“Passionate, organized hatred is the element missing in all that we do to try to change the world. Now is the time to spread hate, hatred for the rich.”
—-Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, a retired professor from Cal State East Bay, addressing a rally this weekend of the Occupy Oakland group, which fought police in a pitched battle that ended with 400 arrests.
I said that the Occupy movement would end badly, and it is, not that it should have taken advanced psi-powers to divine that a protest based on ignorance, envy and anarchy with no practical and constructive proposals to offer would eventually end in violence, anger and ugliness. Hate is what it has come down to now, and the party and supporters of the President who came to office promising hope are now pinning their hopes on a sad movement fueled by hate. To say that the protests are also unethical is to flog the obvious. They have cost communities millions of dollars that will be made up in cut services; they have soiled parks and public places, they have provided a meeting place for thugs, vagrants, criminals, and worse ( an Occupier was arrested over the weekend for strangling his parents), and they have embodied a cultural rejection of personal responsibility.
Not to mention an escape from reality.“The fact that everyone now talks about the 99 percent, the 1 percent – that shows Occupy’s won,” Carter Lavin, 23, of Oakland told the press. “The debate was about debt, not jobs. Now it’s about jobs.”
Sure, Carter.
The 99% talk has been just another catch phrase for a culture that loves them, soon to join the pantheon with “Burn, Baby, Burn!”, “Don’t have a cow, man!” and “Where’s the beef?” Sure, it has attracted phonies and exploiters, like the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren, who claims to have created “the intellectual foundation” for the Occupy Movement. Warren is herself a member of the 1% by any reasonable calculation. She attempted to draw some kind of imaginary line excluding herself from the targets of the demonstrators she sicced on America, when she told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell (who, true to that organization’s policy of never practicing journalism when it involves challenging a progressive, did not challenge her) by ” saying,“I realize there are some wealthy individuals – I’m not one of them, but some wealthy individuals who have a lot of stock portfolios.”
Just what we need, another shameless liar in the Senate. The Personal Financial Disclosure form she filed to run for Scott Brown’s seat shows that she’s worth about $14.5 million, earned more than $700,000 last year, and lives in a house worth about $5 million. She also has a portfolio of investments in stocks and bonds worth as much as $8 million, according to the form. Warren is, in fact one of those wealthy individuals who “wealthy individuals who have a lot of stock portfolios.” Either she thinks so much like a rich person that she doesn’t consider $8 million “a lot,” or she lied outright.
All that money and investments, and Warren claims that she was the catalyst for the protest. Wait—she wanted people to hate her? She hates herself? No, Warren, like the rest of the pols and journalists on the left, discovered a way to use the naive and angry to demonize those other rich people. You know. Republicans.
Carter packs so much nonsense into a single statement, he should become a presidential candidate. The national debt is headed past 15 trillion, risking America’s ability to defend itself in the future, repair its infrastructure, have a growing economy and sustain social programs, and yet not debating how to address it is considered a victory for Occupy, in which irresponsibility passes as a virtue. Meanwhile, debating about jobs does exactly nothing to create jobs…that would require actual products to make, services to supply, employees with the skills to do them, and individuals willing make the effort to find the job openings and perhaps even accept jobs beneath their aspirations. There are millions of Americans striving to do these things, but they are not the ones living in tents, fighting with police, and making fatuous statements. (Please note that I did not say “pooping on cars.” Not that it wouldn’t be fair, but it’s a cliché by now.)
The Occupy Movement hasn’t won, of course; it has lost…quite a feat, since it never had the courage to state clearly what it wanted. When we descend into hate, we’ve always lost—and that, in the end, is all the Occupiers have to offer.
Note: An earlier version of this post erroneously suggested that Warren explicitly stated that she was not one of the “1%”. That was careless of me. My intended point was that Warren is a shining example of the cynical use of the Occupy Movement to promote class warfare for political gain. Since Warren took great pains to try to distinguish herself from the “Wall Street” rich, she obviously does not regard herself as one of the 1 per cent the Occupy movement hates. I have re-written that section. Thanks to commenter Barry Deutch for flagging the error.
