That aside, it’s even more important that we-the-people believe that the rich are “deserving” too.  It is a critical component of the “legitimacy” of their rule. It’s all OK because they weren’t born into feudal era royalty. Theirs is a privilege of “merit.”

The entire edifice of capitalism is wrapped around the protestant work ethic which compels us to be loyal,  grateful and subservient to employers and their power.  If we are poor or unemployed or not employers ourselves, it must be because there is something wrong with us.  That is as core as core belief gets.  According to them, to even consider that an economy organized differently might produce more equitable outcomes is to wallow in envy,  resentment or worse “socialism,”  (aka:  anything that isn’t the status quo.)

Confusion on issues of “dependence” is also central to the philosophical grip they maintain on our minds.  The last thing they want is for ordinary citizens to be self-reliant.  That would mean we wouldn’t need them.  In particular it would mean we wouldn’t need their J.O.B. system as the means by which we work in order to live.

By portraying us as lazy moochers dependent on “government,”  they deflect attention from the reality that we are utterly dependent on them. That dependence is just fine in their view.  In language worthy of Orwell,  they call our dependence (on “job creators”) “personal responsibility.”

The joke of course is that amongst themselves,  the super-rich know that capitalism has never met the needs of all the people all the time.  It never will. As capitalism evolves,  it does so less and less.

Consequently, for various reasons, capitalists compel the government to pick up some of the slack.  This includes direct government hiring (job creation which keeps the unemployment rate down),  mass incarceration (reduces the size of the available workforce and creates jobs in the prison-industrial complex) and gigantic subsidies to profit making businesses (bailouts,  defense contracts, tax incentives etc.).

Unemployment insurance,  food stamps and other such programs also mask and offset the intrinsic inability of the private sector to meet the needs of tens of millions.

Not that we should pay attention to any of that.  To the contrary,  exercising their god given right to whine about the moochers is one of the privileges that comes with their wealth and power, like private jets and country club memberships.

As Steve Perlstein of the Washington Post put it recently in his brilliant column “Manifesto for the Entitled:”

I am the misunderstood superhero of American capitalism, single-handedly creating wealth and prosperity despite all the obstacles put in my way by employees, government and the media.

I am a job creator and I am entitled.

I am entitled to complain about the economy even when my stock price, my portfolio and my profits are at record levels.

I am entitled to a healthy and well-educated workforce, a modern and efficient transportation system and protection for my person and property, just as I am entitled to demonize the government workers who provide them.

And speaking of whiners,  isn’t Mitt Romney an Ayn Rand Hall-of-Famer for honestly expressing the victimization of the rich at the hands of the moochers?  Didn’t he basically say,  “Isn’t it clear that they have rigged the election against us!  And yet for only $50,000 from each of you my brothers and sisters I will soldier on against these moocher barbarians!”

(Note to my fellow 99 percenters.  Surely we should repent.  My God what is wrong with us that we have no compassion for the burden we are to the Mitt Romney’s of the world?)

All of which brings us to the number one reason Romney has to try to make it all go away.

Forty-seven percent are lazy moochers? Forty-seven percent!

That’s got to include a sizeable number of white people.

Now if Romney had said 100 percent of the people were lazy moochers, some whites would still insist that he wasn’t talking about them.  The people who don’t want the government messing with their Medicare are but one example of this widespread capacity for willful ignorance.

But others are more reasonable.  And indeed,  you can almost see the light bulbs going on in the heads of white people all over the country.  It shows up in letters to the editor,  sound bites on the news and private conversations.

For example,  the day after 47 percent went viral,  the Detroit Free Press quoted a white voter as follows:

Daniel Pier, 54, of Warren caught the comments on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday. He had been undecided and was leaning toward Romney. Now, he’s moved toward Obama. Pier is on Social Security disability for a bad heart.

“I’m hearing him (Romney) talk about entitlements…We’re depending on the government. I couldn’t live unless we collected that,” he said. “Every valve in my heart is bad.”

Mitt thinks white people are lazy moochers?  Well then what’s the point of being a Romney Democrat? Isn’t the whole idea that our shared resentment over working hard and paying taxes to take care of them is our bond with you,  Mr. Romney.

Being caught on tape implying that white people are lazy moochers too puts the whole Lee Atwater,  Ronald Reagan, welfare queen, food stamp president,  dog-whistle Republican Party franchise in jeopardy.

Do we owe Mitt our thanks and gratitude?  I think so.  He has given us a gift that will keep on giving long after the election is over.  Thanks to this video more of us might stop apologizing for ourselves and start questioning the system.  As if that weren’t enough, this video might also make it harder for them to use race to divide and conquer.

Surely even Sean Hannity could see that anything leading to either possibility, let alone both, would be “completely wrong.”