Stephen King is a classic rags to riches story. His semi-autobiography is full of his hard knock childhood and early career. He knows poverty well and used to be able to empathize. That is one of the appeals of his work. Now from his lofty perch of massive wealth, his most clever put-down is to imply those who would pirate his and other author's work are poor. Ensconsed in his comfortable bubble of affluence for so long, he forgets his origins. The suggestion of poverty is now an insult he wields with the same arrogance of the upper class snoots he once feared and loathed, but now has become. O, how the tiny have risen, like so much fermented rancid yeast, to piss down upon the lot he onced shared. Ah, the corruption of money. King, we hardly knew ye.

I know, RIGHT?

Don't you just HATE it when people work to better themselves and then get all defensive when others try to take what is not theirs, but to better themselves too. Without actually doing the work, but never the less, they take what is not theirs to better themselves, so whats the big deal, right?

I'll bet YOU are the one who somehow just "knows" what would constitute, "poverty", "riches" and "massive wealth", am I right? Of course, I would also bet YOU "know" that to "empathize" means for one to allow others to take what they feel entitled to from oneself, correct?

And, MOST importantly, I can also personally GAUREN-FUCKIN'-TEE you, it will always, only and absolutely involve someone OTHER THAN yourself having to allow what they earned to be taken.

Empathize all you like. Give all you can. But try to remember, charity is a personal choice we should all enjoy making, charity is NOT charity if it is to involve something being taken from one and given to another.

Yes, private property is certainly something one does not respect much when one has very little of it, when even one's few belongings (some clothes, furniture, dishes, maybe some gadgets) is subject to being put out on the street and thus lost forever due to non-payment of a few months rent!

And that prospect of eviction always haunts you because unemployment faces you every day of your miserable life and you are only paid enough to live from week to week; it takes extraordinary effort to save any money at all (and often cutbacks in clothing etc. bring you social contempt, which can affect your ability to hold or get a job).

That's all rough enough, but someone's gotta do it, by which I mean actually labor to create all the real property upon which real wealth is based! Me, since the day I saw the company name where my dad worked on those I-beams stacked up to build the freeways of Dallas, Texas, most of which my Dad welded a bead on, I've always been proud of being working class, even grateful. We are the doers, we are the makers, we are the "can do" ones who make dreams come alive, we are the salt of the earth!

What is NOT necessary is to have to listen to this putrid garbage from the mouths of these abject narcissists of the propertied classes who think they are better, when in fact, they are only ORGANIZERS at best (well, some are actually leaders, really admirable).

Writers are there to entertain the workers, to provide an escape from daily life and thus a stabilization of the spirit, nothing more, nothing all that important. Most are not indespinsable, like Shakespeare, or Jane Adams or Mark Twain or Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan or Pavarotti or Springsteen or even that right wing reprobate, John Wayne.

Plus, if the workers have no disposable income, they cannot buy some writer's books, or see his movies, or get a job to print his books or get a job at the paper mill, or on the assembly lines for computer gadgets that deliver his precious thoughts to the market.

What the hell was that tirade about? At no point did the OP defend the theft of anyone's intellectual property. He simply pointed out that using "poor" as an insult, instead of say "thief", "pirate", or "plagarist", demonstrates that Mr. King has lost his perspective.

Arrogance is the affliction of the rich.

Yet he stands to lose hundreds of millions with Chinese piracy of copyrights.

This is an old lament of authors going back to Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and his fight over copyright protection in the UK and Canada. They never respected American intellectual properties and America never respected theirs.

Therefore millions of copies of Huckleberry Finn were pirated and printed in Canada then sold in America, and millions of copies of Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities were pirated printed in America and sold.

louis lamore rest in peace .

"I've always been proud of being working class, even grateful."

As anyone would be, everyone should be proud of what they do.

"We are the doers, we are the makers, we are the "can do" ones who make dreams come alive, we are the salt of the earth!"

Yes, yes, of course we are.........................th­ing is though, much like the salt of the earth, without others desiring what we are or have, what are we any worth? The sad truth of the matter is, as fine a man as your father obviously was, as hard a worker as he must have been, without someone, somewhere putting up enough of what they had to purchase steel beams for him to weld, his labor would not be required. Without someone, somewhere spending tons of peoples earnings to purchase beams to build with, same result.

