Bush at Harvard: "people are poor because people are lazy"

[TruthIsAll]

http://www.glocom.org/opinions/essays/20040301_tsurumi_president/

March 1, 2004

President George Bush and the Gilded Age
Yoshi Tsurumi (Professor of International Business, Baruch College, the City University of New York )

snip

At Harvard Business School, thirty years ago, George Bush was a student of mine. I still vividly remember him. In my class, he declared that "people are poor because they are lazy." He was opposed to labor unions, social security, environmental protection, Medicare, and public schools. To him, the antitrust watch dog, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Securities Exchange Commission were unnecessary hindrances to "free market competition." To him, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was "socialism." Recently, President Bush's Federal Appeals Court Nominee, California's Supreme Court Justice Janice Brown, repeated the same broadside at her Senate hearing. She knew that her pronouncement would please President Bush and Karl Rove and their Senators. President Bush and his brain, Karl Rove, are leading a radical revolution of destroying all the democratic political, social, judiciary, and economic institutions that both Democrats and moderate Republicans had built together since Roosevelt's New Deal.


more..

[Bob3]

1. If people are poor because they are lazy...

Why isn't * poor?

[rpannier]

3. Because he's...

Because he's stupid.

[ComerPerro]

5. Well, this is where you need to think like a FReeper

People are poor because they are lazy.

Therefore, laziness invariably leads to poverty, and poverty is always the end result of laziness.

Bush is certainly not poor.

Therefore, Bush is not lazy.


This is kind of thinking along the same lines as "The Bible says it is the true, revealed word of God. Therefore, the Bible is the true, revealed word of God."

[trumad]

6. Nazi Money from Grandpa

[Octafish]

18. Petrodollar bribes through BCCI ...

... such as the monies the bin Ladens sunk in Arbusto, HARKEN Energy and Spectrum 7. Other sources that spring to mind are looting the nation's savings and loans, illegal narcotrafficking money, gun-trade money, looitng the world's minerals, art treasures and so on... Yes. It is a NAZI thing.

[freeforall]

56. Right Octafish!

See, Shrub's not lazy. He gets out and "networks" at the Mutual Back-scratching Club.

<sarcasm off>

[trogdor]

7. logic 101

because a->b doesn't imply that b->a

[renegade000]

26. and besides

a->b isn't exactly true in this instance.

bush is a testament to this.

[PaDUer]

20. Guess that meant . ..

they're not smart enough as he is to screw everyone over and have companies go bankrupt and commit grand theft with everyone watching, and get away with it.

[nannygoat]

28. Because he's one of God's chosen ...

and therefore deserves to be rich.

Read this for the scare of your life...
The Despoiling of America: How George W. Bush became the head of the new
American Dominionist Church/State
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_5160.shtml

[JCMach1]

2. He still has these views... part of my great hatred comes from his ads

in the 1998 campaign for governor of Texas when he put out an ad that said exactly the same thing...

The poor are entirely responsible for their own poverty.

:puke:

My loathing and outright hatred of everything W. began at that moment....

[gold_bug]

17. his hateful views have only become more refined

by a steady diet of far-right ideology. For instance, "The Dream and the Nightmare" by Myron Magnet, a book of hatred of the poor which actually blames liberalism as the cause of poverty.

Referring to this book, George W. Bush has said, other than the Bible, that it was the most important book he had read and that it "crystallized for me the impact the failed culture of the sixties had on our values and society."

Karl Rove, one of Bush's political consultants, calls the book a road map to the Bush program.

[trumad]

4. The Bush cheer

Give me an F... Give me an A..... Give me a C.... Give me an I.... Give me an S.... Give me a T.... Whata ya got... Facist...Whata ya got...Facist...

[ComerPerro]

10. I think the Bush cheer would be

Gimme an

F

A

S

H

...

...

um...

C?

H?

Aww, fuck it. This is hard. I need another vacation. I'll be at the ranch with a bottle of whiskey.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

14. F-A-S-C-I-S-T

FASCISM. Mussolini must be Bushie's idol.