Ethics Alarms 
Elizabeth possibly is in the lower end of the 1% and looking at the higher echelons of 1% she must be feeling pretty poor. I believe it is nothing wrong for her to claim to be part of the 99%, at least mentally if not financially. It is indeed not a bad sign.
Do you know an estimated $4.1 trillion of investment in intangibles was excluded from published national accounts data in the United States? No accountability from corporates, not asked for not given. Hatred for the rich? Roxanne doesn’t need to emphasize it in public for it shall be a reality sooner rather than later.
Not all the corporates are responsible for US national accounts data excluding the $4.1 trillion as many of them have been pillars of the society who have been responsible for spreading productivity and growth of the economy. Let us separate the wheat from the chaff. I advocate 3Ps – Policies, Practices and People as the protons, electrons and neutrons respectively of the organizational-atom. Let the gems who excel in 3Ps with a perfect gravity of Corporate Critical Density shall ‘occupy Wall Street’ pushing out the chaff in order to have a perfectly pitched organizations around the world. My advice to the 99% is ‘occupy Wall Street’ movement is they must change the tune to promote companies of good quality and support them.
The difference between “hate the rich” and “oppose the irresponsible, unfair, manipulative rich” is rather vast, don’t you think? It’s the distinction between “all blacks are criminals” and “That black guy who just mugged me is a criminal.” Giving a group that argues at the level of gross exaggerations, stereotypes and prejudice credit for being in the general vicinity of a valid argument is too generous for me.
As for Warren, she’s a hypocrite, a liar and a fraud. Don’t sugar-coat it.
How about simply opposing those who lie, cheat, and steal, regardless of whether they are at the bottom 1% or the top 1%?
Of course, that would require the Occupy movement to be motivated by morality, not jealousy.
Bingo!
I agree with you. My stress is on separating the wheat from chaff. Re. Warren I have to go by what you say, myself viewing from the other end of the world, India.
Your perspective is very valuable and appreciated, and I hope you keep giving us the benefit of it.
I think it is horrible thing for Elizabeth Warren to tell people she isn’t one of the “rich people” or that she is part of the “99%”. Only 10% of the US families make over $100,000/year. Only 1.5% make over $250,000/year. To have someone worth $14.5 million say they aren’t rich is not a positive thing. They are rich and that is how they think. I have a Ph.D. and have been working for 25 years. I have only made $700,000 total in that entire time. Someone who makes that much in a single year doesn’t think the way I do. They don’t live the way I do. Someone who lives in a house that costs twice what I will make in my entire lifetime doesn’t think the way I do. They have little to no understanding of how I live. Telling the top 10% they aren’t rich isn’t helping things. Telling people in the 98th %ile they aren’t rich doesn’t help. It tells them that they don’t have to think about the people struggling in this country because its them too! They think their problems are everyone else’s and any problems that they don’t have aren’t important.
Why is this important? I am one of the wealthier people that I know in my area. I worry about my friends who are really struggling. I know I have it pretty good and try to do things and think of things that will help them, but I know that I am not them. There is a big enough gap between us that I can’t really know how they live (although I might understand it) and that is important for me to realize. Only by realizing they aren’t me can I hope to understand what their problems are and what I can do to help. If I delude myself into thinking I am them, I never will.
The Comment of the Day!
Hear, hear!
Michael…Barry’s comment in this thread properly pointed out that I incorrectly stated that Warren had claimed to be one of the 99%, when she did not. I’m sure, frankly, what she’s claiming—she obviously doesn’t regard herself as part of the 1%, since she claims to have been the creator of the movement. Anyway, in the Comment of the Day, I deleted the first sentence. The rest is still relevant, thoughtful, and true.
It comes down to a matter of politicians being able to say and do anything, no matter how wacky or perverse, if they’ve got the favor of the news media and can count on them to mitigate or obscure their “eccentricities”.
This is an extremely dishonest take on what Warren said.
