“The Poor Are Poor Because They Have Nothing To Steal”
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The poor are poor because they have nothing to steal
Responding to an essay by Michael Moore a commenter at Huffington Post yesterday penned the single most asinine comment in my recent memory. Here in all its glory is a gem that I’m going to frame and hang over my hearth:
Michael Moore has spent too much time studying the social sciences and Karl Marx. He knows nothing about economics and very lille [sic] about anything else. Corporations exist for the benefit of their stockholders. They do provide jobs, pay taxes and produce products and services, however, they are not a social service organization. He thinks the rich get richer by stealing from the poor. The poor are poor because they have nothing to steal. The rich get richer because of basic physics. Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion, while bodies at rest tend to stay at rest. It’s due to momentum. The big MO! Here is the math: MO1 (money)+MO2 (momentum)=MO3 (MO Money).
Wow an equation and everything, 1+2=3, I expect to see this economic breakthrough featured on a Glen Beck blackboard in the near future.
My favorite part and the sweet, creamy icing on the rich, moist cake of wisdom of this gem is this:
The poor are poor because they have nothing to steal
What a keeper. That line needs to be shouted from the steps of every state capitol, placed on a JumboTron on the National Mall and delivered to all the capitols of the world.
The poor are poor because they have nothing to steal
This crucial bit of information may finally be the salvation of poverty stricken people everywhere. This could lead to the poor being left alone, no more predators stalking them to steal their labor, burden them with debt, push them off their native lands or steal the food and resources from the soil and oceans on which they depend.
Who knew that the poor had nothing to steal? Robin Hood, that’s who. That’s why Robin Hood stole from the rich, just like Willie Sutton Robin knew where the money was.
But the rich have preyed on the poor since time immemorial, economically, physically, emotionally if there was something that the rich thought could be gained from the poor, they took it, and because the rich held all the power, the poor had to …well, take it. Droit du seigneur indeed.
So tragic as it is that the poor are … poor, it’s a relief to know that now that they have nothing to steal and they’re finally out of danger?
Could A Small Nuclear War Reverse Global Warming?
Could A Small Nuclear War Reverse Global Warming?
From HuffingtonPost
“Nuclear war is a bad thing.
Right?
Scientists from NASA and a number of other institutions have recently been modeling the effects of a war involving a hundred Hiroshima-level bombs, or 0.03 percent of the world’s current nuclear arsenal, according to National Geographic. The research suggests five million metric tons of black carbon would be swept up into the lowest portion of the atmosphere.
The result, according to NASA climate models, could actually be global cooling.”
Lovely, all we need is a “small nuclear war” every two or three years and we can keep global warming at bay forever.
There would be no need to get off of fossil fuels, just burn oil and gas until they run out, then burn coal until there’s a layer of soot a fathom deep.
Another benefit I suppose, would be the job growth created by the need to bury corpses, my god, undertaking would be a major growth industry.
It’s warming to know that there are concerned people, smart people, doing all this contingency planning, thinking creatively, out side the bun and all.
Officials said that “The military will be in overall command of the limited nuclear wars but the devices will be deployed and detonated by drunken civilian contractors for purposes of deniability, the bar will be cash only because, you know, we have to get this deficit under control.”
How was this study paid for? A grant from the oil industry and the defense department.
Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Don’t Forget Bahrain
Bahrain Protests
While all eyes follow the news cycle from Tunis to Cairo to Benghazi the world and the US should not forget Bahrain.
While just a causeway removed from US ally Saudi Arabia and host to the US 5th Fleet, the blood of the people of Bahrain runs the same color and their thirst for freedom and dignity is equally strong.
As the Boston Globe points out in an editorial this morning the violence used against unarmed and peaceful protests is just as reprehensible when committed by our allies as by our foes.
Read more: No free pass for Bahrain – The Boston Globe.
Newt Gingrich Discusses Potential Obama Impeachment
Newt Gingrich Talks Obama Impeachment
Newt Gingrich is moaning the impeachment word again over what he calls Obama’s unacceptable action re DOMA.
Newt didn’t read all the way through: From: HuffingtonPost
“Attorney General Eric Holder said President Barack Obama has concluded that the administration cannot defend the federal law that defines marriage as only between a man and a woman. He noted that the congressional debate during passage of the Defense of Marriage Act “contains numerous expressions reflecting moral disapproval of gays and lesbians and their intimate and family relationships – precisely the kind of stereotype-based thinking and animus the (Constitution’s) Equal Protection Clause is designed to guard against.”
“Much of the legal landscape has changed in the 15 years since Congress passed” the Defense of Marriage Act, Holder said in a statement. He noted that the Supreme Court has ruled that laws criminalizing homosexual conduct are unconstitutional and that Congress has repealed the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.” Obama: DOMA Unconstitutional, DOJ Should Stop Defending In Court
The Pres and the AG are anticipating that the law will be stricken down by the courts for reasons quoted above. There is no point in defending a law so obviously flawed and spending millions trying to uphold it when any convictions will be overturned in the end.
Gee Newt, try and think of it as a common sense, cost cutting, budgetary coup.
Republicans: No Marbles Left to Lose?
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This Guy Has A Bright Future With The GOP
Legislation being introduced in the various states leads me to believe that the hallucinogens Qaddafi was raving about yesterday were introduced into our water supply not Libya’s.
