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Tom Perkins Apologizes for Referencing Kristallnacht But Still Says He is Right

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Appearing on Bloomberg TV, Thomas Perkins doubled down on his false equivalences that America’s 1 percent are to be compared to Germany’s Jews and progressives to Hitler’s Nazis. Keep in mind, this was supposed to be an apology.

Host Emily Chang presided over Perkins’ self-persecution fest, where he showed very little regret, positioned himself as both a minority and a victim, and basically insisted that nobody had a right to criticize him.

Even though, apparently, he is free to criticize everybody else. Watch courtesy of Bloomberg TV:

“It was a terrible use of the word I chose,” Perkins admitted in reference to his use of 1938’s Kristallnacht in his letter. He said he had apologized to the Anti-Defamation League:

“I deeply apologize to you and any who’ve mistaken my reference to Kristallnacht as a sign of overt or latent anti-Semitism. This is not the case.”

But that “apology” if it can be termed that, was as far as he was willing to go. He then proceeded to justify his use of the term:

I used the word because, during the Occupy [sic] of San Francisco by the Occupy Wall Street crowd, they broke the windows in the Wells Fargo Bank, they marched up to our automobile strip on Van Ness Avenue, and broke all the windows in all of the luxury car dealerships. And I saw that, I remembered how the police just stood by frozen and I thought, ‘Well, this is how Kristallnacht began.’

Except, that was not how Kristallnacht began. The two evens have nothing in common. The Nazis were in power and Kristallnacht was orchestrated by the Nazi Party – by Hitler himself according to historians. President Obama did not organize the Occupy Movement, nor order any windows to be broken. He is not waging a “war on the rich.” No half-way sane pundit has ever suggested such a thing. Nor did the Democratic Party organize the Occupy Movement nor order any windows to be broken. Nor do Democratic demands that the rich pay their fair share in taxes amount to a “war on the rich” or plans for concentration camps.

Are we to compare any breaking of windows under any and all circumstances to Kristallnacht, or only those in which the wealthy feel threatened? And that is another false equivalence, that the Jews represented Germany’s 1 percent. Sure, there were wealthy Jews in Germany. There were also wealthy Gentiles, whom, as I pointed out yesterday, were only too happy to support Hitler against the Jews, against the Communists, and against those who did not share their völkisch (ethnic-nationalist) ideology.

All Perkins was interested in during his appearance on Bloomberg TV was positioning himself as a victim:

My point was that when you start to use hatred against a minority, it can get out of control.” He complained that “as a messenger” he had been “thoroughly killed by everybody” and asked, “at least read the message.

Oh. We have. We have read the message. We are all well aware of the message. We all just LOVE social Darwinism.

And as for the rest: How could anyone be upset about the refusal of the rich to extend healthcare to their employees, or a living wage, or decent working conditions, the refusal to pay women equal pay for equal work, or the refusal of the wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes, or shipping American jobs overseas along with their untaxed profits? What’s to be angry about?

I don’t feel personally threatened, but I think a very important part of America, the creative 1 percent, are threatened. I think rich as a class are threatened by higher taxes and higher regulation.

Where is his sense of shame for even saying something like this, while the poor are threatened with so much worse?

Perkins thinks it only fair he pay less taxes than you. That he is somehow better than you. And that the 1 percent with their obscene lifestyles, are somehow the victims in all this. That those without jobs, without medical care, without homes, without food, without clothes, are bullies, along with those who stand up for the them.

In Perkins’ twisted world, it isn’t the poor who have been demonized, but the rich. It is time for this man and all his friends to come down off their ivory towers and mix with the hoi polloi, with the 99 percent. It is time for the rich to wake up to the reality of the 21st century America they have created.

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Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen's Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.

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