ED Kain has been reading the 53% blog so you don’t have to:
After this young woman’s father was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, he was told by the doctor to take it easy since he’s a manual laborer. Yet he went back to work full-time, working 12 hours a day, six days a week. She writes, “The cancer still grows. That is the American dream.”
Perhaps a spirit of bipartisanship will cause the 99% blog and the 53% blog to merge, since they both are making the same point, albeit inadvertently in the latter case.
ED also debunks an asinine photo purporting to show the hypocrisy of the OWS protesters because they’re all wearing clothes created by corporations and using corporations’ products.
You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not seeing these stupid diversions catching on, in part because OWS is actually making enough of their own news to occupy the tiny amount of bandwidth the MSM provides them.
Ash Can
It’s also the strength and popularity of OWS’s message that’s overpowering the diversions. I’m liking the timing, too — if OWS can maintain its momentum, I can see it having a real impact on next year’s election campaigns, including (and most importantly) the legislative races.
arguingwithsignposts
I’ll just get this out of the way now:
Why you farming page clicks for freed market glibertarian kain, mix? demographic timer assange distributed jesusland BJtard slimes.
/shrug did you watch the video? Vox populi vox anon WAI
OzoneR
Is it really? That’s not how it was presented to me growing up.
cd6
The merging has already happened. Check it: http://actuallyyourethe47percent.tumblr.com/
Odie Hugh Manatee
@OzoneR:
Work until you die, that’s the NEW American
dreamnightmare.Well, if you have work. Otherwise, just die already.
NonyNony
Perhaps I’m dumb, but I’m thinking that a good-sized chunk of the 53% blog are actually people trolling the 53%-ers.
I means I KNOW that there are conservatives who could write about their Dad’s cancer and how he goes back to work for a 12 hour day even though it’s going to kill him and think “that’s awesome”, but I still have to go back to my belief that on the internet, if someone tells you they’re a woman they’re probably a man, if they tell you they’re a man they’re probably a dog, and if they tell you they’re a dog they’re probably a machine learning experiment from Google run amok.
And that 53%-er tumbler is just begging for people to spoof it.
But then I remember some of my own conservative family members who get shafted every day and believe that it’s the way God intended it. Sometimes a dog on the Internet really might be a dog, I guess.
SiubhanDuinne
@arguingwithsignposts:
Okay, I call fake. There wasn’t one reference to cudlips.
Cassidy
@arguingwithsignposts: You forgot cudlip.
arguingwithsignposts
@SiubhanDuinne: @Cassidy: Apparently, ‘sline has replaced cudlip in the tokoloco lexicon.
(idk what a ‘sline is, perhaps someone could fille me in)
SiubhanDuinne
@arguingwithsignposts:
I’ve been wondering about ‘sline but really don’t want to ask the source.
Edited to correct auto correct, which wanted slime.
Cassidy
@arguingwithsignposts: Maybe?
Cassidy
Oh well, no need to be a dick. She’s a smart girl. Little overzealous in some things, but her heart is pointed in the right direction (most of the time).
russell
Here is the problem:
The 99% say “the situation sucks and it needs to change”.
The 53% say “the situation sucks, I have embraced it, and so should you, so STFU you whiner”.
One of these points of view may actually make something useful happen. One will not.
SiubhanDuinne
@Cassidy:
Do you have something in English? WTF was that all about? I’m more befuddled than before.
harlana
Was thinking same thing, the stories are identical! The difference being I guess those 53% see themselves as proud martyrs, sacrificial lambs at the alter of corporate greed. Not really sure why that is. I’m sure, considering his own very personal and “moving” story of struggle and hardship, Erik Erickson can explain.
OzoneR
@NonyNony:
done
http://actuallyyourethe47percent.tumblr.com/
MattMinus
I guess the Steve Jobs worship has gone a little bit too far when aggressive cancer is considered the american dream.
rikyrah
I think most of those folks are delusional and pathetic, and are part of the stupidity that continues to vote against their own best interests.
OzoneR
@rikyrah:
well…yeah
but this is typical of white working class attitudes in areas where progressives think they’re not. This “suck it up and deal” attitude is what we were raised on.
I think part of it is race, the need to feel better than those minorities and immigrants who rely on government help, so they can continue to put down welfare mothers and the like, but it goes back even beyond that.
My grandfather was so proud of himself because he refused to take any help the government offered him after his service in World War II. He wanted to make it on his own, and while he did, my father was raised in abject poverty because of it. But they all feel proud because they survived- eating squirrels ad sleeping five to a room- but they survived.
