Tavis Smiley: 'No One Who Happens to be Poor Wants What Romney Has'
Although the list is long and undistinguished, PBS's Tavis Smiley said possibly one of the dumbest things he's ever said on television Wednesday.
In a discussion about class warfare and the politics of envy on Fox News's Hannity show, Smiley actually said with a straight face, "No one who happens to be poor wants what Mr. Romney has" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Look, you know, it was Barack Obama who said, “It's not red America, blue America, it's the United States of America.” I don't like this division this, this wedge, Tavis, that the president's using, and the 99 versus the 1 percent, the rich and the rest of us. Somehow it indicates that that's a bad thing that people are successful.
TAVIS SMILEY: Not at all. Mitt Romney’s wrong when he thinks that we are engaging in what he calls the politics of envy. No one who happens to be poor wants what Mr. Romney has. They just want to move beyond a poverty of opportunity in this country to an opportunity to play on a level playing field.
Yeah. Sure. Nobody that's poor today would change places with Romney, his wife, or any of his kids.
Rrrriiiiight.
As for "a level playing field," that's code for taking from those that have and giving to those that don't. Anyone that subscribes to this indeed wants what Romney has.
Like so many of his ilk, Smiley can't make this simple, logical leap. But he wasn't finished:
SMILEY: We are dangerously close, Sean, to cementing a permanent American catastrophe here. The rich, the rich more than the poor are responsible, in fact, for this catastrophe we have now. Yet the poor pay the heaviest price, although they are not responsible for the damage done by the great recession.
Dangerously close to cementing a permanent American catastrophe? Hasn't it already happened?
Haven't eight decades of New Deal and Great Society policies created a permanent underclass living off the taxpayer that are likely to always be in that condition unless said policies are radically reformed?
Hasn't the failure of the so-called war on poverty proved you can't solve this problem by just giving people money and benefits they haven't earned?
The Left and their media minions such as Smiley love to point out the money that was supposedly wasted by former President Bush due to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
This pales in comparison to the money that was been spent on the so-called war on poverty over the decades.
Yet the liberal solution is always to throw more money at the problem regardless of the almost 80 years that has failed.
And the media continue to go along with it while calling those advocating reform heartless and cruel.
In reality, the cruelty is continuing with policies that have cemented this American catastrophe.
But the Left will never admit it.
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Comments
Websters
Submitted by lkotur on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 9:34am.
I looked up stupid in Websters and there was a picture of Tavis Smiley.
What an idiot!
Tavis is absolutely brilliant ...
Submitted by Newsbubba on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 10:42am.
... Compared to that moron he's sitting beside.
Cornell, may be the biggest academic fraud ever produced by affirmative action, has smoked so much dope (probably named the stuff after him) that he is only about one more magic brownie shy of a magic carpet ride to da moon.
My brotha, my brotha! My ass. What a pair of snake oil salesmen, leading their own people down the final road to communism, just so they can be superior in their own minds.
Hey dumb asses, once you win, they ain't gonna need you anymore, my MF brothas.
Ooh, I know two even bigger academic frauds than Corny!
Submitted by SickofLibs on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 11:13am.
Husband and wife, matter of fact.
Touché Sicko.
Submitted by Newsbubba on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 2:27pm.
At least Corny is prettier than Moochie!!
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle
Submitted by texastommy on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 9:35am.
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb.
You decide which one is which.
Let me fix that for you
Submitted by Model850 on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 3:20pm.
Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber.
Now decide which is which. ; - D
You got that right Noel. Absolutely.
Submitted by NeoKong on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 10:02am.
They most certainly want what he has.
His money.
Obama campaigns on that message every single day.
Tavis was getting his Farrakhan on a little there with his angry rhetoric about the rich cementing people into poverty.
Yeah...that's what all rich people want.
Large tracts of public housing projects filled with millions of unemployed people who cannot feed themselves.
It's what all rich people dream about.
We know what Tavis means when he says "rich" people.
If you read about him he has a pretty compelling story in his background but it also shows he chose the career of identity politics and also chooses to separate himself by race in a us vs. them world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tavis_Smiley
They want the money alright,
Submitted by rockyracoon on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 12:25pm.
They want the money alright, they just don't want to work for it.
Facts are like kryptonite to the liberal.
Limousines on their way,
Submitted by fscarn on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 10:02am.
They just want to move beyond a poverty of opportunity in this country to an opportunity to play on a level playing field.
*****
There are opportunities beyond their wildest dreams. They don't want opportunities; they want what you got.
Take some black, hispanic kid. Ask him to study (THAT's the hard part b/c it involves real work) so that he does reasonably well (NB, he doesn't have to do well, just good enough; the standard for black, hispanic really is that much lower) in trig, pre-calculus, and calculus.
