The Heartbreaking Right-Wing Version of ‘We Are the 99 Percent’

Posted by JacobSloan on October 14, 2011

One would expect mocking of We Are The 53%, but in fact the site is “heartbreaking”, writes Gawker:

Did you know that if you are uninsured or jobless, you should just suck it up? That if you’re overworked or underemployed, you should be thankful? Learn all that—and more!—at “We Are the 53%,” the right wing’s incredibly depressing response to Occupy Wall Street!

We Are the 53%” was created thought up by CNN’s chief goat-fucking correspondent Erick Erickson as a response to “We Are the 99 Percent,” an Occupy Wall Street-affiliated blog that collects the stories of the underemployed, overworked, debt-ridden and uninsured victims of the recession. The blog, run by conservative filmmaker Mike Wilson, gets its name from the popular (and wildly simplistic!) Republican talking point that only 53 percent of households pay federal income taxes.

What makes “We Are the 53%” so heartbreaking isn’t that its contributors are enormous jerks—it’s that so many of them could just as easily be writing in to We Are the 99 Percent. Like the “former marine” in the center who hasn’t had “4 consecutive days off in 4 years.” The phrase “I don’t have health insurance” pops up frequently on “We Are the 53%,” but not as a cry for help or an indictment of a broken system. Here, it’s a badge of pride.

You’d think that someone who “never had the option of parental health insurance to age 26″ would see why such a policy makes sense, or that a person who used welfare and food stamps after suffering an injury and losing her job might understand better than anyone else the value of a social safety net. But, nope! Basic ideas (some might even call them “human rights”!) like “paid time off” and “health insurance” and “a living wage” are apparently the demands of an unreasonably entitled parasitic class.

This is where the best of American values meet their most masochistic applications. Did you work 60-70 hours a week for nearly a decade to get a college degree after serving in this country’s military? This is America! Drive on! Do you now have two different jobs, neither of which will pay you insurance? Stop whining and suck it up! And if any of those problems are directly attributable to reckless, self-serving behavior on the part of enormous banking conglomerates, for God’s sake don’t blame them! You are the 53 percent!

Posted in: Conservatives, OccupyWallStreet, Politics, populism, Society

DeepCough

I believe the term is “Uncle Cracker.”
DeepCough

I don’t know where you get your facts, asshole, but there was no “Left Wing” dominating the U.S. government at the time this fucking happened. The Wall Street Crash of 2008 was a swindle that happened under the Bush administration, and instead of giving the banks the conservative middle finger they deserved, he gave them $700 billion, which could have been used to improve American healthcare, instead of line the pockets of greedy-fuck plutocrats.
Candlharvey1

It’s sad to me that you people can’t see past your own stupidity to realize these people are actually PROUD of the fact that they worked hard for what they have and didn’t need any handouts.
Mr Willow

They would have treated Thomas Paine as if he were the anti-christ.
Anti-Citizen1

I can’t believe that you are so stupid that you can’t understand that that isn’t what this is about.
Misinformation

You really think “these” people are doing this because they’re proud of the fact that they worked hard? Why don’t they just keep it to themselves then? Why do they set themselves up in opposition to others in similar positions…because they aren’t doing it for pride. You’re doing it out of fear.
Mysophobe

That article says nothing about forcing FM/FM to loan money, or “taking on as much in subprime loans as possible”. It does mention a program that aimed to ease credit restrictions “a notch” and attempted to combat redlining in minority communities. Keep blaming the least fortunate among us though, I really think that strategy has legs. Keep claiming that the poor and powerless are draining the life’s blood out of America without a hint of irony.
http://thefirstchurchofmutterhals.blogspot.com/ mutterhals

Fuck a hand out, I don’t want a hand out, I want everyone to be held to the same standards I am.
5by5

From Gawker: “What makes ‘We Are the 53%’ so heartbreaking isn’t that its contributors are enormous jerks — it’s that so many of them could just as easily be writing in to ‘We Are the 99 Percent’. Like the former marine who hasn’t had ‘4 consecutive days off in 4 years.’ The phrase, ‘I don’t have health insurance,’ pops up frequently on that stupid faux-blog — but not as a cry for help or an indictment of a broken system. Here, it’s a badge of pride.”It’s totally mis-directed anger. Like, “Look what I endure because I’m a manly man!” A couple of corporate asshats tell rank-and-file guys like this that somehow it’s more “manly” and “independent” and all “pull yourself up by your bootstrapy”, and these poor suckers buy it.They’ve actually let their male ego be used by a couple of corporate tools to ass rape THEMSELVES.This is what Teddy Roosevelt meant when he talked about those who were “base and servile” because they didn’t object to being oppressed. Anti-Citizen1 is quite correct, it’s totally a wage slave mentality. Rather than looking at a union worker who gets proper health benefits, and enough of a decent wage that he can send his kids to college so that the next generation does even better than this one, this kind of guy doesn’t say, “Why don’t I have those benefits too?” instead, he childishly thinks, “Well if I can’t have benefits, nobody else should either. So there.”He lets his jealousy trump his reason, and gets punked by “The Man” as a result.It’d be sad, if these people weren’t so poisonous to political progress.
Andrew