I once said grandpa was stupid, because the “handouts” he always decried could have helped his children, put them in a position to live a better life. They treated me like I had to just shit on Jesus and raped the Virgin Mary. To say such a thing, i must’ve been brainwashed by liberals.
Some people don’t want a better life.
FlipYrWhig
@rikyrah: To paraphrase Adlai Stevenson: Yes, but we need a majority.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@MattMinus: Only if it’s iCancer.
OzoneR
@FlipYrWhig: actually, nowadays, it’s a supermajority.
Surly Duff
That picture is completely pointless. When you have to resort to inaccurate and distorted argumentation that knocks down straw men (“Look at all the protesting Americans who are also consumers! What hypocrites. Why are they not all wearing old burlap sacks and sending messages over cans tied together with string. Oh, the burlap is also made by a company, folls. LOLOLOLOLOLOL), then you have no point.
The 53% blog is depressing. It is the peasant mentality of the citizenry, put up for all to see.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Wait … Wearing CLOTHES is a sign OWS protestors are not sincere? Sounds like someone just wants to see a bunch of DFHs nekkid.
Seriously, I wouldn’t be surprised if some dipshit once pointed at a picture of civil rights protestors and said “LOOK! They’re wearing clothes made by companies that discriminate. Why would anyone take these people seriously?!”
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@NonyNony:
That’s just the problem, isn’t it? Just like with the Onion. The spoofs can’t out-absurd the real.
Southern Beale
I’m pretty sure that entry is a parody. C’mon, guys.
But what a fucking brilliant idea. Let’s swamp that site with our own “53% American dream” stories, shall we? Or is it too late?
Chris
@OzoneR:
Yippee for them. Do they have to drag every last one of us down with them too?
Ken
He’s a manual laborer, and making enough to be in the 53%? Unless he’s in a union…
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Southern Beale:
Except as the past few years have shown, people really can be that fucking unaware and blindered to believe that genuinely. Few years ago, I would’ve assumed it was parody no question, until I saw just how deep the fucking Economic Stockholm’s Syndrome went.
@Ken:
And that’s another thing. Most people severely overestimate how well they’re doing and underestimate how genuinely they’re being screwed. What did that figure go like? 40% of Americans believe they’re in the top 5% economically or whatever? The self-delusion that you’re a self-sufficient individualist that never got help from no one runs deep and cancerous in this country. The way that the very idea of ’empathy’ has become a horrific thought in this country underscores that.
El Cid
I am impressed that they believe that being part of ‘the 53%’ would somehow make them not part of the 99%.
I’m pretty sure very few of them individually bring home more than $127,000, and if not, they’re the 99%.
Emma
@NonyNony: I have the same problem when I read some of those entries. Surely, I ask myself, surely somebody’s doing some performance art? But no. They’re serious. Bless their hearts.
NonyNony
@OzoneR:
This. This. A thousand times fucking this.
When people talk about the “American Protestant Work Ethic” this is what it is out in the midwestern states. You go to work and you get shit on and that’s life. You don’t take charity – you don’t even ask your church for help if you can avoid it – such things show that you can’t provide for your family and are therefore an awful human being. Better for you and your family to suffer than to take a handout. (not restricted to Protestants either, despite the fact that people call it a “Protestant Work Ethic” because it cropped up as a slur against those filthy dirty and lazy Irish and Italians a century ago. The name sticks, the reasons for the name have been whitewashed away…)
This is also how folks like this can claim to have “done it all by themselves with no help from the government” when they got their primary and secondary education through public schools, their college education because of the GI Bill and/or government subsidized student loans, and bought their first house via a Fannie Mae loan using money kept in a bank ensured via FDIC and not dying of salmonella poisoning courtesy of the FDA and the USDA. They can’t make connections like that because it strikes at the very heart of their self identity.
You aren’t going to get folks like that to vote in their own best interests because in their mind, their best interests are to keep struggling, not to get help. Best you can do is hope you can convince their children/grandchildren to open their eyes and realize that it’s a lie.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Emma:
I’m sure there are plenty of spoofs there that simply aren’t caught for lack of awareness. But that just underscores again how the real ones are just as absurd as the spoofs. And there’s an uneasy tightening in my gut that tells me that there are simply many more of those people genuinely thinking that than hoped.
El Cid
Also these idiots (as stated, a dominant working class ethic in so many communities) think that ‘the 99%’ must be demanding to live for free on government handouts, because, well, what else would they be asking for?
Mark S.
I’m curious what this gal is doing herself. I’d feel pretty awful if my dad was working 12 hours a day while dying of cancer and I was busy making submissions to an idiotic tumblr started by Erickson.
