September 8, 2013 by David K. Sutton
Observation of the Day: The Unwitting Henchmen Of The Oligarchs
Billionaires own Washington D.C. and much of the conservative movement, and the Tea Party has been their vehicle of choice. They fund the “grassroots” organizations that hand down the marching orders to the various Tea Party groups around the country.
Conservatives think they are going to educate the rest of the country about how things really work, but they are simply unwitting henchmen of the oligarchs. They so worship at the altar of wealth and power, look up to the rich, and believe one day they too will be rich, that they offer to share in a mutual disdain of Americans judged beneath them. They would hardly know these Americans existed if it wasn’t for their extreme contempt for people they don’t know. These fellow Americans who conservatives so vehemently hate, are kept out of sight, only seen when conservatives stop to check what it is they are stepping on.
I have one question for these conservatives. Do you ever get tired of thinking the worst of people?
How does someone who is solidly middle-class more easily identify with Charles Koch over someone making a poverty wage? Because I must say, for more and more of the middle-class, poverty is a much more likely destination than billionaire status. This worship of wealth is not unique of conservatives, but they have assimilated this worship into their political ideology. That’s why you hear phrases like “welfare queen” and “get a job” or “get a better job” offered as scornful critiques in place of doing something to help people. And maybe that’s really what this is about, a lack of empathy. Sure, people worship wealth, but a simpler explanation for conservative ideology, that advocates cutting programs for the poor, is that they simply don’t care. And when you remember how conservatives wanted to allow someone to die because he lacked health care insurance (during a Republican presidential debate), I think it’s safe to say empathy is not a strong characteristic of the conservative movement.
