We can’t get very far if we’re just writing off half the country as a bunch of victims, or presume that somehow they want to be dependent on government or don’t want to take responsibility for their own lives. -- President Barack Obama, September 21, 2012
When the now-infamous Cellphone Video surfaced a week ago, I wasn't at all surprised by Mitzy's comments (You can read the full transcript at Mother Jones online). After all, he was speaking to a crowd of his people. They all share the same perspectives on America, its population, and what should be done to ensure a top-down, trickle-down vision dominates the future. Aber natürlich he didn't bother to censor himself.
This One Per Cent notion of our country and culture was highlighted in a short Los Angeles Times article this past July about a traffic jam of wealthy donors, making their way to a gated estate in the Hamptons (don't know about the Hamptons? Go here) where Little Mitt Romney was going to speak to them -- and, oh yes; take their checks.
A New York City donor a few cars back, who also would not give her name, said Romney needed to do a better job connecting. “I don’t think the common person is getting it,” she said from the passenger seat of a Range Rover stamped with East Hampton beach permits.“Nobody understands why Obama is hurting them. We’ve got the message,” she added. “But my college kid, the baby sitters, the nails ladies — everybody who’s got the right to vote — they don’t understand what’s going on. I just think if you’re lower income — one, they’re not as educated; two, they don’t understand how it works, they don’t understand how the systems work, they don’t understand the impact.”
Mitzy made his remarks on May 17th at the Boca Raton, Fla., home of Marc Leder, co-owner of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers, founder and co-CEO of Sun
Capital Partners, a Boca Raton-based private investment firm which
(according to the company’s website) focuses on leveraged buyouts -- the tactic, along with outsourcing, that made Bain Capital under Romney so successful (for workers in the impacted companies Bain took over... not so much). Leder's estimated net worth is $400 million.
This is the same Marc Leder who rented a home in the Hamptons last season, for one month, to throw a long string of "parties" -- real Roman-style, sybaritic, public sexyorgytime, and apparently quite popular with the moneyed set. Marvelous Marc's rental cost of the house for that 30 days was $500,000 (I don't know if this included the hookers).
That's $16,000 per day -- and $16K per year is just a little more than the Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, about the mean average wage (according to Wikipedia) of Farmworkers, Laborers; Crop, Nursery, and Greenhouse workers; Ushers, Lobby Attendants, and Ticket Takers; Cafeteria, Food Concession, and Coffee Shop attendants -- Gardeners, and 'Personal Grooming' attendants. That is, the Nails Ladies.
So Markie's 30 Days Of Fuckpad cost him the annual salary of thirty Americans, working in what usually gets referred to as the 'service industry'. I've had a few of these jobs, and relative to what I do now, I can tell you the work is hard. But, you know; those are the 'lower income' types who "don't understand".
(Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Rant)
And. the minimum wage is one of the legacies of FDR's New Deal -- which the One Per Cent would like to drown in a bathtub, with the help of Little Grover. That, and replacing Social Security with a Stock Market Casino and Medicare with Vouchers For All, would be part of Austerity For America -- what Little Paulie Ryan likes to call the "sacrifice", the "pain" that they intend to force on the American people. But not on the One Per Cent, aber natürlich.
So, Romney told people in Boca Raton what they already believe: 47% are Liberals -- lazy, stupid, wanting nothing but government handouts, taking no personal responsibility for their lives. They're serfs,. They lie; they steal and they smell. You have to keep them in line and watch what they're doing every minute.
Audience member: For the last three years, all everybody's been told [by the Obama administration, i.e., 'the government] is, "Don't worry, we'll take care of you." How are you going to do it, in two months before the elections, to convince everybody, "You've got to take care of yourself"?
Romney: 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, who believe that 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. 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. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect. And [Obama will] be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean, that's what they sell every four years.Also, one attendee at the soiree told Mitzy:
And so 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. What I have to do is convince the 5 to 10 percent in the center that are independents...
The debates are gonna be coming, and I hope at the right moment you can turn to President Obama, look at the American people, and say, "If you vote to reelect President Obama, you're voting to bankrupt the United States." I hope you keep that in your quiver because that's what gonna happen.
[A]s soon as the Fed stops buying all the debt that we’re issuing—which they’ve been doing, the Fed’s buying like three-quarters of the debt that America issues. He said, once that’s over, he said we’re going to have a failed Treasury auction, interest rates are going to have to go up. We’re living in this borrowed fantasy world, where the government keeps on borrowing money.Paul Krugman, one of the smartest people on Earth when it comes to economics (certainly smarter than Mitzy), posted on Thursday in the New York Times that Romney was as usual spouting nonsense that had stuck in his head. If you follow the link, The Krug Man will explain why this is so, but the short version is, Mitzy is spewing an urban myth; the Fed purchased large amounts of Treasuries from Q2 of 2008 through Q1, 2009 -- and interest rates still went down.
I was half-watching Washington Week In Review this evening, but my ears perked up when I heard one of the Beltway guest journalists mentioned that a complaint about Romney, even from people who support him, is that as a person Mitzy is an awkward, hazy cypher: People "just don't know him", or he "doesn't connect" easily with others.
What the cellphone video showcased, the reporter said, was the real and unvarnished Romney, with all upper-class prejudices and crippled vision on display. His crowd of one-per-centers see the world in near-feudal terms -- it belongs to them, and the unwashed peasantry of "nail ladies", gardeners and salespersons which populates it are lazy good-for-nothings who don't work as hard as the Owners and Makers, like Little Mitt.
With "His" people, he easily tosses off comments like those in Boca Raton -- however, the problem in Florida is that he was caught on video. This was Mitzy's "Macaca" moment, so politically harmful because it confirmed everything people already knew or suspected about him.
At 10PM Eastern time on Monday night, over a day after the video was released by Mother Jones, Mitzy gave what was referred to as a "shotgun presser". Romney's campaign had already been hit earlier in the day by a story at Politico, reporting on confusion and disarray. It was expected Romney would offer some explanation or to apologize a seriously embarrassing gaffe.
Romney didn't. As a campaign reporter noted afterwards,
[I]t would have helped if Romney had said something that… helped. [A]ll he really did was say the same thing that got him in trouble, but in a wordier fashion, and with a Church Lady delivery. Even given the chance to explain what he meant, Romney still equated unemployment with a deficit of personal responsibility.
He did not apologize or retract a single word captured on the video. He didn't attempt to address it's real message about the twisted values and lack of principle which define his candidacy -- I represent personal wealth, influence and interest, and if elected will do all I can to aid wealth and people like myself.
We own or control everything. The rest of you are serfs who don't matter a damn; you all work for us one way or another. When I'm elected, you can shift for yourselves. If you can't pull yourself up, when it gets too tough, you can hang yourself by your own bootstraps. Life is for those who have, and those who don't shall lose.
Well, you know, it [Romney's message in the video]'s not elegantly stated, let me put it that way. I’m speaking off-the-cuff in response to a question, and I'm sure I could state it more clearly and in a more effective way than I did in a setting like that. And so I’m sure I’ll point that out as time goes on...
But it’s a message which I’m going to carry and continue to carry, which is, look, the President’s approach is attractive to people who are not paying taxes because, frankly, my discussion about lowering taxes isn’t as attractive to them, and therefore I’m unlikely to draw them into my campaign as effective[ly] as those in the middle. This is really about the political process of winning the election. Of course, I want to help all Americans, all Americans, have a bright and prosperous future and I’m convinced the President’s approach has not done that, and will not do that.
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