Everyone who has ANY income what so ever is contributing something in our society. Yes, even those whose contributions you may deem unworthy, someone, somewhere disagrees. Just as those who do not physically create need those who do, those who do need those who do not, otherwise what good is it to be able to weld? During our great depression there were many craftsmen who struggled to provide for their families. They could create their asses off, problem was, there were not enough evil people with money to make it worth their while to spend time doing what they did so well.

Lets face the facts, in your own way, right here, you "look down" upon those whose work you do not feel is actually work, all the while bitching about how those you claim physically labor less "look down" on others. YOUR opinion of THEM is every bit as shallow as that you preceive to be from them.

Those of you who lust for that which others have and try to justify it by claiming you earned yours by the sweat of your brow while they really did nothing for what they get seriously need to form your life views based on something other than beer and boot commercials.

The confusion here is that some think that works of art, especially music and literature, are OK to rip off as they are asethetic and not functional.

We would all agree that software should be propritory, and that manufacturing processes like Coca-Cola's formula are worthy of legal protection...and therefore their earned profits are deemed morally OK.

Whereas music and books are fair game for what is being portrayed as "starving artists" who steal because they are only works of the mind. We must have empathy for the poor artists as they deserve a free ride on the coat tails of the successful in their respective fields.

But now we have countires like China, India and Brazil mass printing books, CDs and DVD's without regard to copyright laws. They are stealing American profits making themselves richer and us poorer.

The artist's contribution is as important to a country Henry Ford's productions lines and Intell's computer chip.

UPNYA2:

"I've always been proud of being working class, even grateful."

As anyone would be, everyone should be proud of what they do.

"We are the doers, we are the makers, we are the "can do" ones who make dreams come alive, we are the salt of the earth!"

Yes, yes, of course we are.........................th­ing is though, much like the salt of the earth, without others desiring what we are or have, what are we any worth? The sad truth of the matter is, as fine a man as your father obviously was, as hard a worker as he must have been, without someone, somewhere putting up enough of what they had to purchase steel beams for him to weld, his labor would not be required. Without someone, somewhere spending tons of peoples earnings to purchase beams to build with, same result.

Everyone who has ANY income what so ever is contributing something in our society. Yes, even those whose contributions you may deem unworthy, someone, somewhere disagrees. Just as those who do not physically create need those who do, those who do need those who do not, otherwise what good is it to be able to weld? During our great depression there were many craftsmen who struggled to provide for their families. They could create their asses off, problem was, there were not enough evil people with money to make it worth their while to spend time doing what they did so well.

Lets face the facts, in your own way, right here, you "look down" upon those whose work you do not feel is actually work, all the while bitching about how those you claim physically labor less "look down" on others. YOUR opinion of THEM is every bit as shallow as that you preceive to be from them.

Those of you who lust for that which others have and try to justify it by claiming you earned yours by the sweat of your brow while they really did nothing for what they get seriously need to form your life views based on something other than beer and boot commercials.

I agree. Yet the age long disparity does not fit in all employment situations fortunately. There are those companies where there is mutual respect between ownership, management and labor. You might consider that the ideal situation. But no matter, if the market no longer demands the product or service, those "less essential" to the survival of the business will be laid off.

Yeah, I bet Uppity would be singing a different tune if people were moving into new homes and claiming they owned them.

Well, except for the fact that the bridge was paid for as part of Eisenhower's socialist programs to build interstate highways.

Try as it can, private enterprise can't begin to match what society can do when everyone works together for the common good.

A fact that I addressed when I stated, "Without someone, somewhere spending tons of peoples earnings to purchase beams to build with, same result.", did I not?

Never the less, there is no denying the truth that what people can create with their labor is of no use if there are no other people out their creating a demand for said product or providing capitol for the raw materials required to create a product.

Never the less[sic], there is no denying the truth that what people can create with their labor is of no use if there are no other people out their creating a demand for said product or providing capitol[sic] for the raw materials required to create a product.

Both lack the ability to do those things that society needs. If we were still a Laissez Faire Capitalist society, we would be riding around in steam trains. If we were a Communist Country, we would have the same steam engines, but they wouldn't run.

Trebuchet:

Never the less[sic], there is no denying the truth that what people can create with their labor is of no use if there are no other people out their creating a demand for said product or providing capitol[sic] for the raw materials required to create a product.

Both lack the ability to do those things that society needs. If we were still a Laissez Faire Capitalist society, we would be riding around in steam trains. If we were a Communist Country, we would have the same steam engines, but they wouldn't run.

TOUCHÉ Treb TOUCHÉ