QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Celebrating rich people getting richer as though it had anything to do with the rest of us marks us as suckers of the highest order. Cheering a stock as though it were a living entity worthy of praise marks us as the worst kind of primitive economic bone-worshippers.”
Charles Pierce commenting on the absolutely ludicrous spectacle on Friday of people around the country — including crowds standing in Times Square — cheering on the Facebook IPO as if it were some sort of national triumph along the lines of the Apollo 11 moon landing or winning World War II.
Go read Charlie’s entire blog post because it perfectly sums up how well and truly fucked in the head we are as a nation.
May 20th, 2012 at 9:11 am
(warning: hung over ramblings follow.)
Interesting. Instead of empathizing with people in similar situations, they’ve become programmed to empathize with the very wealthy, and with inanimate objects like stock markets.
And they’ve been trained to be… the opposite of empathic… judgmental? towards everyone else. Interesting.
I just got done watching a video from Cognitive Media (love those guys!) and in this context, I think it explains at least how this works. Basically, the rich and powerful have managed to change the community with which we empathize to exclude ourselves. That’s how they so effectively get people to vote against their self-interest.
That and the bullshit about the rich creating jobs.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UAG0HkpDnaM
May 20th, 2012 at 10:20 am
I thought they were all cheering the American dream.
May 20th, 2012 at 12:13 pm
Eich bin ein Stockholmer.
May 20th, 2012 at 8:05 pm
I don’t need to read it; I decided a long time ago that owning stock was immoral because it put me on the same level as a tick or a flea living off the blood of a healthy animal until it died. It was about 2008 that I also began to think it’s just plain stupid, considering how many of the players on Wall Street have proven to be absolute crooks.
May 21st, 2012 at 8:21 am
People are stupid.