Chris
@NonyNony:
I used to think that was mostly a Southern concept of life. As someone here once said, the South’s economic identity is based on its ability to crush labor movements, and it’s never really been good at investing in people – they’re a cheap, expendable commodity (whatever their skin color).
I’d have thought the Northeast and Midwest, though, with the proud history of union movements and populist/Progressive activism, would’ve been better at it. But the uber-individualist ethic appears to be just as popular there too.
Facepalm.
elmo
@El Cid:
Wow. Is $127K really the dividing line between the 99% and the 1%?
Plethded
A lot of these people on tumblr sound like they’re bullshitting. If this girl’s dad is working paycheck-to-paycheck, chances are he’s not paying income taxes and doesn’t belong in the 53% percent. He’s also got health insurance that would pay for his 30-hour operation, which this girl would happily deny to Americans who aren’t lucky enough to have.
Librarian
Is that a Suzanne Vega reference, by any chance?
OzoneR
@Chris:
Of course, because they’re also religious, which means it’s their goal and mission to
bring you into God’s kingdomforce you to take part in their misery.Judas Escargot
@arguingwithsignposts:
“Sline” is short for “Baseline”, from Stephenson’s Anathem, it’s a term the quasi-monastic academics use to refer to the normal citizens outside of their order.
She seems to have ‘adapted’ the word to refer to non-Asperger’s people.
Surly Duff
Another link from some 1%ers: We Stand with the 99%
Judas Escargot
@elmo:
I thought it was more like $380K.
Which is still lower than you’d think.
The Other Bob
I suspect alot fo the so called 53% ers are actually part of the 47% they are bitching about and don’t even know it.
It isn’t hard to take enough deductions to reduce your federal liability to zero. One adoption tax credit will do it for most people for multiple years.
aimai
That “actually, you are part of the 47 percent tumblir people linked to up above is priceless. I particulalry like the idiot who explained that they used welfare and other government support to retrain after a major accident and that they, therefore, have done it all themselves. Also, I love the people who talk about “earning” their “scholarships” to “state schools.” Do these people not understand anything about funding?
This also gets to NonyNOny’s point which is that these people really believe that as long as life is shitty and you are treated shittily by others that is paying for stuff yourself. So your welfare is different from other people’s welfare because you didn’t enjoy it! Ditto state schools! You were subsidized by tax payers but you didn’t party like those other people so you “earned” your subsidy.
aimai
Samara Morgan
@arguingwithsignposts: did you know Kain drew a lot of compares between the teabaggers and the owies on his forbes blog, AWS?
Tea Party and Anonymous are Just the Same
you dumb ‘slines.
Kain is a freed market fucktard that is just farming pageclicks on you.
you are dumber than the low info conservative base you sneer at alla time.
Samara Morgan
@Judas Escargot:
nah, just to refer to low-information juicers.
Samara Morgan
@mixie
yeah, right.
there is no “spirit of bipartisanship” in the run-up to the 2012 election.
The Wingularity is near.
why do you continue to link that little freed market glibertarian fucker?
wasn’t once enough for the juicitariat to get scammed?
JustMe
I thought it was more like $380K.
Income percentiles normally refer to household income. The Top 1% used to be $250,000 and up, so a married couple each making $125k/yr would qualify. I assume it’s higher now, and each of you now has to earn close to $200k.
GeneJockey
The 53 Percenters are the half of the working class that Jay Gould said he could pay to kill the other half.
Reading a few of their tales of
bending over and taking it with a smilepersonal responsibility for their crappy lives reminds me of a discussion I once had with a dear friend. He asserted that an employer owes his employees only enough compensation to keep them from leaving. I said if that was the case, his employees owe him only enough work to keep from being fired. He was scandalized – ‘That’s what’s wrong with America!’Working hard no matter how badly you’re paid, you see, is a moral obligation, while paying a living wage if you don’t have to is being a sucker. They see economics as morality, but only in the upward direction.
THE
OT
Shit that the Siri digital assistant says on iPhone 4S.
Samara Morgan
oops my bad!
Kain actually says the Tea Party and Occupy Wallstreet are the same.
The Importance of Activism for Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party
you’re welcome!
;)
Paul Hobbs
I just had the opportunity to have dinner last night with “friends-of-friends” in town to do some off-the-books construction work while they’re laid off and drawing unemployment benefits. They spent 20 minutes complaining about assaults on their status as white people, until I harshed their rant. These dopes think that if they see a Laotian on a job site, that means that an immigrant was handed a white person’s job.
53-percenters, every last one, no matter how long they’re laid off.
One of them also thought that he, and not previous employers, had paid into UI. I guess it seems more “boot strappy” that way.
