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TechnoratiTwisting the Concept of 'Elite'
Clearly, a compulsory item future U.S. presidential candidates will have to commit to memory will be the number of houses they own.
Sadly, however, there may be no other repercussion from Republican John McCain's inability last week to remember that he owned seven.
Conservative pundits were quick to suggest that attempts by Democratic rival Barack Obama to make an issue out of McCain's wealth would backfire since, they said, Obama is the real elitist who's out of touch with ordinary Americans.
This involves some twisted logic.
The simple truth is that McCain's seven homes - regardless of how many of them he can recall at any given moment - are a reminder that he and his beer-fortune-heiress wife Cindy belong to a tiny elite of fabulously wealthy Americans.
And while voters don't necessarily care about the details of McCain's housing abundance, they might be more interested in his avid support for - and intention to extend - the Bush administration's massive tax giveaways to this elite little club.
As the non-partisan Tax Policy Center has calculated, McCain's plan would further cut taxes on the top 0.1 per cent - Americans earning at least $2.8 million a year - by an annual average of $192,000. Obama's plan would see taxes for this crowd rise on average by $788,000 a year.
A fundamental problem in the last few decades - both in Canada and the United States - has been the relentless campaign waged by the financial elite to overturn postwar social and economic policies that provided significant gains for the middle and lower classes in the decades following World War II.
The campaign has been phenomenally successful. As a result, the poor have lost ground, while the middle class have barely held their own or made small advances - by working longer hours or having two-income families.
Only the rich have thrived. And they have truly thrived. A group of international economists, including McMaster University's Michael Veall, has tracked the spectacular gains of the top 1 per cent of income earners, who now, in both Canada and the U.S., enjoy over 15 per cent of national income - a level not seen since the days of the idle rich in the Roaring '20s.
Yet even as the rich have redirected income towards themselves, they've managed to remove the issue of economic inequality from the agenda. Part of the strategy - honed by media-savvy conservative think-tanks and commentators - has been to redefine the notion of elitism to refer to those who belong to the liberal elite, and do things like drink lattes, maintain an international outlook and speak articulately.
Accordingly, Democrat Al Gore, with his commanding grasp of issues in presidential debates, was accused of being an elitist. Similarly, Democrat John Kerry was branded elitist for being able to speak French.
In the same breath, Conservatives somehow presented George W. Bush, a rich kid who'd barely held a job before running for president, as a populist and down-to-earth guy who'd be fun to have a beer with - presumably because he was inarticulate and barely functional in even one language.
Whether McCain drinks beer, latte or Ovaltine doesn't alter the fact that he supports Bush's massive favouritism towards the real elite - the powerful financial one that runs his country. That alone should prevent McCain from adding to his housing inventory the large white edifice on Pennsylvania Ave.
67 Comments so far
Show AllI don't know who to have the most contempt for: The wealthy elite or the stupid masses who don't recognize when they are being had (and who's having them). If the Republicans manage to sell McCain to the American voter(or at least enough that they can steal the rest), then, we might as well give up the charade. Are Americans dumber than dirt? Stupid as a sack of stones? I will wait until November to find out. If I were a betting man . . . .
A kid growing up on a dirt farm in the 1930's might be forgiven for believing that war was an exciting adventure. He might be forgiven for believing he was making a noble sacrifice.
This is not the thirties. Anybody over 17 years old should know by now how horrible war is, and that no war has ever been anything but a scheme by somebody somewhere to get rich.
Excellent article. The pundits could learn from this article, and draw from it when relating the latest smear by the John Syney McCain Campaign. It is interesting how Brokaw very concientously dispels any misunderstandings when it could possibly work against the GOP.
rickster469 August 27th, 2008 8:37 am: 'Elitist: My definition, someone whose worth is far more than they’ve earned.'
That is a very good definition of 'elitist', with its negative connotation, which is different from 'elite', with its positive connotation, as in, for example, 'She belongs to an elite group of software engineers'. The mind twisting truth is, the elite deservedly earn more, but being wealthy does not make them automatically elitist.
You see how the Carl Roves of this world use words to divide us, in order to conquer us?
In reality, oligarchy, corporatist, neo-lib, neo-con, etc. all describe parts of the same elephant, our ideological enemy. They harm us through their one common goal: the concentration of power and wealth in fewer hands. In order to fight back, we must first learn to see the whole elephant.
