In times like these, we need to keep perspective on how the Masters of the Universe,

[Jackpine Radical]

think of us, how the super-rich see the world.

When I say "super-rich," I'm not talking about your local Cadillac dealer, or the guy with the 10 McDonalds franchises in your home town. I'm mostly talking about old money: the likes of some European royal families, the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Astors, Mellons, the heirs of JP Morgan, plus a few relatively recent additions such as the Saudi Royals and maybe the Waltons. In this league, the Donald is an insignificant twit.

What I want to remind you of is that the world's super-rich, the Owners of Everything, don't even recognize the likes of us as human. Just as we wouldn't think of trying to impress field mice, they have no concern about what we might think, except insofar it is useful to them to keep us blindered and deceived so we will continue to do their bidding. They hide behind their walls and in their penthouses, in their French villas and in their castles, absorbed in themselves and in each other, neither knowing nor caring anything at all about our lives, our trials, our tribulations.

Dubya had to maintain a facade of "regular guy" during his presidency, but he let the mask slip in one famous moment, when a young woman berated him about the war. "Who cares what you think?" he retorted. That is the message of the super-rich to all of us: Who cares what you think?

[ShortnFiery]

1. Tweety, who schmoozes with all the wealthy elite politicos once dropped his mask to refer to

us little people from the non-investor class as "The Pajama Hudeen."

I wouldn't be surprised if they laugh at us and tell anecdotal stories of our "ignorance" at their opulent D.C. soirees. :grr: :puke:

[Jackpine Radical]

3. I think the term "Pajamahadin" has a specific meaning--

bloggers who act as (mostly) conservative gadflies, nattering at M$M for any deviations they might make from the conservative line. Little Green Footballs is what I would call a Pajamahadin operation.

The press are not members of the Overlord class; they are only well-paid lackeys in any case.

[ShortnFiery]

6. I beg to disagree. Tweety was addressing specifically liberal bloggers. Plus the highly paid

journalists of the M$M do attend all the power play social events. They SERVE the political elites desiring the "status quo" of both parties.

I have not heard of your other definition but I do know that the day Tweety was flustered and uttered "Pajama Hudeen" it was in response to LIBERAL emails swamping M$NBC. :shrug:

[Jackpine Radical]

12. I'm not sure Tweety is an expert on everything, but

I'll accept the idea that the term could be used for liberal bloggers as well. It's just that the cases I've run across--like the people who hounded Rather on the AWOL story--were conservatives playing out a right-wing agenda.

[rvablue]

18. Add to that: while sitting on his patio at his ocean front home on Nantucket that

he flies up to every weekend during the summer.

Yep, Tweety is really a "man of the people."

:sarcasm:

[Oregone]

2. I use to live with a former Bush staffer

And I had myriad conversation about philosophy and government. Its tough to verbalize the extent at which he (who was Texan and from the clique), felt about others, but it was close to considering people as slaves who should work for his benefit, because, well, they can. At the end of every conversation, where I whittled his justifications away, he would grin and simply remark something about 'thats the way it is'. Might essentially was right to him (but it wasn't even about what was "right"), and people were only as valuable as their ability to make him richer and more powerful. It was absolutely disgusting. To him, people were less valuable than dirt (which you can grow something in after all).

I will always fear that association because of what I promised him if he was ever elected.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. Classic psychopathic thinking.

Or, if you're into the notions of spiral dynamics, the lowest stage of cultural development.

[Oregone]

15. Yes, that is a good way to put it.

Its tough for me even to conceive. He was a civil sociopath, literally. He could go out and blend into society every day and act normal, but under it all he had a complete disregard for other people's feelings and rights. Yet he would be asinine enough to mention religion and church (he attended Bush's church prior to the presidency). It is so beyond comprehensions, it leaves me wordless.

[Toucano]

11. You can't just dangle that out there like that.

What did you promise him? :hide:

[Oregone]

13. I can't say anymore either

Because I don't want to be made. It would take very little already to identify who I was based on my posts probably. I like the anonymity of the internet.


But I wasn't kind, nor civil, and there wasn't a hint of untruth in my voice.

[Toucano]

14. I will have to accept that.

At least I know that you didn't promise to HELP him. LOL!

[JDPriestly]

5. There is nothing more demeaning than having a super-rich, or even moderately wealthy person come

to your house for a party or dinner and offer suggestions on how you could remodel your bathroom. This has happened to me more than once. I don't invite the super-rich (or even wealthy) to my house any more. They can't help themselves. They actually believe they are being helpful when they suggest how I could put in new floors. It never occurs to them that I don't remodel because I can't afford it. After all, they paid far more to install those beautiful full-grown trees in their backyard than it would cost to put in new floors throughout my house. People who have money and have always had it cannot imagine what it is like not to have it, never to have had it.

Think about Africa or Bangladesh. Think about the many people in the world who do not have a well. It is hard for us to understand why they don't dig a well. It is hard to imagine that they don't know how and can't afford the equipment it requires to dig deeply enough to strike water.

Regardless of how rich or poor we are, each of us deserves dignity. We all deserve to be seen for what we are, not for what we have.

If, as a society, we could acknowledge the dignity that is inherent in each of us, poor and rich, maybe there would be less greed and less crime caused by greed.