[markses]

15. Word to the wise

"fascist" is the correct spelling. ;-)

[MSchreader]

63. Word to the clueless

Bush can't spell. ;-) :hi:

Martin

[markses]

67. You know that's not what happened there

And I know it.

[izzie]

8. I read that a few days ago and it was not a shock.

After all look who it came from. A man who never lifted a finger to work him self and became rich from others people work. Oh top of that he must be the first in lazy presidents. Does he ever work? Looks like a 3 years vacation to me.Course when he think he can run the place we are really in trouble. Scary.I will take bet that this Bush and Co will blow up as the group that produced the biggest crooks we have ever had.

[OneTwentyoNine]

23. If Bush is so against the SEC then maybe he should give Stewart a pardon..

I'd love to see how many flim-flam artists would be involved in the stock market today without any controls over it.

I guess Chimp doesn't know much about 1929 and the Great Depression.

David

[Dirty Hippie]

9. Boy this burns me up.

What is the damn difference? Welfare from the government or welfare from your family?

Help is help. We ALL get it, need it and would probably starve without having a bit at some point in our lives.

Nothing makes me hotter than people with family money who criticize those on welfare.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

11. Bush family logic

Naturally. To * anyone who hasn't inherited their wealth and hasn't had their daddy prop up their failed business ventures is poor.

*'s logic.
-Those genuinely disadvantaged who need handouts from the government or society are lazy
-Those who are lazy and rely on their family wealth and privilege to evade the law and get to where they are now are genuine, hardworking, dcent people

[Art_from_Ark]

12. You load 16 tons and what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt.
But George Bu$h says you're a lazy bum
So get back to work and load another ton

[freeforall]

57. 16 tons of Bushit? eom

.

[BiggJawn]

13. Rich people really suck, don't they?

"I got mine, where's yours?"

Oh, he's not "lazy", he runs, he runs the whole freaking "Free World", he plays with a chain saw and pick-em-up truck when he visits his show ranch (try working that saw 10 hours a day, Frat Boy!)

And it's not just Shrub, I can't stand wealthy "Liberals" with their McMansions and his-hers-and--the-kids Vovlos, either."Oh, we're Making a Diference, we drink ONLY Starbucks shade-grown from hand-thrown mugs made in Guatemala..."

[no_hypocrisy]

16. Poor = Lazy. Calvinist B.S. used to apply social Darwinism in order to

justify the re-distribution of wealth and destroy the future of millions of American citizens and control the populations of countries conquered and yet to be conquered.

[Deja Q]

19. An open letter to Bush:

Bush*, if you're reading this, open up your degenerate eyes, try to read for once, and try to learn:

Yes, some people are lazy. But you'll find them at all economic levels. Your glib generalizations are biased, derogatory, and not altogether realistic either:

* The poor generally have low paying jobs doing menial things.

* Many jobs the poor take work to a quota system. A quota that continues to get raised and is unfair to workers. This is not lazy, this is slavedriving. Especially when the job doesn't provide medical benefits. Data entry workers, for example, are literally ruining their hands just to make some middle-aged white man even more rich.

* The poor often have to work 2 jobs just to make ends meet. How is this being lazy? Sounds overstressed if you ask me.

* More people are being made poor. Not because they're lazy but because the CEOs, true traitors to America, are shipping millions of jobs to third world countries on the simple basis of exploitation, nothing more. What's left? Puny retail crap like walmart and target, where you have to pass a computerized test before they'll even talk to you as a person. And even then, you're not a person, just a dispassionate number.

* Speaking of jobs, where the hell are they? Your policies kill jobs, they do not create them.

* the only lazy people are the CEOs wearing their suits with silk ties who spend all day playing golf with their friends.


As usual, you're giving a one dimensional, utterly unrealistic, view to things. When will you wake the hell up?

Got it? Good. I thought you were too thick to understand reality. Maybe I was right...

[roguevalley]

58. love your boy kissie picture. Who are they?