Elitist: My definition, someone whose worth is far more than they’ve earned. It’s been my observation thru the years that the extremely wealthy do very little to actually earn their money.
A billion dollars, or another way of looking at it, a thousand million dollars, Even then, most people I know can’t even grasp how much money that is. It is enough money that one billionaire could use thirty percent of their worth and establish a million dollar trust fund earning five percent annually for every man, woman and child in this country.
That’s fifty thousand dollars a year. I wouldn’t use the money that way though but there is no reason why this country couldn’t provide every family with a decent single earner living wage job either. When you consider that there are four hundred people in this country worth more than a billion dollars and I’m not even considering millionaires, there’s no reason why social security should be in any trouble. There’s no reason why our public school system should be under funded. There is absolutely no reason why we can’t provide good medical care for every body in this country.
Rickster
"A billion dollars, or another way of looking at it, a thousand million dollars, "
Correct.
"Even then, most people I know can’t even grasp how much money that is."
I hope you are including yourself?
"It is enough money that one billionaire could use thirty percent of their worth and establish a million dollar trust fund earning five percent annually for every man, woman and child in this country."
Thirty percent of a billion is 300 million. That's about *one* dollar per man woman and child.
Wow I missed a decimal point and a comma there somewhere. A trillion dollars is what was thinking of. No, no, no, my mind is not functioning right this morning where's my coffee. Let me rethink this.
Rickster
"Wow I missed a decimal point and a comma there somewhere."
I salute you for admitting it.
True that about one billionaire solving all our problems, however, we already spend 10 billion (that we know about) every month in Iraq. That money alone could rescue social security and "tough" taxes on the richest 5% could provide basic health care for every American child.
What's more important to make America stronger: bigger summer homes for the rich or health care for the working class?
How does one define elite? Is it the country club or velvet rope we have access to? The size 0 dresses we can wear with our high cheek bones? Is it by the title of ones job? Is it by which favored neighborhood where one lives? Or is the capacity to drink caffe lattes and discuss the metaphysics of kindred writers from the nineteenth century?
Perhaps attention should be made to what ambitions and fears we as humans abide by and by virtue of propagating an awareness of such themes we can agree the cause of being human is celebrated and put forth.
As Jean paul Sartre once said ''meaningless is everywhere, except when we decide to give meaning to something.''
Myths and realities will always exist as long as one has a conscience but striving to be a sublime soul with integrity and commitment is the patina of someone reaching for elitism within themselves.
One can imagine him/her self to be elite but practically speaking, the only true elites have access to money, power, or authority (moral or intellectual).
Lazy rich kids aren't elites in my book until they pick up the sword of their parents' corporation and start sticking it to the little guy.
Real elites come from Biblical days and before. Kings and Queens and Princes and Princesses, that we are all supposed to adore. Somehow these elites are pre-ordained by God to lord wealth, power, and authority over the rest of us.
In this modern era, intellectuals have been gradually unseating the money elites, but they are fighting back by controlling the media and recruiting intellectuals of their own posse for think tanks (and who knows who runs the CIA).
Americans like rich people, and most of them identify with the rich in the inner world of their fantasies.
Democrats have been attacking Republicans as "the party of the rich" ever since the Great Depression, but FDR was the only Democrat who ever had any success with that slogan, and he belonged to the East Coast old-money elite himself.
Democrats want to believe that "middle class" is the opposite of rich, but for most people the real antonym is "poor," and when Democrats make Republicans "the party of the rich," they make themselves "the party of the poor," at least in the realm of popular images, however little Democrats may have actually concerned themselve with the poor since Clinton's miserable welfare "reform."
Americans don't like poor people, they don't want to see them on TV, except as a joke... blue collar bozos or ridiculous rednecks... and for some strange reason every Republican understands this prejudice, while Democrats pretend it doesn't exist, even while Bill Clinton and other machine-Democrats like Obama oppress the poor just as enthusiastically as Republicans.
The Republicans really are "the party of the rich," but the Democrats are a phony "party of the poor," and their only real connection with poverty is a losing slogan.
Jacob Freeze
"Americans don't like poor people"
I have far more respect for a poor person than someone who is rich. I’ve been around them both and the poor enjoy life far more than people who have it all. The poor don’t need much from life, a decent paying job (living wage,) a place to live, cloths to wear, food to eat, a car to drive, accessible medical care, and family and friends to love. Outside of that, what more could you ask for?