You didn’t link to the clip you’re quoting, which is something honest bloggers should always do. It’s here. (The full interview — and you’re right, it’s a partisan softball interview — is here.)
First of all, although you claim that Warren said “she was part of the 99%,”; that’s an outright lie on your part. Nowhere in the interview (or anywhere else, that I know of) did Warren claim to be part of the 99%.
Second of all, it’s pretty obvious, listening to the clip in context, that she’s not claiming not to be rich. She’s claiming that she not a wealthy person with “stock portfolios” that will cause a conflict of interest if she’s elected to the Senate.
In the quote that you’ve taken out of context, she was responding to a question about members of Congress owning stock. Here’s the fuller quote:
That may not be a position you agree with. But no honest person could read that full quote and claim the subject was “Elizabeth Warren is not rich,” rather than “conflict of interest among stock-owning members of Congress.”
Quoting out of context in a way that distorts Warren’s meaning is not ethical. Either you didn’t actually listen to the interview (in which case you shouldn’t be criticizing her what she said in it), or you listened to it and then framed it in a way that distorted Warren’s obvious meaning.
When liberals quote Romney saying that he likes to be able to fire people as if he had said he enjoys firing people, you have no problem recognizing that dishonest quoting of that sort is wrong. You should be able to see that the way you quoted Warren is wrong for exactly the same reason.
First of all, thanks for the correction. The quote was misleading, I deleted it, and I also rewrote the section along with adding a reference to what was changed. I am genuinely grateful for your help.
I did not see the whole interview, because Lawrence O’Donnell is such a shameless shill that it makes me nauseous. I watched a clip. That was wrong–if I don’t have the stomach to watch the whole interview, I shouldn’t use it, and I should be used to misleading editing on Youtube by now. That said, my statement about his failure to challenge the absurd and dishonest distinction she was trying to make by saying “I realize there’s some wealthy individuals, I’m not one of them, but some wealthy individuals who have a lot of stock portfolios.” Here she was NOT talking just about Congress, because she’s not in Congress yet–“I’m not one of them” means she is talking about the broader class. The statement, in context or not, means “I am not one of those wealthy individuals who owns a lot of stock.” Well, she does, Barry. That was a lie. O’Donnell should have challenged her.
That section of my post section got off track, which was my fault. The point in raising Warren, if you will consider the context of MY post, was that Warren personifies the cynical progressive/Democratic use of the Occupy movement, since she even takes credit for it. Yet by any rational standard, she is a member of the class she says she applauds people hating. I did not successfully navigate the utter deceit and cynicism in that position—“Hate people like me, but elect me to the Senate,” because, frankly, it is so outrageously deceitful that it hurts my brain the way Lawrence O’Donnell hurts my stomach.
I certainly did not lie; I made a mistake, which I have now corrected. I take Warren statements, not just to O’Donnell, to be an effort to place her on the side opposite the 1%, which if it doesn’t make her the 99%, I’m not sure what it does. But she has never explicitly said that. She hasn’t gotten rid of her wealth, either. Her Harvard salary also exemplifies another OWS bitch, a legitimate one, the ridiculous cost of higher education. The more I think about it, the more I realize the incredible gall of this woman to use people like herself as the clay pigeons for a mind-less assault of hate that has made such a mess of so many cities deserves its own post. I erred by trying to get it all into this one.
The bottom line is that I read too much into the quote, and didn’t give readers a chance to see how. Again, thanks for the correction, if not the insults.
First of all, thanks for the correction.
Fair enough; I entirely accept that this is true. But it would be nice to see you give Elizabeth Warren the same benefit of the doubt that you freely give yourself.
Secondly, you wrote:
“She also has a portfolio of investments in stocks and bonds…” But Warren doesn’t own “stocks,” plural. According to her disclosure form (which I could have sworn your post linked to yesterday), she owns one stock (IBM) and the rest is in mutual funds and the like. In interviews, Warren has argued that to have “big mutual funds” doesn’t create the same conflict of interest when considering specific legislation.