Berial
Why do people keep focusing on the occupy wall street people’s clothes? I find it everywhere that people are complaining about the movement that they bring up the clothing. Do they have to be in rags before they ‘mean’ it? I bet if they WERE in rags it would just mean it’s okay to ignore them. It’s like the usual heads I win(they are all rich kids doing this because they are bored ignore them), tails you lose (they are homeless bums, ignore them) scenario.
Shouldn’t the fact that most of them obviously come from a background of some money actually mean this is MORE important to pay attention to what’s got them all riled up?
Chris
Berial – what DO you want them to focus on? What they’re saying? Then they’d have to acknowledge the VERY uncomfortable fact that the OWS crowd is completely … right.
trollhattan
@Berial:
I’m not getting off the boat to see what the asshats are spewing about clothing, but want to note having “normal” folks, well-dressed folks, articulate folks front and center at OWS makes them much, much harder to ignore than the “typical” protest, be it antiwar, anti-WTO, what have you.
It’s yet another signal they’re concerned, if not outright scared of OWS.
Bulworth
Well, the #OWS are on the street, which is obviously scaring people, hence the sending around of that dopey picture, which I’m glad EKain debunked, and other various forms of contempt. Meanwhile, the “53%” have responded with…..a blog. The ironic thing is the 53% can’t pull from the teabagger population, because most of them are in the 47% receiving govt aid, unemployed or whatever.
chopper
@Samara Morgan:
LOL, it’s like doing Mad Libs with a retarded dude.
“okay, so we need a noun”
“SLINES!”
“yeah, you did that one the last fifteen fucking times. do you know any nouns other than ‘slines’?”
“SLINES!”
Elliecat
That 53 Percent Tumblr By Jonathan Bernstein
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan:
No, mein Liebling. Kain is not equating the occupy movement and the Tea party. He is saying that activism is important to both. Activism such as is seen in the Occupy protests, and in Tea party efforts, encourage the supporters of the activists to get out and vote. Electing representatives who see things as you do is the next step; then these representatives then enact the kind of laws you want to see. Finally things become more like they should be, and that is the ultimate victory.
malraux
What really amazed me about the 53% isn’t the number that either clearly don’t pay income taxes currently or admit that they went a huge portion of their life in that state, its the number that don’t see state schools, military careers, scholarships, welfare, etc as government handouts/benefits in various forms.
chopper
@malraux:
shrug. it’s not like we haven’t seen that before, in the ‘keep the gummint out of my medicare’ sort of thing.
people are, in general, fucking morons.
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: but that is exactly what i said.
the juicers whine about the bobos and and the rest of the glibetarian tools…yet Kain still has posting privs here and hes a union bashing neo-liberal glibertarian, JAFI, and free market fantasist.
why?
isnt this a liberal blog?
but shukran for your concern, mufassir maftoon.
and im not your dear one.
Berial
From GodlessLiberals on facebook: http://hphotos-iad1.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/308228_10150343263604780_166108344779_7735328_953181525_n.jpg
The photo is of a WWII vet, the quote is about OWS protesters by Rush.
Cassidy
@Samara Morgan:
Says the white girl who likes to think she’s the mouthpiece of the Middle east…
Samara Morgan
@Cassidy:
i have never said that.
im a white girl revert that has never lived among the ummah.
But i am the mouthpiece for science, evo theory of culture, and empirical data.
And the mouthpiece for the message of the Noble Quran as transmitted in actual tafsir by real mufassir.
why does al-islam make westerners crazy do you think?
Cassidy
No idea. My guess is you were already crazy. (j/k)
Samara Morgan
@chopper: slines.
Samara Morgan
@Cassidy: LOL
that might be true, but im referring to westerners and christendom in general.
Do you think its because the “killer ap” of xianity, proselytizing, is useless against al-Islam?
most westerners are the descendents of anglosaxon xians of some stripe.
;)
Cassidy
@Samara Morgan: Honestly, I think you overthink it. The majority of Christians and the majority of Muslims don’t give a shit. It’s the loud, obnoxious minority that makes these things a problem. In that sense, it has nothing to do with the religion itself, but zealot-like personalities who have a deep down need to know they are right and have that need validated by everyone else, even if by force.
Samara Morgan
@Cassidy: well, the empirical data is 10 years and 4.4 trillion taxpayer dollars later there are simply no takers for missionary democracy with freedom of speech.
Iraq is still 97% muslim and A-stan is still 99% muslim.
its the number of Iraqi xians that is dwindling.
Iraqis are still burning xian churches and have shariah in their constitution.
the number of xians in Iraq has been halved.
THE
@Samara Morgan:
I have 57 topics at my private website that I use for information consolidation in stuff I’m interested in.
