Blow writes: "I'm inclined to take Mitt Romney at his word when he disparages nearly half the country to a roomful of wealthy donors on a secretly recorded tape."
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney pauses during his address to the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles on Sept. 17, 2012. (photo: Jim Young/Reuters)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Shrieks
20 September 12
hen people show you who they are believe them; the first time."
That comes from the inimitable Maya Angelou (via the equally inimitable Oprah). And I agree.
So I'm inclined to take Mitt Romney at his word when he disparages nearly half the country to a roomful of wealthy donors on a secretly recorded tape.
As I'm sure you know by now, Romney said that the 47 percent of Americans who pay no income taxes are people who are
dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.
He also said:
My job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.
There is no amount of backtracking and truth bending that can make this right. It's just wrong. It's not just the patently false implication that half the country is parasitic. It's not just the bleak view that they wallow in victimization. It is also his utter dismissal of this group: "my job is not to worry about those people."
Those people? Those miserable peasants scrounging around the castle entrance? Those lay-abouts with mouths open for a spoonful of rich folks' bounty? Those fate-forsaken unwashed with dirty hands outstretched for help unearned? Those ingrates who bring in a pittance but reap a premium?
Only a man who has never looked up from the pit of poverty could look down his nose with such scorn.
At the event Romney also said:
By the way, both my dad and Ann's dad did quite well in their life, but when they came to the end of their lives, and, and passed along inheritances to Ann and to me, we both decided to give it all away. So, I had inherited nothing. Everything that Ann and I have we earned the old-fashioned way, and that's by hard work.
Can this man truly be so blind as to believe that being the son of an auto executive and governor played no role in his development and access to opportunity? Can he truly believe that having a family with the means to send him to a prestigious boarding school and then on to some of the best colleges in the country had nothing to do with them and everything to do with him? Can he truly be willfully ignorant enough to not acknowledge the huddled masses at the bottom of the hill just because he started his climb half way up?
Now the Romney campaign is in full damage control mode, feverishly trying to convince Americans that they didn't hear what they heard, that there was some confusion. Romney first said that his comments were "not elegantly stated," then he tried to pivot to an argument against the redistribution of wealth, saying he believed in an America where "government steps in to help those in need." He continued, "we're a compassionate people."
Those in need? Would those be the ones "who believe that they are victims," the ones who it's not your job to "worry about," the ones who you'll never be able to persuade to "take personal responsibility and care for their lives"?
Romney's feeble explanations reek of insincerity and desperation.
And I think I know why: he's terrified.
Romney is trapped by a desperate desire for legitimacy. He is a square - in more ways than one - trying to squeeze himself into the conservative circle of trust.
In so doing, he says all the right things the wrong way. His facts are off. His timing is off. His pitch is off. He's just off. Try as he may, he just doesn't fit in. But he's now so lost in his thirst for high office that he has also lost himself. Co-opted convictions will always betray you.
Romney, whose economic plan is titled "Believe in America," demonstrated with brutal efficiency that he doesn't in fact believe in America.
I once wrote the following:
I have no personal gripe with Romney. I don't believe him to be an evil man. Quite the opposite: he appears to be a loving husband and father. Besides, evil requires conviction, which Romney lacks. But he is a dangerous man. Unprincipled ambition always is. Infinite malleability is its own vice because it's infinitely corruptible by others of ignoble intentions.
But Romney's taped comments open the door to doubt. I'm no longer confident in the basic goodness of his constitution.
One doesn't have to operate with great malice to do great harm. The absence of empathy and understanding are sufficient. In fact, a man convinced of his virtue even in the midst of his vice is the worst kind of man.
Mitt Romney keeps showing America who he is. When will we start to believe him?
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It's not a question of evil. He's wrong on policy. He thinks the supply side will create jobs, though it has never done so. He thinks the old & sick & unemployed don't pay enough taxes. He's antagonistic to the interests of women, minorities, youth, seniors, the poor. He opposes business regulation — entirely. He believes in self-deportatio n and a personhood amendment. He thinks any tax increase is too much & any spending cut is too little, & he wants to abolish the only federal taxes he himself pays. He's evasive & deceptive as a matter of course. He's self-interested & self-satisfied. He's cynical. He's crooked.
Is he evil? What does that mean as a matter of policy? Republicans think Obama is evil. Bush 43 thought, in a Manichean delusion, that everything was either good or evil. It's more than enough that Romney is wrong. He's way wrong. He's out of touch. He'll hurt a lot more Americans than he'll help. He gives to his church & loves his family & should never hold an office of public trust.
This is NOT correct. Romney said that 47% of all Americans, not 47% of Americans who pay no income taxes. This is one hell of a big difference and a tremendously larger number of people. He wasn't just talking about those paying no income taxes but 47% of ALL AMERICANS!!!
