WHO ACTS ENTITLED?

'Entitled' is on my mind today. Especially concerning those who really act that way and who project that  beauty-full addytood (as we say in the Philly area) onto others who, more likely than not, don't really share the 'entitled' attitude with those who were born on third base and never cease trying to convince themselves they hit a triple! Trumpty Dumpty might be the outstanding example of such creatures, along with the Mittster.
Some months ago, Newark mayor Cory Booker learned whether he can last a week on a SNAP allotment--you know, the one which gives people $4.30 a day to keep from starving. He seems to be a smart man and as such he's surely learned that SNAP ain't no hammock, by a long stretch! I could wish slavecatcher Limbaugh, Beck the simian, Hannity and O'Reilly the barstool pontificators and all the rotten Republican politicians they've supported would do the same but I think none of them would last even a day on the current allotment. Now would anyone care to tell me how much entitlement that program, along with WIC, TANF and Medicaid is likely to foster? If anyone on these programs feel 'entitled', it's likely those who had jobs till recently and who paid into the social-insurance system, such as it is, while they worked. And under such circumstances, feeling entitled may be a saving grace unless Rush, Trumpty, Mitt et al. want such unfortunate people to die of shame. Perhaps it is what they want; I put little past them.
Not every rich person shares the 'entitled' feeling by any means: an increasing number have joined the Patriotic Millionaires' club and now lobby the government to raise their taxes because they're smart enough to know their own stake in a flourishing and expanding middle class. These people know that the better off more of us are, the better off they are too and are champing to pony up to that end. Some wealthy families have learned to act with the sense of noblesse oblige and public service behooving those born to the 'purple'. They don't share the sense of 'entitlement'. Neither do those who have become wealthy through success as inventors or artists for the most part. Here I return to an earlier post I wrote about real and counterfeit elite members: those who are members of the real elite think of themselves still as scientists and/or artists, as opposed to being Wealthy People.
One needn't be born wealthy either to share the sense of 'entitlement'. If I'm not mistaken, many a hedge-fund traitor (deliberate!) wasn't born wealthy. Neither was John Schlatter, aka Papa John and maker of bad pizza, or whatever that fellow's name in Florida who's building a replica of the Versailles palace. But I've heard he started out as a scam artist. It would seem that those who weren't born wealthy but share their feeling of entitlement are those who become rich either by means of franchises OR by selling things with no real substance to them--i.e., all the paper snake-oil Wall Street's been selling for at least the last ten years! And for them (if not necessarily for the Trumps, Romneys et al.) the feeling of 'entitlement' might well be as much a cover for how very un-entitled these pirates (I include the rightwing fear-merchants in this gang) know themselves to be! And since they've been so damnably (literally) good at getting something for nothing themselves, they resent anyone else getting even a pittance! People, if we've been listening to this lot I think at least some time spent in sackcloth and ashes is warranted for us!
Now is the time to repair and renovate our infrastructure, including speeding the switch to clean and renewable energies and ensuring a level educational playing field for real. The Bourbon sense of entitlement exhibited by the wickedly stupid rich must go, and all those who want a job should be able to find one at wages which will enable their greater participation in a growing economy. The last time we did something like that, the lifted-up were grateful enough to vote that party's way for thirty or forty years! Now again: to whom does 'feeling entitled' belong?