The colleges will send limousines to pick him up and deliver him to his all-expense paid dorm room.
Most minority students suffer Maynard G Krebs disease to WORK.
have to disagree,
Submitted by Agnostic on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 10:45am.
The hard part isn't the studying or other associated work. The hard part is turning your back on your surrounding culture and not living down to the expectations created for you by your peers.
Many liberals point this out to be a problem and they are correct to a great extent but the idea that the problem can be solved through reallocation of national assets or an altruistic program that is designed more to make the 'decision makers' feel good about themselves than it is to actually help anyone is a real issue.
These social problems can only be repaired by human contact. it needs to be face to face with issues to help out your fellow American - otherwise efforts are anonymous gestures that are subsequently used as political toys by the corrupt.
One question.
Submitted by Cappmann1962 on Fri, 04/27/2012 - 12:26pm.
Can someone define for me exactly what "leveling the playing field" means? Last time I checked, pretty much everyone has the same opportunities as anyone else, IF they're willing to work for it. EVERY SINGLE self-made heinous rich dude worked his a$$ off to get where he is. There's (certified) story after story about these heinous rich people living in run-down 1 room apartments eating Ramen for years before making it. But they were working towards a goal every day of it. Then we have all those poor, put-upon folks living in run-down 1 room apartments eating Ramen with no plan other that how to sock the guvment for mo' and mo' money. Their only concern id when is the next guvment check coming in?
You want a level playing field? Then MAKE these generational welfare, race-baiting excuses for Americans actually get up off their a$$es and clean themselves up, grab a guvment scholarship (instead of a welfare check), get a job, and work to get rich. Or at least better off than they are on the dole. But no! It's only fair that "someone" GIVE them their "fair share" of everything without them having to lift a finger for it. That is the lib idea of fair - as long as it's someone else's money to be given away.
One question.
Submitted by Cappmann1962 on Fri, 04/27/2012 - 12:33pm.
Can someone define for me exactly what "leveling the playing field" means? Last time I checked, pretty much everyone has the same opportunities as anyone else, IF they're willing to work for it. EVERY SINGLE self-made heinous rich dude worked his a$$ off to get where he is. There's (certified) story after story about these heinous rich people living in run-down 1 room apartments eating Ramen for years before making it. But they were working towards a goal every day of it. Then we have all those poor, put-upon folks living in run-down 1 room apartments eating Ramen with no plan other that how to sock the guvment for mo' and mo' money. Their only concern id when is the next guvment check coming in?
You want a level playing field? Then MAKE these generational welfare, race-baiting excuses for Americans actually get up off their a$$es and clean themselves up, grab a guvment scholarship (instead of a welfare check), get a job, and work to get rich. Or at least better off than they are on the dole. But no! It's only fair that "someone" GIVE them their "fair share" of everything without them having to lift a finger for it. That is the lib idea of fair - as long as it's someone else's money to be given away.
Good everloving grief!
Submitted by motherbelt on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 10:03am.
Right, Tavis, the aspirations of the poor are just to "get by."
You wish. It would make it convenient for you, wouldn't it?
Then you don't have to promies them very much to keep them happy, right?
Hey Tavis
Submitted by rockyracoon on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 12:28pm.
Don't those po folk want a couple o dem Cadillacs??
Facts are like kryptonite to the liberal.
Your finest work Noel
Submitted by Tomorama on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 10:13am.
Social commentary at its finest Noel.
GREAT posting.
I imagine many folks here in our early 50's or so................ grew up not having a hell of a lot and having the large family (6 kids), BUT with a DAD or MOM that worked two jobs to get us out of the triple deckers and into an actual HOME that WE paid for with the want for MORE out of life strictly THROUGH hard work.
WHEN did that great american iddeal change?
I state all the time with no pretense - WE ALL ARE guaranteed the wonderful pursuit of happiness - BUT RESULTS MAY VARY.
Opportunity abounds!
Submitted by swim-r-sink on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 10:24am.
That's right sports fans if you want to get on board the train of racist hustlers like Sharpton and Jackson,or you can climb aboard and get down in the Poverty Hustler industry with Smiley and West! Lord ZerO said he was going to create shovel ready jobs right? We are sure as Hell going to need shovels to dig us out of the excrement these leaches are trying to bury us in! These B@^%$rds are living high off the Hog exploiting their own people to stuff their own pockets! And the leftist media fuels their venomous fire!
The "poor" in America
Submitted by c5then on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 10:27am.
Are better off than the working class was back before the Great Depression. That is thanks to all the government "assistance" that is handed out. It is now no longer necessary to work in this country in order to survive as long as you know how to play the game. Don't get married and if you need a boost to your welfare income, have another child.
