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Showing posts with label Stephen King. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stephen King. Show all posts

Monday, April 30, 2012

Fucking. Brilliant.

What charitable 1 percenters can’t do is assume responsibility—America’s national responsibilities: the care of its sick and its poor, the education of its young, the repair of its failing infrastructure, the repayment of its staggering war debts. Charity from the rich can’t fix global warming or lower the price of gasoline by one single red penny. That kind of salvation does not come from Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Ballmer saying, “OK, I’ll write a $2 million bonus check to the IRS.” That annoying responsibility stuff comes from three words that are anathema to the Tea Partiers: United American citizenry.

With this amazing volley, Stephen King, one of my favorite authors of all time, has entered into the Election of 2012 with an absolute corker of a piece in The Daily Beast. 

Here’s another crock of fresh bullshit delivered by the right wing of the Republican Party (which has become, so far as I can see, the only wing of the Republican Party): the richer rich people get, the more jobs they create. Really? I have a total payroll of about 60 people, most of them working for the two radio stations I own in Bangor, Maine. If I hit the movie jackpot—as I have, from time to time—and own a piece of a film that grosses $200 million, what am I going to do with it? Buy another radio station? I don’t think so, since I’m losing my shirt on the ones I own already. But suppose I did, and hired on an additional dozen folks. Good for them. Whoopee-ding for the rest of the economy.

That makes him a small business owner, right? Hee Hee...

Oh, and about that whole envy thing...

The U.S. senators and representatives who refuse even to consider raising taxes on the rich—they squall like scalded babies (usually on Fox News) every time the subject comes up—are not, by and large, superrich themselves, although many are millionaires and all have had the equivalent of Obamacare for years. They simply idolize the rich. Don’t ask me why; I don’t get it either, since most rich people are as boring as old, dead dog shit. The Mitch McConnells and John Boehners and Eric Cantors just can’t seem to help themselves. These guys and their right-wing supporters regard deep pockets like Christy Walton and Sheldon Adelson the way little girls regard Justin Bieber … which is to say, with wide eyes, slack jaws, and the drool of adoration dripping from their chins.

This would be why they think that folks like me and other Democrats are secretly envious of rich people...BECAUSE THEY ARE. And that's the only sort of perception they seemingly understand.

In a perfect little verbal nutshell, he sums up exactly how I feel.

What some of us want—those who aren’t blinded by a lot of bullshit persiflage thrown up to mask the idea that rich folks want to keep their damn money—is for you to acknowledge that you couldn’t have made it in America without America. That you were fortunate enough to be born in a country where upward mobility is possible (a subject upon which Barack Obama can speak with the authority of experience), but where the channels making such upward mobility possible are being increasingly clogged. That it’s not fair to ask the middle class to assume a disproportionate amount of the tax burden. Not fair? It’s un-fucking-American is what it is. I don’t want you to apologize for being rich; I want you to acknowledge that in America, we all should have to pay our fair share. That our civics classes never taught us that being American means that—sorry, kiddies—you’re on your own. That those who have received much must be obligated to pay—not to give, not to “cut a check and shut up,” in Governor Christie’s words, but to pay—in the same proportion. That’s called stepping up and not whining about it. That’s called patriotism, a word the Tea Partiers love to throw around as long as it doesn’t cost their beloved rich folks any money.

Good Lord, I think I actually have an erection from reading.

The next time someone says to you, "Well, if rich people want to pay more in taxes, they should just write a check to the Treasury" show them this brilliant piece by a man much eloquent than I!

Monday, December 20, 2010

Get Ready

I recently completed the magnificent Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I highly recommend this wonderful series of books if you have not read them. In the last book, King through out a line that I will be using in great frequency starting today so get ready.

One of the characters in the book is describing in detail to the series' heroes how a town's residents (the morks) function and how their minders (the Algul staff) rule them. These residents are doing great harm to the universe and Roland, Eddie, Jake, Susannah and Oy (the heroes) are learning about them so they can attack the town and stop them.

Most morks are selfish introverts masquerading as rugged individualists-they want the world to see them as Daniel Boone types-and the Algul staff loves it, believe me. No community is easier to govern than one that rejects the very concept of community.

Now I finally get it and some of you. Fucking mega!