"Progressive Kristallnacht Coming?" - Wall Street Journal Headline

By William Boardman, Reader Supported News

28 January 14

his is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendant 'progressive' radicalism unthinkable now?" - Tom Perkins, January 24, 2014, in the Wall Street Journal

Thomas James Perkins was born in 1932, a year before Adolf Hitler came to Power in Germany and six years before the Nazis escalated their persecution of the Jews to mass murder during Kristallnacht (Crystal Night, the Night of Broken Glass, so-called after the array of broken glass from Jewish synagogues, storefronts, and homes), November 9-10, 1938.

Today, Perkins is an octogenarian multi-millionaire (not a billionaire, he insists), a very successful venture capitalist living in his $multi-million San Francisco penthouse, when he's not living in one of his other $multi-million homes like his mansion in Marin County or his Elizabethan mansion in England (that once belonged to Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and that Perkins reportedly has for sale).

"Tom Perkins is no ordinary venture capitalist. Perkins is personally worth $8 billion dollars, and Kleiner Perkins [Perkins was a founder] is also one of the oldest, largest and most respected VC firms in Silicon Valley. It is no exaggeration to say that Perkins personally played a key role in catalyzing the modern American venture capital industry. In sum, this is not a guy who went off his meds and now rants at the world on street corners," wrote Joshua Cohen in the Times of Israel.

His January 24 letter to the editor published in the Wall Street Journal provoked a wave of media ridicule, rebuttal, and hostility that prompted him to write an apology to the Anti-Defamation League for his choice of words. On January 27, Perkins was doing a Bloomberg TV exclusive, apologizing for using the word "Kristallnacht" and pitying himself as a messenger who'd been shot ("as the messenger I have been thoroughly killed by everybody"), but mostly he expressed strong reaffirmation of his message:

"Read the message…. I regret the use of that word [Kristallnacht]. It was a terrible misjudgment. I do not regret the message at all… Any time the majority starts to demonize any minority, no matter what it is, it is wrong and dangerous. No good ever comes from it…. The letter said what I believed. And I believe we have to be careful that we do not demonize anybody and that we don't demonize the most creative part [of society, the rich]."

He presented attractively on TV: mild-mannered, thoughtful, coherent, and responsive to the questions he was asked. But he wasn't asked why he thought it was all right to demonize "progressive radicalism" as the "descendant" of a deliberate Nazi mass atrocity. He wasn't even asked directly what he meant by "progressive radicalism." He wasn't asked if he had ever protested against the demonization of any other minority besides "the rich."

"Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich." - Tom Perkins, 2014, in the Wall Street Journal

He did not apologize for, much less disown this opinion with which he started his letter. He was not asked to explain how the Nazi government of his childhood could be compared to the anti-government protestors of his old age. He was not asked how "the rich" (including George W. Bush's grandfather) who supported the Nazis into power had somehow become victims even though "the rich" in America mostly compete with each other to own the party in power in the United States.

"I, like many, have tried to understand the 20th century, and the incomprehensible evil of the Holocaust. It cannot be explained. Even to try to explain it is questionable. It was evil," Perkins told Bloomberg TV, before he explained what led him to use "Kristallnacht" in his comparison of Occupy demonstrators to German Nazis:

"I used the word because, during the Occupy of San Francisco by the Occupy Wall Street crowd, they broke the windows in the Wells Fargo Bank. They marched up through our automobile strip. They broke all of the windows in all of the luxury car dealerships. I saw that. I remember that the police just stood by. I thought: this is how that began. That word [Kristallnacht] was in my mind."

Nazi analogies are a common irrelevance in American political discourse, and have been for decades (Godwin's law, also known as Godwin's law of Nazi Analogies, was framed by Mike Godwin in 1990: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1 in 1.").

In that sense, Perkins is merely reflecting a mindless zeitgeist, to which he was exposed in more extreme form as a director (now retired) at the News Corporation (which owns Fox News). [The same day the Journal published Perkins' letter, Free Republic posted a more deeply paranoid piece titled "The Konservativ Kristallnacht is here" online.]

"They were obviously father and son, with the same tall, athletic build. They were so handsome that they could have made money modeling, if anyone could afford to hire them. The aura of money seemed to float around them." - Tom Perkins, 2006, in his novel "Sex and the Single Zillionaire"

Perkins, who in 1972 was a founding partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, a prominent Silicon Valley venture capital partnership, denied that his choice of words implied any anti-semitism:

"This is not the case. My late partner [Eugene Kleiner] was from Austria and fought in the U.S. Army. We became the deepest of friends during our long association, and he taught me 'never imagine that the unimaginable cannot become real.' He was never comfortable with the extreme political currents in America. He never took our demonization for granted. He would have understood my letter, and would have agreed."