MISTAKES (AT LEAST) IN TANDEM

I must be returning to my 'normal' self in the election's wake. I read Paul Krugman's post which ends on how blithely much of the developed world is repeating the economic mistakes of the 1930s. And then it occurred to me, not only economically are the 1930s mistakes being repeated: in Europe, hatred of the Jews is at a level unseen since the 1930s. True, such hatred is in decline in North America (throughout the hemisphere?) and Israel is, thankfully, building or re-building good relationships with both Oriental (including India) and sub-Saharan African nations. Still, how much do these relationships 'weigh' when compared with the Islamist propaganda machine churning out anti-Jewish lies on a scale that would turn Josef Goebbels green with envy plus the increase of such rancor in Europe, abetted in large part by 'Muslim' immigrants?
Back in the 1930s, when the Jews needed refuge, the whole world turned its collective back on them. This will never be forgotten in Israel and among Jews outside Israel, nor should it be! Now let me ask: if Israel were not there, where would there be refuge for fleeing Jews today? Indeed, would there be any refuge at all for them? Let none treat this question hastily; take your time over it. Treat it with respect and consideration--that is, differently than how the Jews of  the 1930s were treated! That said, how much respect and consideration do the greater part of today's immigrants (at least to Europe) show their host societies? Or are the silently assimilating majorities obscured by the minorities trumpeting intent to conquer? If so, I hope the majorities put the minorities in their place, which I've heard is starting to happen. As an American who knows his country's history better than most, I know that most immigrants assimilate and change their adopted countries to some extent in the process as well.
Considering on the one hand Europe's real and/or imagined problems with today's immigrants and their slamming their doors in the Jews' faces in the 1930s, they're showing a remarkable consistency in making the wrong choices then and now. Jews have almost never brought anything but real benefits and imagined problems to their host societies; can the same be said of today's European immigrant minorities? Unless I'm mistaken, weren't today's European governments were under the impression that they were 'paying forward' the debt they owed to murdered Jews by admitting other 'refugees'? Or were they simply pursuing their own perceived interests and using 'paying forward' as window-dressing? I'm inclined to believe the latter myself. To me it is plain that the grinding of the faces of the poor and middle class labelled 'austerity' and growth in anti-Jewish sentiment go hand in hand, whatever bloviations come from the politicians on either side of the aisle or the Pond. I do believe the decline of anti-Jewish feeling in North America is joined somehow with the unpopularity of austerity here, and vice versa in Europe. Notwithstanding that fact, I still ask: how welcome would 'stateless' Jews be here, even today? And because I'm profoundly doubtful of a welcoming answer is a big part of my gratitude for the state of Israel!
A repeat of the bankrupt economic policies of the 1930s and another one of anti-Jewish rancor, now using the excesses of an unjustly beleaguered Israel as a fig-leaf. When mistakes are repeated, they come not single spies, but either in battalions or at least in pairs. How often will humans need to have their lessons written in blood, preferably their own, before they get it right?

STILL THE 'PILOT GROUP'

In this post I put a new spin on history as I look back and then point out a thing or two about the present and future importance of, and necessity for, the resurrected state of Israel. That most people who don't deliberately blind themselves to inconvenient facts agree on the necessity for a place where Jews can be organized to defend themselves against the next outbreak of hatred against them is hardly worth debating anymore. But there's more than that in favor of the necessity of Israel. Allow me to begin with some interesting (I hope) observations about the earthly time of Jesus and ramifications arising therefrom:
1) The Maccabean theocracy begun 150 years before Jesus's birth degenerated with remarkable speed. A rabbi I spoke with said it happened in about 100 years. The Sanhedrin were a vestige of that theocracy with mostly 'ecclesiastical' powers by Jesus's lifetime. I mention it because I think it can be argued that Jesus was a victim, albeit foreordained, of the evil known as the religion-state connection. And the following idea (for which I expect to be clobbered from a number of quarters) is directly related to that: from the time of Hadrian to the re-establishment of a Jewish state, Jews had no power to enforce a religion-state connection, except (maybe) for the time of the Khazar empire being a Jewish state. If anyone knows more than I do about how long the Khazar state lasted and how far conversion was extended and by what means, feel free to inform me further. Just cite your sources so I can check them.
