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Showing Original Post only (View all)Let’s Get This Class War Started [View all]
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/21Lets Get This Class War Started
by Chris Hedges
Published on Monday, October 21, 2013 by TruthDig.com
The rich are different from us, F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have remarked to Ernest Hemingway, to which Hemingway allegedly replied, Yes, they have more money.
The exchange, although it never actually took place, sums up a wisdom Fitzgerald had that eluded Hemingway. The rich are different. The cocoon of wealth and privilege permits the rich to turn those around them into compliant workers, hangers-on, servants, flatterers and sycophants. Wealth breeds, as Fitzgerald illustrated in The Great Gatsby and his short story The Rich Boy, a class of people for whom human beings are disposable commodities. Colleagues, associates, employees, kitchen staff, servants, gardeners, tutors, personal trainers, even friends and family, bend to the whims of the wealthy or disappear. Once oligarchs achieve unchecked economic and political power, as they have in the United States, the citizens too become disposable.
The public face of the oligarchic class bears little resemblance to the private face. I, like Fitzgerald, was thrown into the embrace of the upper crust when young. I was shipped off as a scholarship student at the age of 10 to an exclusive New England boarding school. I had classmates whose fathersfathers they rarely sawarrived at the school in their limousines accompanied by personal photographers (and at times their mistresses), so the press could be fed images of rich and famous men playing the role of good fathers. I spent time in the homes of the ultra-rich and powerful, watching my classmates, who were children, callously order around men and women who worked as their chauffeurs, cooks, nannies and servants. When the sons and daughters of the rich get into serious trouble there are always lawyers, publicists and political personages to protect themGeorge W. Bushs life is a case study in the insidious affirmative action for the rich. The rich have a snobbish disdain for the poordespite well-publicized acts of philanthropyand the middle class. These lower classes are viewed as uncouth parasites, annoyances that have to be endured, at times placated and always controlled in the quest to amass more power and money. My hatred of authority, along with my loathing for the pretensions, heartlessness and sense of entitlement of the rich, comes from living among the privileged. It was a deeply unpleasant experience. But it exposed me to their insatiable selfishness and hedonism. I learned, as a boy, who were my enemies.
The inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults. We have been blinded to the depravity of our ruling elite by the relentless propaganda of public relations firms that work on behalf of corporations and the rich. Compliant politicians, clueless entertainers and our vapid, corporate-funded popular culture, which holds up the rich as leaders to emulate and assures us that through diligence and hard work we can join them, keep us from seeing the truth.
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They can never have enough. They are like hoarders, money hoarders. I believe that many
sabrina 1
Oct 2013
#15
Disagree for the most part. Sure some are hoarders and most are sociopaths.........
socialist_n_TN
Oct 2013
#25
Hard to get a class war started(for equality), when we live in a 'kiss-ass' society. Just think ....
dmosh42
Oct 2013
#11
I assume we make exceptions for Alan Grayson, Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, the Kerrys, Barack Obama,
Nye Bevan
Oct 2013
#14
from undermining good pensions to just outright stealing them from seniors.
nashville_brook
Oct 2013
#22
I think it must be true that no one gets more than a certain amount of money without seriously
Dark n Stormy Knight
Oct 2013
#29