His former firm, on the other hand, did not agree. Kleiner Perkins tweeted on January 24: "Tom Perkins has not been involved in KPCB in years. We were shocked by his views expressed today in the WSJ [Wall Street Journal] and do not agree." Others echoed this sentiment, as summed up by The New York Times three days later.

One of the harshest and most powerful assessments came from venture capitalist Mark Suster's blog: "This is not a mere gaffe that people won't remember in 3 years. Perkins will forever be associated with greed, insensitivity and lack of historical context. If it were my firm I would rebrand as Kleiner….

"We have too much inequality in our country. It's not just a matter of fairness or morality it's a matter of good economics. Having a highly functional middle class is good policy for long-term economic growth. Having a fair society in which lower income families have a shot at social mobility is essential for our security and well being."

On Bloomberg TV, Perkins hinted at some agreement with that opinion: "I am friends with [California Governor] Jerry Brown. I voted for him. I will vote for him even though he raised my taxes 30%. He tells me the number one problem in America is inequality. And that's probably and possibly true."

But Perkins has a different answer to the problem: "It's absurd to demonize the rich…. I am your classical self-made man…. I think the solution is less interference, lower taxes, let the rich do what the rich do, which is get richer. But along the way, they bring everybody else with them."

The "classical self-made man," with degrees from MIT and Harvard, turns out to be a cliché of conservative pseudo-economics, a pale cliché at that, who echoes Reaganomics but votes for Jerry Brown.

Here's Tom Perkins' letter in its entirety. Author Daniel Steel is his ex-wife.

"Progressive Kristallnacht Coming?"

Regarding your editorial "Censors on Campus" (Jan. 18): Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich."

From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent. There is outraged public reaction to the Google buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these "techno geeks" can pay. We have, for example, libelous and cruel attacks in the Chronicle on our number-one celebrity, the author Danielle Steel, alleging that she is a "snob" despite the millions she has spent on our city's homeless and mentally ill over the past decades.

This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendant "progressive" radicalism unthinkable now?

William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

The State of the Union Speech I Wish Obama Would Deliver

By Carl Gibson, Reader Supported News

28 January 14

y fellow Americans:

I deliver this address at a time of great distress in our nation. Never before have we faced challenges of such severity as we do today. As I speak, there are hundreds of thousands of our fellow Americans with no shelter, having to survive another night of Arctic temperatures in the open. Many of them will die of exposure before morning. Many of them are veterans of our wars, who have been failed by this government in having their basic needs met.

In 2014, so far there has been an average of one school shooting every other day of the school year. Each day we fail to address both the proliferation of weapons in our country and their accessibility to those with criminal records and histories of mental health conditions. Each day that we fail to curb the growing problem of bullying in our schools, it becomes more likely that more of our children will die at the hands of other children. Soon we will have to ask our elected officials if the endorsement of a certain special interest group in the next election has more value than the lives of schoolchildren.

The war in Afghanistan is now the longest continued war in our nation's history, and there is still no end in sight. Each day, our men and women are suffering long-lasting, debilitating physical and mental injuries that they will have to endure for the rest of their lives, for an objective that seems just as out of reach today as it did when my predecessor first committed troops to Afghanistan. And just as our troops are losing their lives in this war, our nation is rapidly losing billions of tax dollars as we struggle to prop up a regime that has proven to be blatantly corrupt and untrustworthy in the eyes of Afghanistan's own people.

The extent of our national intelligence apparatus continues to be exposed in the media, and Americans are learning each day that their Fourth Amendment rights have eroded almost completely. Millions of Americans are justifiably mistrusting of their own government after having learned that everything from their phone calls, emails, text messages, tweets, Facebook posts and even their scores on Angry Birds are being monitored by their government. Many reports have shown that despite the depth of our surveillance, monitoring citizens' everyday behavior hasn't prevented any terrorist attacks. And in numerous polls, Americans have repeatedly said they value their privacy over security.

Despite working many hours for some of the world's richest companies, working Americans are unable to survive on the current minimum wage, let alone move up the economic ladder. Economists report that simply having a job is no longer sufficient for Americans to make it on their own, or to provide a decent living situation for their families. And despite the fact that a majority of Americans on food stamps are working families with one or more jobs, millionaires in Congress are denying those working families access to food.

Our nation's college students have been trapped by a student debt bubble that has grown past $1 trillion dollars. Smart young women and men are entering an increasingly competitive job market with sometimes five to six figures in student debt that will take them the rest of their adult life to pay off. Faced with crushing debt, these young people are not as likely to take risks like starting families, becoming homeowners, and starting businesses.

