Changing the Subject

“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.”

-Verbal Kint/Keyzer Soze in The Usual Suspects

Jeff Bezos is worth 192.4 billion dollars US. Laurene Powell-Jobs is worth 21.2 billion US. George Soros is worth 8.6 billion.

What do all of these very, very rich people have in common, besides keeping Grey Poupon in their limousines and using dollar bills as kindling? They are all philanthropists. Many of their causes are, shall we say, tending to the left of the political spectrum.

Soros funds “racial justice” groups and has poured millions into local elections in the US. His money is one of the main reasons America now has catch-and-release prosecutors like Chesa Boudin, son of imprisoned terrorists, who believes that the organized theft gangs now terrorizing San Francisco are just trying to feed their starving kids (sad trombone).

Powell-Jobs focuses more on national politics, pouring cash into the increasingly radical Democratic Party, and on journalism. She’s also involved in something called “XQ: The Super School Project,” which aims to overhaul local school curriculums, and climate change initiatives. In 2019, she was rated the “Least Transparent Mega-Giver” by Inside Philanthropy (Bet you didn’t know such a magazine existed, right?).

Bezos, when he’s not going sub-orbital sightseeing, likes to throw cash at the likes of radical “journalist” Van Jones, to the tune of 100 million. In November 2020, he gave 791 million to climate change groups, and, oh yeah, he bought the Washington Post, so democracy won’t die in darkness.

Do these people, and the many other extremely rich radicals like them, really give away their money out of deep-seated social convictions, or is there something else at play? Is there another motivation for the super-rich taking a hard-left turn?

What I’m about to suggest may sound like conspiracy thinking. All these fat cats must surely be scheming to bring each other down, not build each other up! But let’s remember; these people meet every year, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. There, under the guiding hand of “Great Reset” enthusiast Klaus Schwab (“You will own nothing, and you will be happy.”), they discuss climate change, COVID, mass migration, and basically, anything but why one percent of the population control 50% of global wealth.

Do you really think the subject of keeping their money never comes up? Really?

In 2008, the wise guiding hands of the One Percent neatly steered the world economy into an oncoming bus. Most of the people responsible for the Great Recession are still sipping champagne every year in Davos. How did they avoid the public shaming and career destruction now reserved for someone who once made a racist joke on Twitter? Well, that was a neat trick.

The Great Recession was followed by a wave of populism on both right and left, culminating in the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement. While, on the right, the Republican party began its transition to being a blue-collar movement, largely representing the people left behind by the globalism that made the Davos set rich; the Occupy movement challenged the very right of the One Percent to be as rich as they are.

It’s well known that working for Amazon is no picnic. Stories abound of poorly paid workers needing permission to use the bathroom. Yet, by careful and very public use of his cash, Bezos appears like Robin Hood.

While the company Powell-Jobs’ late husband co-founded wears it’s social justice heart on its sleeve in North America, it keeps a low political profile in China. That might get in the way of the money.

Many of the current crop of leftist billionaires owe their fortunes to tech and culture, not polluting heavy industry and resource extraction. So being environmentalists does not really affect the bottom line. Billionaires can afford private security armies, and live in guarded communities, so what skin comes off their nose when the police are defunded?

The Great Recession, and the public questioning of their increasingly grotesque wealth, made the One Percent nervous. They knew it was time to change the subject. Has anyone noticed that the accumulation of wealth in their hands is no longer the public issue it was back in 2012?

Surely, this must be the first revolution since 1776 in which nobody was proposing to put the rich people’s heads on pikes. And the reason for that is generous philanthropy, media manipulation, and the politics of distraction.

Today’s revolutionaries are not uncomfortable with the mega-rich. Greta Thunberg rides in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s electric Humvee and rubs shoulders with the diamond underwear set in Davos. The subject of redistribution of wealth doesn’t seem to come up.

Just when it seemed that the jig was up for the One Percenters, there was a mysterious lull in the activities of the Occupy Movement. Suddenly, in 2018, they re-emerged. But they weren’t protesting economic inequality now. No, they were protesting the enforcement of immigration laws. The subject had been changed, to one far more advantageous for people reliant on cheap labour.

The point is, it’s very easy today to change the subject. People have short attention spans, and generally believe what they’re told. For this reason, we’ve now accepted the outrageous accumulation of wealth and practically zero taxation of the One Percent as being less important than the conduct of a 50,000 dollar-a-year cop. We object to people using plastic bags instead of fabric ones, as this is critical for the environment, but do not ask why moving factories to China, and thereby lengthening global supply chains, should not be considered an environmental issue. We don’t seem very curious about what the Bill Gates’ funded Eco-Health Alliance was really up to in China before a virus with very murky origins rampaged across the world. We don’t enquire into why former Presidents are worth hundreds of millions and can plan birthday parties with 200 servants.

The One Percenters have changed the subject, and we haven’t even noticed. The most radical among us are seemingly more concerned with pronouns and statue removal than they are with the modern Marie Antoinettes in their midst. Of course, the fact that Marie Antoinette invites Marianne to Versailles and gives her a pouch of gold doubloons probably helps with that.

Money, they say, changes everything. And now, it’s changed the subject.