Rickster
Nice Article.
Obama would raise taxes for the 1% about $800,000 a year
McCain would lower them about $200,000 a year.
That is a difference of about One Million dollars per household per year.
There are a lot of differences between Obama and McCain.
Here are a million of them, in fact, if you are wealthy.
Eff McCain. He is a traitor, to the mother of his children, and is not fit to lead a Boy Scout Troop.
"Obama would raise taxes for the 1% about $800,000 a year
McCain would lower them about $200,000 a year."
False. No one raises or lowers income taxes as dollar amounts as stated above. They raise or lower tax *rates*. Only after that, in the face of the changed rates, do people react. You therefore have no way of stating tax reciepts in dollar amounts as you do, unless you are making assumptions about other parameters that apply, which you don't state. This is bogus.
this is not bogus. you are of course right about rates, but the dollar amounts and comment are within the context of the article. remember the article? did you read it or are you just here to pad your ego?
"but the dollar amounts and comment are within the context of the article. "
The context in the article is identical, that is, it alludes to the idea that they would be cutting a tax bill, when they are actually cutting tax rates. I stand by what I wrote, that the dollar figures cannot be predicted and they arrived at them using assumptions not specified.
My complaint applies to many others who commit the same bogus analysis as part of political rhetoric. When you understand it, you recognize that all they are doing is showing there economic illiteracy.
thanks for answering my question.
"thanks for answering my question."
The statement remains bogus, no matter what it is you are trying to say here.
"People told me, 'it's your attitude'. What was I supposed to do, be joyful because they were paying me pennies for my life's blood?"---Charles Bukowski
You know, it's not a damn moralist question. If we build a real grassroots opposition in this country of any substance, it is going to come into existence not only with the promise of a new democracy, it is going to be tainted with the old way of life, because that's the way political struggle is. The biggest problem with the so-called opposition in the United States is that we have this sillyass perspective that if we can't create a new political resistance that is flawless, it's a waste of time to even try. We fear contention over ideas, because we call it disunity. That's how people get dragged into that cesspool called the "democratic party", which will never, never, NEVER generate a change of any depth or bredth. People go into that craphole and lick the envelopes and make the phone calls because they feel safer with the monster they know then they do helping to create something new, with new problems and new contradictions. And that is the tragedy of the "resistance" to this crap we live under.
I still say I'd rather take my chances with something new then go on with this crap that's imposed on us. I mean it when I say I'd rather die then tolerate another minute of belief in the "democratic" party. I've done it. I hate them. I can't understand why people put up with their crap year after year, if it's not just fear.
The party's over and short term unresolved terminal issues confront us. I choose not to entertain elite lies and projections of false hope. It's time to prepare for the worst.
“You have forgotten the editors. They draw their salaries for the policy they maintain. Their policy is to print nothing that is a vital menace to the established. … The press of the United States? It is a parasitic growth that battens on the capitalist class. Its function is to serve the established by moulding public opinion, and right well it serves it.”
Jack London’s The Iron Heel
http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/jlondon/bl-jlon-iron-7.htm
The wealthy elites, as in Mill's book "The Power Elite", want us to be obedient, good little workers who never question their version of God and country. It is a humble little story about our simple founding fathers who simply wanted every American (white man) to be free so they can work hard and prosper.
But they have bosses too. The Henry Kissengers and other behind-the-scenes "deciders" who practice realpolitiks (amoral elitist rule) while feeding the masses a bunch of crap about morals they consider externalities.
John McCain has been working for Kissenger for decades. This should be a no-brainer, except they have control over the mass media.
"When lies are repeatedly uncontested they eventually become the truth." their realpolitik motto.
Good comment.
All we get from the oligarchs and their surrogates is "work hard, play by the rules and grow the economy".
That means "work hard and keep making me richer, follow my dictates or I'll throw you in the can, torture or kill you, don't expect me to share the gargantuan hoard I keep stealing from you and yours so follow my two previous rules."
McCain and Obama are two peas in the same pod. McCain luxurates in 4 domiciles and 3 investments homes. Obama has one home valued at over 1 Million. Yeah, Obam and McCain are roughing it. I could buy 10 homes for the cost of Obama's. Interesting how they are marketing both men on the national news: Obama and his community organizing days, and McCain and his POW experience. Both men now light years from either experience, having walked away from the early years and joined the moneyed elite. Spare me the pontificating.
