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美国国家公共电台 NPR Disney Heiress Calls For Wealth Tax: 'We Have To Draw A Line'

时间:2019-07-03 05:12来源:互联网 提供网友:nan   字体: [ ]
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ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

It's no surprise that a strong majority of Americans supports a wealth tax - a higher tax rate for a small number of millionaires and billionaires. What's more surprising is that some of those millionaires and billionaires are calling for a wealth tax themselves. One of those people is Abigail Disney. Her grandfather was Roy Disney, co-founder of the multibillion-dollar entertainment company. And she has been speaking out on the issue of income inequality. She is here with us in our New York studio. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.

ABIGAIL DISNEY: I'm glad to be here.

SHAPIRO: You were one of 18 people in the top one-tenth of 1% who signed a letter supporting a wealth tax for households with $50 million or more in assets. Just briefly1, why?

DISNEY: Well, nothing in history ever moved forward just because people advocated for their own interests. Things really change when people are traitors3 to their class. And my class needs some really good traitors these days.

SHAPIRO: Have you been treated as a traitor2 for signing this letter?

DISNEY: Oh, my goodness gracious, yes.

SHAPIRO: Really?

DISNEY: But, you know, it is just really important. We're not in a democracy all assigned with the task of advocating for ourselves. We're assigned with the task of trying to create the best and strongest and fairest country we can create. And what I've watched over the last 30 years is rich people going from terribly rich to awfully4 rich to obscenely and insanely rich. And we have to draw a line.

SHAPIRO: If you and your cohort of wealthy individuals gave your money to philanthropic causes instead of being taxed, you could direct it to education or homelessness or whatever your cause may be. Why would you rather see it go to the federal government?

DISNEY: Here's the world I want to live in. I want to live in a world that doesn't need philanthropy. And if Jeff Bezos earned less and paid his people more and didn't have $37 billion to put into a philanthropy and figure out what to do with, there really wouldn't be that much of the philanthropy that was needed. I would rather not to be needed as a philanthropist. And I will never stop feeding the hungry and housing the homeless and all the other things that I want to do.

But I would so much prefer that public schools function, that roads don't break your axles, you know, that people have health care - which they have a right to have - that low-income people who work full-time5 at minimum wage don't need food stamps to get through their days. That's the world I want to live in.

SHAPIRO: On an issue that is related but separate, I want to ask about your very public criticism of the current CEO of Disney for his compensation package. You have no formal role with the Disney Company. For people who have not been following this very public back-and-forth, what is the nut of your critique here?

DISNEY: The nut of my critique is that I know that company pretty well? Obviously, it's a big, sophisticated company. And it's grown a lot since I, you know, worked sort of in a way with it. When you're in what is setting up to be the largest media and entertainment conglomerate6 on the planet in the history of the world...

SHAPIRO: Because of its merger7 with Fox.

DISNEY: Right. And when you have record profits, when your stocks are at record highs and you're going home with obscene amounts of money - and I have no objection to obscene amounts of money in and of themselves. My objection is you have $15-an-hour workers who cannot buy enough food to eat. They are rationing9 their insulin. They are sleeping in their cars.

How do you jibe10 one thing with the other? When you're running such an enormous conglomerate, can you not break from orthodoxy? What if you made less money and everybody else made some more? You don't have to create a foundation to go feed those hungry people because you've paid them fairly.

SHAPIRO: When you give those examples of people rationing insulin and sleeping in their cars, is that something that you are specifically literally11 aware Disney employees are doing? Or is this just a hypothetical?

DISNEY: I have literally sat in a room with the people who pour your soda12 and the people who clean your room and scrape gum off the sidewalks who have told me, I have to ration8 my insulin. I have sat with them. And I have felt a kind of rage that I don't even know how to describe to you. Those were the people that I was taught to revere13. You know, so I'm not really in fact in the business of just attacking Disney because, you know, I can attack Disney.

Look. I know that if I say something about Disney, people pay more attention. I could say something about IBM. I could say something about Walmart. I could say something about a lot of things. Nobody would care. And the fact is Disney is kind of like the last shameable (ph) company in a lot of ways.

