Here’s his rant on OWS.
http://www.gossipcop.com/adam-carolla-occupy-wall-street-rant-tirade-speech-audio-listen/
Instead of just trashing him, is there are specific point that you disagree with him on or is he in step with your feelings on OWS?
I’m curious what other think of his opinions in general. I think he’s a lot smarter than a lot of people give him credit for. He’s crude and brutally unpretentious, which I think throws people off. Here I agree with him on the one hand, but also disagree with him to the extent that he doesn’t address the points I find important about the OWS movement, which is a lack of regulation and oversight and a related form of political corruption that seems to prevent adequate corrective measures. “Culture of ass douchery” aside 
there are some important problems for which I am glad and find it natural that people are beginning to stir. If income inequality continues to increase, or if banks are allowed to continue to rely on a too big to fail insurance policy that results in further subsidization by taxpayer money, I think there will eventually be riots.
Which hand would that be? I listened to the whole thing and didn’t hear much that was worth agreeing with.
He says the Occupy protesters are inspired by the envy they feel when they see somebody drive by in a Rolls Royce. Maybe he is right, in a way. I just don’t think they’re envious of the car or the money. I think they’re envious that the top 1% gets more than 1% of the access to politicians, and more than 1% of the representation in government. Corolla would say the guy earned his Rolls Royce by working his ass off. I wonder if he thinks he earned the extra attention in setting public policy, too.
I agree with what he says but of course I don’t think it applies to everyone. He’s making a blanket statement. He knows that. But in my interaction with OWS people and far-left youngsters in general (I’m fairly far left myself btw) I think he is remarkably spot-on. A lot of them are not quite up to par on economic policy, and are really letting their feelings do the talking. And their feelings are coming from a culture of relative privilege and naiveté.
Problem is, who knows his opinions who cannot put up with his hateful style? In fact, I can’t answer the question in the thread because I’m unwilling to listen to what the guy said.
For the few things you did mention, I can’t see how to agree with him. Being envious is not the issue. The issue is a feeling of justice. And I honestly resent people trying to equate the two. Envy is self-centered, but a sense of justice feels bad for other people being mistreated. Once is vice, the other virtue.
And as for people being douchebags, well, I’ve seen how Carolla acts towards people he thinks aren’t 100% good, and he has no room to talk.
I don’t feel it is fair to comment on something you are unwilling to listen to.
It’s unfair to oversimplify what the man said into “envy”. The issue may be a feeling of justice, sure. But why do you assume the justice is feeling bad for others? Justice can just as well be feeling bad for yourself. Corolla thinks most of these people desire justice for themselves more than for others.
It may help to remember that he is a comedian of sorts. It’s easy to take his style as “hateful”, but if you do I think you just don’t get it. He’s abrasive and acerbically honest and not politically correct, OK, but I don’t think that he is hateful. But the OP didn’t want this to derail into a critique of Adam himself, so let’s leave it at a difference of opinion.
So it’s the 1%'s fault that the system is set up that way? It’s the 1%'s fault that the politicians curry their favor and will grant them access while turning away from the 99%.
Seems like the OWS folks should be more focused on the politicians and not the 1%. By your description of the OWS complaints, it is the politicians that need to be changed.
Mistreated by who? As I say above, it sounds like this mistreatment is by the government and the politicians that run it. I have felt from the beginning that the OWS has misplaced the target of their frustration.
Who says they aren’t? The main talking point I’m aware of is removing the laws and policies that heavily favor the 1%. That’s directed at politicians.
Yes.
I think he is oversimplifying the matter. The problem isn’t the fact that some people make more. The problem is the fact that these days the head honchos make so MUCH more. In the 70s if the owner made 100K and the laborer made 15K people were okay with that. Now the guy in the mail room makes 20K but the CEO makes 15 MILLION and wants to cut salary, benefits and whatever else then can to increase the bottom line, raise stock value and put even MORE money in their pockets while the guy in the mail room is still struggling day to day with no share of those profits.