The model that seems most useful for the people in their battle for their rights is to frame reality in terms of two camps, people on the left, elites on the right, the people as class war victims, the elites as class war aggressors. In this model, elites concentrate power/control over society for zero-sum gain, to exploit the people, and everything else. It's a simple model, something the people can embrace as a basis of defensive strategy against the elites' class war aggression.
mikep (troll and probably an elitist):
How come you said nothing about YOUR party? Clearly, John McCain belongs to the American elite. And he is, I believe, a Republican.
Let's have new echo chambers to replace those of Rove and Atwater. ELITE from now on means McCain and other big property owners.
ELITE! You, you, you!!!
As rhetoricians have written since the Golden Age of Athens, those whom define the argument and control the vocabulary are well on their way to winning the fight. Thus when Obama et al respond as they have to the completely ludicrous accusation of "elitism" coming from the Repugs, they are already in a difficult position to emerge victorious from. Instead, Obama et al need to take the fight to the Repugs first and gain the initiative. This can be done by their framing the debate instead of letting the Repugs do so.
It should also be noted that at the end of WW2, when collaborators were being rounded up and punished, the quickest to point fingers were those whom had collaborated as well as means to divert attention. Thus a great and pithy comeback for the elitist smear is this, "Look in the mirror!"
"Net Worth: McCain $36.4 Million; Obama $799,000
Mark Nickolas---Earlier this year, the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation did an analysis of the net worth of each of the 535 members of Congress based on their personal financial disclosure. Guess which one is worth about $36 million and which one is worth $799,000?"
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/1169089-net-worth
http://www.drudge.com/news/111424/net-worth-mccain-364-million-obama
Atheist-Who is this "wealthy" step father...His real step father, Lolo, is from Indonesia and was not wealthy, but a poor farmer. And the private school he went to when he mom brought him back to Hawaii, was paid for by his maternal grandparents, his grdma worked at a bank and his grdpa sold furniture. Sounds like the Rockafellars to me! LOL
Let's not forget there are many parents who work 2,3 jobs so their kids can go to a private school and get an education not offered in public schools.
He also worked his way through college and don't forget he has to pay taxes on that 4 mil from his book sales. The owner of the catering company I work for has a million dollar house and he works very hard to pay his mortgage. I wouldn't call him elitist, either.
I hope Canadians are reading this McQuaig article. We've got an election coming up, and Harpo, favourite satrap of the Washington neocons, would just love to continue giving breaks to the Canadian elite. As an elite myself, I can testify to the nice chunk of change I now get back when I file my income tax return. I am paying virtually no taxes.
A Voice Apart
Gee Zoya, if you have it to give, grace a le Harper, please give to the very real and needy food bank I work at in Montreal. The "peasants" are really tired of promises on their beans and rice.
These are such hard times that so many are working as many hours as they can, but still cannot make ends meet. If they had McCain's shoes, much less his houses, they would sell them to feed their kids and buy their school supplies to boot.
Only two things are more powerful than the elites---the people and Mom nature.
Watch them both closely.
Rec reading: Under a Green Sky, Blessed Unrest, and Bridge at the Edge of the World. Buy and study Gore's book, don't just rely on the movie to get the whole picture (chart of CO2/temp dev.)
Our resources are being controlled by fewer and fewer people. In every corner of the globe lurks that same segment of humanity which fancies itself exceptional, more worthy, and deserving. I suspect that, at heart, most of them are insecure about their own worthiness for the privileges they claim for themselves. Bush is a prime example of an elite-in-his-own-mind.
To call them elite is to play by Carl Rove's rules, as this article demonstrates. Yes, they think of themselves as the elite, but they really are not. The real elites excel in their fields of endeavor through their own hard work and intellect. Our children should all aspire to be an elite. Wealth alone does not make one elite, and we should not conflate the two, for many true elites are wealthy, and deservedly so.
None of this hair splitting is important but for one thing: the world is slowly being strangled by this small clique. They belong to formal and informal groupings and structures, form permanent and transient alliances, they even compete with each other,(under unwritten yet strict rules), but they always close ranks on issues that tend to make them even fewer in number, richer, and more powerful. Like the forces of evolution, they grow slowly but inexorably, in piecemeal fashion but with stronger features. If we can't even agree on a name for them, how can we identify them and fight them?
