Don't blame the billionaires

[JohnnyRingo]

After a discussion with a wing-nut friend at my local tavern last week I realized a consistent argument.

When I mentioned RFK Jr as an incorruptible example he immediately shifted to attack global warming mode, "Which doesn't exist", as he put it.

After spouting some ridiculous statistics like "The Earth has cooled 3 degrees in the last hundred years" I got him to admit there is a problem.
He then changed the argument to who's to blame.

He was adamant that we not blame the polluters and chose to scapegoat God Himself by citing the "Limbaugh Theory" that it's a natural occurrence.

It was then I noticed a consistency in all his points:
"Don't blame the wealthy":

Don't blame the CEOs for auto industry woes, fault the union workers.
Don't blame the oil companies for high gas prices, look to the Ay-rabs.
Don't blame the electric company for an antiquated power grid, that's a tax funded infrastructure.
Don't blame the HMOs, insurance companies, and big pharma for high health costs, it's because of frivolous lawsuits.
Don't blame the budget deficit on tax cuts for the rich, it's caused by welfare spending.
Don't blame natural gas companies for high heating costs, Greenpeace won't let them drill.

I asked if any of these Captains of Industry help supplement his Home Depot paycheck to sit on a barstool and defend them. He missed the point, but he is consistent.

[hobbit709]

1. Anytime you're around him

sing the Kool-Aid song and see if he gets it.

[Skidmore]

2. Blame the American citizen, who is too lazy to track beyond

sound bytes on cable news and rumors. Blame the American citizen who slept through civics class or didn't think it was important enough to keep in the curriculum of the local school when budget time came. Blame the American citizen who does not take the time to vote, and who don't understand that there are a lot more working class people than billionaires in the nation.

[ThomCat]

3. It is very amazing how quick so many poor people are

to defend the rich. It is as if they truly believe that the rich can do no wrong or break no law.

[rfranklin]

7. They are like whupped dogs, showing their bellies in....

submission. They only attack those that they believe cannot thrash them. They side with the powerful and wealthy in hopes of getting a small bone and will fight those less fortunate for that scrap. It's animal nature in the human format.

[Nikki Stone 1]

4. His "consistency" was manufactured for him by AM radio and the MSM

It's like a defense attorney in a murder case: throw up as much dirt as you possibly can in any direction but your client's. And you are right: it's the place that these morons are unwilling to go that gives you the real agenda.

[The Deacon]

5. I Had A Wingnut Friend Once

Interesting - he & I could discuss the minutest detail of obscure British & American Literature: he was always open to new viewpoints & more than once changed his opinion based on new evidence. But when the subject was Reagan & the current GOP talking points - straight out Kool-Aid drinker.

[izzybeans]

6. That is the hallmark of most ideology

those on top of the hierarchy monopolize the argument and get their subjects to buy into it willfully. Political marketing in the rightwing thought circles explicitly focus on such themes.

All of them forget their own disdain for the big wigs at work and turn it into its the liberals fault. It is a blame shifter that keeps the masses divided. And we outnumber them overwhelmingly. That is too dangerous to their wealth and power to allow. But of course this is not a conscious strategy by most. The willfully convinced unconsiously parrot these lines and it guides their very choices in the public/political sphere. It is something they see as a given and it forms the core of their supressed political identity as subjects to multiple kings/queens in every sphere of life.

This is why the most radical democratic expansion begins with a total social and political critique of this very sort of mentality.

[davekriss]

8. Amazing, isn't it?

They'll die, too, never knowing what hit them, blaming the scapegoats manufactured by the owning class.