There’s no doubt that she’s rich. I also wonder about that “modest investment” (how much money would you need to invest in IBM shares in 1977 to have $100000-$250000 worth of IBM shares today, if the income from the IBM shares is reinvested? Is it really an amount that someone like me would consider “modest”?). But still, your claims that she was wildly lying don’t seem to hold water. She wasn’t claiming not to be rich, or that doesn’t own any investments at all; she was claiming not to have the kind of stock portfolio that raises conflict of interest issues in members of Congress.
Again, you’re putting words into her mouth. She doesn’t say she “applauds people hating.” You’re like a pro-lifer who, upon finding out that I’m pro-choice, says I “applaud baby-killing.” That’s not an honest paraphrase of what I say, because unlike that pro-lifer, I genuinely don’t believe that pro-choice equals baby-killing. Similarly, if we give her even a shred of benefit of the doubt, it’s obvious Elizabeth Warren does not share your belief that seeing value in the Occupy movement is the same as “applauding people hating.” To describe her as “she says she applauds people hating” is obviously not fair or fully honest.
Part of the problem here is that you’re so extremist and without nuance in your view of the Occupy movement. Like all large movements, Occupy has some genuinely stupid people in it who say and do asinine things. But to sum up the entire movement as “a mind-less assault of hate” is just demonization of those you disagree with, and it precludes intelligent or nuanced discussion.
I’m happy to debate abortion with reasonable pro-lifers. But if a pro-lifer is spitting and ranting about how pro-choicers are “mindless hateful baby-killers,” that’s not someone I can have a reasoned debate with, because they’ve thrown both nuance and the idea of treating those they disagree with respectfully out the window. Your rhetoric on the Occupy movement is so extreme, and so filled with hated for those who have participated in Occupy, that discussing it with you seems pointless.
If you want political discussion in the US to be more civil and reasonable and moderate in tone — and maybe you don’t — then you should dial your own rhetoric back several notches.
Barry, I don’t respect the Occupy movement, and I don’t think my assessment is in the least bit unfair. There is nothing hateful I have said about them, or if there is, please show me. Being critical is not the same as being hateful. (When someone specifically uses ‘hate’ to describe their objective, however, it is fair to take them at their word.)On the other hand, I think wishful progressives uncomfortable with the reality that the Occupy groups are violent, ignorant, hateful and a general embarrassment are bending backwards to an absurd extent to claim that there is legitimacy there. Your abortion analogy in inapt. Ortiz wasn’t booed for her endorsement of hate, she was cheered. I see nothing that indicates that hers is not a mainstream Occupy attitude…certainly Occupy Oakland would indicate that.
Extreme things justify extreme descriptions. There is nothing uncivil about it, and I view the determination of the media to paint in moderate terms what is, and has been from the beginning, a hodge-podge of inarticulate malcontents spouting socialist/anarchist slogans so moldy listeners should be wearing masks. Are they costing cities millions? Yes. Are they responsible for violence and criminal acts? Yes. Have they articulated anything but broad, impractical, naive generalities? No! To describe them any other way allows the Pelosis and Krugmans who cynically embraced such wasteful nonsense, and Warren, who actively endorses it, to escape their just desserts. They should be embarrassed. So should you.
As for Warren…she’s a highly paid Harvard professor, and presumably knows how to speak clearly.. If her statement was garbled, I need to hear her say so, otherwise I can presume, like you fairly did of me, that I intended the apparent meaning of my words.
*shrug* I’m not embarrassed to have a nuanced view. I’d be happy to discuss what I see as Occupy’s flaws and the reasons I find Occupy frustrating. I just say that the movement has both virtues and flaws. You, in contrast, cast Occupy in simplistic black-and-white terms.
Your approach to Occupy, as shown by your focus on this one quote, is cherry-picking. Ortiz – a retired professor I never heard of before yesterday — is far from the most prominent person, ever to speak at an Occupy rally; nor is Oakland all of the Occupy movement.
