Tom Perkins (KPCB): Progressive Kristallnacht Coming? | Hacker News Reader

Tom Perkins (KPCB): Progressive Kristallnacht Coming?

online.wsj.com

60 pointsrdl42 comments

Here is some perspective from Germany, the prime exporter of horrible history in Europe: Tom Perkins is now disqualified from any meaningful discourse. Comparing some hate-mail you recieve to what happened in 1938 amounts to a declaration of complete intellectual bancrupcy.

There are some pocket-tricks of discourse which can be forgiven. This is not one of them.

My house is next to a memorial commemorating the place where there used to be a Synagogue which was severely vanalized in 1938 and subsequently confiscated and destroyed. The Jews of my home town were later deported to death camps. I attended the memorial service at the site on the 75th anniversary, a few months back, with a reading of eyewittness accounts and all.

Do you know why most of us only know a little bit about what happened that day? Because consuming too much of the (readily available) information existing about it will throw you into despair, which is something anybody who starts reading about it soon finds out. That is how bad that day was.

Comparing himself to Pogromnacht! Fuck this guy. Not his "class", but him specifically.

"The Nazis were special" is totally the wrong lesson to take away from the horrors of WW2. "Never again" doesn't mean "this could never happen again", but rather "we will never let this happen again."

I have no problem with pointing out parallels between other events and things which, in the past, had horrible outcomes. Excessive and crippling war reparations are (rightly) avoided because of the example of the rise of the Nazis. (As well as unfairness to those who didn't directly take part). Central registries of minority or disfavored groups can be wisely opposed on the basis of what the Nazis and others did with those registries on coming into power; even today the German postal system has some protections lacking in the US system for that reason. Rwanda, rather than the just the Nazis, is a great example of the risks of a political incident either manufactured or exploited to wage wars (civil or of conquest) and trample on civil liberties (including right to life); 9/11 and the disproportionate and ineffective US domestic and international response might be a fresher example still.

It is the violence, combined with scale of the Seattle WTO through Occupy, which is potentially relevant here; the google bus incident is a sideshow, but in the same general category. It certainly isn't Germany 1938, but inequality creates the kind of precondition for violent change, on the right or left, that has been tragically exploited in the past.

Kleiner Perkins has taken pains to distance itself from Mr Perkins' words:

https://twitter.com/kpcb/statuses/427185213261623297

"Tom Perkins has not been involved in KPCB in years. We were shocked by his views expressed today in the WSJ and do not agree."

Mike Godwin posted a while back that he was going to charge $5/violation. How big a bill should Mr Perkins get?

"Tom Perkins has not been involved in KPCB in years."

Really now? Apparently he's still listed as a Partner Emeritus:

   http://www.kpcb.com/partner/tom-perkins

To quote from KPCB's own linking page to the above:

By continuing their relationship with KPCB long after leaving, they bring our portfolio companies the benefit of decades of deep experience.

Kristallnacht is a bad metaphor for this. Not because it's Nazi Germany, but because Kristallnacht was an act of violence instigated by a ruling minority against an ostracized minority.

Inverting it makes it a different situation entirely, which you could simply describe as a "riot", "unrest", "rebellion" or whatever isn't a blatant clickbait.

It's far worse than a "bad metaphor." It's holocaust trivialization, basically.

The "kristallyacht" joke is improved by knowing that Tom Perkins killed a guy yachting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Perkins_%28businessman%...

There is a literal parallel (broken crystal/broken glass from bus windows), but the true question is: is the power of the government on the side of the "1%/jews" or on the side of the "progressives/Nazis"? Outside of SF city government (which is so ineffective as to not really matter), most government seems solidly on the side of the elites. While many Jews in pre-WW2 Europe had economic power (and many didn't), they didn't generally have political or military power.

Consequently, this seems more like (at the extreme) the rise of the communists in Russia, progressive movements in the US in the early-1900s which caused the income tax, massive increase in size of government, and alcohol prohibition, rather than the Nazis.

Google Bus issue: a bunch of kids breaking a bus window. Protestors embarrass major corporations into paying inconsequential fee to park their buses on public streets.

Kristallnacht: 91 murders, 1000 synagogues burned and 30,000 put in concentration camps.

