Too stupid to know better.

The selfish rich. They are the angry people in America. At least that's what economist Paul Krugman is telling us in his column in the New York Times. And I suspect it's true. And that's sad. Because, as Krugman writes, "These are terrible times for many people in this country. Poverty, especially acute poverty, has soared in the economic slump; millions of people have lost their homes. Young people can't find jobs; laid-off 50-somethings fear that they'll never work again. Yet if you want to find political rage -- the kind of rage that makes people compare President Obama to Hitler, or accuse him of treason -- you won't find it among these suffering Americans. You'll find it instead among the very privileged, people who don't have to worry about losing their jobs, their homes, or their health insurance, but who are outraged, outraged, at the thought of paying modestly higher taxes."

Yes, folks, that's what we have in America. The spoiled rich. They don't give a damn for the people living in poverty. They relish in seeing the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor. They don't want even a slight redistribution in the wealth of this nation. They don't want to see the common good. They want to see only the good that benefits the rich. They want to get richer and richer and richer. At the expense of the poor and the middle classes.

Krugman says that craziness in America has gone mainstream.

"It's one thing," he writes, "when a billionaire rants at a dinner event. It's another when Forbes magazine runs a cover story alleging that the president of the United States is deliberately trying to bring America down as part of his Kenyan 'anti-colonialist' agenda, that 'the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s.' When it comes to defending the interests of the rich, it seems, the normal rules of civilized (and rational) discourse no longer apply."

Yes, Krugman concludes, self-pity among the privilegd has become acceptable, even fashionable.

"And when the tax fight is over, one way or another, you can be sure that the people currently defending the incomes of the elite will go back to demanding cuts in social security and aid to the unemployed," Krugman said. America must make hard choices, they'll say, we all have to be willing to make sacrifices. But when they say 'we,' they mean 'you.' Sacrifice is for the little people."

And just think. We're letting it happen. We'll return power this fall to the Republicans, the party of the rich. And we poor and middle class people will see to it. With our votes. We've been conned. Duped. We're too stupid to know better. --Jim Broede