Former Alltell CEO Compares 99 Percent Movement To Rwandan Genocide

The Columbia Journalism Review points out that Fort Smith’s City Wire caught an odd comparison on Thursday. City Wire covered a speech by former Alltell CEO Robert Ford — whose wireless company was acquired by Verizon in 2009 — where he complained that the slogan “We Are The 99 Percent” being used by the 99 Percent Movement was analogous to the sloganeering leading up to the Rwandan genocide:

Ford compared the “We are the 99%” Occupy protest slogan to the turmoil that existed surrounding Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. There, he pointed out, was where 90% of the poorest looked upon the 10%, “who were wealthy enough to own cows,” and said “that we the 90% being the bravest people we know are so poor, and the 10% are so rich, they must be cheating. How can they be making more money than us? They’re less than us,” Ford said.

Ford continued: “And from there it went to ‘you (the 10%) are subhuman.’ Then, the political leadership and the wife of the (Rwandan) President embraced it. They gathered their children together and held seminars for how to use a machete. From that point, it went from, ‘you are subhuman’ to ‘you are cockroaches and need to be killed.’” “In 90 days, they killed a million people by hand,” Ford said.

Ford did later clarify in his speech that he doesn’t necessarily see the 99 Percent Movement turning into the Rwandan genocide. But he does think that the movement may be “so dangerous economically that you should be putting money in other countries.” (HT: @Matthewstoller)