I want you and everybody else to be held to fairer standards.
Candlharvey1

Guess what??? Life isn’t fair, you are not as good as everyone else. Suck it up, didn’t your parents teach you the facts of life? There are winners and there are losers, everyone can’t win. I don’t want to be held to the same standars as everyone else….. Are you kidding me?!?! This is life not the special Olympics get the Hell over it, quit whining and go be the best YOU, you can be. Post back when you grow up, get a job, pay your own taxes and move outta your mommas basement. DAMN
Candlharvey1

The only thing I fear is the fact that there are so many entitlement shits such as yourself that want the government to take care of you. You racked up the student loans, pay them off. That is not my problem and I don’t want to pay bc you are a dumbass. Free healthcare, rainbows, and sunshine…. Really? You want me to buy you a house and a car too? You aren’t special, your mom lied.
Misinformation

Own my house and 3 acres, no mortgage. Student loans paid off long ago. I’ve never made more than $15/hr. I’m sorry the talking points and rhetoric in your above post fell flat on their unimaginative face, maybe you can try again. When I look around at people going into debt just because they got sick, something is wrong, pathetic in fact. If that’s the world you envision, I hope your lack of imagination dies a quick death because reality is far more interesting than what you’ve been fed is “the American dream”. It’s sad that people are proud of “making ends meet”. Way to strive for the top. “Free healthcare, rainbows, and sunshine”, that’s genius. Way to steer clear of intelligent debate.
Andrew

Also, people need to be healthy in order to be able to work hard, so adequate health care precedes a healthy economy.
http://thefirstchurchofmutterhals.blogspot.com/ mutterhals

I’ve never seen so many goddamn cliches stuffed into one paragraph. Are you taking this right out of Right Wingery for Idiots or is that something you overheard at a John Birch meeting?
Hadrian999

hard work doesn’t get you ahead, you can work 120 hour weeks and be the best worker possible, you will still not break into the elite class, you may have a few comforts but you will never gain power from being a wage slave
Hadrian999

hard work doesn’t get you ahead, you can work 120 hour weeks and be the best worker possible, you will still not break into the elite class, you may have a few comforts but you will never gain power from being a wage slave
Hadrian999

that’s why I left the service, it isn’t possible to uphold the oath any more
Hadrian999

that’s why I left the service, it isn’t possible to uphold the oath any more
Hadrian999

that’s why I left the service, it isn’t possible to uphold the oath any more
Anonymous

Unfortunately, given an economy where 70 pct of activity is based on consumer spending, 53 pct will need 99 pct to spend more, and that means more employment and credit.
Anonymous

Unfortunately, given an economy where 70 pct of activity is based on consumer spending, 53 pct will need 99 pct to spend more, and that means more employment and credit.
Anonymous

Unfortunately, given an economy where 70 pct of activity is based on consumer spending, 53 pct will need 99 pct to spend more, and that means more employment and credit.
olfisherman

yeah you’re right. except for the fact that over 70% of current multi-millionaires in the US today are self made.
Andrew

“Self made?” How, by laying off workers and trading debt and poisoning the environment and betting on which companies will fail? Yeah, those are the kind of people who deserve full health coverage and the opportunity to write the nation’s laws.
Hadrian999

they didn’t get there by being a worker, you can be a multimillionaire and still be very middle class
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=562168388 Keith Proctor

At least one of the 53% isn’t real, doesn’t live in this country, and very likely didn’t write his own piece accusing the protesters in NYC of being lazy. Photoshop is fun! http://i.imgur.com/yarZ7.jpg
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=562168388 Keith Proctor

At least one of the 53% isn’t real, doesn’t live in this country, and very likely didn’t write his own piece accusing the protesters in NYC of being lazy. Photoshop is fun! http://i.imgur.com/yarZ7.jpg
Anonymous

Can’t believe no one’s posted this on here yet.

This so called 53% movement is all disinfo, bullshit propaganda. A good number of the photos up there have been debunked at this point
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439×2121926

and as someone with a lot of experience with photoshop I can tell you a great many of these are at the very least altered, including that first one of the marine in the photos attached to this article. His hand is at an angle that would require his arm to be frickin’ long to be at that angle, showing that the hand was either moved or added wholesale, and the paper has been either modified or added. Also if you go through the photos you’ll discover that several of them have not just the same wording (which you can explain away as people not being original enough and copying from previously uploaded ones), but have similar handwriting, implying they may have been written by just a few people.

