Pacific Free Press was launched in March 2007 by Dutch-Canadian Richard
Kastelein of V.O.F. Expathos, in the Netherlands along with Chris Cook- CFUV radio journalist and Editor in Chief of Pacific Free Press. Cook is based in , Victoria, British Columbia.
The mission of Pacific Free Press is simple: to dig out nuggets of truth from
the slag-heap of lies, ignorance and witless diversion that has buried
public discourse today. Pacific Free Press provides a new venue for
disseminating hard news and insightful, fact-based analysis of the
harsh realities too often ignored or distorted by the mainstream press.
Channeling Suze Orman
by Norman Solomon I was near the deadline for a column when I glanced at a TV screen. The Suze Orman Show, airing on CNBC at prime time, exerted a powerful force in my hotel room. And the fate of this column was sealed.
Orman made a big splash many years ago on public television — the incubating environment for her as a national phenom. With articulate calls for intelligent self-determination of one’s own financial future, she is a master of the long form. Humor and dramatic cadences punch up the impacts of her performances.
Seeing her the other night, within a matter of seconds, I realized that the jig was up. How could a mere underachieving syndicated columnist hope to withstand the blandishments and certainties of Suze Orman, bestselling author and revered eminence from the erudite bastions of PBS to the hard-boiled financial realms of General Electric’s CNBC?
To resist was pointless. What if I tried to write as a carping
critic? After all, Suze Orman has already explained that such critics,
particularly the males of the species, just resent a strong woman with
the guts, smarts and determination to cast off the shackles of a
retrograde past. “Ladies,” I could hear her say from the stage, with
one of her magnificent flourishes, “don’t let that nonsense wreck your
future.”
So, in hopes of putting myself in sync with her
redemptive power, I turn the rest of this particular column over to a
distillation of Suze Orman’s messaging (the following paragraphs are
not quotations from Orman; they summarize the gist of her repertoire on
stage):
Your money, your life. It’s as simple as that. Ladies —
and you men, too — the time is past when we hold back. Not having
control over our own money is something we can’t afford, and I mean
that literally. We just cannot afford it.
I’ll be blunt here.
Anyone who tells you there’s something wrong with getting rich and then
richer has some serious unresolved problems. Heh heh.
If you
want a solution, you go out and grab it. You rule money or money will
rule you. People who can’t wrap their minds around that vital concept —
they get nowhere.
You want to solve social problems, start with
yourself. If you can’t let yourself accumulate wealth, you’re part of a
social problem — like I used to be. Now I do very well, thank you, and
I don’t want to hear about how some financial company is making money
from my self-help website. Sure, I’m getting richer all the time. You
got a problem with that?
The more people get rich, the happier I
am. Even a leader of the Chinese Communists (and you know what dummies
they were) said it straight out maybe 30 years ago — “it’s glorious to
be rich.” The baggage we’re still carrying around tells us not to mind
if some guy says it but if I as a woman make the same point then the
knives come out. Ladies, to hell with that. We’re not going back.
It’s
not glorious to be low-income, that’s for damn sure. I know what that’s
like. Now I go back to PBS at pledge time, and they welcome me with
open arms. Public broadcasting. Makes me almost sentimental. But catch
me on CNBC these days, and you’ll see that I’m swimming with the
big-money fish.
I was a waitress for a pathetically long time. I had to find the courage. The courage, ladies. And I did. Now look at me.
I
don’t just want you to plan for the future. I want you to make enough
money to buy your future: lock, stock and barrel. Money money money.
I’ve got it on the brain, and I make no apology. I love money. It’s
freedom, and ladies — you can earn freedom if you apply yourselves.
Some
people can’t stop complaining that the economic system has winners and
losers. Whether they realize it or not, that’s probably because they’re
bound and determined to be losers. Well, I think it’s a heck of a lot
better to be a winner — don’t you?
What kind of media future do
you think I would’ve had if I chose to keep complaining about the
system because of losers? I’d probably be a loser too! Not if I can
help it. And I can, obviously.
So, I’m rich. And I’m trying to
inform you about how to get rich, too. If you can’t make it happen,
maybe you haven’t listened to my wisdom closely enough. You got a
problem with that?
Writings 
Subscribe to this comment's feed