Both the Republican and Democratic Parties are filled with elitists. However, it's not how much money they got that's the problem. The problem lies with how they vote on issues and policies and then their campaigning skills. To begin with, if you keep voting like your opponent, you'll already rob yourself of the ammunition needed to wage a successful campaign. That itself leads to a slippery slope of a confusion campaign whereby your opponent can then take your words and/or votes and use them against you. Case in point, if Obama hadn't voted for Condi Rice, shoving corporate wrongdoing cases to corporate puppet federal kangaroo courts, bankruptcy overhaul cloture, more NAFTAs though he did vote against CAFTA in 2005, allowing Roberts and Alito a simple vote, FISA, NRA (hint: DC), pandering to evangelies, and now more oil drilling while letting renewables languish, he would have found it a lot easier to GUN down Mccain and be prepared for a landslide victory. Instead, he is now on the defensive and is unable to get in touch with his base for having pissed them off ! He's already DROWNING into the Gore and Kerry LOSING streak despite the fact that both the economy and foreign policy are fucking terrible and Mccain is supposed to be weak. No wonder Obama is also being SWIFTBOATED ! WAKE UP PEOPLE !!
VOTENADER.ORG !!!!
Class warfare at its best. Keep it up I LOVE it. Lets face it, a black family should never have a positive net worth, what would sharpton and jackson do if more and more black families had positive net worths? Out of business perhaps - probably not.
The issue shouldn't be elitism. It should be competence. McCain sounds like he has Regan-esque dementia to me.
Almost. McCain has early-stage Alzheimer's. Not stated in his medical report, but if you have ever spent any time around Alzheimer's patients, you can see all the warning signs in McCain.
John McCain has only released a few pages of his medical records. And his base in the media has made sure that this fact is kept from the public.
McCain receives a benefit check for the Veterans Administration for 100% disiblity! 100% disabled! About 50,000 a year. I believe it may be more. So is he even "fit" to be President? Or should the VA file a fraud suit?
"John McCain has only released a few pages of his medical records. "
If you think 1,173 is "a few":
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3994435.ece
I think maybe the real elite are people like those who post here. We are mostly liberal and that means we want others to have the good things we want for ourselves.
We want the planet to be around for our grandchildren and their generation.
We want one fair justice system, health care and domestic program instead of one for the rich and another for the poor.
We believe that money spent on war is money stolen from the homeless, public schools, and single payer health care.
We are the real guardians of virtue in spite of the lip service paid by neocons to Christian values.
I consider myself a member of the elite, I read books and am not so proud of my own ignorance that I want to advertise the fact on AM talk radio.
When you vote for a guy who looks like you’d want "to sit down and have a beer with", you can count on him being like the other guys you have beer with. Do you think any of the other guys you drink beer with should be president?
I didn't think so.
You're wrong Mikep.
That's all? Gee, what a cogent analysis. But then again, you're a Dem Party apologist. You can't be expected to do any better than that.
Frankly, I'm a lot less interested in how many homes a presidential candidate owns than how much evil he or she will conceive after election day. Franklin Delano Roosevelt had lots of wealth, but he was probably the best president this nation ever had. The media want to focus on idiotic issues like the number of houses each owns. I wish they would investigate the loss of habeas corpus, government spying on its citizens, bankruptcy laws that favor predatory lenders and government sanctioned torture.
Agreed. Constitutional rights, militarism, peace, economic justice and the environment are the most important things. And they are all related and intertwined.
But, still, it is awfully amusing when someone cannot remember how many houses he has and still calls his opponent an elitist.
Joe
Net worth:
McCain $36.4 Million. Cindy McCain's is over $100 million
Obamas $799,000
McCain is an oligarch.
Obama is not.
What else do you need to know?
The Obamas net worth is NOT $799k. Try $7 MILLION. He and his wife's combined income for 2007 was more then $4 MILLION and his house is worth $1.5 MILLION and their mortgage interest alone was $57,838 ... I don't know many people who can afford a mortgage so high that just the interest is nearly $60k.