Elizabeth Warren has, I believe, spoken at Occupy rallies, and certainly she’s someone that many folks in the Occupy movement admire. You will never find her saying we should hate anyone; instead, she makes arguments based on policy and (what she sees as) fairness. I don’t see why her statements are less representative than Ortiz’s. Given her hugely greater level of fame and association with Occupy, I’d argue that looking at her statements for an idea of what Occupy activists believe is more on the mark.
The truth is, though, that there is no such thing as an “Occupy activists” massmind, and not all Occupy activists agree. So although focusing on Warren’s statements would be fairer than focusing on that one Ortiz quote, a more complete view would be that both kind of statements can found within the Occupy movement (although Warren is, by any measure, much more popular).
Similarly, you can choose to focus on either the most intelligent and nuanced policy discussions coming out of people supporting Occupy, or you can place all your focus on the most extreme rally quotes you can find. I think intellectual integrity requires addresses the former as well as the latter.
If by her statement you mean when “she says she applauds people hating,” there’s no statement there to be garbled; you put words in her mouth that she never said. She never said she applauds people hating; you claimed she said that, and your claim is false. Now you’ll either withdraw your false claim (in which case we can say it’s careless writing on your part, but not a lie), or you’ll refuse to withdraw it (in which case, you’re a liar). It’s that simple.
If you mean her statement that “I realize there are some wealthy individuals – I’m not one of them, but some wealthy individuals who have a lot of stock portfolios,” that’s pretty obviously a verbal stumble on the face of it. And, as the link you oh-so-conveniently deleted from your post shows, she doesn’t own a lot of stock portfolios — she owns one stock, IBM. Which she’s pledged to sell if she wins the election.
But as far as clarification goes:
Since that is, in context, clearly the point she was making, it seems pretty reasonable to take her spokesman at his word.
On second thought, I withdraw and apologize for the phrase “oh-so-conveniently,” which is unfair in what it implies. Obviously you might have removed the link for a legitimate reason, or possibly I’m mistaken and it was never there in the first place. Either way, sorry about that, Jack.
1. I didn’t “oh-so-conveniently” delete any link—it’s still there. I don’t know what you are talking about.
2. Warren is the outlier, based on what I’ve seen. Occupy DC is here, remember. I’ve seen it. The signs are hateful (or silly); the rhetoric is hateful.Yes—I think responsible politicians of any ideology should distance themselves from Occupy. Has she condemned Occupy Oakland? What is endorsing Occupy now supposed to mean, exactly?
3. I refuse to play the deceitful game Occupy and its enablers do. If someone says or does something outrageous, they aren’t really representative, goes the trick, because the Occupiers haven’t settled on a position. Well, if there isn’t a position, they should get out. If there is one, then they are obligated to state it and defend it, and in the vacuum, they are responsible for every word spoken in public by their representatives. Tell me: if an openly racist speaker spoke to the Republican National Convention, would we hold the party culpable? We sure would.
4. Elizabeth Warren embraces the Occupy movement, which is lawless, violent and hateful. She takes credit for it. She’s evidently proud of it. It is not putting words in her mouth to hold her accountable for the acts and words of the movement she says she inspired.
5. “I realize there are some wealthy individuals – I’m not one of them, but some wealthy individuals who have a lot of stock portfolios” is not an obvious verbal stumble. If she means members of Congress, what sense does “I’m not one of them” make—we know she’s not…she running to be one. What she says is “I’m not a wealthy individual” or “I’m wealthy, but a don’t have a lot of stock portfolios.” Would the average listener ever think she had 8 million in Wall Street investments, then? (By the way, here’s where a non-MSNBC hack would have helped Warren, conceivably, by forcing her to be clear.)
6. OK, once she was criticized, her campaign issued a “clarification.” Tell me, would it have said anything different if Warren meant to be deceptive?