[leesa]

21. Sounds like something Mommy would have drilled into his head

from day one. Must be nice to have access to the secure entitlements of wealth. Dubya is the laziest business man I have ever seen, yet he's rich. Imagine that!

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

22. I guess all the hamburger flippers & WalMart workers must be rich. n/t

[LWolf]

24. Let's see

the pretender try to live my life; he never would have finished high school.

[KayLaw]

25. So, did he change his mind?

I would like to know if he is still opposed to SS, Medicare, and public education. I'd also like to know if he still feels such scorn for the working man?

[SammyWinstonJack]

42. You really don't know the answer to that?

Actions speak louder than words. And bush's* actions scream volumes.

[Karenina]

43. Errraaaa....

YES.

[Skittles]

27. I.......................ER............................

:puke:

[rasputin1952]

29. If there were any truth to the lazy being poor...

bush would be eating dirt.

All of the people I know are basically 'poor', and they all work their asses off. bush never worked an honest day in his entire life, and is worth millions. If he ever had to pick up a shovel, his hands would burn up!

What a disgusting piece of shit, he's even intellectually lazy...there is no basis for his argument. God, I really despise this jerk.

:grr: :nuke:

[PVnRT]

30. Is anyone really surprised by this sentiment?

I mean, really, this is what most right-wingers think. Even the poor ones, which is a little ironic, if you think about it...

[Dirty Hippie]

31. Every single custodial worker I've asked

where I work has more than one job, some have three.

One guy had an early morning paper route, 8 hour custodial job and an evening job.

They are the working poor.

LAZY???? I think not, President Asshole.

[mitchum]

32. Fuck him

[Toucano]

33. Doesn't count.

It was prior to him finding "the love of a good woman". Dubya isn't responsible for anything in his pre-Pickles life.

[wicket]

34. Because you know, he worked SO HARD for his money

*snort*

[bucknaked]

35. THIS... from a guy who would have a real job for the next 20+ years.

Actually, listening to the guy try to convey anything, those statements sound a little too "advanced" to be coming from him. :p

Of course, all it takes is a good memory to parrot what certain people, his Father (at the time) for instance, or more currently, Rove, want you to say.

[Broken]

36. I'm a lazy worker

workers should be lazy. I mean what really is wrong with being lazy, rich people get to be lazy all the time. Why do they get to hog all the fun? In fact, I demand the right to be lazy. In fact I want to be lazy and get paid for it, yep that's what I say. Not only do I want that, but I believe the hard working wealthy should have to come do my work, wash dishes, clean up shit, dump garbage, and take orders while I'm off gettin' lazy. I want unlimited paid mental health day's. I want to take a sabbatical from my low skilled job. And I want them to support my laziness, surely I support their right to be lazy, do I not? workers of the world relax, fight for your right to be lazy.

[buycitgo]

41. welcome to DU, Mr. pResident!

now, crawl back into your (a)hole

[Broken]

45. i was serious

I was sorta being serious. We should all be more lazy, we work too much. "workers of the world relax". Marx's brothers call to workers, as oppossed to Marx's call to workers---"workers of the world unite",

[9215]

52. Funny post, and true.

Welcome to DU.

[buycitgo]

54. well,,,,,,in that case.......I apologize

sounded like a freepergeeb, trying to be amusing

shoes for industry!

[freeforall]

59. I like it! Very good philosophy, Broken.

If we simplify our lives, get rid of as many frivolous expenses as possible, stay out of debt, and learn to barter with each other, maybe we could relax more, as we would have fewer needs.

Some of us already live this way! It works. ;)

[BradCKY]

69. Great....

Thank you for trying to reinforce everything that the right wing has accused us of. LOL

If that is really your attitude I don't know why you wouldn't actually want to get ahead in your career instead of just slacking off. If I was your boss and I found out about it I certainly wouldn't keep you on.

[9215]

37. How does that explain all

the lazy frat boy "bonser" coke-heads like Bush who are rich?

