You know, I think I have a new favorite slogan:
WE BUILT THAT!
Take Wal-Mart for instance. It didn’t become one of the world’s largest retailers because Sam Walton was so good at stocking shelves and ringing cash registers. The Walton family provided the leadership, true enough, but the labor, the actual building, came from millions of ordinary Americans working long hours at low-paying jobs.
Sam Walton didn’t build Wal-Mart.
WE BUILT THAT!
Or take the auto industry, the railroads, the hospitals, the universities. Take any large, successful organization or enterprise that is making some small group of people very wealthy. What do they all have in common? It wasn’t the labors of the rich that built the enterprise.
WE BUILT THAT!
Look at the United States of America. With all our flaws and failings, we’ve got a few things right. We’ve recognized (or at least, a good number of us have realized, starting with our founding fathers) that our strength comes not from imposed uniformity of religion or politics, but from a cooperative and tolerant diversity.
Jesus didn’t build America.
WE BUILT THAT!
The list goes on and on. I love that slogan.
There’s a ‘shopped photo out there showing the National Debt Clock at the GOP Convention, numbers a-flashing, with the “WE BUILT THAT!” sign right below it.
(I also loved the Facebook photo showing the construction of the White House, with a black construction crew resting above the caption “We built that!”)
It was a crew of slaves, because slaves actually DID build the White House.