Everyone gets everything they deserve

[Ichingcarpenter]

Romney says “I have inherited nothing. Everything I earned I earned the old fashioned way.”

This, I think, reveals much more about the delusional mind of Mitt Romney than anything else he said. It is one thing to be so out of touch with the lives of most Americans that you think 47% of them are lazy good-for-nothings. It is quite another to be so out of touch with your own life that you think you all the money you made was totally independent. Not just independent of the government either, but independent even of your own extraordinarily privileged upbringing.

As should be commonly known now, Romney is the son of a millionaire auto executive who was also governor of Michigan. His wife admitted that Mitt and she paid their way through college by selling off some of Mitt’s stock holdings. Mitt attended a private high school, the best universities, and received all the boosts that come along with being born into a very well-connected, very high-income white family. To suggest that has nothing to do with where he wound up in life — which is what he is getting at in this part of his speech — is on its face ridiculous.

It does however give a window into reality as Republicans and the super-rich see it. They are blinded by the massive advantages many of them had, which helped them get where they are. They just flatly reject the picture that factors outside of one’s control — for example who one’s parents are — have a huge amount to do with individual success. They truly do believe, even in the most extreme circumstances like Romney, that their own individual merit accounts for everything they ever got (so long of course as they forego their inheritance).

The obvious influence of unfair factors and luck are totally erased from this delusional world. Everyone gets everything they deserve. If you are rich, it’s because your awesome. If you are poor, it’s because you suck. And nothing should disturb that balance. Romney’s comments about the 47% are clearly disconnected from the lived reality of most Americans, but it’s a reality he has never experienced. More troubling to me is his disconnect from his own lived reality, on top of which he has built a fantastical story of purely independent, bootstrapping wealth accumulation.


http://mattbruenig.com/2012/09/18/the-hidden-gem-in-romneys-disaster-speech/


The divine right of kings

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Mitt's parents took welfare. Oh, and he's an Anchor Baby (they were illegals)

[lunatica]

12. they may have been a lot of things but they were not illegals

[Bernardo de La Paz]

28. They entered US without passport. Didn't have US citizenship because weren't resident in Utah when

Mitt's grandparents weren't resident in Utah when it became a state of the Union. They entered the US without papers, bringing their Mexican born child. Mitt was born in the USA. George Romney ran for President but his "natural born citizenship" was not questioned since he was never expected to have a chance.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

2. I can't picture Romney using a cable drum for a coffee table.

My first place had one.

[img][/img]

It went well with Led Zeppelin....

[lapfog_1]

10. That and a couple of crappy bean bag "chairs"

BTDT.

A hand me down bed that was too short for me.

Some potted rubber tree plants and a hanging fern or two.

Ah, the late 1970s and my college years.

Oh, and the cement block bookshelf....

[TahitiNut]

19. We had the same decorator.

[lapfog_1]

27. all of my furniture

total cost was well under $100. Everything. I think I paid $20 for one of the bean bag chairs.

[WinkyDink]

34. Yes! Walls lined with the cinder-block bookshelves! Now they are in my garage! :-)

[ananda]

11. We called them industrial spools.

I used to have one, and so did a lot of my friends.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

30. They used to be really common. Remnants of rural electric.

[teamster633]

17. And a lot of milk crates, too.

My dad worked for a dairy at the time, so I was one of the few students who had them legally.

[TahitiNut]

18. Hell, I ASPIRED to having one of those for a 'coffee table.'

I used cinder blocks and planks for bookshelves and a 'coffee table' retrieved from the trash folks throw out each week. And I felt like I was in "hog heaven." Actually graduated from college and "on my own" ... earning my own living. I remember when I first paid Federal Income Tax ... and loved it. I'd "arrived!"

[Spitfire of ATJ]

41. To this day I check out Thrift Stores and Yard / Garage sales for furniture,...

I recently picked up a nice oak two drawer file cabinet for $7.

A friend of mine recently bought one of those classic deluxe heavy wood waterbed headboards with the built in lights and drawers and etched mirror for $60. That dates back to the days before anyone heard of AIDS and ceiling mirrors were all the rage. Back then "Threes Company" was still airing new episodes and people were doing macrame to hang their plants.

[sarge43]

26. One of his staffers briefed him about the non trust fund 70's life style

He then folded it into the batter of that turd cake of lies he serves up every day.

[WinkyDink]

33. OMG, same here! It was my kitchen table!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

36. For a lot of people it was their first experience in staining wood.

I've seen some of those with a high gloss poly finish.

[bulloney]

3. Born on third base and he thinks he hit a triple.

That was from the late Ann Richards on George HW Bush, but it can apply to Romney.

It applies to a lot of people I know who are financially comfortable. Maybe not Romney-rich, but financially set for life. And virtually all of these people I refer to run a business that was started by their father or grandfather and handed down to them. They never had to worry about affording a medical emergency, major home or auto repair or how their kids can afford college. And they just don't act like their inheritance had anything to do with it.

