I was reading Ann Romney's comments about how she and Mitt are not releasing any more returns. As I stared at her picture from the MSNBC interview, with her upturned lip and her sanctimony, I started to think about her at the Olympics watching a horse she has spent more on than most of us can spend on our kids in their entire lifetimes, I wondered to myself, how can we get the uninformed to see why the Romneys are the most dangerous people to ever vie for the White House?
As I allowed this thought to float, I came across this article:
"Rich Kids of Instagram: Overserved and Undersharing
http://finance.yahoo.com/...
This article, originally posted at CNBC, talks about the spending habits of the children of the wealthy elite. Not only are they obnoxious and arrogant, but they are proud of it:
The blog on Tumblr features photos set in gilded frames of rich kids and wanna-bes in various states of excess, undress and indulgence, and ever since its launch last month, "The Rich Kids of Instagram" has touched off a firestorm of debate over rich kids and social media.
You may ask, "what does this have to do with the election"? Well, consider this quote:
One shot shows three teens swimming at a lake - and pouring Dom Perignon into one other's mouths. Another shows a guy sticking a giant foam finger out of his Ferrari, while in another kids slide down a giant inflatable slide attached to the side of their mega-yacht.
The site also marks the debut of a whole new genre: "receipt porn." Some posts consist of a photograph of a 100,000-euro meal receipt from St. Tropez or a $42,000 bar bill.
Want more outrageous habits of the young capital gains generation?
There is a shot of a guy getting off a yacht with the caption "How else do u expect to get around in the Hamptons."
A shot of five dudes in a private jet bears the caption "Flying private with friends." Shoes, watches and jewelry make up the bulk of the shots, and there is one shot captioned, "All my Amex," exhibiting a gold card, black card and platinum card. Another depicts a guy wearing a necklace made of money.
These kids are the offspring of the "job creators" those who have been telling us for over 40 years that if we give them tax breaks, the wealth would "trickle down" to us, that we, too, could have a shot at the American dream. Anyone of us who dares to challenge this meme are, as Mitt and Ann Romney put it, "envious of our success". I mean, after all, we pay you people minimum wage. It's what the law requires. Kind of like them paying only the taxes that are legally required, forgetting to mention to the voting public the tens of thousands of loopholes available to them that we will never get the chance to use (showhorse anyone?)
The oligarchs have convinced a chunk of the middle class that they are looking out for their best interests, and that if we could just eliminate those pesky unions and create "right to work" states that give everyone the chance to be a peasant for life, they would be most grateful. Let's cut education, they tell us, because we can't afford it. We can't afford to feed your children because you don't make enough, we can't afford to provide healthcare to the poor because its too much.
After all, the Democratic Party is the party of wasteful spending, right?
Rebecca Greenfield sums it up adequately in The Atlantic:
To be certain, these wealthy kid pix are particularly funny (and also sad) because they showcase a gross variant of entitlement. Preteens posing with helicopters they did nothing to earn and posting the pictures online for others to ogle provides an easy in for commentary on the state of the American dream. (Dead.) While we don't disagree with that reading, it's par for the course on Instagram, a shallow medium all about promoting superficiality that photo takers did little to nothing to earn.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/...
So what do we do with this?
My friends, this is the stuff superpac commercials are made of. This is why we fight. This is why Mitt Romney, one of the "job creators" doesn't want to release his tax returns. This is why Paul Ryan's budget wants to eliminate capital gains taxes. This is where your job creators are putting their breaks. Let's show America how they have duped for forty years. Let's show America how they can't send their kids to the dentist or to college but the job creators' kids are indulging their every whim with interests from capital gains, ALL WITH VIRTUALLY NO TAXES.
If Moveon or any other superpac supporting the President wants to make an impact, if any one of them wants to get the apathetic mad enough to fight and, most of all, to vote, let's get this message out.