When I’ve watched documentaries about the Holocaust and World War II, and movies like Schindler’s List, all I could think about was how hard it must be to be extremely wealthy in America. Do you know how tough it can be to take care of 6 different cars and keep 20 personal servants on your payroll? It’s like living in a shack, worked to death, all while being malnourished and summarily executed. At least, that’s what the mindset of venture capitalist Tom Perkins thinks. Via The Atlantic:
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.”
He goes on to reference the Occupy movement, because that was extremely successful (wiggles fingers in the air):
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, 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.
He then goes on to write about the Kristallnacht, which was in 1938 when 91 Jewish people were killed, and around 30,000 were put into concentration camps. Not to mention how Jewish establishments, as well as schools, homes, and hospitals were ransacked or destroyed. You can see where Perkins discovers the parallel of the persecutions of the Jews with the 1% in America. And by that, I mean no you can’t. Anytime any person uses the Nazi card, their argument is automatically invalid. I don’t remember people in the concentration camps going on vacations in their multi-million dollar yacht’s like Perkins owned.
It doesn’t take a genius to see that the rich are getting richer and everybody else is fighting for what’s left. Via Eclecta Blog:
We can blame globalization and rapid development of information technology. But two new studies confirm what you’ve probably already knew: Conservative policies are rapidly shrinking the middle class and engineering a massive transfer of wealth the richest Americans.
A new study “The Top 1 Percent in International and Historical Perspective“, confirms a thesis that tax expert and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston has been advancing since 2003, “Under current government rules, an ever-greater share of economic resources must flow to the top over time because those rules subtly redistribute upwards.”
Now, I don’t want to get all political, because that just leads to everyone yelling, screaming, and crying (like my Thanksgiving dinners), so I’ll allow you to make up your mind on the parallel. I think most of us, however, can agree that if you have a million dollars in your bank account, you’re probably living a tiny bit better than a Jewish person in Nazi Germany.
The Atlantic, Eclecta Blog, Gifs via Tumblr, Image Via Getty