[Nikia]

38. Many low paying jobs require a lot of hard work

Having worked at or around low wage workers, I can say that many of them work a lot harder than many higher paid white collar jobs. If they don't work hard, they are fired, especially in this economy where the superviser knows that 50 other people want the sub par worker's job. Many of these low wage workers will remain low wage workers no matter how hard they work. If you are just scraping by and you have children to support, you probably aren't going to be able to go to college for a chance (not a guarentee) at a better job.
With the current economy there is the issue of good jobs being exported. If you have a large company, which paid good wages, in a small town close their doors, you can bet that there will become many poor people who became poor through no fault of their own. Corporations have decided to close plants even when the workers did an exceptional job. How are these displaced workers who may have to accpet a job paying half as much or less lazy? The fact that they trusted the company enough to stay there decades in belief that if they worked hard for the company, that the company would be loyal to them?
Yes, and how would he know anyway? Has he personally known any poor people that didn't work for his family?

[The Lone Liberal]

39. Real Orwellian from a guy who had everything handed to him.

“What did you do to deserve what you have, besides be born.” Marriage Of Figaro

[Robin Hood]

40. It shows you how out of touch that whole family is.

What George doesn't understand is that people are poor because they make an honest living. people are poor because crooks steal the white house and destroy the country.

[Malva Zebrina]

44. Yeah and people are rich because they are leeches

on their families name and have inheritied wealth and position, whether deserved or not. Especially the wives of the same. What did Laura ever do to earn her wealth and all the perps it affords her? She has sloughed off the public trough for years and never earned a thing that contributes to her personal wealth. She is in fact, the epitome of the lazy person who as a Stepford princess, thinks she is entitled to live off the wealth of others. If she was not in that position, she would be, well she would possibly be "poor" or at least in the lower middle class and damn it, it would be her fault.

err--well she did manage to birth twins under anesthesia.

[liberalhistorian]

60. Ya know, I'm so

damn sick and tired of being a struggling single mama who can never seem to get ahead no matter what, and who can't make more than $25,000 a year despite having a B.A. AND a paralegal certificate, and no matter how goddamn hard I work, that that's what I'm wanna do, find myself a rich guy and marry him so that I can live off his money and be lazy AND rich, just like Pickles! Hey, now, THAT's a plan!

[WillyT]

46. Marie Antoinette, Leona Helmsley, And GW Bush

Lost her head, rotten head, empty head!!!

Any photoshop possibilities here???

:hi::evilgrin::hi:

[EV1Ltimm]

47. My boss works 3 hours a day...

and brings home $6 million a year.

[Lorien]

48. It's not Jesus Christ he worships

it's "supply side Jesus"!

[Yupster]

49. Are professors supposed to

make public opinions of their students?

I'd hate for my professors to publish the things I said back then. I was a campus communist for goodness sakes.

[rman]

64. if it's relevant, yes

besides, it's ok to be a communist.

[oldcoot]

50. A former professor remembers Bush?

But we are having a hard time finding anyone who remembers him from his days in the National Guard. Why is that?

[Ksec]

51. This ass gives the rich a bad name

Bush says the poor are just lazy...

Tell this to the guy who busted his ass for 25 yrs in a hot dirty sweat drenched Steel mill and then lost it all when they shut down. Those people are the exact opposite of lazy. Now a guy like Smirk who never had to work a day in his life and didnt because he was handed everything on a silver platter...now thats a lazy SOB.

Bush better have security when he talks like this.

[Octafish]

53. Sounds like Bush was raised by the same people who tried to kill FDR.

And when that didn't work, they tried a coup and tried to enlist USMC General Smedley Butler, who turned the whole bloody lot of them in. They waited and got their chance in Dallas.

[Karenina]

62. Hallo!

:hi:

[kskiska]

55. Unbelievable Freeper thread on unemployment

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1092361/posts

To: SteveH
frustrated job seekers gave up their searches.

I would like to see someone explain this. How do you give up a search for a job - if you really need a job to survive? Do these people move into a cave and eat toadstools?

Or are they people who really don't need a job but would take one if something that they liked came along? Like a wife whose husband is making enough to support the family but she wouldn't mind working if the "right" job came along? Who are these people?
9 posted on 03/06/2004 6:57:01 PM PST by jackbill

frustrated job seekers gave up their searches.