[pinto]

7. Still love that line. And, yeah, it applies to Romney as well.

If not more so.

[Care Acutely]

4. But Mitt thinks he's owed more and could have it if only he were of MEXICAN parentage

for reals.

[lunatica]

13. He was telling an 'inside joke'

They all laughed, because they know if he had been Latino he wouldn't have ever been able to be successful other than as a gardener or nanny. They're all in on that joke. They probably make sure 'outside' groups don't make it into their circles.

[Care Acutely]

39. I have a different take

He was talking about his chances of getting elected, not making it into their circle. Hell - he OWNS their circle and they all know that.

I think they actually believe it, about him doing better in the polls if he wasn't white. I've heard so many of them whine that they are being denied the best jobs, they could get a better loan, they would have more power, more opportunities, and more of a say in the world if those things weren't being "given away" to stupid minorities just because of their skin color. They believe that shit.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

29. His father (George Romney) *was* born in Mexico. So the reference to "Latino" is a

His father (George Romney) *was* born in Mexico. So the reference to being a "Latino" is a racist reference because it was not a reference to nationality.

[Care Acutely]

40. But he refers to his polygamous grandfather & grandmothers as Americans living in Mexico.

And yeah, it was way racist with bonus points for being butt ignorant too.

[oldsarge54]

5. Hey Mitt

Give us you after due thought definition of middle class. Obviously, off the cuff you don't have a clue. According to the IRS, incomes of $200K-$250K is actually at the 98.3 percentile.

[TBF]

25. Yup that $250K is the professional class -

Last edited Wed Sep 19, 2012, 10:28 AM - Edit history (1)

and we are paying back boatloads of student loans (if we had inherited before we became professional class our incomes would be much higher w/interest income). Those of us at that level are living like middle class used to live in the 50s - we have homes, cars, vacations, health care, college/retirement accounts, and we service that debt for years. It is not a bad life for sure, but many more people used to live comfortably and now it is seen as luxurious.

Folks who are today's middle class - around 50K - are praying they don't lose their job and end up working at a local fast food or box store. Praying that the next medical bill doesn't bankrupt them. Praying they can make the next mortgage/rent payment.

Mitt has no clue how different it is for us vs. the super rich buying their 50 million dollar properties in high rises in NYC. It's an entirely different world.

[oldsarge54]

37. Heck with the "C" word

Wasn't even thinking of class. That band of income is just short of the 1%.

[TBF]

42. It's all I can think about.

And the fact that knowing how the top 2-5% are living now vs. the top 1/10 of the top 1% is startling. It is absolutely amazing to me that ONE family owns more wealth than 40% the country combined: http://www.inquisitr.com/279087/walmart-heirs-worth-more-than-entire-bottom-40-of-americans/

[Angry Dragon]

6. Winner of the egg and sperm lottery

[LeftishBrit]

8. The egg and sperm must not feel too lucky...

Imagine ending up as Mitt Romney!

[Kablooie]

9. Based on the innate abilities he's shown ...

He's contributed NOTHING to his own success. If he hadn't been born into privilege he would be a bum mooching dinner at a downtown mission today.

[Douglas Carpenter]

14. Romney:“Ann and I, we know what it’s like to grow up with nothing, to wonder where your next meal is

coming from, to have to choose between putting food on the table or coal in the fireplace,” continued Romney, speaking of what he called his wife’s “rough childhood” in Mobile, AL, where she was raised by a single mother. “Brother, we know that pang of hunger and hopelessness all too well."



Speaking for the greater part of an hour, Romney said he was particularly shaped by his father Rufus Romney, a strapping young man with “tattered shoes like Swiss cheese” who left early each day to work in the wheat fields outside Memphis. Returning at night with a tired look in his eyes, Romney said his father would gather his children around the table to share a can of tomato soup and dream of one day living in a “big house on a hill,” a dream Romney said later inspired him to pursue a career in business.

“After Mama wiped the sleep from our eyes and smoothed our hair, she would go off to the big mansion, bring home scraps,” said Romney, pausing as his voice filled with emotion. “Every day it was something new—a big yellow potato, sweet saltwater taffy, a creamy stick of butter. Sometimes Ms. Hartley would send home a bag of groceries too, and boy, that day never came too soon.

The founder and former CEO of Bain Capital said that while times were tough, the children were often blessed with unexpected gifts from considerate neighbors, like small wooden toys or ruby red apples. But even when the day was not so bright, Romney said proudly, they were always grateful for what they had.

“Drugs took my brother Jimmy way too soon. Vietnam took Tommy. But even after Daddy left, we never complained,” Romney told the crowd. “In our hardscrabble Memphis neighborhood, that’s just what life was. For us, it was the little things that mattered: sitting on the porch, Grandpappy playing his fiddle, Mama making buckwheat cakes in the kitchen. Simple as it was, it was all we knew, and all we needed.”

http://www.theonion.com/articles/romney-just-saying-he-grew-up-poor-in-memphis-now,29571/?ref=auto

A truly stirring story that brought tears to my eyes.