Good analysis here: http://www.mangoboss.com/ObamaNetWorth
This "A isn't bad because B is worse" argument doesn't work. A guy who had a wealthy (step) father, attended private schools, got his JD from Harvard, and got $4 MILLION in book royalties is just as out of touch with the average person as a guy whose wife is stinking rich and inherited her wealth through the marriage.
What else do you need to know? You need to know whether each supports US militarism, & all the ideas underlying it. And they both do. They both think the US has the right to try to rule the world, depending largely on its military strength. They both think it's acceptable for the US to invade any country it wants to invade, in pursuit of its "national interests" (which turns out to be the economic interests of its financial elites). Neither thinks it's a crime if the excuse for the invasion is a pack of lies. Neither is particularly upset by the torture, or violations of international law of recent years.
You also need to know if they believe the Bush admin has committed high crimes -- and neither believes it has.
You also need to know if they will defend the Bill of Rights -- and both have made clear that they won't.
You also need to know if their program mainly represents the interests of the corporate elite -- and again, in both cases, the answer is 'Yes'.
If your overly simplistic criterion was an adequate way of looking at the subject (ie, reducing it to who has more money), that would have meant that GW Bush was the "better" candidate in 2004, since Kerry was far more wealthy.
Is this not also a good description of the beliefs of the people? Are they both not, therefore, representing the people?lizard
Javier,
Even if it is true that Obama/Mccain represent some kind of popular consensus, (and there are many polls and studies that suggest they do not**), it is not like popular opinion arises organically from a populace getting their information from objective unbiased sources. Popular Public opinion and consent in modern day "democracies" is MANUFACTURED to accord with elite consensus - in accordance with the spectacularly successful theories of Edward Bernays (Wiki him), called the "Father of the Modern PR Industry", in the 1920's.
This is no conspiracy theory - it is no different than the the way advertising campaigns can turn a consumer goods into a "must have" - when people did just fine without them only months earlier.
Also, PLEASE read Chomsky and Herman's "Manufacturing Consent" the title is named after a term Bernays coined.
** To give a couple examples:
1. Polls have shown a consistent public preference for a tax-financed, universal national health care system, rather than the proposals of the candidates.
2. Also, in past presidential races polls have been taken where only a presidential candidate's platform is given - not their names, and the person polled is asked to chooses the one closest to their beliefs, the winner has usually been either Dave McReynolds or other candidate of the Socialist Party USA, or Nader or other Green Party candidate. I am not kidding.
How about where the candidates stand on the Military Commissions Act, FISA, ending the war and corporate financed elections for starters?
.
Nader will change things.
Nader is our only hope.
Nader is the only choice.
Fight the Two-party system.
Nader can win....... The voters will decide.
VOTE NADER 2008… You’ll be glad you did and so will I…
.
"Elite" as a put-down is following in the same path that "bourgeois" pioneered before it. In Marxist theory, the "bourgeoisie" was the capitalist class, those who provided capital which employed the "proletariat." Middle classes, instead of being seen as successful "proletarians" were denounced as having "bourgeois" values and tastes, thus devaluing the functional meaning of "bourgeoisie."
The "elite" are in fact a small educated corp of intellectuals employed by the capitalists to supply the appearance of academic integrity to the policy discussion. "Elite" describes all persons who work in politics or the government bureaucracy, and all those who regularly appear in the media reporting on policy and political matters -- in other words, the hired help. One might accuse those who use this dismissive term of "elite" as fomenting class warfare. Instead it is used to characterize those who use "big words" in policy discussions, regardless of the accuracy or insight of their comments. The facts are something that conservative views cannot withstand.
The article is pretty good except for its last paragraph, which mikep (12:55) has already pretty much nailed.
But up until that last para, the article is admirably "class-aware." This would be unusual in an American MSM column, & it's no accident that we see it here in a column from outside the US.
Ms McQuaig even points to the very mechanism that has effectively erased class awareness from American consciousness, writing, "...Yet even as the rich have redirected income towards themselves, they've managed to remove the issue of economic inequality from the agenda." // If Linda McQuaig submitted a column like this to the WaPo or NYT, her editors would probably snort contemptuously at it, because it spreads awareness of ideas that elites don't want readers to be conscious of.
They're both elitists. Both are pretty damn rich, both pander to the needs of the wealthy and corporations, and neither has proposed anything substantial to help the US wage worker. With the help of big media, they limit the discourse to the trivial and/or sensational - beer vs. chardonnay, bowling vs, golfing, god, guns, abortion, flag burning, marital infidelity, etc...etc...