The media is particularly guilty of failing to understand that, regardless of our material wealth or poverty, we all have the right to dignity, respect and recognition for what we are. We should not be judged primarily based on what we have or what we earn.

Where in the media do you see depictions of the simple lifestyle that most Americans can afford? Has anyone every seen a TV show -- a TV show about normal, functioning families with ordinary problems set in a trailer court? Living in a trailer court is always equated with moral impoverishment, not just financial poverty. So, poverty is equated with being trashy. The poor are depicted as lacking dignity. That message is false, and the media needs to change it.

By the way, the super-rich and wealthy people I know suffer from illness, difficult children, mental illness, divorce, death, just like the rest of us. Pain, disappointment, frustration. They are all great levelers. Problem is, our society tends to blame the poor person whose child takes drugs or who drives while drink. The wealthy person gets the benefit of the doubt, just hires a really good lawyer and makes a deal. If Anna Nicole Smith had lived in a trailer court, the media would have covered her story very differently. In fact, it would have been more likely featured on America's Most Wanted than on prime time news.

Until we face the fact that most of us are poor, and will likely never be super-rich, we will fail to recognize our own worth. By failing to claim our worth and our dignity regardless of our poverty, we make ourselves vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation. So the answer is that we have to be willing to be poor and proud.

Let's remember, those of us who are not already homeless are just an illness or a bank crisis and a few missed rent or mortgage payments away from homelessness. We fool ourselves into believing otherwise.

[ShortnFiery]

7. I went to a Christmas Party of a local wealthy democrat and the opulence in their home ...

was nauseating. I have not seen homes of two star Generals as disgustingly ornate as this woman's home. Statues and fountains as well as original paintings, baby grand piano and even a fucking full sized gold-trimmed HARP. :puke:

Just disgusting considering how that money could be better spent for High Quality functional designs and a larger allotment to charity.

[Toucano]

10. I don't understand how they do it.

I have some theories and they are really similar to the OP except I think they do see us as human but see themselves as more than human.

I went to a function in an 8,000 square foot single family home recently. It is owned by a couple and their teenage daughter. Maybe they give 80% to charity. I don't know. But I just can't grasp how people can know that there are so many people in substandard homes and so many living with no home and throw close to a million dollars into an opulent home for three people. Right under the noses of the needy. It just isn't part of my molecular makeup. I would feel shamed if I were to do that.


I also had a wealthy friend borrow coins from me recently to pay his maid. He wouldn't round it up to the next closest bill. He thinks he is a Democrat.


I just watch and learn. I think you learn more with your mouth shut.


But I am learning that I will never be wealthy in the financial sense like these people barring some unforeseen pure luck. If I suddenly had 50K in the bank to buy a car, I would buy two for $25K and give one to a needy friend.

[EOTE]

8. Right on!

:applause: :applause:

With regard to what these wealthy individuals say when invited to your parties, I've known for a long time that that's how they act at social functions. I've wondered for a long while if they knew just how rude and arrogant it is to act that way and I assumed that they did. I won't give them the benefit of the doubt that they are simply uninformed, I think they do it just to be asses.

[Kitty Herder]

17. Well said. I hate the attitude that the poor are morally deficient.

There is no basis for it. It only serves the purposes of the wealthy by convincing the rest of us that the poor deserve their lot and justifies their mistreatment. It reminds me of the caste system in which people were thought to deserve abject poverty because it was their karma. Handy for the wealthy, isn't it?

My grandparents were poor and my parents both grew up poor. Although my dad's parents did inherit quite a bit of money later in life. My mom's dad worked as a school janitor and a farmer. He'd dropped out of school in eighth grade to work at his family's sawmill, which they later sold. My dad's dad worked in the coal mine and farmed. He was a WWII vet. My grandmothers both worked their asses off in their homes and farms and my dad's mom reupholstered furniture to bring in a little extra income. When my mom's dad died young, her mother worked as a lunch lady to keep body and soul together for herself and my uncle who was eleven at the time.

Despite their poverty, you would be hard pressed to find better people than my grandparents. They were/are(Paternal grandmother is fortunately still with us.) hardworking, honest, and compassionate. They possessed all the traits we claim to admire as a society. That, for me, really puts the lie to the notion that the poor are somehow morally deficient or lazy.

My brother married a girl who comes from a moneyed family. Now she has some serious moral deficits. She's spoiled, selfish, and self-centered. Not that being wealthy made her that way, but it shows that wealth is no measure of morality.

[burythehatchet]

9. I've had the disdinct displeasure of working for privately held firms

One of them was a $4bn nursing home chain. The owner usually maintained three private jets and more mansions than we knew about. He earned his money from Medicare and Medicaid.

The other once had a holiday party at his house. The company is a $300Mn company with 400 employees. The technology infrastructure in his mansion cost more than the annual technology budget of the firm.

It made me ill to work for them. Needless to say I stayed just as long as I needed to to put food on the table.

[tjwash]

16. Rich folks toss themselves off of high rises when they lose everything and go broke.

That's how low-down they look at everyone that is not of their social class...they would rather be dead than to all of a sudden be poor.

Poor to them, meaning down to their last 4 or 5 million by the way.