Maybe they DO feel entitled because they ARE. Working your butt off doesn’t mean you will become that 1%, no matter how hard you work and envy that Rolls.
It reminds me a lot of the talk I used to hear on construction sites from blue collar guys with no real understanding of the issues. They’d wax philosophical about kids today and the economy, relying heavily on unsupported assumptions and nostalgia: his assertion that the “participation trophy” culture has yielded a generation of over entitled people being one of the former (partially one of the latter too) and that back in his day people looked up to wealthy people being one of the latter.
He then goes on to Carolla the argument by saying that this leads to envy and shame (more unsupported assumptions), exactly what leads terrorists to blow up buildings (another unsupported assumption).
So, what do I think? I think when you look to a comedian turned radio host for political analysis you shouldn’t expect too much.
Carolla is interesting because he has lived on both sides of the tracks. He grew up the product of a broken home with a mother who was severely depressed and on welfare. He dropped out of junior college for a job cleaning carpets. He learned carpentry while working as a laborer on constuction sites and took Groundling classes at night. At the age of 30 he was able to break into radio and has been literally a millionaire ever since. His ability to escape poverty has shaped his thinking about issues about class and income. He thinks that if he was able to escape poverty through hard work and persistence other people should be able to as well. Plus his impoverished childhood makes him resentful of people who had it much better than he did whining about their lot in life.
If you believe that everyone acts in their own self-interest, the of course it’s not the 1%'s fault. They’re doing exactly what they should be doing (or looked at another way, exactly what one would expect), using the means at their disposal to increase their slice of the national pie.
Just because people are occupying Wall Street doesn’t mean that Wall Street are the people they’re trying to reach. If you want an audience, you go where the cameras are. If part of their message is that Wall Street gets too much attention from politicians, and probably the media as well, they’ve gone there and gotten some of that attention (from the media so far, not so much from the politicians) for themselves.
Judged only by public awareness, I’d say they’ve been a success so far.
I think this annecdone sums up my feelings on what Adam is talking about:
A few years back, I was a director in a boutique consulting firm in Manhattan. At one point, I happened to get tasked with chaperoning our interns/new hires while we performed a community service team building event helping out around some urban homeless shelter. So while we are working, these guys are all talking about how they all think they should be making six figures by the time they are 30 or they will feel like giant losers.
Basically, here are a bunch of middle-of-the-bell curve performers from nth tier schools at an unknown firm who ALREADY get paid more in a month what these homeless people get paid in a year, who have no idea how big of an ass douche they sound like, acting as if it’s just EXPECTED they should be in the top 5% income bracket just for showing up.
It’s part of this whole culture we have created where nobody believes in actual work anymore but that by half-assed jumping through some beurocratic institutional hoops, you should be guaranteed an awesome life as portrayed by MTV and Madison Avenue.
If that anecdote about wannabe corporate executives’ entitlement to exorbitant compensation parallels Adam Carolla’s criticism of Occupy Wall Street, then Adam Carolla is one confused son of a bitch.
Omit the “c” from that very last word, and I think you might be onto something.
I’d be interested to know what evidence Carolla based his opinions about the OWS members’ motivations on. As I’m pretty sure he did not interview any specific OWS members or have a survey conducted of any OWS members, I’d wager that he pulled his opinions out of his rear end. Based on that I see no reason to give his opinions any respect whatsoever.
Your analysis is faulty, since it is based on a post that is based on a false premise. Of course, the people are not envious of either. They want stuff that they don’t have, same as thieves or good people who are waiting to get ahead. The poster didn’t care about what OWS envied, and just wanted to make a lecture about the evils of the 1%.
hh
So what if a CEO makes 15 million? It is the money that they owners of the money have decided that the CEO is worth. And, the CEO agreed. Same as the laborer. That is called a contract. If they don’t like it, let them find a company that will pay them 15 million to work in the mail room. I’m sure that there are plenty of those jobs around for guys with the experience that got them where they are.
Or not.
hh