SHAPIRO: What do you mean by that?

DISNEY: It's a different kind of brand. This is a brand people feel actual love for. I mean, I use the word love very mindfully here - love. And when somebody loves something, they expect more of it than just the minimum-allowable legal thing. And so when you say to somebody about the Disney brand, the people pouring your soda cannot afford their insulin, and the man in charge of them is coming home with nine-figure paycheck, they do feel an outrage14 that is very visceral.

And I think that given that there are so few companies that can be shamed anymore, this is a really important place to start a bigger, broader conversation about all of these companies where, you know, the thing is that Bob Iger is kind of a nice guy. He really is a nice guy. And everybody around him are nice people. What has become thought of as normal and the kind of thing nice people do isn't nice. And somebody has to say the emperor is wearing no clothes, somebody just has to say it.

SHAPIRO: I'm thinking of how this story would be told in a Disney film about the granddaughter of the co-founder turning against the empire.

DISNEY: Well, you know what I'm doing? I'm turning against the empire itself. You know, it's like the empire went off in its own direction. It's almost unrecognizable to me now. And we have no family engagement on the company anymore. There's nobody from the family on the board. It's still my name. You know, and I still use my credit card. And I still feel all that comes with that and the expectations. And people still say to me, you must have had such a happy childhood. Oh, how wonderful the gifts your grandfather and uncle gave to the world.

Those are very lovely feelings. And if I am welcoming to those kinds of receptions, I also have an obligation to attend to the rest of the ways in which it's not engaging with the world in a good way. And it's actively15 promoting something that's really deleterious, not just to the low-income people. They're destroying class, and they're having a go at democracy itself.

SHAPIRO: Is that overstating it, though? Destroying the middle class and having a go at democracy itself is, I mean, almost apocalyptic16 language.

DISNEY: Yes, I was raised by an Irish Catholic woman, so I don't go anywhere short of apocalypse.

SHAPIRO: I was struck by something you said in a Washington Post op-ed, and I'm paraphrasing17 here that if your last name were Procter or Gamble, people would not respond your message in the same way.

DISNEY: Yeah.

SHAPIRO: What do you mean by that?

DISNEY: Because Procter & Gamble don't make people all warm and fuzzy. People get warm and fuzzy when they talk to me, and I love that. That's the best part of my life. You know, I have my quibbles with the history of the company and the princesses or the rest of it. But, you know, I've traveled everywhere in the world, and everywhere you go, you find a hand-drawn painting of Mickey Mouse on the side of a children's school. I mean, I've seen this everywhere.

He has jumped out of the celluloid. And he exists. And he is a citizen of the world. And everybody understands what he means and what he's for. This is not true of any other brand that I can think of. And so we have a special responsibility, and that's why I feel the weight of this. When I went last year and met with the workers at Disneyland, I could not shed the weight I was carrying once I went home from there. I couldn't say nothing.

SHAPIRO: Filmmaker and activist18 Abigail Disney. Thank you very much.

DISNEY: Thank you.

SHAPIRO: The Walt Disney Company has responded to Abigail Disney's criticisms. In a statement, the company says, Disney offers a workforce19 education program that covers college tuition and child care for Disney workers. And the statement says continuing education, quote, "is widely recognized as the best way to create economic opportunity for employees and empower upward mobility20."


