Moyers on Drinking with W
"Look, back in 2000 working people were told 'Gee, George W. Bush is the man you want to have a beer with!' Yeah, but when you had that beer with him you got up from the bar realizing he had left you with the tab."
— Bill Moyers to Charlie Rose, "Conversation with Bill Moyers", Charlie Rose, c. 9 May 2008.
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I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Sunday, 11 May 2008 at 19.17
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I saw that and thought it was a gentlemanly exercise in metaphorical understatement.
on Tuesday, 13 May 2008 at 20.39
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I was quite proud of a response I crafted for your Bill Moyer's post below, but it would not post. Sigh. Anyway, in it I mused about Moyers decryment of the wealthy. I think he wants the wealthy to put their time, talent, and resources to Bill Moyer's causes. Moyers also complained about gated communities, but if the hoi polloi would be nicer, the wealthy would live amongst them.
on Wednesday, 14 May 2008 at 23.36
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"but if the hoi polloi would be nicer, the wealthy would live amongst them."
Trying to imagine, after an epidemic of niceness, the super-rich and super-indebted wannabes locating their luxurious estates and upscale McMansions amidst the hoi polloi's hovels — to the complete amazement and horror of their real estate pro's, bankers and financial managers.
No, RSF, I think if the hoi polloi were to suddenly and universally become good choirboys and girls, the wealthy would still build on the hilltops, along ridges, lake- and ocean-shore strips, and behind gates and walls. Saves on having their peers ask, "What were you thinking?"
on Thursday, 15 May 2008 at 08.30
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>>>>…the wealthy would still build on the hilltops, along ridges, lake- and ocean-shore strips, and behind gates and walls.
I suppose we would still have the bio-filial thing going on, i.e. we want a hill with a view, but the point was that if Moyers can decry the gated rich, I can decry the defacto gated ghetto with its acceptance of crime and clutter as informal militias against those of other socioeconomic status.
>>>>the super-rich and super-indebted wannabes locating their luxurious estates and upscale McMansions amidst the hoi polloi's hovels
Where I live in the sparsely populated West, we have that now. The poverty here is maximum, by U.S. standards, but we are one of the recent "discovered" areas, where the wealthy are buying and building. Merv Griffith's son, a billionaire, just bought in down the road from me. On the way to town is one striking example, where one passes a trophy home, and the next place has so much trash piled around the propane tank that the company refused to service it. What makes it work is distance between homes, and a low crime rate.
on Thursday, 15 May 2008 at 21.43
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RSF, I'm sorry the comments didn't work so that we could read your well-crafted comment about Moyers, but I don't know of any reason right now that might have prevented it. It used to be that when SW's blog wouldn't let me post comments (can you believe it!), I needed to reboot my browser. It was something nefarious about the Javascript, I think.
I don't know that Moyers dislikes the "rich", as such, but I suspect he doesn't much respect those "rich" who use their power or money against the less fortunate. Naturally that description leaves lots of room for interpretation.
But I'd always thought that being able to live other than where the hoi polloi was seen as one of the great rewards of being wealthy. It's never seemed to me that where the rich gather has any real objective superiority over where the HP gather, except that the HP can be kept away economically, politically, by police, by fences & gates, whatever.
Isn't this why there are high-priced department stores? Surely there's no reason for the rich to pay four or five times what the HP pay for identical goods except that the rich don't have to shop near the HP.
I don't think I mind rich people, generally speaking. After all I now run a nonprofit corporation and hope to convince many rich people to give me large amounts of their money to do good works on their behalf. It's the semi-Faustian bargain whereby I get to do the good works I think worth doing.
I think, though, that I don't care for rich people who believe that they are rich entirely through their own efforts.
on Friday, 16 May 2008 at 23.14
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RSF wrote:
The rich live behind gates by choice and at extra expense. Many, probably most, ghetto poor live where they can afford to live and amidst those who share their poverty and, typically, their ethnicity.
You might have heard of redlining, RSF. It's not a device of ghetto dwellers' making. Some poor people who have worked hard and done all the right things have encountered a hard time relocating to better living and/or business locations. And make no mistake, some want to relocate because they want no part of clutter and crime for themselves or their children.
Your view of these things comes across as a bit shallow and long on stereotyping and generalizations.
BTW, I think you mean Merv Griffin's son.