Hullabaloo

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

 
Gate-gate reverberations

by digby

I am so loving this British "gate-gate" scandal. It shows just how commonplace these top 1% whines are, even among those who've been dealing with class consciousness a lot longer than Americans have. It would appear that the ruling elites are starting to unravel a bit.

The British politician who screamed at the cops last week continues to be in the news with revelations that the police logs back up the police testimony:

The police log records that Mitchell demanded to be allowed to cycle through the Downing Street security gates. A female police officer told Mitchell, who insisted that he always cycled through the gates, that it was not policy to open the gates for cyclists.

A colleague of the female PC wrote: "After several refusals Mr Mitchell got off his bike and walked to the pedestrian gate with me after I again offered to open that for him.

"There were several members of public present as is the norm opposite the pedestrian gate and as we neared it, Mr Mitchell said: 'Best you learn your fucking place … you don't run this fucking government … You're fucking plebs'."

The officer who wrote the log said he told Mitchell he would have to arrest him if he continued to swear at him. The log reports Mitchell as saying "you haven't heard the last of this" as he left on his bike.

Somebody's been watching a little too much Downton Abbey.

But really, how different is that from this little tirade by John Kasich?

I'm as critical of the police as anyone, but if that's what a privileged politician considers "disrespect" he's living in a very different world from most Americans. Maybe he should get tasered a time or two for looking at the cop sideways and see what "disrespect" really is. (And I doubt very much that Kasich would have had such a problem with the police rousting one of "those people" for exactly the same infraction.)

And Romney's little tantrum about people who deign to take their votes to politicians who look out for their interests is similarly disdainful of the "plebs":

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them.

Apparently, they don't "know their place" either.

These are just three examples of comments from the ruling class over the past few years that have betrayed their enormous privilege and downright comtempt for the masses. The just can't stop complaining about how hard they work and how terrible it is when they don't get their million dollar bonuses and how terrible it is that poor people aren't paying enough in income taxes. It's so stereotypical of out of touch aristocrats that you have to wonder about their basic intelligence.

It might be silly to focus on these verbal outbursts, but they are completely in line with their policies. And when the people hear what they are saying they understand that instinctively. It's a very foolish thing for them to do.

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digby 9/25/2012 10:30:00 AM