During the campaign, many people expressed outrage over Mitt Romney’s statement concerning the fact that almost fifty percent of the public do not pay pay income taxes. I well understood the anger, but I am a bit surprised that a video by the California Federation of Teachers has not produced the same outrage over its unfairness and frankly crudeness. The video shows a wealthy person urinating on the poor as part of a “Tax the Rich: An Animated Fairy Tale.” I readily admit that I am in the minority on our blog in opposing some of the tax increase proposals in this country and abroad as economically unwise. However, the demonization of the wealthy in this country has gone a bit far when a video of this kind is released by a major organization.
Real Clear Politics and a few sites ran a story on the urination scene, but the video below has the sound but not the image of actual urination. It is not clear if someone added the yellow image to the video or the producers removed the image. When you now hit on various sites that showed what they said was the image of the urination, a sign pops up that this is now a “private video.” I am unsure of what that means since the union reportedly put the video out to the public. However, there is no mention of the controversy that I could find on the union site.
The eight-minute video was written and directed by California Federation of Teachers’ communications director Fred Glass with voice over by Ed Asner. The mythical land describes rich evading taxes by investing in “Wall Street” — not quite mythical. “Don’t worry. This is good for you, too. Because it will trickle down from us to you.” You can still hear the sound of the rich man “trickling down” on the poor.
Viewers are urged to email their elected representatives to tell them to raise taxes on the wealthy in order to fund public services.
I happen to agree with the premise of raising revenues (though I oppose some of the tax proposals in this country and abroad). I am a long and vocal supporter for increasing funding for schools and teachers. However, I view this video as unfair and hyperbolic even without the yellow stream. The wealthy do pay considerable taxes and many support public programs and public causes. They also do pay the vast majority of taxes. Should they pay more in this economy. Yes, but it is grossly unfair to engage in this type of vilification. The video for example states that after the housing market crash the government printed money for “rich people” but they didn’t give any to “ordinary people whose houses and jobs were broken by the crash.” The video also states that after the collapse that rich people “love their money more than anything in the world.” That is simply outrageous. What would be the reaction to a business group releasing a video stating poor people do not care for other people and do not want to work? There would be justified anger and outrage, but the reaction to this video seems to be muted from the left. It is not enough to simply shrug and again blame the other side triggering such responses. Whatever the excesses of the other side of this debate, it does not relieve adults of being the obligations of accuracy and decency. As an educator myself, I am embarrassed to see any teacher’s organization engage in such attacks.
I am interested in whether the union did include the even more offensive image and removed it or whether it is claiming that conservative groups hacked their video. If it is the former, I do not believe that they have served the interests of teachers who generally strive to engage in reasoned and respectful debate. If it is the latter, I would love to know who added the yellow image and left the appearance that it was in the original video. The union itself has thus far said little on the controversy. [UPDATE: the original video is posted here and shows the yellow image. It would appear that the union has altered its own video though I cannot find any statement from it on this controversy].
The current video is shown below.
OOOOO, “socialism”. Bad word. No one will ever vote for that, How about just returning to marginal rates of the Clinton, of Raegan, or Carter, or Nixon, or Eisenhower years?
Oh, I forgot. Because some of the rich pay more in absolute dollars than the rest of us, they must be doing their fair share, and even deserve a refund.
Y’all need to get off your knees.
nick:
“Those who say they can, and those who say they can’t, are both correct.”
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I’m with the Wizard of Westwood on that one.
mike spindell:
kind of patronizing arent you? Thomas Sowell is pretty sharp. Do you have the facts to back up your claim? I would like to see them.
Yes, I would like to keep what little I have and I would want the people who own homes and have retirement plans to keep theirs as well.
We are finally at the point where 1/2 of us work and support the other 1/2. and this administration wants to make more non-workers.
Who is going to pay for all this spending? The rich dont have enough money to run the government for a year.
The middle class and lower working class are going to pay, that is who. No other way around it.
You want socialism? Go ahead, lets vote on it and make it legal. Lets put it up for a national vote, lets amend the Constitution and make socialism the economic law of the land. Lets see who really wants it, lets vote on it.
I’ll go along with the majority if that is what they want. I will think it is wrong but I will accept it.
Lets put socialism to the vote, lets amend the Constitution.
