRiGIUYQo