America's Ruling Class SUCKS!

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By E.J. Dionne Jr., Sunday, April 17, 7:45 PM
E.J. Dionne Jr.

The American ruling class is failing us — and itself.

At other moments in our history, the informal networks of the wealthy and powerful who often wield at least as much influence as our elected politicians accepted that their good fortune imposed an obligation: to reform and thus preserve the system that allowed them to do so well. They advocated social decency out of self-interest (reasonably fair societies are more stable) but also from an old-fashioned sense of civic duty. “Noblesse oblige” sounds bad until it doesn’t exist anymore

An enlightened ruling class understands that it can get richer and its riches will be more secure if prosperity is broadly shared, if government is investing in productive projects that lift the whole society and if social mobility allows some circulation of the elites. A ruling class closed to new talent doesn’t remain a ruling class for long.

But a funny thing happened to the American ruling class: It stopped being concerned with the health of society as a whole and became almost entirely obsessed with money.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/americas-elites-have-a-duty-to-the-rest-of-us/2011/04/16/AF5KN8vD_story.html?hpid=z3

I think E.J. Dionne Jr is looking in at A2K and stealing my ideas.

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I haven't read his columns in quite a while. Tend to agree with him here, thus I suppose you, but I think it's too broad a brush he's using. Also, one class, and which one exactly, is not the entire cause of changes in apparent u.s. american priorities.

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@ossobuco,

I think he is going for shock value....most Americans take it as a given, based upon no examination or thought at all, that America is a classless society. Putting a hard edge on just how class structured we really are tends to get people to sit up and take notice of what is being said.

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@hawkeye10,

I think we are very class structured, have thought so for a long time, but then I look at other places and see we have a way to go to make it to the top on that. One of my biases (I hold many and not always fondly) is that the eastern u.s. is way more class oriented than the west coast.

I remember a Boston cousin, visiting me in Los Angeles, talking about the patriarchal line (or something like that) being what matters. I took it that I counted less since I was just the child of my mother.. quite a shock at the time.
But I'm not very genealogy oriented - stories, yes, but lineage, pah.

I'm from lace curtain irish. Some of them became wealthy. Alas, I'm from the black sheep but enthused black sheep strain.

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@ossobuco,

Quote:

I'm from lace curtain irish. Some of them became wealthy. Alas, I'm from the black sheep but enthused black sheep strain.

HA! I knew the general classiness that you display comes from someplace...

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@hawkeye10,

Noblesse oblige?

Nope, laziness, and incompetence.

Journalist Chris Hedges has written a scathing critique of the American elite establishment that touches in Dion's premise; written years before Dion recognized the problem: The Idiots Who Rule America

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081020_the_idiots_who_rule_america/

Quote:

Our oligarchic class is incompetent at governing, managing the economy, coping with natural disasters, educating our young, handling foreign affairs, providing basic services like health care and safeguarding individual rights. That it is still in power, and will remain in power after this election, is a testament to our inability to separate illusion from reality. We still believe in “the experts.” They still believe in themselves. They are clustered like flies swarming around John McCain and Barack Obama. It is only when these elites are exposed as incompetent parasites and dethroned that we will have any hope of restoring social, economic and political order.

There is plenty incompetence to go around, as he shows. But it is more accurate to say issues like governing effectively, managing the economy, education and the like are merely not very high priorities in elite circles. Painting it as incompetence somewhat assumes these people are trying to do the right thing for the social good, yet are unable to.

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@kuvasz,

Quote:

Noblesse oblige?

Nope, laziness, and incompetence.

Journalist Chris Hedges has written a scathing critique of the American elite establishment that touches in Dion's premise; written years before Dion recognized the problem: The Idiots Who Rule America

Some noticed all the way back round the mid 80's, when the elites turned the majority of their attention to juicing the economy, and demolishing public sector oversight and control, so that they could take a huge skim (justified by their brilliance of course), and make themselves rich. Almost 30 years we have been at this, and only now are we taking beginning to get honest about what we have done.

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@kuvasz,

listening.

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@hawkeye10,

I still don't understand you at all on several matters, and have often been put off.

I'll post when I do get one of your arguments, to either retort or consider.
(I suppose I can be classy but I've a goodly black sheep mode)

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America's Ruling Class SUCKS!

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