As a result of all this government assistance, the GDP has been lower than it otherwise would have been, there are less jobs available and there is a whole segment of society that thinks that the government owes them money just because they are alive. It isn't a comfortable existance, but you don't have to get up early and listen to a boss tell you what to do. Meanwhile the evil rich, who support this entire system, are being more and more demonized. Eventually more and more of them will simply leave the taxation jurisdiction and/or re-structure their income so as to avoid all the taxes. If the top 1% of earners simply take a year or two off from earning any money, and these are the people who can do just that if they want to, the US Treasury would take a 10% hit to it's revenue. If the top 10% of earners did similar adjustments, it would cause a further 25% hit to the Federal income.
Meanwhile the playing field has never been so level as it is right now. In fact it is actually tilted in the opposite direction. If you aren't a member of some minority group, then you are at a disadvantage in today's world in this country. What Smiley and the other socialists want is not a level playing field, they want an equalization of the score. They want the referees to re-distribute the goals not enforce the rules equally.
Without class warfare to use, Marxism falls apart. This is why there will always be those who want to divide up a population into classes and groups and pit them against each other. As long as there are adherents to and proponents of Marxism, in all it's forms (communism, socialism, progressivism), there will always be these charletans who try and use it for their own personal gain.
Madison and Jefferson and Franklin built a Republic - Roberts killed it!
Here is one treatise by
Submitted by motherbelt on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 11:08am.
Here is one treatise by Walter Williams on what it's like to be poor in America
But as I commented below, Smiley implies that the problem is the poor have no opportunity to better themselves.
Now which party IS it that wants to keep the poor poor, and dependent on government handouts?
Zactly!
Submitted by c5then on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 11:34am.
Keeping the poor poor serves two purposes for the liberal/democrats. It keeps a segment of the population who is dependant upon the government welfare system, and it keeps a segment of the population to pit against the other arbitrary economic classes that they create.
But of course the term "poor" is relative. And the American poor are far far better off than the other people classified with that term in almost all the other parts of the world. In fact, if there weren't the Federal Reserve System and the US dollar hadn't lost 98% of its value since 1913 when it was created, there would essentially be no poor in America.
Madison and Jefferson and Franklin built a Republic - Roberts killed it!
Mind-blowing and not in a good way
Submitted by Unsane on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 8:49pm.
So, according to your logic, America had no poor people until the advent of the EVIL Federal Reserve?
Your economic illiteracy is astounding. Sorry, but inflation, poverty, and other societal ills existed millenia before the Federal Reserve and will exist whether or not the Fed does.
Money is NOT, I repeat, NOT, meant to serve as a "store of value". So what if the dollar lost 98% of its value since 1913? What can you buy today with ANY currency that was the stuff of the most whacked-out science fiction 99 years ago? Unfortunately for you inflation came into existence with money about 6000 or so years ago and will be with us as long as there is money. Even gold, which I am assured through various media solves everything imaginable, is prone to inflation.
And one more thing: for all you shrieking populists who blame the Fed for everything, from bad gas to the existence of death to my dog having too many fleas: what do we replace the Fed with?
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)
Hey Smiley
Submitted by chiefpayne on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 10:30am.
YES they DO want what Romney has!
They want to take it and keep getting the US government to do so FOR them by asking for more and more in taxes.
Of course
Submitted by Galvanic on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 1:24pm.
Check out the Lottery ticket sales in poor and low-income urban neighborhoods.
Words
Submitted by xraynova on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 10:39am.
west, smiley, and dyson... the personification of pseudo-intellectualism.
It's amusing to watch them (esp. dyson) strain to use a lot of big words in the construction of their non sequiturs.
OH, now I get it!!
Submitted by motherbelt on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 10:47am.
Smiley is talking about "poverty of opportunity."
Nice footwork there, Smiley!
Please explain how the poor are deprived of any opportunity to better themselves.
You beat me to it, Mom.
Submitted by almostacowboy on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 10:52am.
Don't forget the "level playing field", which I'm all for. Stop all affirmative action. That will "level the playing field".
Smiley's idea of a "level
Submitted by motherbelt on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 11:11am.
Smiley's idea of a "level playing field" is that a high-school dropout gets the same job opportunities as a college graduate.
I wonder how long it will be before it will be "discrimination" to fire someone because of incompetence.
Defense: They were firing
Submitted by Sude23 on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 11:27am.
Defense: They were firing everyone that day that did not know what they were doing. Thats called Profiling... can I get a settlement pay and unemployment now?
Yay!
Submitted by guefy on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 11:09am.
By his comment, I'm not liberal! I knew it, but I like to be told that once in a while.
I would like what Romney has, as far as money, but I'm not willing to work that hard, so I remain poor, and I'm OK with that. Why should I think that Romney owes me something? I don't even know the guy.
OK, who choked Corny?
Submitted by SickofLibs on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 11:18am.