Well, remember that the Nazi government did not have power for quite some time. It was only when the German government itself could no longer control the populace (remember, humanity was in the middle of a Great Depression, and Germany was hit extra-special-hard due to the world blaming them for WWI), that the Nazis really took hold. Unlike most capitalist nations, the people with all the power in Nazi Germany were those who were more loyal to the Nazi party, not the richest members of the German society. That is of course contrast to the way America works.

Until the US government completely collapses, and power falls into the hands of some crazy person, I'm pretty sure we won't have to worry about any kind of "Kristallnacht" taking place.

For many WSJ readers, that has already happened - their editorial board is heavily invested in the idea that Obama is just about the worst thing ever to happen to the US.

USG -> Weimar Republic is seeming like a pretty legitimate parallel in a lot of ways; ineffective, etc. More so in 2008; that the world economy seems to have mostly survived makes it much less of a risk, but if China imploded and/or 2008 repeated itself, I would be extra suspicious of someone promoting a State-led program of national renewal.

I would suggest that it seems the more legitimate the less one knows about the Weimar Republic. The US has never been through a catastrophe such as WW I and its immediate aftermath were in Germany; and for all the lively efforts here and there, the US government is generally perceived in the US as the legitimate government, as the Weimar government was not perceived by large portions of the governing classes--the courts and the military, notably.

The US also doesn't have nearly the problem with paramilitary groups that the Weimar Republic had. Their official control over even the capital was so tenuous that they in effect resorted to setting up their own "pro-government" paramilitary group to counter the left- and right-wing anti-government groups: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsbanner_Schwarz-Rot-Gold

I don't know as much as I'd like about Weimar; is there a "standard" good book on it in English? I know WW2 and WW1 a lot better, but the Weimar-and-rise-of-Nazis part always falls into the cracks.

Standard I'm not so sure.

Eric D. Weitz, Weimar Germany covers the period, focusing extensively on the cultural and artistic aspects.

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780691157962-0

Related, from Powells:

http://www.powells.com/subjects/history-and-social-science/e...

Gordon Craig's history of Germany 1867-1945 is worth reading, not just for its coverage of the Weimar Republic.

Tom Perkins is over 80 years old and it could be his age. He might also reveal the true sentiment in his social circle.

Living in a bubble is interesting thing. Being on the News Corp. board, consuming News Corp. owned media and then writing an opinion in News Corp owned magazine.

He owns a customized Japanese fishing trawler (called "Dr. No") which he uses to transport his own submarine. He lives in Jimmy Page's former mansion.

The bubble he lives in has its own zip code.

This is actually the opposite of the current circumstances.

"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."

Benito Mussolini

So the merger of the State with investment banks, oil companies and others in the 1% that fund the rise to power of politicians is a corporatist state. Now while the politicians praise those that fund them to power, they wage wars on "the other" in this case Muslims overseas, which while helping oil companies, investment banks etc also gives them a boogie man to scare the public into submission and help consolidate their power to do whatever illegal activities they want, such as spying on everyone or kidnapping now renamed "rendition" etc. The fact that this article is so easily dismissed shows how bad things have gotten and how unlikely it is to end well for any of us.

My deity, what an absolutely sickening comparison.

The simple fact is that the 1% have achieved grossly disproportionate wealth thanks to the inherent self-reinforcing nonlinear distribution of rewards from capitalism itself, massively aided and abetted by a corrupt financial system. Indeed it is mainly the latter which is at fault.

In short, Tom, you and your companions may (or may not) deserve to be rich as a result of cannily buying and selling other people's labors, but you certainly don't deserve to be as rich as your are.

RE: "the demonization of the rich"

What exactly attracts an American billionaire to a haunted house in Scotland? You be the judge. First, some history: "Boleskine House was the estate of Aleister Crowley from 1899 to 1913."[1] "Crowley purchased the home in order to perform the [Abramelin] operation"[2]. In the Abramelin operation, the magician must summon the twelve Kings and Dukes of Hell (Lucifer, Satan, Leviathan, Belial, etc.), and the "magical goals for which the demons can be employed are typical of those found in grimoires:"[3], e.g., money. "The current owner, American venture capitalist Tom Perkins, has owned the building since the mid-eighties and is looking for a tenfold increase on the £800,000 he reportedly put down on the property."[1] "Crowley's summoning of strange entities, mixed with the strange legends and folklore surrounding Fortean occurrences at Loch Ness, have led some, including cryptozoologist Richard Freeman, to ask whether the famous occultist's ritual 'worked in a way that Crowley had not foreseen?'"[4]

[1] http://www.jimmypageguitar.com/News-165-Jimmy+page+house.htm... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boleskine_House [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Abramelin [4] Did Aleister Crowley Unleash Demons at Loch Ness? at http://www.dailygrail.com/Magick-Circle/2012/8/Did-Aleister-...

for fucks sake. this is tasteless exaggeration.

