Mr. Perkins is a very well-off man, as the picture below of his $150-million "super yacht" the Maltese Falcon illustrates. (It is the black boat with the three large masts.)
Mr. Perkins' letter to the editor read as follows:
"Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention
to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its 'one percent,' namely its Jews,
to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the 'rich.'
From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every
word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of
hatred of the successful one percent. There is outraged public reaction to the Google
buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies
which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these
'techno geeks' can pay. We have, for example, libelous and cruel attacks in the
Chronicle on our number-one celebrity, the author Danielle Steel, alleging that she is
a 'snob' despite the millions she has spent on our city's homeless and mentally ill over
the past decades.
This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable
in 1930; is its descendent 'progressive' radicalism unthinkable now?"
Mr. Perkins' comments are as ill-advised as they are insensitive. It is clearly an act of playing the victim by the use of comparison ... and a terrible comparison at that. Let's look at his comments more closely.
He sandwiches the entirety of his comments with references to 1930's Nazi Germany, so let's look at that first. His use of the phrase "the epicenter of progressive thought" is, in my mind, supposed to highlight two things: He is in the middle of all this terrible activity, thus he is reporting firsthand. So, one, he is supposed to have credibility, as a television war correspondent would have reporting from the front lines; and two, he is supposed to be speaking as a victim.
The "one percent" reference has more of an understanding today as a societal financial paradigm representing imbalance, whereas as, related to 1930's Nazi Germany, it is nothing more than an accounting for the Jewish population. In 1933, out of the total population of Germany of approximately 67 million, approximately 505,000 were Jews, roughly three-quarters of one percent. Societal imbalance is not the same thing as simply who lives somewhere.
In the middle portion of his letter, he suggests the demonizing of and attacks on the rich are part and parcel of being a progressive, at least in the San Francisco area. I believe that both progressives and non-progressives have engaged, and will engage, in actual attacks on the other side. Speaking the truth is not the same thing as a flat-out attack, and equating the truth and an attack suggests an inherent disdain for the truth.
Regarding Perkins' reference to "Google buses", which have put a huge dent in San Francisco's public transportation system by privatizing it, there have, indeed, been protests. Some of these protests have been violent (i.e. breaking a window of a "Google bus"). While violence is never the answer, the core grievance is not just about being rich, but rather how these actions are driving up the cost of all housing, both owned and rented. People want to be able to afford where they live and they don't want to move out of town.
His comment about Danielle Steel may be the only example of his that holds any validity. Her efforts through The Nick Traina Foundation for people with mental illness (named after her late son) and the Yo! Angel! Foundation for the homeless are well-documented. It is not impossible that Ms. Steel could be a snob, but her creation of and involvement with those foundations suggest to me that such might not be the case. Important to note here is that Danielle Steel is Perkins' ex-wife.
I skipped past one piece of the sandwiching paragraphs in Mr. Perkins' letter which I will highlight now: his use of the term "Kristallnacht". Over the course of the night between November 8th and 9th in 1938, what is considered to be the biggest catalyst for the Holocaust took place. In the first few days of November 1938, Polish-descent Jews living in Germany were expelled from German territory, many of which ended up in a refugee camp, as Poland refused them entry. Two of those expelled were the parents of seventeen-year-old Herschel Grynszpan, who was illegally living in Paris at the time. As a result, young Grynszpan would exact revenge.
On November 7, 1938, Grynszpan shot a German embassy official stationed in Paris, Ernst vom Rath. In a bit of irony, vom Rath was the embassy official who was assigned to assist Grynszpan. Two days later, vom Rath would die from the shooting. In response, violence would "spontaneously" erupt in heavily-Jewish populated areas of Germany and Austria against Jewish persons, places of worship, and businesses. Joseph Goebbels even suggested that the assassination of vom Rath was a result of a "World Jewry" conspiracy. Reinhard Heydrich, a high-ranking Third Reich officer, sent out directives to the "spontaneous rioters", which included members of Nazi "Stormtroopers" and Hitler Youth, to not bother with non-Jewish businesses, etc., and to arrest Jews en masse. Those arrested were sent to concentration camps, which marked the first time individuals in German occupied territory were sent away to camps prior to the Holocaust.
The term "Kristallnacht" translates to "Night of Crystal". It is also referred to as "Night of Broken Glass" as a result of all of the windows of Jewish homes, places of worship, and businesses that were broken during the riots. So, what is the similarity between these points in history?
Does the breaking of a window on a bus equal the breaking of hundreds, if not thousands, of windows in Germany and Austria? Of course it doesn't!
Yesterday, Mr. Perkins backed off of a part of his comments in the letter. However, the sentiment of the rich feeling threatened is something by which he still stands. In an interview on Bloomberg television, he says his regret rests in his use of the word Kristallnacht, but not in his Nazi comparison. His assertion that class warfare is aimed at the rich is clearly playing the victim. The real class warfare in America is against the poor and far more against the middle class, not the rich. In short, Mr. Perkins feels the rich in 2014 are in the same position as the Jews in Germany and Austria in the 1930's.
And he doesn't think he's out of touch?
Terry
Yesterday, Mr. Perkins backed off of a part of his comments in the letter. However, the sentiment of the rich feeling threatened is something by which he still stands. In an interview on Bloomberg television, he says his regret rests in his use of the word Kristallnacht, but not in his Nazi comparison. His assertion that class warfare is aimed at the rich is clearly playing the victim. The real class warfare in America is against the poor and far more against the middle class, not the rich. In short, Mr. Perkins feels the rich in 2014 are in the same position as the Jews in Germany and Austria in the 1930's.
And he doesn't think he's out of touch?
Terry
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