Some of these are undoubtedly real, now that it’s out there and other people have donated. But it didn’t start that way.
Anonymous

I dare say that porn counts as “circuses” in this discussion.
Anonymous

You know, I know you’re probably at least half joking but that’s a very good point. I wonder how much of the “you must suffer in this life to get into heaven” BS that is preached at some strains of Christian church has contributed to this.
Anonymous

Go into IT. College helps but experience trumps it and ability trumps both. Systems engineers make the most, then programmers, then designers. You can easily make twice that as a systems engineer or sysadmin without a day of college. But you have to be damn good at it to do so.
Anonymous

Go into IT. College helps but experience trumps it and ability trumps both. Systems engineers make the most, then programmers, then designers. You can easily make twice that as a systems engineer or sysadmin without a day of college. But you have to be damn good at it to do so.
http://thefirstchurchofmutterhals.blogspot.com/ mutterhals

You need to learn to shut the fuck up when grown folks are talking.
http://thefirstchurchofmutterhals.blogspot.com/ mutterhals

You need to learn to shut the fuck up when grown folks are talking.
Anonymous

You… really have no grasp on these things do you.

First of all, people don’t want things “for free”. They want to be the ones to get the value from their work rather than having 99.99999% of that value passed on to people who are already too rich to even notice when that new value comes in and who did nothing to earn it. If you’re working a solid full time job, you should have access to affordable healthcare, should be able to put your kids through college, should be able to buy a home. No one’s asking for any of that to be free. They just want to be able to keep the value from their work for themselves, and they think _everyone_ should be paying into the system. They’re not now. Closing the tax loopholes for the super rich and for corporations would be an excellent start to fixing the problem. They also think that people who _can’t_ work — not won’t. CAN’T — (disability, result of aging, too young) shouldn’t be left in the street to starve and die of treatable medical conditions.

And your description of the mortgage fiasco is not accurate. The plutocracy got both Dems and Repubs (who are at this point, both Right wing, not Left) to remove consumer protections so they could lure in people who were assured they’d be able to pay and then had the terms changed on them and their payments went up. And a good many people were perfectly able to pay when they got the mortgage but then lost their job or had major medical expenses that drove them into bankruptcy. That’s not counting all the fraudulent loans that the banks created out of thin air so they could get the insurance money when they “defaulted”. Loan fraud on a massive scale, perpetuated almost entirely by the banks themselves, made possible by both D and R bowing to their masters and removing regulations, THAT is what caused the financial meltdown. And many banks and financial institutions that applied for TARP assistance were denied. It went pretty exclusively to the biggest banks (dare I suggest, only the ones that have their own bought and paid politicians in DC) with the idea that they’d lend the money to get business moving again. They did not do so and instead sat on the money and made record profits at the same time.

The fact that you would say anyone in government was a master of a corporation instead of the other way around just proves how little you’ve actually researched on the subject.
Anonymous

I think you make a mistake in thinking that more than a very small percentage of this country would have heard about it even if we didn’t have massive protests under way. “Keep the population as uninformed as possible” is an aim of the corporate-controlled media.
Word Eater

It is true that not everyone gets to be an astronaut when they grow up.

However, I find it appalling that American citizens die every day from preventable or easily curable conditions. Sucks to be them? If that is how you feel, then you are part of the problem. How many other first world countries treat their most needy citizens like untouchables?
Moi

Ha ha CNN Propaganda FAIL!!!!
Anonymous

Racist shitheadism is encouraged and exploited by corporate media and rich right-wing assholers. Really you take any rich country that is less diverse, more unified in a particular national identity and it is progressive as fuck compared to the big ass stupid USA that has also struggled over its identity since “we’re a nation of immigrants” exactly means = different fuckers came here and new fuckers will continue to come to *compete* with You and your family, relatives, friends, your “in-group” your reference groups. So white people like Tea Party types like the stupid fuckhead asshole that tells everybody that is doing shitty to drop dead for all he cares (see the d-bag below) are what you get in a country of fearful fuckheads. It doesn’t take much to rile up that primate brain and make it want to see others not like him, die.
d13x

You have to feel for these guys. They know that they have been getting f* by the State all their lives and that they are stuck living in a financial hole for the rest of their lives with no way out. It must hurt so badly to face this that they will use such defense mechanisms discrediting this entire movement to feel better about themselves and keep their egos intact. The only thing they have left to hold on to at this point is their blind faith in the U.S.A! Its is truly sad…
Noname

Robot slaves. Only answer.
…

no matter how you put it they always had something or someone to give then the chance to get that far. and what of the billionaires? what percentage is self made? a billionaire’s worth 1000 millionaires that matters a hell of a lot more.
Ijensen

I don’t have health insurance and I don’t want it. I don’t see what’s so masochistic about that – I hate doctors, and I always have. I hate dentists, always have. I’ve been doctor-less and insurance-less for almost ten years now, since I was 17 and went out on my own. I think what most people miss, and what you call masochistic tendencies are actually a symbol of doing for oneself and relying on oneself rather than relying on any other entity. I want both big business and big government out of my life. I want a divorce from the powers-that-be.

The Heartbreaking Right-Wing Version of ‘We Are the 99 Percent’

more disinformation

more disinformation