I can admit I’m not totally surprised that a popular US Senator has a million dollars.
Socialism isn’t about everybody walking around in cardboard shoes, catching street-rats to share around a steel-drum fire together. It’s about raising the lowest to be more equal, and making sure people aren’t hoarding at the top end for zero social good.
As long as he didn’t get the money from selling people out, then it’s probably what a person running for president, in 2020 in the US, needs without having his opponents find a way to kick him out of his apartment or to revoke his subsidized bus pass. I don’t think he’s the strongest candidate, but he’s literally trying to run against a dirty-tricks-playing billionaire.
Of course, maybe it doesn’t bother me that much because it never even crossed my mind that he was living a life of Gandhian self-denial. (If he holds on to way more money than he needs when not running for president, I’d think he was probably being douchey, but not now.)
It’s more the sudden switch, how people are trying so hard to downplay the fact that someone with that much money has a very hard time understanding the struggles of someone making $12,000 a year with no money saved whatsoever. How his supporters hav3 gone from “no one should have that much money” too “well, it’s not that much.”
And, as I said, him making that statement that sounds incredibly bootstrappy, and I find it hard to imagine a context where it wouldn’t, especially since it’s not even true. Writers, even regularly bestselling ones, don’t generally command that kind of capital.
When you build your rhetoric on class wars, and then deny that you’re rich when you make more than most will see in their lifetimes, it gets a little whiffy.
And yes, I’ve seen more than a few of his supporters state that millionaires are on the side of the rich… Right up until he was forced to admit that he had that kind of cash. Suddenly it’s “well, a million isn’t a lot.”
And, it’s really not him having the money that bothers me. It’s the fact that for the longest time, he seems to have been trying to hide it. And that comment of “well, you can do it too, if you just do this thing I did.”
There are a myriad other ways he could have handled it. Something like “Yes, I got a good deal from my publisher that made me a lot of money. What I want to do is make it so you don’t have to rely on a stroke of luck like that to be able to raise your family or see a doctor, or just have a place to live.” Instead, he just gave his opponents a gift. Whether it’s a primary challenger or GOP in the general, it’s a no-brainer to go after him on this front.
It’s pretty basic human relations. Want people to trust you? Don’t pretend to be something you’re not.
Like I said, it’s not the money itself that bothers me, it’s the fact that he didn’t want to admit to having that, and then when he was called out, said the same kinds of things those on the right say when they’re axing services.
I laid out a way better way for someone with money to support that fight, in my last comment. Basically acknowledge your privilege, don’t imply that everyone could achieve the same if they’d just work at it and commit to fixing things so people don’t need that kind of privilege.
He’s talking about a different event entirely, but Adam lays it out well, here:
I will say it again. Having money is not the problem. The lack of willingness to acknowledge said money came because of and grants privileges not available to everyone else, is.
Are you disagreeing with him, or just saying straight white males should stay out of the discussion? I read this as acknowledging his priviledge and advocating for broad equality. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am about this, at least.
I don’t disagree with him or think that his race prohibits him from taking part in the conversation, but the vehemence of this particular tirade smacks a little of white saviorism. Especially from someone who created a popular and influential TV show with a reasonably large revolving on-screen cast and decided not to hire a single African-American.
No, but I think it is great that in his new little show he’s finally making some effort to reflect his audience and promote positive role models for them.
So, not that I really want to get into this with you, because you seem inexplicably dead-set on insisting that Adam is the person who’s in the wrong here, but the number of people who worked on Mythbusters as cast members for more than 20 episodes is 6, which I would not classify as “reasonably large” or “revolving”, and much of the cast rotation and cutaways to hired commentators (like the folklorist in season 1) died off after a few seasons. The cast was actually quite stable. You can reasonably argue that it should have been more diverse (in a primary cast of 6, there was 1 woman and 1 Asian-American man), but your implication that Adam specifically somehow went out of his way not to hire POC to work on the show and is only speaking out about diversity on Twitter to look good is going to get a big honking [citation needed] from me, especially since it’s unclear that Adam even had any role in staffing the original show in the first place. He and Jamie are only listed as executive producers on the last 52 episodes, long after the main cast components of “The Mythbusters” and “The Build Team” had already been cemented, and the last season’s return to just Adam and Jamie was made at the network level, not by anyone on the crew itself.
Adam is very outspoken on Twitter on issues of race, sexism, and diversity, and has been much more so since 2016 (can’t imagine why). But he has also been very committed to amplifying others’ voices, and acknowledging that he is speaking from a place of privilege and fame. His entire point in the Twitter thread you’re attempting to drag him over is that he and other white men don’t know what it’s like for a POC, and that it’s important to surface their perspectives. He’s NOT trying to speak for them, but is instead emphasizing why it’s important that we listen to them.
Nobody is perfect, but as “this is how allyship works” exemplars go, you could do a fuck of a lot worse than Adam Savage.
Not at all, he’s absolutely right in what he says. I just thought he was an odd choice for the spokesman on this, especially in light of the cast of his big show(*). My reaction was rather like that in the graphic @Melz2 posted.
I’ve gone back to look at the twitter thread, and understand why he found himself arguing in that way, but I still think he’s probably not the best go-to guy for quotes on the issue. I’m not going to apologize for being snarky at Adam Savage’s expense, and I find it a little ironic that his privilege is popping up again in the form of people defending him.
(*) For the record, I do think that having cast like that on an edutainment TV show about science is in this day and age at best willful ignorance, whoever is responsible for it.
My reaction wasn’t to Savage, but your comments on Savage.
I’m not “defending” him, nor his privilege… but at the same time it’s not on you to ‘call him out’, nor to decide for POC who is an ally and who is not.
I didn’t say otherwise; I was co-opting the “huh?” aspect of the picture. And, for the record, I’m not telling anyone how to choose their allies.
Ironically, the quote was raised in the context of the integrity of Bernie Sanders (though that doesn’t seem to be what Savage was talking about), and whatever anyone says about Sanders his commitment to civil rights, going back to his activity as a young man in the 60s, is a matter of long record.
I certainly have no issues with Sanders, and - after reading the twitter thread - not very much with Savage. I think I’ve explained my snarky initial reaction to the posted Savage quote as well as I need to, and if people want to read more into that reaction than is there then that is the nature of the internet.