"As I'm sure you know by now, Romney said that the 47 percent of Americans [comma] who pay no income taxes [comma] are people who are..."
Romney is atrocious enough without straining so hard.
Direct text(Verbatim) "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, -(gap)-, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it -- that that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. ... These are people who pay no income tax."
However you interpret this, Twit is still a smug, self-important, ignorant and inhumane bully who could give less than a shit about the commons of the US nor planet of which they are just a part, and it's inhabitants of all kinds.
The true figure is that 96% of Americans pay taxes (Brookings Institute; -I've seen others but they all come out pretty close).
Looking closer, many of the wealthy would be included in the remaining no-payer 4% as they work to this very end constantly.
This is a dead giveaway into his innermost belief about the 47%. His ultra ill begotten wealth actually creates an "entitlement" attitude within his tiny cranium.
Democracy might work if those who trumpet the phrase constantly in their quest for personal lucre and power over others would get out of the way and let it. That would include a generous measure of Socialism into the mix.
Trouble is that (it's) messy (Democratic governance, freedom to be an individual whilst consenting to be governed by a fair elective process) and easily abused, which I think is the problem you are pointing out in your obvious and justified frustration.
The abusers are those who would co-opt democratic, socialistic rule and free speech into their own formula for control, which then denies a good section of the populace just these freedoms and begins to manipulate and "own" them.
Look around you -as you are obviously doing. I hear you and fully empathize.
I think that a Parliamentary system would work better in a nation as large and diverse as this one, starting off with abolition of the Electoral College/Citizen s United.
But that is exactly the point, they do not ... and it is not even predictable because most people when they gets lots of money become Republicans immediately, and those who are rich and lose their money all of a sudden understand.
People need to learn how to be objective.
There was a great program on PBS a while back called questioning the Constitution where they went through a pretty thorough critique of the Constitution ... now, the oldest document of its kind in the world ... that's sad isn't it.
yes, it's human nature to rationalize and mythologize our lives, we like to believe the best about ourselves. our whole society and economy is built on it.
it is sickeningly ironic that our country .... probably the first to look at human nature and try to engineer a government that took human failings into account by instituting "checks and balances" has not been able to withstand the modern tools of analysis and persuasion that have been used to study and control human beings.
the road ahead to me looks pretty bleak for most human beings, most species and the environment.
for thousands of years human have been destroying the environment ... innocently, unconsciously ... we did not know what we were doing, but now, we know better and we are still killing each other, the environment and our future freedom.
we are exactly in macrocosm what goes on in the mind of a drug addict, a small piece of the body gets the inputs it needs to feel great, while the rest of the body sickens and dies.
this is the most sickening nightmarish inescapable science fiction dystopia I would ever have imagined in my life.
so he intends on doing nothing but mouthing platitudes about helping people privately, but with no answerability of rules around that - in other words - doing nothing.
so, doing nothing and letting the market work leaves millions of Americans behind perhaps never to catch up, in poverty and despair.
Romney knows whatever we do, unless we build economic justice into our society, these people will be a drag on everyone else, and he wants to kick them to the curb. if someone wants do something privately with their own money, he's ok with that, but he does not want a penny of his own cash that he stole by evading his fair share of taxes by corrupting the law.
when our society has been taken over by psychopaths, there is no way to depend on the humanity of our leaders or government.
it's not government per se that is useless, it is the government that the Republicans have been aiming for all along that is useless - at least in terms of the goals established by our founders.
Or, since most people who don't pay income tax DO pay payroll and other taxes, do most of the 47% simply not realize they are in the category Mitt was insulting? Has he really upset a lot of his own base of voters, or did that aspect of it slip by?
This is not who I want to see as president, more then likely he could use therapy, but will probably never go to get it, because monetarily, who he is works for getting him lots of money.
When he didnt know he was being taped...I agree thats probably as close as we will get to see who Mitt really is.
Rmoney's implosion only destroyed a campaign, not a country, but we have an opportunity to come together. The out of touch millionaire left the party but also left behind a golden platter- one we can take all the way to the Supreme Court. I hope those fighting the "good fight" will now investigate who attended Rmoney's $50,000.00 per plate fundraiser. What corporation's do they own that needed Rmoney on the inside? "Citizens United?" Not 47 percent of us. "Corporations United" is the Oz behind the curtain.
But it's imperative we not let down our guard because the flying monkeys haven't flown away; if anything, they hover above Rmoney's implosion looking to feast on his roadkill. We, the People, can turn this negative into a positive because we cannot afford to squander another opportunity. Not when it was made perfectly clear that the enemies of the state are not terrorists in a foreign land, but right here in our own backyard.
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