The same predatory banks that are burying college students in debt have also rooked millions of American homeowners out of their homes with manipulative lending schemes that have led to foreclosure. This means more and more Americans are having to move their families out onto the street, while the banks continue their bad behavior without fear of accountability. In fact, the only accountability that my Department of Justice has been able to manage for these financial criminals has come in the form of settlements amounting to a few weeks profit for these big banks. That must change.

While the richest among our country have recovered from this recession and the stock market has hit numerous record highs in the last year, vast swaths of our country have been left behind and forgotten as unemployment drags on. Even though the official unemployment rate as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics hovers around the 7 percent mark, most new jobs have been low-paying, minimum wage jobs that don't pay a living wage. And those numbers don't adequately portray the millions of Americans who have simply stopped looking for work. Long-term unemployment, too often a death sentence for American workers, makes the job search that much more difficult as the gap of time between jobs grows each day. And despite the clear jobs crisis in this country, Congress has still refused to extend a hand to working families who have been kicked to the ground by the recession.

The American people are also justifiably losing confidence in their government as a whole. The corrupting influence of money in politics is a disease that has eaten away at the legitimacy of this government, as more people see that their needs are ignored in favor of moneyed special interests who donate to campaigns. Ninety-six percent of Americans polled by Gallup have said they would like to see the influence of money in politics be reduced. Members of Congress have recently resigned, citing endless fundraising as the reason for their early retirement. Thirty to seventy percent of Congress's time is devoted to calling wealthy donors for campaign contributions, rather than taking questions from constituents. If this continues to go unaddressed, the federal government will derive no more consent from the governed, which, as our founders have taught us, is the basis for just revolt.

But now is not the time for pointing fingers. Americans need solutions, and I am doing everything in my power as president to take positive steps forward.

I have issued an executive order to demand that all companies receiving contracts with federal tax dollars not only pay employees a minimum of fifteen dollars an hour, but also publicly disclose all campaign contributions. The cycle of corruption can only end when that corruption is revealed to all inquiring minds. We must end the days where campaign checks in federal election years result in new federal contracts in inauguration years.

I will also be using my powers as president to appoint advocates to a new Citizens' Community Commission. This task force comprised of everyday Americans will have the duty of studying the effects of homelessness across America, in all fifty states. The commission will also issue a report containing recommendations on how to alleviate homelessness in America. I plan to appoint members from Occupy Madison, in Wisconsin, whose Tiny Homes project has provided living spaces for those who previously had to sleep out in the cold. I'll also appoint members of Utah's Housing Coalition, which is on track to end homelessness in the state by 2015 by giving homes to the homeless. When there are 6 vacant buildings for every homeless person in America, and in a nation as rich as ours, there is no excuse for anyone in this great nation to not have a roof over their head at night.

West Virginia's water crisis has shown us that fossil fuels are an unreliable and unsustainable source of energy for future generations to depend upon, and I have recommended Congress immediately repeal all subsidies for the oil, coal, and natural gas industries in favor of aggressive new investments in renewable energy. I have invited Angela Merkel of Germany to consult the Department of Energy on how to have all American homes and business convert to solar, wind, and biomass-based energy, so our nation can be on track to draw 80 percent of our energy from renewable resources by 2030.

The polar vortex currently blanketing our nation in Arctic temperatures, from North Dakota to Florida, is proof that climate change is happening and is already having a devastating effect on our way of life. I have ordered the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline to come to a halt, and have established a new Sustainable Energy Development Commission to make recommendations on how we can halt the most drastic effects of climate change with more sensible energy policy.

I'm also appointing citizens to a new Green Jobs Creation Commission on how to revitalize our economy by revamping our nation's energy infrastructure to be connected by a renewable energy grid. We can no longer play the fool as our predecessors have when it comes to buying and burning cheap oil by the billions of barrels. We must now make the vitality of future generations a top priority and ensure that our grandchildren's great-grandchildren will have a beautiful planet to inherit, and that we will always have millions of jobs here at home in the maintenance, upkeep, and expansion of a green energy grid.

As Commander-in-Chief, I'll be issuing an executive order to immediately begin the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, with the goal of having everyone home by the end of next year. In my executive budget recommendation, I'll recommend the portion of the Pentagon budget reserved for the Afghan war be reappropriated to green jobs creation. I will also end the F-35 program's history of broken promises and stretched budgets, and will allocate the program's funding instead to provide a free, public college education for all Americans.

