While doing research for another piece, I went to the Forbes website and at the very top of the page I read the following quote from Bertrand Russell as I waited for the corporate advertisement to play out before I could see the content I had accessed.  Indeed, although the quote did exude high-toned educated elegance, it was nonetheless corporate propaganda.  The quote was not aimed to assuage the discontent of the working poor. I doubt too many of them will be visiting the Forbes site since most of them are too busy trying to scrape together enough money to pay the rent.  No, this little tidbit is aimed to assuage  any guilt that a member of the investor class of the 1% might be feeling about that offshore account or investments in hedge funds or private equity groups.  The messsage is:  ”Tt’s ok for the poor to be without because doing without is an essential part of  their happiness.”

Forbes Thought Of The Day

“ To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness. ” — Bertrand Russell

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Comments from ILWQ:  It’s all relative–a point that many from the 1% miss.

When members of the 1% like Romney are not telling us that we envy their wealth they are telling us that it’s good for us to do without.

Whether or not “doing without” is “part of our essential happiness” depends upon the things one is doing without.  If the things one is doing without include a new Mercedes, that third vacation home on the West coast, another maid, a  new diamond bracelet from Tiffany.   Then, yes, to be without them might be an indispensable part of one’s happiness.

However, if some of the things one is doing without include a living wage that enables a family bread winner to  put a roof over his/her family’s head and food on the table, or the ability to purchase affordable health insurance so they can get that pain in their chest  or lump in their breast checked out–then being without these things is most definitely not an “indispensable part of happiness”.  In fact, doing without these things could well be a one-way ticket to an early grave.

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Comment on Handouts from the Rich

When I read that Willard Romney had recently given $50 to $60 to some woman in the crowd who said that she was in deep financial trouble, I thought about  Joe Bageant, who unfortunately died in March of last year.  Joe would have had a high time commenting on that incident.  Joe  was a great spokesperson for the working poor of America.

In 2008 Bageant was interviewed by one of the networks and the interviewer asked him what “these people”  wanted. ( “These people” referred to the working poor, the guns and Bible people, the poor white underclass.) According to Joe, “these people” are not looking for handouts.  What they are looking for is a sense of justice, a sense that a level playing field exists with real opportunity for all and not just the illusion of opportunity.

I agree. As I said before, life and politics in the USA is like a card game that the 1% are playing with the 99%. Part of the problem is that the 1% are playing with a deck that has been marked by their bought-and-paid-for members of Congress.

The other part of the problem is that most Americans still don’t seem to understand that the only way to level the playing field is to get rid to the stooges in Congress who are marking the cards for the 1%.  That would include at least 44% of them who are multimillionaires.  We are NOT going to convince these people to change their ways–not now, not ever.  The only course of action is to get rid of them by voting them out of office.

We are not asking for multimillionaires like Willard (“Mitt”) Romney to throw back a few pennies of the billions that they have stolen, yes stolen, from the taxpayers of our nation.  If that woman to whom Romney threw the $50 or $60  had credit card debt (as do the majority of Americans to the average tune of $15,000) that $50 or $60 bucks would not even pay the interest due for one month  on her debt to a too big to fail Wall Street corporation.

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Will enough Americans wake up in 2012 to vote these jackasses out of office?

I don’t know.  You tell me.  What are YOU going to do about it?

If you plan to vote for either a Democrat OR a Republican, I can tell you what I think that you plan to do about it:  ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.