With birther bills, and tenther bills, public financing for private militias to protect us from government, the immigration insanity of Arizona, concealed carry of handguns on Texas campuses, and legalizing the killing of abortion providers, the Wisconsin attack on labor begins to look tame in comparison.
The party of Lincoln is losing what’s left of its marbles at an alarming rate and rapidly morphing into the party of Lincoln Rockwell. Every move they make is in favor of corporate control and authoritarian rule by the oligarchy.
Between the loony legislation, the nutty signs and colonial costumes, I’m thinking there’s more than a little rocket booster in those tea bags. (more…)
America the Beautiful, Landfill of Lunacy
Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry fires a six shooter filled with blanks. Photo: Rodger Mallison / AP
In Texas where everything is supposedly bigger, including belly laughs, members of the state lege are tripping over themselves to gain passage of a bill that would allow college students the right to carry firearms on campus, to classes, and I guess, to mixers, rallies, keggers and raves.
The reasoning behind this forward looking pile of sausage is a bit hazy but it fits in well with the Texas board of Ed’s decision to get Tom Jefferson out of our textbooks in order to include more riveting tales of the adventures of John Calvin, a notable historical figure I suppose, but one who happened to die a couple of centuries before our republic was born.
Ahh Texans, gotta love ‘em even if you gotta cage ‘em.
“On Wisconsin,” Sarah Palin Calls for Sacrifice From Working People
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Sarah Palin, is calling for sacrifice on the part of the working people of Wisconsin.
That was my first laugh this morning, a derisive laugh but many days start that way for news junkies. So much of what I read and see over morning coffee drives a growing cynicism and an anger that smolders beneath the surface and slowly grows.
The issues driving the crowds of people in Cairo and Tunis, in Benghazi and Bahrain are the same as those smoldering and now threatening to rise in flames in Wisconsin.
The widening gulf between those who hold all the wealth in our various societies, those who manipulate the strings of power and the mass of people who produce that wealth with their sweat and labor, has widened to a point that has become intolerable even among the normally complaisant. (more…)
All My Cousins, On Race and Ethnicity
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Sicily Castellammare
In his column at the Boston Globe this morning Jeff Jacoby expressed his disdain for “Irrelevant racial criteria” that are asked for on census forms and other places as, somehow, important data. He points out that many of us have backgrounds that have been graced with multiple ethnicity and that multi-racial marriages are much more common today than they were a half century ago, making race a largely meaningless criterion.
Thurgood Marshall, he points out, “wrote in a brief for the 1950 Supreme Court case of McLaurin v. Oklahoma: “Racial criteria are irrational, irrelevant, [and] odious to our way of life.’’”
I agree with Marshall and Jacoby that these criteria can be odious and are sometimes irrelevant, yet, as someone who came of age during the civil rights struggles of the 50′s and 60′s, and lived through school integration, busing, the battle over affirmative action, the war on poverty of the “Great Society,” and witnessed the effects of Jim Crow on society, I understand why the data were necessary at that time and in some cases are still relevant and sometimes necessary today.
But I don’t want to fight that battle today. What Jacoby’s column triggered in my mind was something much simpler than the complex and contentious argument over race. (more…)
Corralling Public Money, Alms for Oil
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Alms For Big Oil
The LA Times reported yesterday that former astronaut Harrison Schmitt was forced to step down as New Mexico’s energy “czar” due to his refusal to cooperate with a state mandated background check.
Schmitt who did one term in the Senate (1977-1983) and was placed in charge of the Republican Candy desk, is a staunch denier of ethnocentric climate change and has equated environmentalists with communists.
And you thought both sides of the equation had to balance?
No other information was available on why Schmitt was so shy, maybe he’s hiding more than climate data or maybe he’s just stubborn.
New Mexico’s governor, Susana Martinez, thought that Schmitt would make a great partner in dismantling the forward looking environmental policies pushed through during Bill Richardson’s tenure, but now…. not so much.
Have a climate change problem? Put a solid denier in charge of environmental policy. No more problem. (more…)
Determination and Sanity Rids Egypt of Mubarak
Egypt Free
After 30 years of dictatorial rule Mubarak is out.
The breaking news banner on MSNBC is telling me that Hosni Mubarak is stepping down after eighteen days of massive protest and demonstrations by the Egyptian People.
Who will step in is unclear but it’s doubtful that the people who sacrificed so much to rid themselves of Mubarak are likely to accept Assistant Torturer and (CIA asset) newly installed Vice President Omar Suleiman.
It’s likely that the interim government will be selected by the military which, unless profound changes are made in the corrupt military structure, in the end, leaves things in Egypt largely unchanged. The military has been in control for thirty years.
I don’t think that the people I’m watching on the streets of Cairo are likely to accept “meet the new dictator, just like the old dictator” as an answer to their weeks of passion and pain.
Something in the sound of the voices and sight of the faces of the Egyptian crowds makes me believe that this is for real and they will continue to hold out until they are assured that they will prevail in gaining democratic government, justice and the human rights.
I hope in the days ahead to confidently offer my personal congratulations and my thanks to the Egyptian people for teaching the world how to conduct a revolution with determination and sanity.
Read more at Huffington Post
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