Thus the US wage earner is left with no choice but to choose based on the trivial or sensational stuff or (in the case of here in Western PA) their race.
BUT, if Obama, or any other Democrat presidential candidate, past or present, had spoken, or would speak to working-class economic issues, the other issues, even racial prejudices, would fall by the wayside in a hurry, and the Democrat would have won/would win every time.
The democrats refuse to break their cozy relationship with the same corporations and propertied class of the republicans, while presenting themselves as unbearably effete snobs. They will continue to lose presidential and many statewide elections until they change.
Please check the following link:
http://www.counterpunch.com/yates08262008.html
What about the people and their attitude? Isn't that a big part of the problem? Nader has run over and over again and the people don't want him. These politicians are not pandering to the corporations ONLY, they also pander to the people who are nationalistic, religious, obtuse, and belligerent. The people ARE NOT INNOCENT---lizard
Javier wrote:
Nader has run over and over again and the people don't want him.
It is not that they don't want him, it is that the elites, and the media that serves elite interests effectively disappear him - particularly his ideas. A person can't want something they have never heard of.
The people are stupid and like it that way. If you stay dumb then you don't have to be responsible for anything that happens and most Americans just want to let "The Lord" handle it and/or consume something. Politicians know this so they ALL give lip service to tell the stupid Americans what they wanna hear then do their dealings behind closed doors controlled by the very small number of extremely wealthy people who run EVERYTHING in the world. Anybody that votes for Nader will be giving McCain a vote. BUT....it really doesn't matter.....those same ultra wealthy folks will still be in control. Their (the ultra wealthy) nightmare is revolts by large numbers of people. Americans are too fat and stupid to start any kind of revolution at this point. Let the food run out......then it'll get interesting.
"Accordingly, Democrat Al Gore, with his commanding grasp of issues in presidential debates, was accused of being an elitist. Similarly, Democrat John Kerry was branded elitist for being able to speak French."
Well, I don't know how much money Ms. McQuaig has or makes, but it must be an awful lot if she doesn't consider Gore and Kerry elitists. Both of these, along with many others in the Democratic leadership (especially the Clintons) are much wealthier than the McCains. Except the McCains can at least trace their money to a legitimate business that Mrs. McCain's father began. Where did Al Gore's over-$100 million fortune come from? He doesn't have a job and has never run a business. (From corporate interests, of course, in return for selling out his country, deny it all you want). But he sure is rich. And Gore's father was a powerful US Senator, another mark of the elite. Kerry is married to a woman who has ten times the money Cindy McCain has.
The Democratic double standards and hypocrisy are really getting out of hand. Wake up folks. The Democrats are a party of the rich, for the rich, and by the rich. They are a bunch of wealthy corporate elitists who care about nothing but waging war and increasing corporate profits. They may have been different earlier in their history, but those days are gone. They serve the rich now, and only the rich. If you think otherwise you are seriously deluded.
But have a nice convention anyway.
mikep makes a clear accusation that both John Kerry and Al Gore have earned their money illegitimately but provides absolutely no substantiation whatsoever for this argument.
mike, either put up or shut up. Back up your statement, retract it, or stand as a liar.
You apparently believe that selling beer is legitimate but selling ketchup and other foodstuffs somehow is not. Care to explain that reasoning?
Your last paragraph is a perfect description - of republicans.
Say "Hi" to Rush for us.
q
George Washington was the biggest landowner of his time. The constitution was written by the wealthy for their own protection. It works. lizard
"The constitution was written by the wealthy for their own protection."
Really? We should just trash it then. Right?
This discussion of elitism is really a distraction from the issues that plague our country (war, civil liberties, health care, torture...you get the idea). I don't know of any presidential candidate throughout our nation's history who wasn't from the very rich. Let's face it; the American Revolution was really about one group of very rich white men trying to gain control of the assets that were controlled by another group of very rich white men. It's pretty much been the same since then.
"Let's face it; the American Revolution was really about one group of very rich white men trying to gain control of the assets that were controlled by another group of very rich white men."
We might agree that people were motivated by their self interest, but I wonder if you think that the war in the south, which was largely a civil war, had much to do with "rich" men. Or if you thought the people of Juniata and Wyoming valleys in Pennsylvania were "rich".