I believe that these are people, such as myself, who are no longer counted as unemployed because they've exhausted their benefits.
12 posted on 03/06/2004 7:04:05 PM PST by WhatWouldReaganDo


To: WhatWouldReaganDo
I believe that these are people, such as myself, who are no longer counted as unemployed because they've exhausted their benefits.

These are not people who have exhausted their benefits. The are supposedly people who have given up looking for work.

Have you given up looking for work? How do you survive? How do you pay rent or a mortgage? How do you eat?
21 posted on 03/06/2004 7:22:22 PM PST by jackbill


To: WhatWouldReaganDo
I believe that these are people, such as myself, who are no longer counted as unemployed because they've exhausted their benefits.

OK, if you're one of these unfortunate people, please explain how you are managing to survive. You have an Internet connection, so I assume that you also have food and shelter. Who pays for that?
24 posted on 03/06/2004 7:27:47 PM PST by speekinout

To: SteveH

I am a resident of Stokes County in North Carolina. We do all our shopping and business in Winston Salem. I just do not believe this article. If people want work here, I am believe they can find it. Our malls and strip centers are packed with shoppers. New homes are being built in record numbers. Some people want to spread bad news.
26 posted on 03/06/2004 7:34:33 PM PST by fabriclady

[ComerPerro]

65. God, that is such bullshit

"If they want work, they can find it."

Yeah, true, but people in their thirties who are out of work will find themselves competing with 16 and 17 year olds for minimum wage jobs, because those are the only industries that are really "booming".

Sorry, FReepers, but you can't feed your family on $5.25 an hour.

[freeforall]

61. If you believe in karma (and it's very tempting right now)...

the whole damned lot of these a$$holes will be born in countries they've impoverished in this life - as a single parent with 10 kids to feed.



Edit: typo

[NicRic]

66. Well there are more poor because he's LAZY !

If he cared enogh about all people he would be working towards an economy that gives everyone a chance, not just those born into privlege,like he !

[dryan]

68. President Bush still feels this way

Many wealthy people have empathy - what grandma used to call "the common touch" - I used to work with a man that had been an aide to King Hussein of Jordan (don't get excited folks I used to sell cars and heavy equipment around the world). King Hussein could talk to a bedouin about their living conditions and could understand "and feel" how they felt. Unfortunately, President Bush has no empathy for people that are not like him. I don't know if there is something lacking in the way he was brought up. It's unfortunate because this lack of empathy is rampant through his administration and is part of the problem with his administration--he just doesn't care. His brother is the same way. When Jeb Bush was re-elected he said in his inagural speech that he felt good when he passed all the empty state office buildings in Tallahassee. Think of how the people that worked in those buildings feel?

Between the two of us, my husband and I make a little more than $45,000 a year. We are both college graduates. We both work for the State of Florida. My husband was downsized by Stromberg-Carlson and was out of work for two years. The telecommunications industry in this country is nearly extinct. He even went to two other states for interviews. We went through our savings, moved from a beautiful condo, two new cars, a trip once a year, money in the bank, a great life. All of that is gone. To make matters worse, when my husband did take a job with the state, his salary was half of what it had been in private industry. He has two life threatening diseases and when he was out of work we had to pay health insurance through the nose (almost $500 a month)so a lot of our savings went there. This is with COBRA. We are just getting back on our feet financially now. We have been able to put together a small nestegg from our businesses (I sell Avon, Legacy for Life Products, and do gift baskets). My husband has kidney disease and probably in a few years is facing dialysis. We are fare from lazy.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

70. Classic Dominionist drivel. The thinking behind eugenics. n/t

[tjwash]

71. This is nothing new.

In the eighties, Reagan called unemployment benefits "a safety net for the lazy". The cons have had their eye on dismantling Roosevelt's new deal since poppy Bush ordered Ronnies first cue card written. That's just more money he can spread around to his buddies. That's republican sharing at it's best---more for me, and the hell with you.