Wall Street venture capitalist Tom Perkins compares criticism of the 1% to Nazi persecution of Jews

Ben Yakas
gothamist.com
Sun, 26 Jan 2014 07:53 UTC

© Associated Press

Tony Perkins

Today has been a bounty of riches of idiots: first there were the idiots who subway surfed just to feel something, then there were the more creative idiots who took to Brooklyn for the Idiotarod. But the 'idiot of the day' award surely must be awarded to Tom Perkins, a venture capitalist who wrote a letter to the WSJ comparing criticism of the 1% to the Nazi persecution of the Jews during the Holocaust. If you've ever wanted to hear what the world's most expensive miniature violin sounded like, here's your chance.

You can read the full letter to the editor below, so you don't have to give any hate clicks to the WSJ:

Progressive Kristallnacht Coming?

Regarding your editorial "Censors on Campus" (Jan. 18): 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?

Tom Perkins

We know we don't have to hold your hand and explain why this analogy (rich people getting bad press is the same as Jews being slaughtered?) is completely insane, and as far outside the realm of reality as the chances of Bad Grandpa winning an Oscar for Best Picture. But here are some important facts about Perkins: he's the co-founder of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He used to be married to Danielle Steel (but doesn't mention that in the letter). In fact, his whole letter might be motivated by chivalry more than anything else.

Perkins wrote a romance novel. He was once profiled on 60 Minutes because he owned one of the largest privately-owned sailing yachts in the world. He owns mansions all over the world, including this ridiculous pad which comes with a "7½-foot-tall stainless-steel sculpture of a Minotaur." And he's a completely out-of-touch imbecile who deserves all the vitriol being thrown at him today.

A wise idiot once noted you should take big risks, but take them very carefully. Hopefully he'll heed that advice before he writes his next editorial about how government regulation on venture capital firms is akin to genocide in Darfur.

Comment: Again we see that criticism of the elites is equated with being 'fascist'. This is exactly what they've done in France, where popular support for a comedian named Dieudonné making fun of the elites is officially being denounced as 'anti-semitic'.

Of course, from their psychopathic perspective, the masses of ordinary people below them represent a threat to their freedom to enslave, pillage and plunder.