Tom Perkins, the venture capitalist who said critiques of the 1% could lead to a Holocaust against wealthy people is doubling down in new comments to Bloomberg. “In the Nazi era it was racial demonization, now it is class demonization,” says Perkins.
In case you missed it, here’s my take on where this kind of insanity is coming from.
We’re pleased to have Amanda Ripley, author of The Smartest Kids in The World, join us this week for TPM Cafe Book Club. She has a great essay written for TPM today on why poverty doesn’t explain gaps in test scores: “[I]f we consider only our most affluent kids, the top quartile of American 15 year olds by socio-economic status, we see something startling: our most privileged kids still score below their privileged peers in 26 other nations on a test of critical thinking in math.”
TPM subscribers should join us for a Q&A with Amanda Ripley on Friday at noon.
A great look at why New Jersey politics is so chronically sleazy and corrupt on a bipartisan basis.
Two white doves released by children standing by Pope Francis as a symbol of peace were immediately attacked by a renegade seagull and large black crow.
If you’ve been in the media slipstream today you know the outrage and mockery directed at Tom Perkins, one of the world’s wealthiest and most successful Silicon Valley venture capitalists, for an oped he wrote in the Wall Street Journal comparing the rising critique of income inequality and “the 1%” to Kristallnacht. Just so we’re all on the same page, Kristallnacht (“the night of shattered glass”) was essentially the opening act of Hitler’s Final Solution. It took place on November 9th and 10th, 1938. This claim manages simultaneously to be so logically ridiculous and morally hideous that Perkins deserves every bit of abuse he’s already receiving.
But I think we’re missing the point if we see this as the gaffe of one aging, coddled jerk. Because it’s only a more extreme and preposterous version of beliefs that have become increasingly widespread in the wealthiest sectors of American society, especially since 2008 and the twin events of the global financial crisis and the election of Barack Obama.
In the face of mounting protests, Ukraine’s embattled president offers prime ministership to one of the leaders of the opposition.
Harrowing, hellish images from increasingly violent clashes between protestors and security police and Kiev and other cities across Ukraine …
Black smoke and fireballs rise during clashes between protesters and police in central Kiev, Ukraine, early Saturday, Jan. 25, 2014.
A whopping 60 percent of Kentucky Republicans support the state’s Medicaid expansion under Obamacare.