Wedge Issues
You have to admit Osama is the product of his class, i.e. sons of wealthy families who never held a real job and embrace religion after years of hell-raising. He knows how to appeal to the class, as Sharon Weinberger of Danger Room points out in her post Read Osama’s Lips: No Taxes, Ever.
I thought is was satire, but sure enough if you read the SITE Intelligence Group transcript [PDF] on page 7 you find:
There are no taxes in Islam, only a limited Zakaat (alms) totaling 2.5 percent.
Wow, a 2.5% flat tax! Grover Norquist and Steve Forbes must be conflicted.
14 comments
Heh! Osama bin Laden, the conservative’s conservative! Osama is no laughing matter, but I have to smile at his lack of economic understanding… or else his disingenuousness on behalf of his class. Maybe my gut feeling that Osama equals Dubya with the polarity switched isn’t so far off base after all.
They were raised under the same conditions – money and no personal responsibility.
People don’t seem to notice that most of the “revolutionaries” of the world are educated members of the upper class. A few like Adolf, get through, but most of the worst were members of the privileged class who wanted more power.
wanted more power and had the means to get it.
Access to power is the worst sort of entitlement that ultimately costs the most.
Steve and I were comparing similarities between the two terrorists Osama and Georgie in comments here.
The more I think on it, the weirder it is.
And you, Bryan. I type faster than I can think!
OT: don’t miss Maru at WTF and the Jedi squirrels.
Ellroon, read about Marx, Engels, Lenin, Ché, Carlos the Jackel, Fidel – all of these guys are educated products of the upper middle class or higher. These are people who have the time to think about things other than making a living and the arrogance to believe that they know how to run the world.
The same goes for military dictators who are rarely lower class.
The “people” get sucked into the movements of the wastrel youth of the upper classes, they don’t start revolutions.
the jedi squirrels are terrific.
The squirrel conspiracy is an Ellroon specialty.
my dad spent years trying to outsmart the squirrels that were raiding his bird feeders. a retired engineer, he had plenty of time, money, and ingenuity to throw at the problem, and the rest of us got huge laughs out of the ever-escalating warfare, with the squirrels defeating every rube goldberg apparatus dad devised.
dad finally won: he quit feeding the birds entirely. i’m going to have to e-mail him that picture. 😈
Ah, the problem is he lacked a USB missile launcher to defeat the squirrels.
that looks like waaaaaaaaaay too much fun. also, i need that i’m blogging this t-shirt.
Too many toys, not enough time.
alas, too true.