During the presidential campaign of 2011 and 2012, Mitt Romney kept using one particular phrase that really made me angry and that phrase was "politics of envy".
The arrogance and willful ignorance that goes with the notion that everyone who is increasingly alarmed by the growing gulf between the rich and the poor in this country, and choose to speak out about it, are envious of one's "wealth" is beyond measure.
Richard Wilkinson's TED talk "How Economic Inequality Harms Societies" makes it perfectly clear just how self-defeating and short-sighted a mindset which assumes poor people are flawed, lazy, and resentful towards honest and hard-working Americans really is by the numbers.
Wilkinson chose a unique perspective to deliver his message by illustrating the degradation of society as a function of the rise of mental illness, strains on the cost of medical and emergency services, violent crime, markedly reduced trust among citizens and towards their government, increased apathy and learned-helplessness, and many other issues that will ultimately have a measurable impact on the continued culture of consumerism here in America.
Even if one is inclined to feel attacked or chooses to go on the defensive whenever anyone dares to call out the injustices of inequality, one is still certain to find that as the middle-class decays away and all we are left with are Princes and Poppers, that the wealthy class will have no one left to underwrite their extravagant lifestyles through revenue taxes and cheap labor.
No Mr. Romney, I don't envy your wealth at all...clearly it has had no positive affect on your character.