Is that a neck brace, or is he dressed for a civil war enactment?
Corney is pretty good, his lips didn't even move
Submitted by UpNorth on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 8:14pm.
while Smiley was making an ass of himself. As good as Jeff Dunham.
UpNorth: maybe his lips weren't moving,
Submitted by SickofLibs on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 8:28pm.
but watch the vid closely: Corny's knee was bouncing up and down like Chris Matthews' hips on a White House door knob.
I believe Corny should be back in the nervous hospital - he's clearly a psycho.
Or, he's auditioning for a Cabinet position, SoL.
Submitted by UpNorth on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 8:36pm.
Didn't you mean Chris Matthews' hips on Baracka's leg?
Oh okay, according to that logic then we must say that
Submitted by gmaniac1 on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 11:35am.
there is no need for the Occupy Wall Street crowd as they are protesting what again? That's right boys and girls, they are protesting not having enough money to pay their bills because of people like Romney, their words not mine. Geez, those mind numbed liberals need to get their money back for that wasted college education because it didn't teach them diddly squat about the real world.
Hannity should have verbally smacked these idiots
Submitted by AFVet on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 11:45am.
When one of these two geniuses stated that poverty rate went up under Reagan Hannity should have pointed out that during the 1980's the national poverty rate dropped from 8% to 7.3%, mainly due to Reagan's policies and resulting job creation. Reagan was elected President when we were in the Carter recession with high unemployment, skyrocketing interest rates, and soaring inflation.
And many people never realize that when immigrants come to the USA they usually are immediately part of the poverty rate, and then they work their way out of poverty.
Level Playing Field
Submitted by Jersey Girl on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 11:47am.
It's always about lowering the standards so those unqualified get the same opportunities as those who worked hard to achieve their goals.
If a minority fails the test then it's because the test is racist. Not that the person didn't study hard enough.
Or this
Submitted by Model850 on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 3:23pm.
Not that the person didn't study hard enough.
Or maybe like this:
Society: What's wrong with the education system? Why can't Johnny read?
Answer: Maybe Johnny's just stupid.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Submitted by liberalsarefunny on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 12:02pm.
This is what you get with affirmative action.....
Dumb and dumber.
Such little disregard
Submitted by TSM on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 12:23pm.
So is he saying that poor people don't want a better life for their children? His he saying that poor people don't want to have the income to maybe send their children to a good school? (and now they're stuck in poor schools).
And why does he think there is so much crime in the inner city if poor people don't want material things? Does he believe people growing up in poverty who start to deal drugs, do it just for the fun of it, or are they doing it for the money?
The "Poor" and the state run lottery
Submitted by Kingfish17 on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 12:28pm.
Years ago when I was in Chicago, I rode the elevated train from the heart of downtown to see a White Sox game. White Sox Park is smack dab in the middle of one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. My trip happened to coincide with "rush hour" when a lot of people who lived in that neighborhood were commuting back home. I noticed that the reading material of choice was not a newspaper or magazine, but mainly consisted of little periodicals that gave tips on how to win the lottery, or tips on what lucky numbers were hot and what numbers to play that week.
The poor pay a disproportionate amount of their income for a chance, basically a statistically impossible chance, to be like Romney. The nickname for the lottery isn't "a tax on the stupid" for no reason. It's been shown that state run lotteries that support scholarships for college students are basically a redistribution of wealth from the poor to middle class students who attend college.
But everyone who buys a lottery ticket is trying to be like Romney. Oh yea........and they also have to have a photo ID when they buy a ticket.
"You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas...on the taxpayer’s dime." Barack Obama
You know something...
Submitted by rockyracoon on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 12:40pm.
I think I'm beginning to agree with Smelly, here. We should have a "level playing field". I'm 50 now and am awaiting my opportunity to play quarterback for the New York Giants.
It's sickening to have to pay this dolt's salary.
Facts are like kryptonite to the liberal.
Remember that old Negro College Fund (whatever)
Submitted by spiderdan on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 3:27pm.
where the kicker was "a mind is a terrible thing to waste"? Seems Brah Tav don't fit the profile, you know what I'm saying? Word. One thousand apologies for the subtle use of ghetto slang. And, after all those years I spent trying to overcome a raging East Texas dialect just to learn its socially acceptable to simply utter noises that resemble gorillas taking a dump. Just once -- ok, three million times -- I'd love to see a news show where someone actually says, "Tavis, you ignorant slut...".
PBS's Tavis Smiley said possibly one of the dumbest things he's
Submitted by daveinboca on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 5:53pm.
ever said on TV"
Every time I see that testament to the failure of affirmative action, I ask myself again how my tax dollars go to keep him and other PBS & NPR clowns spouting nonsense and BS nonstop, almost without taking a breath...!