Elizabeth Warren On "Class Warfare"

This video has no doubt been making the rounds, but it's worth noting anyway. In a video taken by someone who attended this meetup, Senate candidate from Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren said this about all the squealing about "class warfare" from the rich people who are the only ones who have benefited in the last few decades:



Talking Points Memo provides this transcript:

“You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did.

Elizabeth Warren On ‘Class Warfare’: There Is Nobody Who Got Rich On His Own

Anyone who thinks of himself as a "self-made" person needs to understand this - few if any of them would have been successful had there not been an orderly and progressive society in which they could live. Anyone who thinks otherwise is earnestly advised to go set up shop in Iraq or Afghanistan, and see how they do there. Not having a functioning government will kill a society faster than just about anything short of a nationwide natural disaster.

The answer isn't to make government so small that its richest members can make it do what they want, as the Grover Norquists of the world seem to believe. Nor is it to make sure that one side always wins the game, as far too many progressives believe. It's to make sure that the government functions properly, and removing from it anyone who fails to remember why he's there.

I don't know whether Elizabeth Warren is for real or not. Anyone who served with the Obama Administration at the level she did has to be viewed with suspicion. But she is one of the few Democratic politicians who have the nerve to point out this basic truth nowadays. That in itself speaks well of her.