Kudzu Calls Grass Green: Right Says Love the Rich, Blame the Poor

[McCamy Taylor]

OK, I'll admit it. I'm now in the throes of one of the seven deadly sins. I am mad. Mad at this sorry excuse for an editorial at the NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/opinion/sunday/the-downside-of-inciting-envy.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0

Oh woe is me, says the author (in different words). Why do you hate me and my kind for being rich? Don't hate me. Hate the _,and the __ and the ___ who have led us to underfund your kids' schools. (Fill in the blanks with the racial or ethnic minority that it is most fun to attack this week.) Vote for my candidate and we will make sure that your child is among the elect that actually gives a damn about the so called death tax.

First and foremost, we must increase mobility for more Americans with a radical opportunity agenda. That means education reform that empowers parents through choice, and rewards teachers for innovation. It means regulatory and tax reform tailored to spark hiring and entrepreneurship at all levels, especially the bottom of the income scale. It means recalibrating the safety net to ensure that work always pays — such as an expansion of the earned-income tax credit — while never disdaining the so-called dead-end jobs that represent a crucial first step for many marginalized people.

In other words, create a new two tiered education system, one for privileged people and one for the folks whom God intends to fill the "dead-end jobs." And hope and pray that because you are male, straight, white and non-Muslim there will be room for you in the boat of privilege.

Nice try, Mr. Brooks but I see through your sad, tired old Divide and Conquer game. It stinks like last week's fish and is about as wholesome as a big, steaming bowl of botulism. I know exactly why my kid's public schools suck. It is because your corporate masters have raided the teachers retirement fund, sacked the teachers with experience, replaced them with underpaid, under educated drones who drill our kids in how to take tests and siphoned off valuable resources to create designer schools that force our children to clean streets for classroom credit (and no, I did not make up that last part. Google it.) in preparation for their dead-end but oh so valuable jobs.

I do not envy the 1%. I despise the 1%. The only way to accumulate so much wealth into the hands of so few is by stealing the bread from some poor child's mouth---and then telling the parents. "It wasn't me. It was the _._. and ___ next door who did it. Help me deprive the bastards of an education and they will never be able to undercut your wages again."

For those who are not familiar with kudzu, it is that pesky green vine that eats up everything in its path. In other words, it is the 1%.

[markpkessinger]

1. Excellent! n/t

[stage left]

2. "I do not envy the 1%. I despise the 1%"

Exactly. And the comparison of this group to kudzu is delicious.

[Curmudgeoness]

3. Excellent rant.

I could not have done a better job.

Kudzu-----I love that comparison.

[dionysus]

4. ...guy even LOOKS like a sterotypical RW douchebag, too...

[blkmusclmachine]

5. Trickle Down, bay-bee!

[nxylas]

6. If I envy anyone, it's my dad's generation

The generation that got to enjoy the interregnum between the first and second gilded ages (or, since I'm British, perhaps I should say between Downton Abbey and Thatcher). Who could earn a decent, middle-class wage with a good pension and, if they didn't like their job, could easily find another. Note that envy is not resentment. The late Keith Waterhouse explained the difference: envy sees a man with a Rolls-Royce and wants a Rolls-Royce too. Resentment sees a man with a Rolls-Royce and wants that Rolls-Royce taken away from him.