Venture Capitalist Compares Anger Over Income Inequality to Nazi Germany

[TomCADem]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by muriel_volestrangler (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: Talking Points Memo

Venture capitalist Tom Perkins compared liberals' push to reduce inequality in the United States to Nazi Germany's war on Jews.

In a letter to the editor published in The Wall Street Journal Perkins, a founding member of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, asks whether a "progressive Kristallnacht" is coming. Perkins's letter is in response to an editorial on speech codes at American colleges.

"Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, 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," Perkins wrote in the letter to the editor.

He continued that he perceives "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."


Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/tom-perkins-liberal-war-one-percent-kristallnacht

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The irony is that Perkins is complaining about the caricature of rich people as being evil, yet he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for killing a man with his yacht, which does make him an evil rich person.

[Lasher]

1. The bastard can call it whatever he wants, I just hope it's coming.

Soon and significant.

[daleo]

2. I don't believe Jews in pre-nazi Germany were a rich group

So his comparison is irrelevant and non sequitur. Now, if he was talking about pre-revolution France that might make some sense.

[cinnabonbon]

23. Actually, there was a stereotype going around

that jews were greedy/better with money, so they weren't hit as hard as "good and proper germans" when the recession hit. The stereotype of the penny-pinching jewish (and often corrupt) businessman was used to breed resentment, whether it was true or not.

Not that it matters, of course. This guy is still a douchebag and his attempt to make himself look like a victim is laughable.

[nxylas]

24. A lot of anti-Semitic propaganda portrayed them as such

That's really where the similarity ends. For one thing, nobody is seriously calling for the extermination of the 1%, except hyperbolically. Secondly, when you portray Jews as a rich group that controls everything, then that hate gets transferred onto all Jews, even those of modest means. Anger at the 1% , on the other hand, is strictly non-transferable.

[The Wizard]

3. Fuck this guy (NT)

[QuestForSense]

4. He wants pity, but he's full of shit, and doesn't even know history.

[neverforget]

5. Poor guy.

[Jesus Malverde]

6. Here is the comment from the company he founded and bears his name.

https://twitter.com/kpcb/status/427185213261623297

Tom Perkins has not been involved in KPCB in years. We were shocked by his views expressed today in the WSJ and do not agree.

[ReRe]

7. Dude might as well....

.... stick a wide piece of adhesive tape on his forehead and label it "Yeah 1%!".

[YOHABLO]

8. That's right .. maybe we should burn Wall Street down. Think they'd get the message??

[ErikJ]

9. Better comparison would be Bolshevik or French Revolution

If the income gap gets too big and people begin to suffer while seeing people living in royalty, the people eventually rise up and throw the 1%/royalty out and form a new govt. Ironically the commy fearing Republicans policies are only increasing that possibility.

[Rozlee]

10. The 1% did just fine in Nazi Germany.

His example is ridiculous. Hitler dreaded a wealth drain and tried to attract businesses and corporations to Germany. He used prison camp labor to lure industries and capitalists. Hugo Boss, BMW, Deutsche Bank, Siemen's, Kodak and even Ford and Coke had dealings with the Third Reich. Over 2,000 businesses and industries were sued by Jews after the war for their use of camp slave labor. If Perkins is trying to use an analogy, the 1% as Jewish holocaust victims doesn't pass the smell test. The 1% in Nazi Germany aided and abetted Hitler in his use of them in forced labor.

[ronnie624]

11. Good post. n/t

[Lasher]

16. Ever read The Sovereign State of ITT?

The US CEO of ITT, Sosthenes Behn, was much more in league with Hitler than he was with holocaust victims. ITT held a 27% share in Focke-Wulf, which made fighter planes for the Luftwaffe. Then in the 1960s ITT won $27 million in compensation for damage inflicted on its share of the Focke-Wulf plant by Allied bombing during World War II.

[Rozlee]

17. What bastards.

I knew that BMW made aircraft parts for the Luftwaffe, but I never heard about the ITT business. Thank you for this. I'll read up some more on it.

[Lasher]

29. ITT also owned Huth and Company of Berlin.

Huth made radio and radar parts that were used in equipment for the Wehrmacht. A corporation has no soul.

Thus while I.T.T. Focke-Wolfe planes were bombing Allied ships, and I. T. T. lines were passing information to German submarines, I.T.T. direction .finders were saving other ships from torpedoes. (Anthony Sampson, The Sovereign State of I.T.T., New York: Stein & Day, 1973, p. 40.)

http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/chapter_05.htm

Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler

[bucolic_frolic]

20. A great book

been years since i read it but seems to me there were hints in there
of future what phone surveillance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sosthenes_Behn

[nxylas]

25. Didn't ITT also bankroll the coup that brought Pinochet to power?

I know it was a telecoms company that was behind it, and that by an amazing coincidence, one of Pinochet's first acts as President was to privatize Chile's phone system.

[Lasher]

28. Yes, they funded the Pinochet coup in 1973.

They also bankrolled Franko's takeover in Spain.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

19. Just look at all the Princes, Dukes and Barons that were in the officer ranks....

The classic poster of the superiority of the noble class.

[DallasNE]

12. Oh, My, Increasing His Tax Rate From 15% To 20%

Is the same as sending him to a gas chamber? Even his 20% is less than many Americans pay -- I know it is less than I pay on my retirement income. And how much does he have tucked away in the Cayman Islands. Indeed, cry me a river.

[Ash_F]

13. That analogy is worse than 10 Hitlers /nt

[Stainless]

14. Tar and Feather Vulture Capitalists!

Perkins and Kevin O'Leary (Shark Tank) are particularly narcissistic and vocal assholes who come to mind for this therapy.

BTW, Huffington Post wouldn't allow a similar comment I tried posting on their site earlier today!

[davidpdx]

15. For the involuntary manslaughter charge

All he got was a $10,000 fine? Holy fuck. I see that was in France. In the US it would be 10-15 up state.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

18. Obviously this LOSER never heard of Godwin's Law.

[another_liberal]

21. Any millionaire who would say some shit like that . . .

My reaction to Mr. Perkins' whine is that any millionaire who would say some shit like that should have to live on what he pays his janitors for few months. Some fucking people!

[Tommy_Carcetti]

22. You know, the Nazis had pieces of flair they made the Jews wear.

[Moliere]

26. And the psychopath speaks his truth;

That money and wealth are his religion. What an asshole

[Gothmog]

27. The man runs vulture fund

Vulture funds are nasty businesses

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. Locking - not LBN

It's an opinion from a guy who we haven't heard of before, not a politician, expressed in a LTTE. Please feel free to repost in GD, or join one of the threads there about it. We already locked http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014708920 for the same reasons.