.

[SemperEadem]

15. an interesting graphic I saw on FB

makes one go "hmmmm...."

[sarge43]

22. He's dissed everyone else. He finally got around to dissing his base.

Keep up the good work, Mitt

In case I haven't mentioned it lately -- fuck you.

[TahitiNut]

16. "Fish will be the last to discover water." (Einstein)

Heirheads will be the last to discover the massive advantages they've had. They're born into that "water" and it's all they've ever known. Their lives exclude any and all regular contact with people whose lives are disadvantaged ... because, as we know, the hallmark of affluence is being "exclusive." We have not had a military draft for forty years!! That was, for America's pinnacle years of the 20th century, the sole context in which *some* "fortunate sons" came into intimate daily contact with America's less-fortunate sons. The most noteworthy leaders and achievers of the last 50 years were heat-treated in the crucible of WW2 and subsequent military service.

They had "skin in the game" and got an education that cannot be bought from the most exclusive colleges and universities.

The MittWit doesn't have a clue. He's a creature grown in the Petri dish of country clubs and gated communities. His "contact" is limited to sneering condescension towards those whose labor equity and pension funds he's looted for the increased wealth of the already-wealthy. We're cannon fodder to that armchair chicken-hawk.

He has constructed a world-view for himself that grants him moral superiority. Even his religion teaches that God rewards the faithful with prosperity. Yes, Mormons have had the "prosperity gospel" longer than the evangelical Xtians, most evident in the Western Stakes but throughout LDS.

At this point, it'd be impossible for the MittWit to adopt an egalitarian world-view. It'd make his fragile mind-set completely dysfunctional. He'd suffocate.

It has been said before, even if factually inaccurate, that he and his ilk are why the French invented the Guillotine. That is as apt a characterization as I've ever heard.

[Ichingcarpenter]

23. The royal blood line is also

important with the Mormons


Conservative Christianity teaches “supersessionism,” the idea that God’s covenant with Christians replaced his covenant with the Jews and now Christians are the Chosen People, the spiritual heirs of Abraham. Mormonism takes this a step further, teaching that Mormons are not only the spiritual heirs of Abraham, they are his physical descendants as well.

Mormonism includes a ritual called the “ patriarchal blessing ” in which a member in good standing receives a set of pronouncements spoken by an older male who is thought, during the ritual itself, to act as a latter-day prophet. Like many of Mormonism’s better known distinctive features, such as plural marriage and wearing sacred undergarments , the practice was instituted by Joseph Smith himself.* One of the most central functions of the patriarchal blessing is to reveal which great-grandson of Abraham a person can claim as his ancestor. Per Mormonwiki:

“Through these blessings, Latter-day Saints are told their lineage from the tribes of Israel. All tribes have been represented, but Latter-day Saints descend mostly from the sons of Joseph—Ephraim and Manasseh.”

One former Mormon describes the experience: “While reading my patriarchal blessing I took note that it says I was: ‘born through the loins of Ephraim.’ I found it fascinating how patriarchs could tell which tribes people were descended from.”


http://www.salon.com/2012/08/04/romney_son_of_abraham_salpart/

[SaveAmerica]

20. I read a FB post about kids' inability to get financial aid cause not minority

You can tell she hasn't even considered that discrepencies in Education in different areas contribute to a need for assistance. And I'm pretty sure she hasn't considered that her kids attendance at a private school would even be a greater factor in why they won't get assistance. I think that goes exactly with what you're saying.

[fasttense]

21. In Mitt's world luck and thievery are rewarded NOT talent or skill.

Luck is more important to making a success of yourself than talent or skill. In America if you are lucky enough to be born into wealth you will grow up to be wealthy. If you are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, you may get wealthy. Luck is what gets you ahead. In Mitt's case he had all the luck in the world and then he went and stole his way to success by taking people's pensions and destroying companies and other people's jobs.

These people who are lucky then go on to claim it is God and their little bit of work, not luck, that got them there.

[porphyrian]

24. . n/t

[nanabugg]

31. Simply put, Mitt is just a liar. Period! nt

[librechik]

32. don't forget the years he spent avoiding the draft in Paris, endangering himself (it was 1968)

with all the excess butter, cream and delicious pastries, not to mention all the second hand tobacco smoke (it was 1968)

And all the time he was pining to serve in the very justified and necessary Viet Nam War--if only his other saintly obligations didn't prevent him.

[PowerToThePeople]

35. He stole his wealth from other people's work

In a Socialist style system, all those workers he put out of work would be well off and Mittens would have nothing - since he does not do any "real" work.

[countryjake]

38. K&R!

[Egalitarian Thug]

43. K&R Bravo! n/t