Elaine M:
” Do you think people who say they think the income tax rate should be raised on those earning that kind of money are waging economic class warfare?”
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While we base taxes on percentages of income, we pay taxes (and hence our country’s bills) in real dollars. Would you rather pay 11% of $1,000,000.00 or 25% of $100,000.00? In any event, the person paying the 11% is contributing substantially more to the country’s financial needs than the second person. And let’s remember each earned their money and it does belong to them not to us all.
Like so many things it depends on your point of view. The $100,000.00 wage earner thinks he is getting screwed because he’s paying more as a percentage of his total income. The $1,000,000.00 wage earner thinks he’s overpaying since he gets exactly the same government services as the lesser paying other guy but pays four times more for for it. Doesn’t both of their objections boil down to greed?
Well, Elaine then why didn’t you just ask me again. It was chickensh!t but nobody here fesses up to anything..you’re like politicians and convicts. 4 years. And I know you did it longer, but that’s not actually a positive. Many of the hard working teacher like myself get the hell out of the union hellhole. Some stay. And, as you should remember, my take on you is you were hard working. God Bless you for that.
Irrational (against the evidence) belief in the American Dream = being a frog in the pot as the temperature is turned up . . .
The rich just want to take over the public school system. The Bush family are heavily invested in this with computer programs that will end the expense of having a live teacher in a classroom. That is where they want to go, and they will make enormous profits if they succeed. They use their media empire to disparage teachers and unions-efforts to sway public opinion- in order to get what they want, which is control of a captive population they can profit from
”The corporate heist of the U.S. government began with a memo in 1971. Lewis Powell was a corporate attorney from Virginia who was asked by his friend at the US Chamber of Commerce to write a secret strategy memorandum for the chamber in 1971. Two months later, Richard Nixon nominated him to the Supreme Court of the United States.
The Powell memo became a rallying cry among corporate executives for how to reassert corporate dominance over the American economy and its government, which it had lost during the era of the New Deal. The memo openly stated that corporations should punish their political enemies and should seek political power through both the law and politics. It encouraged challenges to what it saw as left-wing activities by people such as Ralph Nader and US academics.
By 1978, the US Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable defeated pro-labor law reforms through a filibuster by Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, which signaled the demise of organized labor as a significant opponent of organized money.”
Full memo: http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/
http://truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/13166-the-corporate-heist-of-the-united-states-government-began-with-a-memo-in-1971
.
“Finally, the point was not about me, but about the people who are run out of here because they simply don’t have your cred. I will never be run out of here.”
Yep. This lovely bit of self-contradiction shows that rhetoric or logic is right out. For something allegedly not about you, it seems to be an awful lot about you, nick, and as Mike notes how special you think you are. Just because you think you’re inherently special because you’re a “a blue collar guy who worked a fascinating varied career in a white collar world” doesn’t mean that you are either special or fascinating. Sorry. Nobody is special. All men are created equal. Even if they are not equally created. No one cares about your “fascinating varied career” except for you. The substance of your arguments and your ability to back up your positions is what counts around here. That’s how the marketplace of ideas works.
Plus, it isn’t your place to worry about blog readership or commentary contributions. This isn’t your blog. It’s JT’s blog. Policies are his to set. He can make any rules here he likes and enforce them how he likes. He could ban anyone he wants, any time he wants. He can make anyone he wishes a guest blogger and he can revoke that privilege as he wishes. All the choices about how this place operates are ultimately his. That he has no problem with the marketplace of ideas and the concept of if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen ethic that a free speech forum inherently creates renders the “point” you’re attempting to make moot. People don’t get run off here. They go as they came – by their own choice. Participation here is not compulsory. Being that blog readership is growing at a ridiculous rate, I think it is fair to say his decisions have been wise. Disagree all you like. That’s simply how it is.
You have a manifest problem with the consequences of free speech when said consequences don’t conform to your opinions. That’s not how free speech works. You’re going to be challenged. You’re going to disagree. You’re going to get angry or upset or offended. But in the end, no one cares about your “cred” but you. That is meaningless compared to the content of your arguments. Either your arguments stand up to critical scrutiny and challenge or they don’t. Many of yours don’t hold up and precisely for flaws like bad logic and poor evidence.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: maybe a free speech forum is not what you are looking for.
