It seems knowledge of how Romney treated his dog is spreading across the Internet. I wrote about what I came across on the Net and included a photo I saw on a site a few days ago: "What is Romney's real self? his dog, Seamus, knew" My point in my first blog was to show Romney's lack of compassion for anything outside his ego, his lack of any integrity in his career.
One good friend commented: 'I had heard about this before and found it unimaginable. It says a lot about his heart, his compassion ("I like firing people"), his ability for being a president for the 99%." Another asked where was my source (sceptically). It was the second that prompted me to write a new blog in reply.
Like a good scholar tracing this down: Not sure if this is from the book, but the source is said to be Romney's son. Like father, like son. The son saw nothing wrong in this. The son thought it was an amusing anecdote to tell about his father. Not yet found who spoke to the son or where this was written It was ever so amusing the weeping dog. What must have been the lives of slaves for centuries and how easy it was for Dickens to expose slave-owners in his travel down for the first time. What a family they must be. Now we can imagine them all so amused.
They will go into hysterics over people not getting their food stamps. I understand the dictator of Syria and his wife send each other emails laughing over the miseries of the thousands trying to escape slaughter. Last year Wall Street firms held Halloween parties dressing up as Occupy types at the encampments and ridiculing them.
As with much research (even about Jane Austen), ultimately I am dependent on what others read as primary documents. The story first surfaced (so to speak) a couple of months ago: February 23, 2012. The New York Review of Books ran a long article, first in the issue, by Michael Tomasky, of two biographies, The Real Romney by Michael Kranish and Scott Helman and Mitt Romney: An Inside Look at the Man and his Politics by R. B. Scott. Take the time out and read it: Willard Mitt Romney.
Tomasky summarizes and reviews both books; they are also filled with information about the decent career and behavior of Mitt Romney's father, once a leader of what was the 1950s style liberal wing of the Republican party. That meant strong conservatism when it came to economics and war, but humane attitudes in the social realm, genuine concern for individual liberties.
It is there for the first time I learned what Romney did in Bain and how he became such a rich man: by ruthless exploitation of the new deregulation and he did destroy hundreds and hundreds of workers' lives and companies in the process. The anecdote about the dog is not in this article but it was around this time I first heard it. It was after the books began to be read that it surfaced.
When I finished it I was convinced here was a man who would and had done anything for money or power (including leasing on millions death and destruction from wars). And as to its unimaginabilty: people carelessly treat their animals; they really don't regard their animals as having similar quality feelings (the way slave-owners once regarded and treated human slaves). Temple Grandin's book is an eye-opener but I've seen comparable treatments of animals myself.
Vote for Obama: yesterday I pointed out how a vote for Obama was a vote for women's right to health care, to privacy, to keep their bodies intact and uninvaded; today I add in Obama we will have a man who has limits on what he is willing to do to other people and creatures to get and maintain power and wealth. Obama has tried to limit the killing around the world; he has tried to stop torture; he has brought law into play and tried to limit damage; he has tried and tried to pass laws to create jobs: the way to do this through social programs and spreading wealth (through income tax redistribution) which puts money in many people's hands. He is mocked because the only social program left which puts some food in people's hands is food stamps; and the way of the mockery is racist: far more white people need food stamps than black because there are far more white than black people in the US. Since the destruction of welfare for women with dependent children, this is the only place they can go for minimal food.
Most of Obama's bills have been killed or stymied by the Republicans, often aided by blue-dog or conservative democrats. Romney would create a world where the 1% (people like him) grow richer and richer. The oil pipe line he talks of brings no jobs to the US and he knows it. He's a liar. And what he did to this poor animal once in his ownership is parallel to what he did to workers to make himself the millionaire (or billionaire) he is today.
Sylvia