The world would be a better place with more guys like Tom Perkins in it. The envious should have no place in politics or power.

"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."

What is this trash? Calling someone a "snob" is libel now? Who upvoted this? Why is it on the front page? Come on.

Flagged.

Yeah, like anyone cares what the Chronicle prints.CW Nevius (the columnist who has been baiting Danielle Steele and calling her a snob because her barge downtown house is surrounded by a hedge which protrudes onto the pavement) has been doing this schtick for 10 or 20 years, he's a professional whiner. I was actually surprised to see him whining about Danielle Steele because he's usually whining about poor people. The chronicle is an extremely parochial newpaper and CW Nevius is just the resident grump. They also have a resident angry conservative columnist, two resident self-absorbed sports writers, etc...much like many other small town newspapers. People who want a serious daily newspaper in SF read the WSJ or NYT, both of which have SF offices and produce a local supplement.

"Yeah, like anyone cares what the Chronicle prints"

Seems like people do. Including yours truly.

I found the dissonance between the prominence and reputation of the speaker and the crudeness of the remarks interesting, hence my up vote. Comparing hoodlums tossing rocks to Kristallnacht is beyond depraved.

He's the founder of a (formerly) top-tier SV VC firm, and the issue of "how SF and VC-funded tech get along" is a huge local political issue in SF right now, so I think it's quite relevant.

(and, it's a letter-to-the-editor, so he's not being misquoted, unlike the "creative editing" applied to make pg look sexist)

Is HN really an appropriate place to point out stupid letters to the editor?

This is a sonar ping bouncing off a person closely intermeshed with communities HN readers care about. It casts into relief certain cultural values and tendencies of our community, e.g. our discomfort with moral ambiguity (Bill Gates/Uber/prosecutors/Comcast tend to be judged as scumbag or not in the top comment, with the nuance being expanded upon in child comments versus the other way around).

Given his god-like status in the VC community -- and of the company he founded, which until recently has boasted of its "continuing relationship" with Mr. Perkins -- it's more than appropriate:

    http://www.kpcb.com/teams/partners-emeriti

This stupid letter to the editor has (a) made the news elsewhere (b) been explicitly disowned by his firm: "Tom Perkins has not been involved in KPCB in years. We were shocked by his views expressed today in the WSJ and do not agree."

Regarding (a), the news contains lots of Stupid Celebrity Stories, but that's the kind of thing I look at HN to get away from.

It should be noted that Danielle Steel is allegedly Perkins' ex-wife.

He was her fifth husband [1997-2002], or so Wikipedia informs one.

What's the significance of that? I must admit I have no idea who either of them are.

So you flagged the post before even clicking through? C'mon man! It's right there in the link:

"Mr. Perkins is a founder of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers."

How do you think I quoted the article if I didn't click through?

Of course I read it, but I'm not familiar with the author nor the company it says he founded.

KPCB (more commonly "Kleiner Perkins") used to be the top VC firm in the world (at least for tech/IT/Internet; the other candidate would be Sequoia, but they're both clearly in the top 5 in the dot com time period). They funded Amazon, Google, Genentech, Sun, etc. They basically voluntarily abdicated shortly after the Google investment and went into clean tech for some reason.

John Doerr is probably more prominent in the IT space than any of the "name" partners, though.

Thanks for the info.

I still don't get why it's HN-worthy though. I do realize that there is a certain amount of interest in the finance side of stuff here (which I don't really share, but I see it) but even there, "important VC guy makes an ass of himself on the WSJ letters page in a way that is not related to tech" hardly seems relevant.

If a current VC said what he said, I think that would be unquestionably relevant, given how contentious the income/wealth/etc. inequality issue is right now.

There's a vastly better argument here that he's an 80 year old former-player who is saying crazy things which are relevant to the industry but not particularly relevant because he's been out of the game so long (and is potentially not in full control of his faculties, although plenty of 80 year olds are.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com