In any case, my point is that Jews had next to no power to enforce what both Christians and Muslims could--and did, often ruthlessly, enforce: the religion-state connection. As has been the case before, G-d may have tried something new with Jews first--in this case, taking a separation of religion and state some steps further than had been the case in ancient Israel where there was a separation of priests from both prophets and judges. Christendom has now done so to a great extent from our Bill of Rights forward, although we also still have fools who refuse to understand that separation is indispensable for the health of both the state and honest religion. Who was it again that said, 'A man cannot be convinced when his salary depends on him not being convinced'?
And the separation of religion from state, for the better health of both, is in my opinion the linchpin of the task of modernization before Islam. Ataturk began it, with (it seems) limited success which the current Turkish government is attempting to undo. Frankly, they're going in the wrong direction. Islam also probably needs to resurrect the Mu'tazilites as well. Modern Israel yet has a thing or two to do in this respect, too: neither Conservative nor Reform Judaism are recognized as separate groups in Israel.
2) Someone told me once (although I haven't been able to verify it yet) that Annas and Caiaphas had to work to convince Pilate that Jesus's expelling the moneychangers was a mere internal dispute and NOT the start of a revolt against Rome. I think it's safe to say that they, and their 'party' in the Sanhedrin, were pretty frightened men, don't you think? There are some lines in the Gospel of John which indicate this.
3) Most of us know the story (not in the Gospels, though) about how Nicodemus learned of Jesus's trial only by accident and how he hurried there and found it to be a 'rump' Sanhedrin session--no one who agreed with him and Gamaliel (who, btw, was the Sanhedrin's president then and also not present at Jesus's trial) had been summoned; only those of the Annas/Caiaphas party. To me Jesus's 'trial' sounds a lot like the Wisconsin state senate ramming through last year's anti-labor bill! I thought that then and I still do.
Anyhow, the point of all this is that most Jews had NOTHING to do with Jesus's trial and crucifixion AND that, among those men who railroaded him, I'd say that Caiaphas & co. and Pilate were pretty equal partners. The writers of the Gospel did do a certain amount of toning down the Roman part in that--but then, they also believed Jesus's return was right around the corner. That is, they never thought the consequences would be as far-reaching as they were, and still are.
And so, for eighteen centuries or so, the Jews have been almost completely innocent--yes, that's right, all you b*****s and sons thereof, I said innocent and I mean exactly that--victims of Christians and Muslims, some of whom now have the chutzpa to pontificate on the Jews' 'vocation for suffering' and lament how the existence of Israel may mean that the Jews will lose this oh-so-precious vocation! Easy to say, when it's not your vocation for suffering, or that of your people, being granted and/or tested, isn't it? Nearly all of you, at least corporately, still have innocent blood on your hands--much of it Jewish--and somewhere inside yourselves, I say you know it! Apply to God directly for absolution, not to Israel--and remember Jesus's words from the cross and ask yourselves if you can be included in those for whom Jesus asked forgiveness as you knew not what you or your ancestors did!
Jews will never be easy to f**k with anymore and the rest of you sorry lot better get used to that!! And as long as Israel remains an effective democracy, I think it safe to say that it won't lose the spirit of compassion that, since Biblical times, G-d has taught first to ancient Israel, then to the Jews and, through the Jews in general and one in particular, to the rest of us. The extent to which we've learned such lessons is, will continue to be, and indeed should be, always open to debate. But I see no reason to doubt that the Jews continue to be the 'pilot group' whenever G-d has something new to teach us all. Much of which is now happening in Israel--especially as regards 'green' technology, renewable energy and desalinization of seawater, to name but a few items. And if and when there is peace between Isaac and Ishmael (Arabs) we can expect to see the Middle East transformed for the better!