As President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us in his 1961 farewell address, we must be vigilant against the unwarranted influence of military-industrial complex. We failed to do so, and have allowed this complex to morph into a totalitarian surveillance state with its eyes on every American computer screen and mobile phone, as well as the screens and phones of world leaders. I've learned from the outcry of all Americans that our constitutional freedoms must remain strong. I'm demanding Congress repeal the National Security Agency's collection of metadata, as well as the provisions of the Patriot Act that allowed such intrusive surveillance to happen in the first place. Should Congress fail to do so, I encourage you all to look at your representatives' voting records, call 202/224-3121, ask for your congressmen and senators, and demand they respect the constitution.

I've instructed my Department of Justice to indict National Intelligence Director James Clapper for perjury for lying to Congress about the NSA's surveillance capabilities. I've also issued a full pardon to Edward Snowden, and will be awarding him with a Presidential Medal of Freedom upon his return home, for his invaluable efforts to provide the world with the truth about blatant violations of citizens' rights. I'm also pardoning Chelsea Manning, and having her immediately released from Leavenworth. I'll also be issuing her a Presidential Medal of Freedom for truly upholding her oath to protect and defend the constitution from all enemies, foreign AND domestic. I'll pray every day for the Snowden and Manning families' forgiveness for my short-sightedness.

I have instructed new Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen to cease the Fed's buying of mortgage-backed securities to the tune of $40 billion per week, funds to instead be used to purchase delinquent student debt so our students can be free to pursue their goals without the specter of default or bad credit. I have also instructed the Federal Reserve Board of Governors to allow students to borrow federal loans at the same 0.75 percent preferential interest rate given to the big banks. I have also invited Richmond, California, Mayor Gayle McLaughlin to consult the Department of Housing and Urban Development on how to use federal eminent domain to seize foreclosed homes from the banks, and refinance underwater mortgages directly with homeowners, so families can keep their homes and our neighborhoods can remain strong.

Chairwoman Yellen will also be tasked with creating a report on how to convert all twelve Federal Reserve branches into public banks by the end of 2015. It's time the states have a reliable place to store their local and state tax dollars that won't lose them in risky gambles in the Wall Street derivatives casino. The states deserve to have their own transparently-run banks that will make loans for capital projects at very low interest rates, and whose leaders are public employees who make realistic salaries, rather than billionaires who shower themselves with extravagant bonuses at the end of the year. Our economy can never truly recover until public funds are safely stored in public banks.

I have recognized the shortcomings of the Affordable Care Act and am working to make healthcare more affordable for all. I am appointing a new Affordable Care Commission to make recommendations on how we can make sure healthcare is seen as a human right in this country, rather than a commodity only the wealthy and upper-middle class can afford. I'll be appointing Vermont governors Howard Dean, Peter Shumlin, and the leaders of Vermont's public sector union to the commission to make recommendations on how Americans can voluntarily buy into Medicare if they so choose. If it works for our seniors, it can work for the rest of our nation as well.

The latest budget agreement out of Congress still failed to address fundamental inequalities in our tax system. In my next executive budget recommendation, I am calling for new tax brackets for incomes over one million, ten million, 100 million, and 1 billion dollars. I'll also be calling for a 5 percent tax on all estates worth more than three million dollars. I'm additionally recommending a 1 percent sales tax on all Wall Street transactions. And I will refuse to sign off on any more cuts to our public services until Congress ends corporate offshore tax haven abuse. With this new infusion of tax dollars, we can start to adequately fund the public services that so many Americans enjoy and use every day, and provide millions of new jobs to out-of-work Americans.

To right the wrongs inherent in our current two-tiered justice system, I have asked the government of Iceland to consult my Department of Justice on how to properly prosecute financial crimes, and properly hold financial criminals accountable. I am also demanding that my Drug Enforcement Administration re-classify marijuana as a Schedule IV drug rather than a Schedule I drug. There's no excuse for Americans to be incarcerated for putting something into their bodies that is less harmful than alcohol. By having a more honest drug policy, we can start to break the prison-industrial complex that has unfairly targeted poor Americans and Americans of color through arcane drug policy.

I am also demanding the Federal Communications Commission reinforce the principle of a free and open internet by fully committing to the preservation of net neutrality. We cannot allow America's richest telecommunications companies to have sole decision over how fast or slow a website runs. The internet must mirror the principles of a democratic society, and continue to be a hub where all Americans can have access to information. Should my FCC commissioners not respect a free and open internet, I will replace them with commissioners who will.

Our nation has a lot of growing to do before we can truly call this the greatest country in the world. But by righting the biggest wrongs first, we can start to blaze a new path for America that will ensure prosperity for all of her children for generations to come. May God bless us all. Thank you.

Carl Gibson, 26, is co-founder of US Uncut, a nationwide creative direct-action movement that mobilized tens of thousands of activists against corporate tax avoidance and budget cuts in the months leading up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Carl and other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary "We're Not Broke," which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. He currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. You can contact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and follow him on twitter at @uncutCG.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.