It’s hard to do it because you gotta look people in the eye and tell ‘em they’re irresponsible and lazy. And who’s gonna wanna do that? Because that’s what poverty is, ladies and gentlemen. In this country, you can succeed if you get educated and work hard. Period. Period.
Bill “Poverty is a lack of hard work” O’Reilly, for Fox News
(via reallyfoxnews)
When are people going to realize how ignorant this statement is? Social mobility is becoming more and more limited each day, and poverty has nothing to do with hard work. It is blatantly obvious that,
1. Bill O’Reilly has never had a service job in his life
2. inherited wealth, and
3. has never studied sociological theory or any sociology related topic in his life, or else he might actually understand the concepts of social mobility and oppression/greed.
(via killtvmakestuff)
I wonder how many of his fans he just called “irresponsible and lazy” in this?
(via feministslut)
A guy who gets paid millions for working an hour a day gets to call full-time minimum-wage workers irresponsible and lazy?
[animated image: Judge Judy sits in her courtroom in front of an American flag and New York state flag. She glances to towards the right side of the image and gives an incredulous smirk.]
(via afunnyfeminist)
The 99% posters I see MOSTLY complain about this lie. This piece of shit we all get fed that “getting educated” will put us on the path to success. Now we all took out student loans to pay hyper-inflated tuition prices for bullshit degrees that don’t matter when there are NO JOBS you can put that degree to work with.
of course he’s insulting his fans and dissenters alike, but the difference is his fans will agree with him. They’re the 53%-ers, the ones who think it’s okay to work 100 hours a week to make ends meet. Because they believe this bullshit myth of “hard work.”
Newsflash: The people telling us we just have to “work hard” have no fucking idea what that really even means. It’s just like being told you didn’t pray hard enough for something to come. If you’re provided for, you’re working hard enough, whether that means broadcasting one hour a day on television or working 100 hours a week with no benefits. If you’re not provided for, then you’re not working hard enough. Even if you’re working 110 hours a week.
Just like God can’t lose, Capitalism can’t lose either. Corporations can’t lose. It’s not their fault when the economy collapses, it’s not their fault when they don’t create any jobs for people to “work hard” at. It IS their doing when things are going well, though.
(via sonic-hip-attack)
Fuck this fucktard. Poverty is not a lack of hard work. It’s a lack of luck. Fuck you rich people and fuck you Bill O’Reilly.
(via simplyopinions)
It’s opinions and attitudes like O’Reilly’s that will raise the collective temperature of the lower class to a boiling point. History shows us that poor people, if pushed, will turn to violence to quench their thirst for “justice” or “fairness” when, really it will be about jealousy and revenge. But what you call it won’t matter. Back during the late 1800s and early 1900s, rich people’s homes were sacked in cities like New York. Rich people hired guards to make sure no one would burn their homes down. See—they weren’t common thieves—they wanted revenge and it’ll happen again, just like back then (read Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” for more on this—it’s a brilliant history book as it is told from the loser’s point-of-view).
But the thing is, the attitude of the rich isn’t entirely inaccurate—if you work hard you are more likely to do well. After all, success is when preparation meets opportunity. So the rich are right in this way. Of course, they don’t talk about the lack of opportunities. Also, just because the rich are partially right doesn’t give them license to be douchebags about it. And the bigger the douchebag they are, the more anxious the “unprivileged” will be to pop that bag and shower in that vinegar and water goodness (sorry, metaphor went off the rails there).
Now, when the rich get all uppity about “class warfare” they’re just Orwellian-style doublespeaking. In other words, when rich people talk of “class warfare” they’re doing it to distract us from noticing that they, themselves are committing acts of class war.
When a rich person says to a jobless, homeless or penniless person (JHP), “work hard and you will succeed!” that is class warfare. The rich person is withholding all aid and resources from this “JHP” person. Now consider what you do to your enemy in a time of war: you cut off their resources.
Therefore cutting funding to social programs, health programs, libraries and education is literally class warfare. It’s wonderful since they get mad when they’re accused of class warfare, but they don’t have a problem accusing everyone else.
And capitalism is JUST like God, as one of the rebloggers above said. And it’s just as impossible to have a rational conversation with someone who has an irrational belief in something.
The system is failing us—and it will continue to fail us because of this absurd faith in the magical properties of capitalism. So, until something dramatically changes, the system will continue to fall apart because the people in charge are just ignoring the problems, even denying they exist—as though belief is enough. They’re like economic Christian Scientists.
Idiots.
Six years later, do *you* feel that our leaders are representing us well?
