Chris Hedges: Let’s Get This Class War Started

[marmar]

from truthdig:


Let’s Get This Class War Started

Posted on Oct 20, 2013
By Chris Hedges


“The rich are different from us,” F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have remarked to Ernest Hemingway, to which Hemingway allegedly replied, “Yes, they have more money.”

The exchange, although it never actually took place, sums up a wisdom Fitzgerald had that eluded Hemingway. The rich are different. The cocoon of wealth and privilege permits the rich to turn those around them into compliant workers, hangers-on, servants, flatterers and sycophants. Wealth breeds, as Fitzgerald illustrated in “The Great Gatsby” and his short story “The Rich Boy,” a class of people for whom human beings are disposable commodities. Colleagues, associates, employees, kitchen staff, servants, gardeners, tutors, personal trainers, even friends and family, bend to the whims of the wealthy or disappear. Once oligarchs achieve unchecked economic and political power, as they have in the United States, the citizens too become disposable.

The public face of the oligarchic class bears little resemblance to the private face. I, like Fitzgerald, was thrown into the embrace of the upper crust when young. I was shipped off as a scholarship student at the age of 10 to an exclusive New England boarding school. I had classmates whose fathers—fathers they rarely saw—arrived at the school in their limousines accompanied by personal photographers (and at times their mistresses), so the press could be fed images of rich and famous men playing the role of good fathers. I spent time in the homes of the ultra-rich and powerful, watching my classmates, who were children, callously order around men and women who worked as their chauffeurs, cooks, nannies and servants. When the sons and daughters of the rich get into serious trouble there are always lawyers, publicists and political personages to protect them—George W. Bush’s life is a case study in the insidious affirmative action for the rich. The rich have a snobbish disdain for the poor—despite well-publicized acts of philanthropy—and the middle class. These lower classes are viewed as uncouth parasites, annoyances that have to be endured, at times placated and always controlled in the quest to amass more power and money. My hatred of authority, along with my loathing for the pretensions, heartlessness and sense of entitlement of the rich, comes from living among the privileged. It was a deeply unpleasant experience. But it exposed me to their insatiable selfishness and hedonism. I learned, as a boy, who were my enemies.

The inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults. We have been blinded to the depravity of our ruling elite by the relentless propaganda of public relations firms that work on behalf of corporations and the rich. Compliant politicians, clueless entertainers and our vapid, corporate-funded popular culture, which holds up the rich as leaders to emulate and assures us that through diligence and hard work we can join them, keep us from seeing the truth. .........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/lets_get_this_class_war_started_20131020

[marmar]

1. "Oligarchs do not believe in self-sacrifice for the common good. They never have. They never will."

Self-kick

[90-percent]

2. thanks for the link

posted on my FB page. I figure that gets the word out better than preaching to the choir on DU.

-90% Jimmy

[Fuddnik]

3. Hedges is the most astute journalist in Amerika.

[BrainDrain]

4. If we can't

pretend it's the French Revolution, can we at least storm their castles (mansions) with pitchforks and torches? They call us parasites, when they should be looking in the mirror for the real blood-sucking leeches (my honest apologies to the leeches).

[el_bryanto]

5. That's an interesting article

Well worth considering.

Bryant

[marmar]

6. Audio link to Richard Wolff's interview with Chris Hedges in which they discuss class warfare.....

http://rdwolff.com/content/economic-update-social-turmoil-coming

[joeybee12]

7. He's right, the conversation never took place..."The rich are different..." quote is from

a short story by Fitzgerald, The Rich Boy...never part of a conversation. In any case, if you want to understand people like Rmoney and their ilk, read the short story, or at least the first paragraph...F Scott sums them up quite nicely.