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 briefly 9Styo     
adv.简单地,简短地
参考例句:
  • I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
  • He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。
2 traitor GqByW     
n.叛徒,卖国贼
参考例句:
  • The traitor was finally found out and put in prison.那个卖国贼终于被人发现并被监禁了起来。
  • He was sold out by a traitor and arrested.他被叛徒出卖而被捕了。
3 traitors 123f90461d74091a96637955d14a1401     
卖国贼( traitor的名词复数 ); 叛徒; 背叛者; 背信弃义的人
参考例句:
  • Traitors are held in infamy. 叛徒为人所不齿。
  • Traitors have always been treated with contempt. 叛徒永被人们唾弃。
4 awfully MPkym     
adv.可怕地,非常地,极端地
参考例句:
  • Agriculture was awfully neglected in the past.过去农业遭到严重忽视。
  • I've been feeling awfully bad about it.对这我一直感到很难受。
5 full-time SsBz42     
adj.满工作日的或工作周的,全时间的
参考例句:
  • A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
  • I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作,我不知道她是如何对付的。
6 conglomerate spBz6     
n.综合商社,多元化集团公司
参考例句:
  • The firm has been taken over by an American conglomerate.该公司已被美国一企业集团接管。
  • An American conglomerate holds a major share in the company.一家美国的大联合企业持有该公司的大部分股份。
7 merger vCJxG     
n.企业合并,并吞
参考例句:
  • Acceptance of the offer is the first step to a merger.对这项提议的赞同是合并的第一步。
  • Shareholders will be voting on the merger of the companies.股东们将投票表决公司合并问题。
8 ration CAxzc     
n.定量(pl.)给养,口粮;vt.定量供应
参考例句:
  • The country cut the bread ration last year.那个国家去年削减面包配给量。
  • We have to ration the water.我们必须限量用水。
9 rationing JkGzDl     
n.定量供应
参考例句:
  • Wartime austerities included food rationing and shortage of fuel. 战时的艰苦包括食物配给和燃料短缺。
  • Food rationing was abolished in that country long ago. 那个国家早就取消了粮食配给制。
10 jibe raBz0     
v.嘲笑,与...一致,使转向;n.嘲笑,嘲弄
参考例句:
  • Perhaps I should withdraw my jibe about hot air.或许我应当收回对热火朝天的嘲笑。
  • What he says does not jibe with what others say.他所说的与其他人说的不一致。
11 literally 28Wzv     
adv.照字面意义,逐字地;确实
参考例句:
  • He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
  • Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候,她不走到真正要昏厥了,决不肯坐下来。
12 soda cr3ye     
n.苏打水;汽水
参考例句:
  • She doesn't enjoy drinking chocolate soda.她不喜欢喝巧克力汽水。
  • I will freshen your drink with more soda and ice cubes.我给你的饮料重加一些苏打水和冰块。
13 revere qBVzT     
vt.尊崇,崇敬,敬畏
参考例句:
  • Students revere the old professors.学生们十分尊敬那些老教授。
  • The Chinese revered corn as a gift from heaven.中国人将谷物奉为上天的恩赐。
14 outrage hvOyI     
n.暴行,侮辱,愤怒;vt.凌辱,激怒
参考例句:
  • When he heard the news he reacted with a sense of outrage.他得悉此事时义愤填膺。
  • We should never forget the outrage committed by the Japanese invaders.我们永远都不应该忘记日本侵略者犯下的暴行。
15 actively lzezni     
adv.积极地,勤奋地
参考例句:
  • During this period all the students were actively participating.在这节课中所有的学生都积极参加。
  • We are actively intervening to settle a quarrel.我们正在积极调解争执。
16 apocalyptic dVJzK     
adj.预示灾祸的,启示的
参考例句:
  • The air is chill and stagnant,the language apocalyptic.空气寒冷而污浊,语言则是《启示录》式的。
  • Parts of the ocean there look just absolutely apocalyptic.海洋的很多区域看上去完全像是世界末日。
17 paraphrasing fdeefb30a32393bb604e0572639b2621     
v.释义,意译( paraphrase的现在分词 )
参考例句:
  • I'm paraphrasing but this is honestly what he said. 我是在转述,但这的确是他说的意思。 来自柯林斯例句
18 activist gyAzO     
n.活动分子,积极分子
参考例句:
  • He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
  • He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。
19 workforce workforce     
n.劳动大军,劳动力
参考例句:
  • A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
  • A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。
20 mobility H6rzu     
n.可动性,变动性,情感不定
参考例句:
  • The difference in regional house prices acts as an obstacle to mobility of labour.不同地区房价的差异阻碍了劳动力的流动。
  • Mobility is very important in guerrilla warfare.机动性在游击战中至关重要。
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