TO MY FELLOW SWMS

"It is with deep feeling I beg my 'white' brethren, especially in the South, not to fall for this jive again!! Last time you fell for it, you took up arms and died for a system not only unrighteous, but which actually kept you down along with the slave. Were there schools where you could learn to read, write, think and cipher? You know there weren't. The planters deliberately priced education out of your reach so you wouldn't figure out what was really going on!! And because you were marginally higher than the slave, you believed the hokum the planters fed you!!
'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.' Well, what'll it be this time? Will you have the courage to treat those who are different as equals and fight against our common enemy (the greedy planters) this time? Or will you fall again for the planters' lying racist narcotics? This election is America v. Amerikkka. That means all of us working together helping each other v. everyone trying to rob each other, or trying to rob a large number of us, by force, lies and/or legal stealth while most of us sink back into poverty, the commons become irredeemably polluted, and death by starvation makes a comeback--which many might not hear about because Faux News would never mention it!
This November--choose America. Tell Amerikkka to get lost and stay lost!"
These words are how I concluded an earlier post on this website, titled America v. Amerikkka, which is one way I see this year's election. And I feel the need to amplify that, especially in regards to other SWMs, as is the personals' abbreviation for straight white males. It is mostly to them that I address this post.
First, when someone else--a woman, a person of color, a 'gay' person--refers to us as 'privileged', that is pretty much a fact. But that's no reason to either yell back about all your hard work (I don't doubt most of you have; that's not the point--but the point is germane, so bear with me a little here) or run for the sackcloth and ashes and start lamenting; that is so useless I can hardly find words! Nor do I wish you to think of yourselves as 'bad'; I know as well as you that dam' few of us (if any) sought any unearned privilege; in this country it kind of comes with the territory of being born white males and having our hormones flow the 'straight' way. If most of us needed work to get where we are, then (and you are entitled to ask) you ask, where's the 'privilege'? Here are some examples:
1) Do you take it for granted that you deserve to be listened to?
2) Have you ever been stopped either on a city street or on the road and had your person and/or car searched, and none too carefully, for contraband?
3) Have you noticed differences in how differently other people treat you, as opposed to a woman, etc.? Are you 'automatically' treated as if you carry more authority than a woman, etc.?
4) Assuming bullying is something you avoid doing, when's the last time anyone 'got in your face' just for fun?
My fellow nerds and geeks probably still have memories of that last, but c'mon dudes, has it happened since  high school? I can say, for me it hasn't. Anyhow, what privilege we yet have shows up mostly in that very last point and variations thereon: if something important to others isn't at stake, are members of any other group getting in our way? No. Only if we consider our liberty imperiled by not being able to bully and wipe our feet on others can we think that. Those of us who understand the indivisibility of freedom know this. And from that principle is where we must take a plan of action. OK; as straight white males we do have more authority; so where do we go from here?
1) Listen. With our hearts as well as our heads, listen to how the world looks to women, people of color and so on. Sure, look out for con artists; they also come in both sexes and all colors. And as we try to shape new realities to include us all, remember that as long as we have such unasked-for authority it behooves us to offer the handshakes first as it were.
2) Learn when to speak and when to be silent. Let's use our 'authority' to encourage others to speak up as well as ourselves. Many of us do come from homes where we were neither listened to or encouraged to speak up (except perhaps when a parent was angry)--well, if we know how it feels, shouldn't we encourage others rather than monopolize the speaking? What would you expect of a genuinely mature man?
3) Do not assume we're the 'natural' leaders, moderators or whatever: we want to expand that template and do so by example. These are for starters and they are broad guidelines.
Finally, as we encourage others to speak out and help them climb the ladders of advancement, let's remember that the more openly expressed talent we have around, we are all the richer for it! I'd say my point is, finally, is not that we SWMs didn't have to work for what we have (most of us did) but that we have the least roadblocks in our paths! Whoever has explicit or implicit roadblocks in their path has to work that much harder to either clear or get around them, right? And I say that merits respect--and that we needn't resent the government's attempts to ameliorate that either.
Societies based on unearned (and unasked-for) privilege stagnate and regress: no more than 53% of Confederate soldiers could read or write, compared with 94% among the Yankees. So, fellow SWMs, let's use what 'privilege' we have to make our country fairer for all our fellow citizens, wherever and whenever the occasions arise. And I suggest a straight Democratic vote this fall be part of that for all of us!

HARDSCRABBLE--AND WHAT WE DO WITH IT

After hearing innumerable 'Republican' politicos dilate on their, or, more often, their parents'--and still more often, their grandparents'--hardscrabble backgrounds, coming from nothing, basement apartments, tuna casseroles, etc., etc., ad nauseam, it occurred to me: if these bozos actually believe that being born poor and having to work hard for all they, or their families, now have is a virtue in and of itself, then they're only half-right at best. As with nearly everything with humans (including the DNA we inherit) so much depends on what we make of it! If either they, their parents or grandparents, came from nothing and worked their way up to wealth and power, why--literally--in God's Name are they pulling up the ladders to such success behind them?! Or is that actually the reason? Do they consider their families' success to be so precarious that they're afraid of those who would otherwise follow and they conceal their fears behind their hardscrabble anecdotes? Or, maybe, having heard these stories at a tender age, were they frightened by them (that is, by the idea what they now had could be taken away and then even they, the children, would have to go down the coalmines or into the mills), never outgrew that terror and, hence, are determined it'll never happen to them again? Or do they actually believe they inherit even their parents' or grandparents' presumptive virtue as a result of their way up the ladder? That last is so preposterous, even for 'Republicans', that I hesitated over it--but in 2012, who knows?
One thing none of them seem to mention, or maybe weren't told about, were those friends of their folks who, for one reason or another, fell by the wayside and never made it to the middle class or higher. Surely they had such friends; why didn't they mention them if only as cautionary examples? Are all these families so persuaded of their own superior virtue? Regardless of what they think, they're sure acting as if they really do believe that about their families and themselves. And since it looks that way, I have a hard time thinking of any group (except sociopaths and psychopaths) to be less trusted anywhere near governmental power, whether elective or appointive, than this lot! My own mother grew up poor until she was (I think) about fourteen or fifteen; so did many of the kids with whom she went to school at P.S.#221 and Tilden High School. Today, she is a pediatric oncologist recently retired from leading her department at a nationally known children's hospital. But I know of no one from her classes (including herself) who believes in their own exceptional 'virtue'; most of them remember and respect the people who helped them along the way. All her friends and relations from her girlhood I've ever known were, or still are, in favor of strengthening and broadening the upward ladders; all of them execrate the very idea of chopping them down! And this sentiment isn't just something I inherited but it's been reinforced through my adult lifetime almost every time I looked round to see how others besides myself were doing--and I think that's all I should write about that as I've no desire to vaunt myself herein.
A pair of sayings of G.K. Chesterton's are, I think, relevant here. 1)"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly." 2) "Satan fell through force of gravity." And not Newtonian, either, but the kind which turns one's mouth's corners determinedly downward. If these scribes and Pharisees of today really believe (and from their actions, it is only too clear that they do) in their, and/or their families', exceptional virtue, the best thing we can do for our country (and maybe for the souls of our Pharisees as well) is vote them all--and I mean all; let none survive as an officeholder or candidate--out of office by as wide margins as we can honestly manage and don't let them or their descendants anywhere near political power for at least forty years! And this applies whether they have 'religious' affiliations or not. The disqualifier is not any set of religious beliefs but a belief in their own superior 'virtue', or that of their families. If a hardscrabble backgound produces such a misguided belief, it's very wrongly construed. If, on the other hand, it feeds a desire to make things not as hard for those that follow, and enable more to follow, then that is a blessing of such antecedents.

