The Courage to Be Less Wealthy - Huffington Post

[applegrove]

The Courage to Be Less Wealthy

Kathleen Reardon
Huffington Post

"The point I want to make, and this time in a very direct manner, is that being rich has gotten out of hand. It's vastly overrated and should cease immediately to be a reason for treating people better. I've hobnobbed in my career with the supposed mighty and rubbed elbows at Pebble Beach, The Plaza, and The Rainbow Room.

I've been escorted around rooms as an author or speaker to meet people who could buy everything I own with the snap of a finger. I've listened ad nauseum to people with vast wealth who thought it was my place to do so, whose changes of subject always reverted back to them, and whose cufflinks or briefcases alone could nearly fix the levees in New Orleans. I watched as an extraordinarily wealthy man and his wife stepped over to my table at a charity dinner while I was dancing to steal my teddy bear table gift even though they could have bought the factory that manufactured it. I've met many such people and I can now say, other than in terms of research, it was largely a decided waste of time.

As a nation we urgently need to develop a disdain for people who are transfixed on wealth. We should never allow them to take public office -- never again. Sure, they can be wealthy, but obsessed with becoming ever more so or feathering the nests of their wealthy friends should exclude them from an ounce of our respect. We should honor, instead, people who have the courage to be less wealthy in order to assure that others do not suffer or who do so in order to find time to make positive contributions or even to be with their families. The CEO who refuses to take a huge salary when people at his company are being laid off or tolerating reduced salaries and the shareholders (wherever they are) who stand up and say, "Money isn't the only issue here." They should be the people we want to meet, the ones we long to listen to and the ones who we admire.

It's very important for people with extraordinary wealth combined with phenomenal selfishness to know that they too are going to die. I hate to be the harbinger of bad news, but it's the truth. Most act as if they're going to be spared. They're hoarding for the future. What future? They have enough for a multitude of futures. And such people are wreaking havoc on our futures in the process.

... SNIP"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathleen-reardon/the-courage-to-be-less-we_b_19894.html

[applegrove]

1. What struck me immediately when I ventured onto "mixed boards"

to discuss politics, was how the conservative machine held people in trailer parks in such contempt. It was a insult of the most ultimate kind to say "you live in a trailer park". And there was shock & awe when I didn't take that as an insult.

I'm not used to that. We don't talk like that in Canada. At least not for now. (But the new conservative government quickly made it a crime for the flag on Parliament Hill to fly at half mast when soldiers died abroad in service to their country - which has met with rightful outrage).

With the neos, it is all about un-teaching "empathy & compassion" people in democracies hold for others not exactly like them. Which is in fact.. the only way democracy works: we vote. We don't necessarily get everything we want.. but most groups get what they need.

[glitch]

10. That is exactly what it's about, and it's been very directed since Reagan.

Watch for it, because if we can't contain them here they will spread like a nasty virus.
"With the neos, it is all about un-teaching "empathy & compassion" people in democracies hold for others not exactly like them."

[SmokingJacket]

2. Good essay.

It's sad that what she says isn't obvious to everyone, though.

[katinmn]

3. Hey, it's about time somebody said that!

Well done, Ms. Reardon. :applause:

[mntleo2]

4. I Left A Comment On That One Myself, LOL

It was so good to see that article for me! I said in essence that for years, ever since I was sickened by the phrase "greed is good", I have been critical of this glorification of wealth.

I have been accused of being jealous, but I am not. I want to be glad to have the food I have for the day, not be greedily taking from someone else's plate just so I can hoard it, lol. It is inhumane to me to let people starve while people sit on what is needed. the truth is, there would be enough to go around, if people would just share.

What I see that sickens me in excessive wealth is, an open, naked, unquenched greed. No matter how expensive the suit or the surroundings, it looks gaudy, and ugly to me. I think it is fine to want security, but how many houses can one person live in, how many cars can they drive at once, and how much of the world can you see going on expensive foreign vacations that only put a person in touch with other people just like them?

Excessive wealth is senselss IMO.

My 2 cents

Cat In Seattle

[girl gone mad]

12. It's a psychosis.

It really is. I've met people who have everything, and yet they act as if it's not enough. We've created a culture where people will go into enormous debt just to appear wealthy and already wealthy people will sell out their friends and neighbors to get more. It's disgusting.

[electron_blue]

16. It's because they're afraid.

As long as the rich people are still fearful of the lower classes,they will continue to hoard more.