You seem to be seeking some form of validation you simply aren’t going to find in an arena where positions are primarily evaluated on merit – as in the validity of the underlying logic and the quality of the evidence – rather than the desire to assuage the speaker’s ego.
Messpo,
Keep your Horatio Alger hopes. How have they worked for you?
For every HA individual you cite there are a thousand underdeveloped persons destined to NOT rise because the system has neglected their parents’ education, their own education, and frankly the system does not give a damn.
Attitude IS important. But it does not come by itself. It comes from education and the family and culture that you come from.
mespo, As the great John Wooden would often say to his players, “Those who say they can, and those who say they can’t, are both correct.” Or, as Thomas Edison said, “Inventing is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”
nick,
I once addressed the question of your educational experience on another post–but you never responded.
nick:
Actually, I don’t think I ever used the word “intimidated.” I did try to intimate it. I think it was you and Elaine whom I quoted. Anyway it was just a little fun and homage to Elaine M whom I like and admire.
I suggest we cut out the personal shit, IT IS UNBECOMING THIS PLACE, and the brains here.
Back to the issues. Standing outside the fortress screaming won’t do it.
We don’t for the moment have a Lenin to lead us.
No you are not godlike, but you seem to assume that your experience is sufficient to decide what is true and relevant.
Forget it. you don’t need quibbliing from me now.
You are fighting the cabal here who says they don’t exist. And they know how to use white-collar fighting techniques.
Even middle school girl ones.
“I don’t like her. She has either too few boyfriends, and the next she has too many”. As if that makes sense. Playing keep away by passing the ball to your buddies is also a cute game—for kids who have grandchildren.
Sorry, Mike I’m not buying your economic determinism argument. Daddy’s dough is not destiny though surely it helps. The rise of technology start-ups in Silicon Valley amply prove that point. Steven Jobs was adopted by a high school graduate mother and a college drop-out father who was a mechanic. Steve Wozniak’s dad was an aerospace engineer. Leonard Bosack who helped found CISCO was a hardware engineer. There still too many trust babies dabbling in business but as nick mentions about 80 (it’s actually 90 or 18%) of the Fortune 500 companies were started by immigrants and a full 40% were started by immigrants or their children as Forbes magazine confirms:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2011/06/19/40-percent-of-fortune-500-companies-founded-by-immigrants-or-their-children/
Not too shoddy for those willing to work and risk.
Come on, Mike. Why so gloomy? You can rejoice in the Horatio Alger story that America still is — if you can let yourself believe that it still is. It’s still an influx of talent into America and there must a reason it’s not an exodus.
Personally, I think attitude is destiny.
ID, I’m not godlike. I’m merely a blue collar guy who worked a fascinating varied career in a white collar world. My blue collar style doesn’t comport w/ the more pompous here. As my tough mother would say in a situation such as this, “They can go sh!t in their hat.”
And MikeS, you are projecting on the “superior point of view.” Exhibit A is your sanctimonious comments on the West Bank the other day. It could titled, “Gentiles need not comment.”
Orolee,
As TJ, quoted by GeneH, said: The business of the nation is too important to trust solely in the hands of the elite, it must reside in the hands of the people, and they must be educated therefore.” Inaccurate paraphrase, but anyway.
The point being that if we don’t correct the ills of our system then we go under,. whether in serfdom or worse.
The factors and relations are multitude. And we are here tangenting many of them.
Here’s one good link I re-post from here.
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6470
and another:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/cliff-notes-on-the-three-_b_2246487.html
Mike, I give you my experience, and you disparage it. I give you a UIC study on corruption 2 days ago and you poo poo it. I must be the “Worst Person in the World.” You have a bug up your ass about me, and you seem a bit paranoid about my hidden agenda.
Elaine, That little sidebar to Mike about my experience falls into the chickensh!t, middle school, girl category. Step up your game..if you have a question about me, then ask me.
Omnipotent, omnipresent, etc. Godlike indeed.
Just busting your balls NickS. When you don’t preface every anecdotal phrase with the usual caveats, then you are easily shot down.
I told you once to keep a low profile and you have ignored the advice.
Of course what you see and what you think is self-evidently true to you.
But until you become godlike, then keep in mind that you are one observer of many exploring the elephant with knowing fingers but blind eyes.