FACTS AND SURPRISES

Without the Jews, without Israel, what would their land be now? Nothing. That's right--nothing.
It would be no different than the desolate, denuded and depopulated stretch of desert which Mark Twain described so vividly in Innocents Abroad.
When Twain published this book in 1870, there were no more then 250,000 people scratching out profoundly bare livings(if that) in what is today Israel proper PLUS Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Fifty years later, in 1920, the population had doubled. Now why would this have happened? The Arabs of 1920 were no better nourished (and, hence, more resistant to diseases) than those of 1870. Nor had Western medicine penetrated in what became the Palestine mandate. So--whence the increase?

Because the Jews had started coming back, that's why. And they brought jobs and business opportunities. Which, in turn, brought in Arab immigration as well. Also, the Jews started returning 15 years before Herzl's Congress of Basel in 1897.
So both the Arab and the Jewish populations increased by immigration--so that by 1920, Eretz Israel was populated by 500,000 'Arabs' and about 75,000 Jews. And between 1920 and 1948 (the 'Mandate' years) Arab immigration continued to be a bit more than Jewish immigration: 558,000 'Arabs'; 498,000 Jews. By 1948, the Palestine mandate contained 650,000 Jews and 1.2 million Arabs. Nearly all this population, both Jewish and Arab, had immigrated to Eretz Israel within the previous sixty years!! The 'Arab' population has no greater right to Eretz Israel than do the Jews and I for one say that the only way they have equal rights to the land is if they wake up and recognize the Jews as their brethren. For that, according to the work done by Tsvi Misinai in his Engagement Project, is exactly what they are!! Misinai has taken DNA samples from a large section of the 'Arab' population of Israel, etc. and found Jewish--not Edomite, not even ancient Hebrew or Israelite, but Jewish--DNA 'markers' on better than ninety percent of the 'Arab' population!!
Which gives rise to an interesting question: why did these 'Arabs' immigrate to 'Palestine' as opposed to their neighbors in Cairo, Damascus, Jiddah and so on? By the time they came to 'Palestine' they were, on the surface, indistinguishable from their Arab neighbors. When life came back into the Holy Land from Europe, was their something in these 'Arabs'' DNA or, more likely, their unconscious, which said, 'Time to go home'?
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, so I hope I can venture even Mitt Romney was at least not wrong to say, 'Culture makes all the difference'. The 'Palestinians' (with the apparent exception of Salam Fayyad and his acolytes) are far more interested in murdering their brethren than in building their own institutions. I just pray (literally) the 'Palestinians' haven't been completely ruined by being part of such a death-deifying culture!
I expect this post to infuriate a large number of people on both sides for many different reasons. But allow me to ask this question, which is especially addressed to all those who have begun to walk with, and know, G-d: isn't one of the things He is at least likely to do is to bring enemies to a face-off and then somehow arrange for the 'masks' to be removed and have brethren rediscover each other as such? To me (and, not meaning to boast, G-d graciously walks with me) it is very much something the G-d I know would do: part of His ways is often to either stand our preconceptions on their heads OR to knock them ninety degrees askew. I also invite my readers to check my facts (they can all be googled) and also to look up Tsvi Misinai and the Engagement Project. It's all there; it's all true.
Finally, however unlikely it may seem, I'd advise the Israeli government to prepare to 'assimilate' as many 'Palestinians' as may be possible to do over any period of time. The Haredi population might prove of considerable help in this, I'll venture! Or, in an Israel that needs all the secularity it can get right now, would that prove counterproductive? I don't know, so I'll leave those judgments to those on the ground of Israel.