[melissinha]

5. Think WI Senators Feingold and Kohl

For example, that is the juxtaposition of the hardworking self-made politician who ran his campaign on not taking pay raises, receiving contributions mostly from his constituents, staffing WI residents, limited his campaign amount to $3.8 million (one dollar for every citizen of Wisconsin) to the wealthy OTEHR DEMOCRAT who owns Kohl's Department Stores, has a fairly moderate voting record. He has voted in favor of most lawsuit reform measures as while as for rules tightening personal bankruptcy. He was one of the few Democrats to vote for the tax cut passed in 2001It really goes to show you the difference. Very different.

As someone who has attended a Private School abroad, I have seen the rich and wealthy, I have seen poor missionaries, I even even had a rich kid from the United Arab Emirates in my class.... I have lived next door to a shack with dirt floors.... (Brazil)
I'll tell you what I think, there are decent rich people who share and who are not judgmental, but there are also the ones that have more than you could imagine who aren't worth a lick of respect.

I truly agree with the author, I know what wealth is, and I will make every effort not to get it. If my potential wealth can be spread to many people who have not had the MANY opportunities that I have had, then so be it. I don't want it.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. I feel so sorry for these people

because even though they have a lot of money, they are really poor. To be wealthy means to be content with what you have, to be willing to share the joy of life with others, and to always remember the interconnection between all people.

As another poster said, there are people with money who know and understand this. Sam Waterston immediately comes to mind, as well as David and Penny McCall. Check out what that truly rich couple did, and how they lost their lives in service of others:

http://www.geocities.com/ayeshahaqqiqa/heroes.html

[applegrove]

7. I don't think you can generalize and say that all rich people are not

connected. People can be connected in so many ways to community. And bad apples appear everywhere. It is just that the philosophy of bad appledom has taken over certain groups of very rich. And because they are so rich they get power and use it to their ends. What hollow lives those people live.

Destroying the fabric that makes democracy great.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

8. Let me clarify

I meant that all beings are interconnected. When one realizes this, they often behave in a way different from those who don't realize this. People with a lot of money don't always realize this.

[OneBlueSky]

9. love it! . . . recommended . . . n/t

.

[glitch]

11. This is the simplicity movement, and it's growing all over the planet.

And what is truly weird is some right wingers find it, and sustainability, threatening, and to be targeted.

[Demeter]

13. That's Because It's Underlying Message Is Equality

Equality of power, equality of worth, equality of respect, equality of self-esteem and public respect.

There are people who cannot bear the thought that they have anything in common with common folk, even if they are common, too. So they throw common sense to the wind, and look for reasons to look down on others, so that they might have a better view of themselves.

It is a sickness of mind and soul.

[glitch]

14. The root is self-loathing. If we could just fix that...nt

[Mythsaje]

15. Anyone remember the phrase

"conspicuous consumption?"

Why should one person or family own two, three, or even FIVE homes (not for rental, but just in case they want to visit somewhere else) while other people live in cardboard boxes under bridges?

Why should one person (or one family) own five or seven or ten cars, when they only actually need two?

Bah, I could carry on forever in this vein...

[katty]

17. been around 'wealthy' ++ alot, some are uber unconscious, vapid

self-centered...others are down to earth and very caring, their relationship to their money status is tempered by character and conscience-they behave as if that is of far greater importance to them.

[knitter4democracy]

18. I like this.

This sums up some things I've been thinking this week.

[dooner]

19. It's all so true and I 100% agree but

this is what scares rich Repbulicans the most.. they think democrats want to take away their "hard earned" wealth.
They call it communism, and an anti-american anti-capitalist mentality. I've heard them argue that if you take away
incentives to attain uber-wealth, the entire system collapses and nobody would have anything.

No matter how logical this call to common sense sounds.. it's considered class warfare. It's like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
Maybe it's time for that?

[applegrove]

20. With a income tax rate of 36 percent - they are just getting rich a little

slower. Don't let them paint it to extremes. Those who want alot of money will work as hard for it as those people who make $7 an hour. If they want it or feel they need it. Nobody ever says - well pay more than minimum wage cause you are keeping people from wanting to work?

But it is essentially the same argument. Though the value to the family making $7 an hour of a wage increase is much more.

[teryang]

21. It is a little late for this

We are living in a fascist police state that needs to be at war to survive politically.

What is being described is a middle class ethic of the middle class professionals who use their talent and resources in public service. This group is for the most part being exhausted and weakened by the predatory elites. Access to their services is breaking down as the society they work in epitomizes the predatory model of the elite worldview. The dwindling ethical middle class are so busy, one can hardly access them by phone or email, as an avalanche of society's unmanaged and neglected social problems is dumped in their laps.

I trip over the army of homeless, crazy, addicted, ex-convicts, drunks, and disabled every day on the way to work. They are multiplying exponentially as the criminal class running this country hide behind gated communities and export their assets overseas. The US has 5 percent of world population and 25 percent of its prisoners. Torture and war are a logical extension of the attitude that produces this situation.