Dr. Wes
Who needs a class war when you can have something a lot classier?
For me, the trouble with Mitt Romney is I can’t make up stuff that’s clueless enough for him to say that he doesn’t already say.
I’ll write, “Mitt Romney was secretly filmed behind closed doors saying that ‘Psst, 47 percent of all Americans are doo-doo heads. Pass it on.’” And the next day I’ll read about it in the Wall Street Journal.
Bill Clinton said that Romney’s remarks about the 47 percent will place a heavier burden on him going into the presidential debates. I guess there’s some thought that there might be questions like, “How long have you despised nearly half of America, and why didn’t you despise them in public to their faces instead of in secret?”
Rich people are very vulnerable. They don’t, as a rule, cook their own meals or clean their own toilets. That’s what poor people are for. Poor people get to do those jobs, just so they can then be despised behind rich people’s backs and called lazy, because the rich buggers they work for didn’t pay them enough for them to owe income taxes. So the rich buggers better think about what’s really in their food.
I believe that’s the key. The contempt that some of the rich, such as Romney, have for the underpaid masses derives from the completely rational fear that if there ever really was a class war, they’d be toast, because we’re all right here, under their heels, just three feet under their gonads, doing their chores, ready to stand up. The fear is too much to bear, so they remake it into contempt, while denying all that we do for them.
I saw that fear when I was a janitor and worked at a software firm. One of the software designers visited the toilet every day. I was always amazed by his accomplishments. They violated the laws of physics.
This guy made matter follow trajectories that were impossible.
He’d have to know I was the one cleaning up after him. I’d see him slink out of the bathroom just as I was going in with the janitorial supplies. He’d give me a guilty look. He knew he wasn’t cleaning up after himself: I was going to do it. He had the look of fear of exposure.
Later, when I’d encounter him in the hall or in his office, just within half an hour, the guilt and the fear would have already been converted to contempt. I should get a “real” job.
I think that’s behind Romney’s attitude. The rich know they got that way leaving the dirty work to the rest of us. The rest of us even fight wars for them, so the rich can gather up the world’s resources, overcharge us for using those resources and underpay us for using the same resources on their behalf.
Even as clueless as Romney is, he has to know deep down in his heart and soul that his wealth, and the wealth of all his rich friends, is in debt to workers who don’t get their fair share.
The thought that those workers might bear resentment commensurate to the wrong done to them must generate a fear that can’t be admitted.
Romney probably sees pitchforks in his nightmares.
I don’t want a class war. Class wars get ugly because there are too many desperate, poor people. For every poor person who gets angry enough to toss a brick through a window, there’s another one poor enough to take the job of tossing it back, and he’ll do it for less than minimum wage wherever it’s legal, because it’ll buy shoes for his kids or pain pills for his wife.
So instead of a class war, I want to recommend a class shaming. Shame, Romney.
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