Posted on 06/11/2002 3:39:27 PM PDT by vannrox
There is a new tone in Washington. Mall events are more patriotic, people seem more cordial, and the mood is more tempered. Even Marion Berry withdrew his name from an election. With the exception of some Clinton leftovers, most of the Agencies seem to be pursuing more sensible goals. Freepers out number anarchist at rallies, and you seldom see Barney Fag or Maxine Waters in the news and even the Clinton woman is starting to disappear.
Hmm..... I was under the impression that free market capitalism and the First Amendment dictated what we see on movie screens and magazine racks. I'm not sure I want gov't involved in that.
As usual with market-oriented conservatives and libertarians, you miss the point entirely. "The free market" has never existed in pure form except at the very lowest level. The more complicated the economy (or the polity), the more elites have the ability to guide it by making decisions about what does and what does not appear in the market (or in public debate) before the individual consumer is given a chance to "choose" (or the individual voter is given a chance to vote).
Thus one has the illusion of choice, in a situation where, in fact, choice is pre-constrained by elites into a narrow spectrum of "acceptable public limits". More often then not, elites can allow or prohibit most material they want allowed or prohibited, without having to pass any laws to do so. Hidden rule is often more effective then open rule because it offers the illusion of freedom, but only delivering a narrow parameter which the ruling elites have decided is acceptable to them.
Blinded by ideology and "free market" ideals, it is no wonder so many conservatives and libertarians are bad at politics, and completely unaware of the existence of metapolitics. They don't seem to realize that all of the really important political questions are decided in private, months or years, sometimes decades, before they or the general public are even aware that such political questions even exist!
He talks about "elites" as though these folks just aren't like you and me, because it's impossible to crack through the Invisible Wall and get one of those 7,000 jobs unless you're one of them. Oh, horsefeathers. Our very own World's Richest Man is a college dropout. The previous president of the United States -- may he rot in Hell -- grew up in such decidedly poor surroundings that even today people refer to him as "white trash."
Yeah, we have a few families that the media like to wave in front of us as some sort of hereditary nobility, but so what? To walk around thinking that opportunity in America is closed to all but a select few is the dumbest, most self-defeating claptrap I can imagine. Elites, schmelites.
Nick, you could use a good dose of Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, and James Burnham. Like too many conservatives, you have bought into the Horatio Alger myth, and failed to grasp how elites function in society. Pay some attention to some intelligent conservatives who have studied the question of elites in great detail; had all conservatives done so 50-60 years ago, we might not now be in the mess we are in. We can't very well fight a phenomenon we do not understand (elites).
For one thing, your understanding of elites is rather shallow and media oriented: the real elites aren't well known to the general public and don't often show up on TV. Bill Clinton isn't a member of any ruling elite; he was, rather, an employee of the ruling elite. It was no accident that this "poor white trash" got a Rhodes scholarship (no Horatio Alger, he). Clinton's inherent corruption and corruptability made him an especially useful tool, since there was no chance of Clinton ever standing up to his "betters" and asserting his principles (if he had any) or his better judgement (if he had one), because the elite "had the goods" on Clinton since before he entered politics. Likewise Bill Gates is not a member of the ruling elite, although with his money, he could become one if he wanted to, and if he played by the elite's unwritten rules. But Gates isn't a political animal.
So who is this an indictment against? Sounds like both sides are guilty as charged.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!
No then somebody else would step in to fill the demand I like sex, violence, and vulgarity in movies.
Everything ties in together.
Im sure some persons could be put forth as such, but I don't consider myself qualified to allude to any researchers claims in this regard mainly because we live in a DISinformation age.
I will propose that the more potent 'elites' are not those who exist in flesh in blood -- 'they' are more like modern-day gods, a type of overlay on the social conciousness that dictates acceptable behavior and thought.
These (PC) gods perform a function that all mans gods are uniquely proficient at, hence thier utility: They exploit and keep others under intellectual tyranny by using mans natural, individual survival-enhancing strategy illustrated in:
Avoid wrath and the contempt of the tribe - do as the others do, believe as they believe.
So, what we have instead of true elite are shaman who create (fertilize!) minds to accept these illusions and connect the ethereal powers to mans world through government and 'goodhate'.
I naively used to think that "middle-class values" distinguished the middle from the lower classes. But I was mistaken. "Middle-class values" distinguish the middle-classes from the upper-class.
Yes, and uncharacteristic of the lower class as well--we're sandwiched in the middle.
Most of these dog-like individuals appear to be women.
As a temp worker, I saw this in action recently in a job where we sit around cleaning parts all day. A certain male co-worker talked nonstop, eight hours a day, about his bizarre sex life and his desire to kill everyone. The guys thought he was a moron, but the women were fascinated, and listened attentively to everything he said, basically encouraging him to go on. If he hadn't been dismissed because of his abusive confrontations with the other males, I'm pretty sure he could have talked his way into bed with any of the women, even though he has a job just a cut above minimum wage, a mediocre intellect, the manners of a cur, and the physical appearance of a dwarf Neanderthal. And he definitely was not a feminist!
My view of women, I'm afraid, has suffered because of this experience. For all their bluster and insistence on self-actualization, women appear to be rather weak-willed personalities who eagerly seek to be dominated, and they will accept domination by the lowest, crudest, and most vulgar of males.
But we already knew that from the way the women's vote went for Bill Clinton.
I retain the romantic notion that there are still some strong-willed women out there, one of whom I might marry.
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