It's Tumblr Wars! (Formal Bad Language Warning, music possibly NSFW)
Here's your theme music:
Everlast, What It's Like, from Whitey Ford Sings the Blues
Perspective:
I'm trying to envision the scenario in which I, a rather high tax-paying American, living in my very nice home, with my excellent health insurance coverage, my pets living better than many people do around the world, even in the USA, my daughter in an out of state graduate school on my dime and my child in his swanky prep school, turn my back on the 99%ers and say "Shut Up and Stop Complaining" and, by the way, here's some pepper spray and an arrest for [whatever charge], that will make it even harder for you to get your next job, yes, I promise you. You'll probably never work again you pedestrian, lazy-ass squeaky wheel, you.
I'm not there.
Viewpoint 1: 53% View
Hell yeah, 53%ers, you have been so wronged, and you are so very right. America is mired in lazy slackers. All those 99%ers are wimpy babies who don't want to work, who are too picky and don't want to look at their own flaws that got them into their present situation, which really, in the scheme of things, isn't all that bad. Hey, it's better than Bangladesh or Somalia, so we're good! Right? Who the hell cares if you're a child, a veteran, a retiree, a disabled person? That liberal asshole Hubert Humphrey was all wrong about a society being judged on the way it treats its most vulnerable citizens. That is so fucking melodramatic and so typical of socialists (disguised as liberals) who don't give a damn about what's really important.
No, you shouldn't feel even an ounce of remorse about treading on uninsured infants, on old people whose social security and medicare doesn't cover their needs and stepping over unwillingly homeless people (who are out of work and foreclosed out of their houses by their own misdeeds), if necessary, in order for your chance to make it to the top of the almighty 1% heap. Those 99%ers are a pack of whining babies and deserve to be billed for the cost of the pepper spray and plastic handcuffs used on them at demonstrations, and for their stays in what ought to be privately run jails (because the State shouldn't be responsible for those either!) HOW DARE THEY? Neither a war initiated on the basis of lies, excuse me, misinformation, nor Wall Street and its corrupt policies have anything to do with our present financial circumstances. Senator Bernie Sanders is a mad man. There's no price fixing, only good business, which we need to make better business, by having fewer rules and fewer people get in the way of business. Less government will assure this. Fewer handouts to the little people. Stratification of society is a good thing. It gives people something to strive for!!! (Dickens was so wrong there. He was another long-winded whiner from, like, centuries ago.) I
t's like economic natural selection and all those godless liberals should just shut up and enjoy the fact that we've got a living example of some kind of natural selection! May the best capitalist win!!! And listen, our Founding Fathers clearly thought we shouldn't be taxed
at all, remember? Oh. Wait a minute there.... there was that one thing about
representation, wasn't there? Oh, and personal income tax wasn't even visited upon Americans until 1861 when that damned
liberal president, slavery-loathing Abraham... What? Republican? Oh, wait a minute. Hmmm. That was old style Republicanism. Like Reagan or something, right? He's like our St. Christopher- the Patron Saint of Economic Reform, except... Hmmm.
Well, back to my point:
Those 99%ers are a pack of whining babies. Just stay focused on that. Here, look at some pictures that you don't really grasp from the first viewing. Let me set you straight:
This guy is a mess. What is his fucking problem? Why does he think he is punished? He just isn't as deserving as others. He needs to suck it up and work harder and maybe take out more loans and get a PhD or something. Moar debt! Just borrow more money! The interest he'll owe helps our country stay afloat!!!
Get this guy out of here! He is so messed up. Dude, you're a success story! Stop the altruistic crap already!
Without Fear of Violence? WTF? Here's another one of those bloody liberals that thinks they understood the right to dissent and that stoopid freedom of speech thingy in the Bill of Rights. A better life for all? LOSER!!!!!
So Grandma thought they were working for something? Like the American Dream? That's for special people, hon. Not you! Gosh! Get with it already! And I hope you are paying your taxes, including the property tax on that house you shouldn't have thought you could buy.
Cry me a river... What, you wanted to live in Scandinavia or something? You should get married and stop trying to make it on your own, sweetheart! Geeezus! Find a man with a good job and use his insurance!!!! You wanted to be an unhealthy, independent and educated woman in America? Really? How dare you! And WTF? Listen, without the 99%, the 1% wouldn't be so dragged down! There would be no one standing in the way of their massive corporate prowess! They would sell their goods and services to the Third World and dominate the entire frakking Milky Way galaxy!
OMG! What is WRONG with you people? Safety net schmafety net!!!!
Viewpoint 2: De Facto 47%ers, or maybe 99%ers with identity crises.
In all honesty, I am really puzzled by some of the 53%ers tumblr pages. (They have 10 pages, versus the 84 pages of the 99%ers, btw) But I am sure they are the majority of Americans (53%, after all), and especially they are Americans who pay taxes and are living perfectly wonderful lives. They are treated justly, and they instinctively realize the social equity of their situation.
This young lady is a poster girl for the American Dream. Her father moved here from Croatia. He is a thyroid cancer patient, and is working 72 hours a week in a manual labor job. She's not complaining. Croatia and the war in the former Yugoslavia clearly taught that worse could be had and what to be grateful for here, in her cushy American life provided for her by her cancer-ridden, hard-working father. (She's not being shot at, raped, mutilated or killed, or having to watch that happen to anyone she knows or cares about.) Life is good! To quote her: "That is the American Dream", circa 2011. (That liberal use of WE on her part is so irksome I don't know how to deal with it.... How many hours have you been working to help your dad?)
This gentleman is awesome. He is evidently in the 1%! (But also the 53%?) He is happy continuing to pay (NOT LESS THAN) 50% of his income to taxes while corporations like Exxon pay NO taxes and people like Warren Buffet, who
would pay more taxes if asked, pay less or what this gentleman pays. Yep. Makes sense to me. Glad it does to him. What a trooper!!! :)
The firm opinion of one
not yet in the job market is truly wonderful! While no one owes her anything, her government loaned her money. What if the value of her degree turns out to be more than her worth (salary) on a only bachelor's degree? Not that there's
much of that going around...
Wake up people. Wake up.
We now return to our evenings of exciting cable TV, reality TV, football, the NBA strike, Call of Duty, Halo 3, or whatever it is that we use, ostrich-like, to avoid looking at what's going on around here.
© Bright Nepenthe, 2011
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