07.12.12
How could Mitt Romney be more odious?
Not a theoretical question. I’m sure he’ll show us.
This is a good song. You know it is.
From images of corporate raiding, to luxury speedboats, to offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands, to mega-mansions in the Hamptons, this week’s stories suggest that the candidacy of Mitt Romney – poster-boy for the symbiotic relationship between big money and the modern Republican party – is in serious trouble …
Last weekend’s photos of the Romney clan on a luxury speedboat cruising around a lake in New Hampshire, where their multimillion-dollar compound sits, were startling in their tone-deafness.
What is so very puzzling about the whole episode is the sheer in-your-face-ness of it.
Yet, perhaps that is the point. As a very perceptive article in the New York Magazine, Lisa Miller describes how new psychological research indicates that wealth erodes empathy with others. In the “Money-Empathy Gap”, Miller cites one researcher who says that:
“The rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people. It makes them more likely to exhibit characteristics that we would stereotypically associate with, say, assholes.”
I changed the thumbnail photo on Mean Future, canceling out the “I Love Capitalism” Tea Party man. It’s too disturbed, like watching someone you’re sure has slipped from their prescription drug straight jacket.
I was on Lake Winnipesaukee once, as a child. I accidentally threw a neighbor’s fishing rod overboard with a bungled cast. It was never recovered.