This morning on Weekend Edition we learned that the most oppressed people in the universe are totally those billionaires who selflessly give to political candidates dark-money slush funds and must endure – steel yourselves, people, this isn’t pretty – criticism for doing so.
And, in what I’m sure they feel is an unironic action, they are citing a 1950’s case protecting NAACP members’ identities as relevant.
Yes, Karl Rove fears that our maligned billionaire class will be intimidated and will no longer fund his biannual grifting operation donate to civic-minded groups like, say, Rove’s own Crossroads GPS.
What’s worse, some people mock these benighted mega-rich, suggesting that disclosure hasn’t done anything to actually threaten their well being, if, by well-being, you mean “things other than a potential drop in reportable revenues.”
It’s that sissy liberal media who think people like Malala Yousafzai are courageous, because of the whole getting shot standing up for women’s education, or Victoria Soto, who only put herself between an assault rifle and a classroom full of 6 and 7-year olds. They simply don’t appreciate the fear that one lives with, day after day, when you have to worry about whether people who make far less money than you do have the temerity to criticize you, and if your security staff might qualify for benefits.
It would be unseemly of me to wish on these brave heroes of the moneyed class the kind of real fear that was behind the Supreme Court decision they seek to abuse – the thought that someone might fire a shotgun into your house, and that the someone who did it was the same person taking your statement when you reported this to the local sheriff. Or that people who killed your neighbor for registering you to vote are getting away with it because the “justice” system in your town is part of the group that ordered the hit.
Unseemly, perhaps, but I can’t guarantee that the thought doesn’t find fleeting life in my mind when I let down my guard.
I live in Southern California, grew up in New York and Minneapolis, and have family scattered in three countries. I am a liberal, and woe be to anyone who says that with any sort of moronic disclaimer (i.e. “I’m a liberal but I’m not crazy” or “I’m a liberal but I still believe terrorism is bad”). I’m a liberal, OK? No apologies. However, I do think, when I hear the word uttered by some people, of Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Mutant Poodle 
As the NPR story pointed out, the key issue in that case was that the NAACP was not protected by the police. I never noticed that the police had any trouble protecting billionaires.
By: professorsusan on December 30, 2012
at 1:29 PM