Richest People in History Can't Stop Whining About Oppression

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/billionaires-pity-party-richest-people-history-cant-stop-whining-about-oppression



America's billionaires are up in arms! Sure, they've made out like bandits, while tens of millions of Americans are still suffering - out of work, in bankruptcy, or owing more on their mortgages than their houses are worth. Along with the rest of the 1 per cent, they've captured 93 per cent of income gains in the US in the first year of lopsided economic recovery. But that's not the point! The point is: They're the most oppressed people in the history of the world! What's happening to them in America today is reminiscent of Nazi Germany under Hitler!

Believe it or not, that's the message coming from a veritable parade of self-portrayed victims at the pinnacle of the 1 per cent of the 1 per cent, who are very angry at President Obama supposedly saying mean things about them. These men are so spectacularly wealthy that it's literally impossible to understand them in the context of other people's economic lives, to make sense of what they're saying. They're like elephants in the midst of a leper colony, complaining about a gnat bite in a dream they just remembered.

They've also been treated so well by Obama that it's likewise impossible to grasp. He could have gone after them immediately after taking office, breaking up the big banks and pursuing criminal charges against those responsible for destroying the economy based on multiple interlocking forms of fraud. Obama did none of that. There's simply no understanding their hatred of him in purely objective terms.

But their self-pitying portrayal as victims is another thing altogether. It's not just commonplace, it's virtually mandatory among the ranks of American conservatives today - particularly when there's little or no basis in fact. Indeed, it's sometimes even quantifiable, as I explained in a column occasioned by Herman Cain's slow, self-pitying exit from the presidential race.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. The aristocracy has visions of mobs of peasants storming their chateaus.

[Earth_First]

3. There should be..

The sleeping masses need to wake up and realize that shit has gotten real.

[marmar]

2. Jamie Dimon is a good example of this......

....... constantly whining about the public's condemnation of the poor, oppressed bankers.

[redqueen]

4. Beautiful headline.

K&R

[HughBeaumont]

5. Let's all take a trip to the Whinery.

The villainous 1% are counting on the fear and stupidity of the peasantry, which dictates that they'll elect the PROBLEM to arrive at a "solution". They all sound like wrestlers making a heel turn.

[porphyrian]

6. It sucks to have diamond sand in your crotch. n/t

[reformist2]

7. But they've worked so *hard* for that money! They've *earned* it!

Just being sarcastic, because the more we talk about how the wealthy get so fabulously and ridiculously wealthy, the more absurd and unfair people will realize the current system is. Who gets the money in our society is more like a rigged lottery than a meritocracy, like they'd want us to believe.

[Wednesdays]

8. Exactly. The average CEO works 540 times as hard as the average worker.

So, LEAVE THE FILTHY RICH ALONE!!!

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

9. I'm thoroughly confused....

If the system is so bad, if they are taxed so much, if doing business in this country is so difficult, then....how did they get to be so rich? Is it me? Am I missing something? I don't think so.