ELITES: AUTHENTIC VS. COUNTERFEIT

Elites are on my mind today: cultural, economic and those who, at first glance, appear to belong to both but, on closer inspection, still by and large act as members of the cultural elite. The (Paul) Newman family looks like a good example of this to me: Paul was, and Joanne Woodward and their family are, unquestioned members of both the cultural and economic elite. However, they still behave much more like members of the cultural elite than the purely economic elite: so far as I know Newman's Own still donates all its profits to charities and I imagine they pay their taxes pretty scrupulously too. Their primary class ties appear to be, still, with the community of media artists--that is, with those that follow the same professions by which the Newmans made their money in the first place. They don't seem to have ties with 'money' per se.
And this is true, by and large, of most members of the cultural elite. It is also true that most members of the cultural elite liberally defined as such are not among the economic elite. But those who become part of the economic elite as well (such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Barbra, Oprah, etc.) still define themselves as members primarily of the cultural elite. Thankfully, they correctly see themselves as not having common political interests with the crooked three-card monte dealers now running the banks and Wall Street nor with the earth-rippers of the fossil fuel businesses but with fellow artists, educators and conservers. In this they are joined by some business builders (Bill Gates and Steve Jobs come to mind) and a healthy share of inventors, scientists and other technogeeks. I say if someone builds a business doing what they know and love, they will usually continue to identify themselves as that particular 'occupation' rather than as someone who got rich, regardless of how rich they actually become--and, hence, their politics will not change with growing wealth. And it is the cultural elite which shows, by far, many more of the traits which we in the West associate with an authentic elite: the traits covered by the wonderful phrase noblesse oblige, the anchoring and other strengthening of the ladders by which they themselves climbed so that an increasing number of talented and hardworking people can follow them up, arising from the understanding that as more real talent arises and as we increase our renewable resources--we all become richer, and not just monetarily either!
If a business person becomes an honest success doing something they can respect and enjoy, they too can become members of the authentic elite. Uncle Warren looks like that to me. Another part of the authentic elite is what's called 'old gold'--here, families such as the Adamses, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Roosevelts, Kennedys, etc. I would also include public servants who actually seek to serve all their constituents in this designation.
To me, the counterfeit elite are those who did what they did only, or even mostly, in order to get rich. Then they flaunt their ill-gotten gains even as they seek to pull up the ladders by which they climbed because, whether they admit it or not, they are consumed by fear of those who might climb after them and devour them in turn! Those who know or suspect they're really 'nothing special' except for their money (hey, Trumpty Dumpty!) are the worst in this respect--Trump, Romney, Ryan, Stossel, Hannity, Limbaugh, Koch, etc. Fred Trump was a more authentic member of the elite than his son is!
I have no problem with anyone wanting to improve their monetary lot by honest hard work and/or real talent. I have lots of problems with those who seek to do so by means of legal theft and then claim elite status by virtue of their ill-gotten gains and then seek to pull up the ladders behind them and try to buy our government and convert it into their scapegoat as they increasingly impoverish the rest of us!
Every human society has, and will always have, an elite. The question is and should always be: what does the elite add to (or take from) the general well-being of society? To sum up (I hope!): an authentic elite cares for more than fattening its pockets and, when the society which enriches them in the first place may require it, is prepared to forgo such fattening for a time--because their status as elite members relies only secondarily on their wealth. The primary staff of their elite membership is their ability to continue to exercise, and exercise well, those strengths or talents which brought them into the elite in the first place. And that's also why the counterfeit elite must continually, unremittingly, fatten its pockets (and increasingly to society's detriment) or lose its elite standing altogether. The authentic elite may advise those lower down to make do at need, but not to the point of 'want of necessaries', to use an appropriately Dickensian phrase. The counterfeit elite will say even to children, 'thou shalt starve ere I starve'--and they always, or nearly always, fancy themselves a few steps away from starvation themselves!
Last point, I promise: the authentic elite remembers the struggle of early days and seeks to mitigate it for those that come after as they look and listen for real talent and a real variety of voices. The counterfeits seek to do the opposite and seek to convert our country into their country club and comfy echo chamber. I hope and believe our authentic elite mirrors our desire and our spirit far better than the counterfeit elite!