Last week’s Ted Rall column suggested that we follow Willie Sutton, and go where the money is by soaking the rich:
If broke consumers are the problem, shoveling money into their pockets is the way to get them spending again. Where do get it? The reason Willie Sutton robbed banks, he supposedly said, was because “that’s where the money is.” These days, the money is the hands of corporations and rich individuals.
Today’s New York Times has a column by staff columnist Bob Herbert entitled, of all things, “Where The Money Is”:
At some point, however, someone is going to have to talk about raising revenue. The dreaded T-word is going to come up: taxes. Well, there’s a good idea floating around that takes its cue from the legendary Willie Sutton. Why not go where the money is?
“Floating around.” Such an interesting way to put it.
Speaking of coincidences, Herbert goes on to suggest a stock transaction tax as the solution for raising money. That’s an idea that I’ve been promoting since 2004, when I published it in my book “Wake Up! You’re Liberal: How We Can Take America Back From the Right.”
On the one hand, it could just be that two people independently came up with the same analogy at the same time. It happens. Or it could be that a writer who reads a lot of syndicated columns might have misremembered that what he thought was “his” idea really wasn’t. Not such a big deal, really, but kind of annoying considering that the “liberal” Times refuses to employ even one true leftie on its editorial staff. Considering that we lefties have been right about just about everything, and the moderates and conservatives wrong about just about everything, well…you know. It’s kind of annoying.
So what do you think? Coincidence? Or not?
12 Comments.
Great minds think alike.
Ripping off is the sincerest form of flattery, don't you know. May I say it's refreshing to hear someone slagging off the NYT for not being left wing enough. Vive la revolution! Still not sure about the Hello Kitty-Obama thing though. Used to look forward to reading your columns in the Japan Times, until I realised I could read 'em here a week ahead of time.
How ironic then Ted, that you tend to lionize the dead-tree corporate media and snub the blogosphere, only to have a NYT pundit (the most boring of'em, no less) steal your words without giving credit where credit is due.
Well Ted, speaking of coincidences; there is you and Tom Tomorrow having the same topic on the same day:
http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2009/01/13/tomo/
Coincidence?
I'll let the audience be the judge 😉
Seriously; the hackery of America's "mainstream" (read J-School-only d_ckwads) has been a mounting surprise to the global audience. We first thought them throughout the nineties to be naive people who only "knew" America well; but in the wake of the pushing of patently false news in the wake of Iraq, the World has been shocked to discover that these people (NY, LA, Washignton, Post, Times, Week, etc.) are not only criminally negligient, but murderously ignorant. They are so bad that America has had to raise a man like you; a man who only points out the Woefully obvious, as an intelligent pundit.
The Hackery of those below you, deserves to be condemned with the loudest voice possible.
I say go in for the kill on the NY Times. Drag their name through the mud (or don't let it come out of it); make sure they don't plagiarise again.
The best examination on their hackery has to bewhat they did in Moscow. This unprofessionalism was chronicled by Matt Taibbi and Mark Ames in "The Exile: Sex, Drugs and Libel in the New Russia"
Ted – Ralph Nader has been promoting the idea of taxing stock market transactions at least since his 2000 campaign but probably longer.
By the way – it's great news that Obama's planning to close Gitmo on day one, no?
Best regards,
Lewis
Lewis, I, for one, am certainly thrilled at Obama's announcing he will shut down Gitmo (leaving just the rest of the island as a prison camp).
Ted is probably worried though, and I don't blame him, that that's just smoke and mirrors, as the prisoners are transferred to a prison ship on an undisclosed location in the Middle East, as they wait for the kangaroo court to convene.
Well, bummer about not receiving your citation but you did suggest these things as ways for us, the collective public, to fix certain problems. At least someone was listening.
as my daddy used to say:
Pundits don't know shit. If they knew shit they'd be called experts.
He does rip off bloggers for ideas. I was ripped off a while ago by him, before it became clear to the blog world that I was totally fucking insane. I say that with affection towards myself.
Ted, I am a long-time reader and really enjoy your provocative rants — but this is just so damn sad. First off — referring to yourself in the third person???? And then, it took me about 20 seconds to Google "Willie Sutton" and "transaction tax" and find many citations that precede yours including Dean Baker's report fot the Center for Economic and Policy Research (12/08), Reuven Avi-Yonah's Corporations, Society and the State: A Defense of the Corporate Tax (10/03), and The Glittering Eye blog (10/07), to cite just the first three. I am not going to accuse you of plagarism though.
Besides, I thought the idea behind writing was to advance IDEAS, not just to see other people use your name in print.
If we all get together and agree that you are far more brilliant than everyone else who is writing today Ted, would it be possible for you to put aside the narcissitic rage and sophomoric grudges for a couple of weeks?
Maybe.