Thanks, Barry, for articulating some of the conflicting feelings I have about the Occupy Movement. I agree with you that OWS would have no problem accepting Elizabeth Warren as one of their own, based on her attempts to protect consumers. The things that have happened in Oakland are very disturbing, but no one can know all the facts. I hope that OWS can expel the violent faction of the movement, as I believe that is antithetical to their core beliefs. If they don’t, they will lose much of their support and influence.
Jan, this is classic!
1. Are you saying that OWS regards millionaires as part of the 99%? How does that square with anything they have ever said? Is she an “honorary” non-millionaire?
2. “No one can know all the facts.” There was a riot. The protesters tried to take over a building that wasn’t theirs. They resisted law enforcement. What more do you need to know?
3. “You believe” that violence is antithetical to their core beliefs? On what basis…and WHAT”core beliefs”? Polls of occupations indicate that about 50% of the protesters do believe in violence. Which half is the real half?
1. Yeah, an honorary member.
2 Those are your facts. I hear that the police initiated the violence and used excessive force. That they are refusing medical attention to those in jail–but I don’t necessarily believe everything I read or hear, just because it coincides with my political views.
3. Yes, I believe that, in the beginning, non-violence was a core belief of OWS, but, as I stated in my post, they are losing ground if they don’t get rid of this element. For every poll you quote to me, I can quote one that says 50% of the Teaparty believes Obama is a Kenyan born Marxist Muslim. But I don’t necessarily believe it. A legitimate poll of either group is impossible.
Who is talking about the Tea Party? What does that have to do with anything? “Yeah, well, the Tea Party has nutcases too!” is not a defense of Occupy in any way. That dichotomy was false from the start.
I was addressing your reliance on polls, not comparing the Tea Party to OWS. To repeat, a legitimate poll of either group is impossible. Actually, come to think of it, I was defending the Tea Party.
Ah. That must have been what shorted my brain out. Shock.
Regardless of what you think of her political views/ideologies …
Elizabeth Warren did not grow up wealthy. She probably can better understand the plight if “working-class” Americans than most of the politicians in her tax bracket who grew up wealthy. When she talks about understanding the needs of struggling Americans, she is, actually, speaking from a place of experience (regardless of her current financial status) and does, in fact, talk about her family life growing up. For this reason, I do not think she is being unethical when she she talks about having been there. Unfortunately, many people in the Republican party have seized on the disparity between her net worth and Brown’s to portray her as one who could not POSSIBLY understand “average” Americans or represent Massachusetts due to her net worth ALONE. Bloggers relentlessly criticize her for arriving in sedans/limos to public appearances in working class neighborhoods rather than taking public transportation on days when she is scheduled for many appearances and any fool would know that the most effective use of time would be to have a driver and work in the car while being shuffled as quickly as possible between appointments. A bit ridiculous, don’t you think?! But they harp on this point claiming that she’s not “working-class” because she doesn’t take the T (or drive a pick-up truck, LOL).
Instead of looking at what politicians have in their bank accounts, let’s take a look at what they have between the ears. And in their hearts. Let’s take a look at the respect with which they treat those they are most morally bound to honor, protect and love (their families). Let’s look at the advisors they surround themselves with and whether or not they have the ethical qualities we want to be advising a potential leader. Character and integrity should matter MORE than religious affiliation or (don’t get me started) a candidate’s opinion on suppressing a woman’s right to have control over her own body or views on gay marriage. Intelligent people don’t have to be “working-class” to be leaders who can create environments where people are treated with dignity and respect, where people who are able to work can find meaningful employment for fair wages, where citizens have access to excellent medical care, where children can receive first-rate educations, and where there is enough food, shelter and other services available for the most needy among us who need our assistance. They simple have to be well-informed, well-advised and care about ALL Americans as much as they care about the Americans in their particular tax bracket.
I couldn’t agree more, but this begs the question of why Warren is encouraging hatred of “the rich.” OWS doesn’t distinguish between the rich-by-inheritance and the rich through business acumen,..it paints all wealthy and successful people with one brush. So I don’t see why that distinction should be available to her, as the one who cooked up this class war. I know several Wall Street types, and none of them came from wealthy families.
