Get Off Your Knees

Rich people hate you.

We've said it before but it needs to be said over and over until people start to believe it. They think you are stupid because your job is less important and respected than theirs. You don't get paid as much or travel as much or get as much public praise and attention. People don't pay attention to what you say. They pay attention to what rich people say. Why should rich people listen to people too stupid to get rich?

They tell you that frozen vegetable are okay because they think you can't figure that out for yourself and poor people have bad impulse control anyway--that's why they are poor. They discuss the merits of the Palestinian problem because you need to be told that both sides have a point, otherwise your inability to overcome your knee-jerk pacifism or mindless ideology will lead you astray. They tell you that the budget must be balanced because they know it will work to their benefit and you'll happily do whatever your leaders tell you to do, even if it's against your deepest principles. They sit down and decide that they can make up a reason to go to war becasue they know that most people will never think to question them, and then drill that reason into your heads until it becomes "common knowledge."

They think you are unimportant because you have no power and, in fact, are unimportant. They giggle over your presumption when you criticize them. They insult you in public and private. Your feelings are irrelevant. You don't matter. You're poor--or at least, not as rich as them.

Ian Welsh:

Now that virtually everyone of any importance, up to and including the President has told you that they hate you, that you are a bunch of unrealistic ingrates who need to be drug tested, I trust no one still thinks the White House doesn’t hate the left’s guts, and that it comes from the very top, from the President?

I’m going to write on this at greater length, but the point folks need to get through their heads and burrowed down into their hearts and spleens is that Democratic politicians as a rule, despise you. This isn’t just about the White House, Democrats in the Senate and in the House have done everything short of spit in your face, over and over again, as when Nancy Pelosi snuck an up or down vote on the catfood comission’s findings into the lame duck sessions.

Why are people content with so little? Why do they believe it when they are told that they are nothing, they deserve nothing, they should just crawl away and die? Obama went back on most of his campaign promises and deepened the security state. He is the head of the Assassination Bureau, not the Democratic Party. And the Democrats accept this, make excuses for him, say they'll vote for him! He hates them and everything they stand for. He mocks them for holding their principles.

Now, the second reason I'm telling you this is because Democrats, just congenitally, tend to get -- to see the glass as half empty. (Laughter.) If we get an historic health care bill passed -- oh, well, the public option wasn't there. If you get the financial reform bill passed -- then, well, I don't know about this particularly derivatives rule, I'm not sure that I'm satisfied with that. And gosh, we haven't yet brought about world peace and -- (laughter.) I thought that was going to happen quicker. (Laughter.) You know who you are. (Laughter.)

He ignores Democrats and works against them. He gives Democrats' money away to Big Banks. He kills innocent men and women in foreign countries. He does not respect the laws of the country, the suffering of its people, or his oath of office to defend the constitution. And then he laughs.

And he does all of this because rich people hate you. You are in their way. You must be accommodated and cajoled and persuaded when they want someone to fight their wars or pay for very expensive goods and services that they don't feel like paying for. You pay for the roads that their trucks wear out, the airports that ship their goods, and the utility plants that provide them with electricity, water and gas. Not all of it, of course, and they must pay for those services as well. But it's certainly a lot cheaper than paying for the public works infrastructure they need themselves. In return you want public schools and health care. How dare you? Why won't you just shut up and do what you are told, working for the wage they are willing to offer under the conditions they are willing for you to tolerate?

The only reason people accept the unacceptable is because they are trained from birth to obey, and are willing to trade obedience for membership to the tribe. They are willing to live lives of quiet mediocrity and degenerating morality because they feel they have too much to lose. It's already lost. They just haven't noticed it yet. They are obeying yet getting nothing in return. No feeling of love or belonging, no tangible benefit, no sense of merit or self-respect. Nothing.

We deserve better than neglect, mocking and slow economic strangulation. Authoritarians don't believe that. They believe the rich are better because they are richer, smarter because they are more educated, more moral because they are more respected--and they must be obeyed.

Welsh quote via Avedon Carol.