2 of them are Islam-related. One devoted to MENA one to AfPak.
That’s 3.5% of the total topics. Not bad considering that there are major security and military involvements in both regions.
I don’t think you could say I am focused on Islam.
Only when I talk to you, because you are obsessed with Islam.
Samara Morgan
@THE: why shouldn’t i be?
american idiocy and ME adventurism caused the Econopalypse.
we spent 14.3 trillion dollahs FOR FUCKING NOTHING.
because Bush was too stupid to get that when muslims are DEMOCRATICALLY empowered to vote they vote for more islam, not less, and NEVER for missionary democracy with freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
Peaceful Democracy Theory is CRAP.
Look at the copts in egypt.
they are going to be wiped out by the consent of the governed.
look at the christians in Iraq.
same thing.
the US artificially imposed freedom of speech and freedom of religion against the will of the majority, by propping dictators, against the consent of the governed.
and this is what happened.
THE
@Samara Morgan:
I thought of fisking that comment.
I decided not to bother. It’s not worth it.
It would take an essay to answer every one-line assertion and oversimplification.
Nothing I say has ever changed your mind about anything.
FWIW I disagree with almost every statement.
Samara Morgan
@THE:
nudeslinks or gtfo.;)
THE
The easiest way to see the world the way I see it is to apply for access to my website.
That is my private piece of cyberspace.
I am not reproducing all my research links here.
Cassidy
@Samara Morgan: The radically religious are going to be that way regardless of who they worship. It only takes one person to burn down a mosque, church, or other place of worship. That has nothing to do with majority. You’ll also find that attacks in Iraq focus on police/ military recruiting stations. Does that mean they hate cops? No; it’s a simple means to an end.
And don’t get me wrong, I can’t stand most of the major religions and most of their congregations. But, even I can recognize that we’re aren’t dealing with a majority of extremism.
Samara Morgan
@Cassidy:
and churches.
look.
Iraq has shariah in their constitution.
Shariah outlaws freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
surrender naow dorothy.
:)
Samara Morgan
@THE: no way.
you will clap me in cyber-chains and i will never escape.
THE
@Samara Morgan:
More like a labyrinth or a maze or a Gordian knot.
Too Many Jimpersons (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
The people this site mocks are so cluless, and so self destructively clueless, that it´s hard for me to know whether I feel sorry for them more than I want to beat the shit out of them, or I want to beat the shit out of them more than I feel sorry for them.
I can understand why the Kochs don´t want the government to do anything: it will cost them more in taxes, and I can understand why they don´t want that to happen: they´re selfish bastards. But these people? They´re selfish bastards, but they´re too dumb to know that some scheming, soulless plutocrats have found away to misdirect their selfishness away from their own well being. How brainless do you have to be to fall for this kind of scam? I always kind of wondered who falls for these Nigerian e-mail scams; I guess now I have my answer.
I mean, what the hell? One of these idiots was eating dog food for a stretch, and he thinks, what, I don´t quite get it, that the Koch brothers are paying too much in income taxes? That he is paying too much in income taxes? This guy doesn´t seem to understand that if you can´t afford to eat anything that costs more than dog food, you damned well aren´t paying fucking income taxes. What´s wrong with these people? I swear, I feel like we don´t have much hope as a country when one of the 2 major political parties is actively trying to help people like this and they see it as an attack on them.
Obama Administration:
“Oh, we´d like to pass a law that will help you pay for your doctor bills if you or somebody in your household should be stricken with cancer.”
Clueless Minimum-Wage-Earning Would-Be Plutocrat:
“How dare you, you commie bastard filth! I already pay 78% in income tax on my 3 part-time minimum wage jobs (Rush told me so!), and this will only jack up that percentage even more while simultaneously turning this great capitalist nation into a festering sewer of communist fascism! And while I´m on the subject, please do away with the estate tax, so my heirs won´t go bankrupt when I leave them the $131 in my checking account and my priceless collection of velvet Elvis paintings.”
Cassidy
@Samara Morgan: The Bible does a lot of the same. Doesn’t mean everyone lives by it or intends to.
arguingwithsignposts
@Samara Morgan:
I have to say my toko_loko bot is progressing quite well. I called it in 2 above.
chopper
@Samara Morgan:
I know what the term refers to, you halfwit.
THE
@arguingwithsignposts:
Kudos. You were more M_C than M_C
Samara Morgan
@chopper: orly?
my bad.
:)
Samara Morgan
you know juicers, i simply do not why you let mixie spread eumemes like “honest libertarians” and “sane conservative” here.
Kain is McMegan with a swinging dick and Douthat with some random B-list school instead of Harvard.
Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un