I don’t think its ridiculous to tweak Warren for high-tax bracket habits when her whole act is denigrating people with money, just as I think criticism of Michelle Obama’s lavish vacation habits in a recession is fair, and just as it is reasonable to point out that Warren Buffett is talking out of both sides of his mouth, decrying low tax rates for billionaires and owing billions in corporate taxes.
I didn’t say that Warren was unethical for talking about having “been there.” She’s unethical to misrepresent where she is now.
I would just like to point out, the news article in the first hyperlink of the article has the quote the article is based around.
She did speak of hatred. You would think her words helped instigate the violence in Oakland.
I’ve listened to Warren speak on a few occasions. I read her message a bit differently than you do, Jack. I don’t think it’s a message of “hating the rich” so much as a message that the “rich” didn’t get there by themselves, and that they owe a responsibility back to the rest of the citizens of the country that either helped make them rich or helps to keep them rich. I understand her message as more about fairness (in terms of % of taxes paid) and responsibility to help others achieve some measure of the “American Dream” than bitterness that some have while others don’t.
I know others will disagree with me, but I’d rather cast my for vote Warren, who by all accounts is an exceedingly intelligent person willing to explore issues than Brown, who was swept into office in large measure by virtue of the fact that he drives a pick-up truck and garnered the blue-collar vote while being backed by big-money out-of-state donors with far-right agendas any day.
And what, exactly, is this responsibility?
No one is claiming that the rich got there by themselves. For example, Taylor Swift’s singing talent would not have gotten her a single penny if there were no one willing to pay for it. But aside from singing in exchange for cash, what is Swift’s responsbility?
I didn’t say that Warren hates the rich—she IS the rich. Warren does, however, openly support a movement that is actively fulminating hate, and that’s irresponsible.
And your assessment of Scott Brown’s victory couldn’t be more wrong. I followed the race very closely, and I’m from Massachusetts. He was elected because Martha Coakley, his opponent, was an unethical prosecutor and an arrogant, lazy candidate who ran the dumbest Senate campaign this side of Christine O’Donnell. And I’m not kidding: any candidate for high office in Mass who declares that Curt “Bloody Sock” Schilling is “a Yankee fan” will lose, and lose big. Even the Democrats are Sox fans first. She was a terrible, terrible candidate and would have deserved to lose if her opponent drove a pumpkin pulled by rats. Warren is much better.
Here’s a video of senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren talking about tax cuts and why “there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own.”
http://www.bundle.com/article/elizabeth-warren-taxing-rich-and-paying-it-forward/
That’s what I’m talking about.
Gosh, Jack, I have to admire you for all your intelligent followers. When you–oh, so rarely–get something wrong they patiently try, against all odds, to set you straight. I especially endorse the comments of Barry, Michael, Jan, and Interested…
My two points:
1) Occupy isn’t a coherent organization like the Republican Party. It has no official spokesman or approved agenda. Based on my conversations with people at Zuccotti Park I think that they’re generally against the rising level of inequakity and the erosion of the American dream, not against the rich.(As is Warren.)
2) Warren’s point was about conflict of interest in the Congress. She could have been more precise–should have been–but she owns only one stock and will sell it if she’s elected.
Have they explained why inequality is a bad thing? In fact, I think inequality is a good thing. the more inequality there is between the poor and starving to death on the streets, the better.
I don’t think inequality is a bad thing–it’s the trend. People who believe in free market capitalism accept that some will be very rich and some very poor. But many, including me, believe that the trend of more and more of our national output going to fewer and fewer people is a bad thing and dangerous for our country.
How is dangerous as long as the gap between the poor and starving to death on the streets does not narrow?
I would like to second EthicsBob’s objection to inaquakity, as that is, at times, the perfect way to describe it.
Mr. Marshall,
Thanks for the encouragement, however I am still too young to run for president. I’ll keep it in mind for future career plans though.
Hoya Saxa!
“earned more than $700,000 last year”
No. “Was paid” is accurate, “earned”, not really.