The Rich Strike Back (Again)

The 1% Accuse The 99% of "Persecution, Envy, Jealousy”

Ken Langone, Billionaire founder of The Home Depot and a major Republican

donor, was among the denizens of Wall Street who spoke to Politico for a piece

titled, 'The Rich Strike Back'


In this article Mr Langone felt it incumbent upon himself to complain about

the current dissatisfaction felt by many of his fellow Americans. He addresses

this dissatisfaction in a way that quite a few of his wealthy peers have done

recently; he compares the current climate in America to that of Nazi Germany.


The article should have been titled "The Rich Strike Again" because Mr. Langone

is not the first of the World's wealthiest individuals to voice the sentiment

that present day America is akin to Nazi Germany and that the wealthiest

themselves are the persecuted class.


In Mr. Langones words, “…if you go back to 1933…this is what Hitler was saying 

in Germany; you don’t survive as a society if you encourage and thrive on envy 

or jealousy.”


Tom Perkins, the aging Billionaire Silicon Valley Wunderkind, founder of Kleiner,

Perkins, Caufield, & Byers, recently bemoaned in a Wall Street Journal Op Ed

that he, and his unfathomably wealthy peers face impending Kristallnacht and

that THEY are being cast in the role of the Jews.


Mr. Perkins states that “I would call attention to the parallels of Nazi Germany 

to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the 

American one percent, namely the "rich."


Respectfully, Messrs. Langone and Perkins, you are more likely to be pitied,

ridiculed, or what is most likely, simply ignored, than you are to be targets of

envy or jealousy by the vast majority of Americans.


Undeniably there is a certain number of people who look at your wealth and

strive to emulate your success. They are most likely to populate the upper

echelons of the very corporations which you control. But they are, by far, the

exception rather than the rule.


Instead of ascribing “Envy” and “Jealousy” to your fellow Americans, you might

wish to pause for a moment and thank God that the American people are in

possession of vastly greater amounts of “Tolerance” and “Patience”.


Without these two attributes, Good Sirs, the populace would have long

ago stormed your pitiful little gated communities, occupied your gaudy

McMansions, and bounced your sorry derrieres out into the taxpayer-built

streets.

Streets that were built by the very people that you malign; them and their Nazi

Kammeraden.