The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

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PineappleDuckCurry
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The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

Post by PineappleDuckCurry »

The Aristocracy Is Dead …

For about a week every year in my childhood, I was a member of one of America’s fading aristocracies. Sometimes around Christmas, more often on the Fourth of July, my family would take up residence at one of my grandparents’ country clubs in Chicago, Palm Beach, or Asheville, North Carolina. The breakfast buffets were magnificent, and Grandfather was a jovial host, always ready with a familiar story, rarely missing an opportunity for gentle instruction on proper club etiquette. At the age of 11 or 12, I gathered from him, between his puffs of cigar smoke, that we owed our weeks of plenty to Great-Grandfather, Colonel Robert W. Stewart, a Rough Rider with Teddy Roosevelt who made his fortune as the chairman of Standard Oil of Indiana in the 1920s. I was also given to understand that, for reasons traceable to some ancient and incomprehensible dispute, the Rockefellers were the mortal enemies of our clan. Only much later in life did I learn that the stories about the Colonel and his tangles with titans fell far short of the truth.
The class divide is already toxic, and is fast becoming unbridgeable. You’re probably part of the problem.

continued at...

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the- ... ristocracy
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funkervogt
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Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

Post by funkervogt »

You're welcome to donate your money to charity to assuage your guilt.
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erowind
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Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

Post by erowind »

funkervogt wrote: Mon Jan 09, 2023 12:48 pm You're welcome to donate your money to charity to assuage your guilt.
No no, we’ll reclaim what is ours in due time. Charity solves nothing. No slave desires to live by the grace of their masters.
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caltrek
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Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

Post by caltrek »

funkervogt wrote: Mon Jan 09, 2023 12:48 pm You're welcome to donate your money to charity to assuage your guilt.
That works if enough of the "new aristocracy" donates enough to charity to mitigate the worst of the problems caused by the rising inequality of wealth. If not, then the problems caused by the theft of the elite from the masses results in the kind of resentment articulated by Erowind. For me, it should be a matter of justice. Of course, that is a high value in my system of values. Others may not care about justice, and care only about just us.

Charity is most effective when it is a matter, metaphorically speaking, of giving a person a fishing pole and teaching that person how to fish, as opposed to merely giving a person a fish. Implied in that is a right to fish where fish are plentiful.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
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funkervogt
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Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

Post by funkervogt »

That works if enough of the "new aristocracy" donates enough to charity to mitigate the worst of the problems caused by the rising inequality of wealth.
The presence of rich people creates problems of jealousy just as the presence of more than one race of people in a country creates problems of racism.
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caltrek
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Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

Post by caltrek »

funkervogt wrote: Mon Jan 09, 2023 4:33 pm
That works if enough of the "new aristocracy" donates enough to charity to mitigate the worst of the problems caused by the rising inequality of wealth.
The presence of rich people creates problems of jealousy just as the presence of more than one race of people in a country creates problems of racism.
Robbing from the poor, or even the middle class, to benefit the rich creates problems.

Edit: "or even the middle class" added.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
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BaobabScion
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Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

Post by BaobabScion »

funkervogt wrote: Mon Jan 09, 2023 4:33 pm The presence of rich people creates problems of jealousy....

But more importantly, it implies problems of inequality. Jealousy would be mitigated if the subjects of a jealous gaze didn't smugly disparage the less advantaged and rub the money in people's faces.
just as the presence of more than one race of people in a country creates problems of racism.
Be careful, you're telling on yourself.
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erowind
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Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

Post by erowind »

funkervogt wrote: Mon Jan 09, 2023 4:33 pm
That works if enough of the "new aristocracy" donates enough to charity to mitigate the worst of the problems caused by the rising inequality of wealth.
The presence of rich people creates problems of jealousy just as the presence of more than one race of people in a country creates problems of racism.

One does not follow the other. I’ve lived in an ethnically diverse place my whole life and don’t feel any substantive negative feelings towards people of different cultural groups. Sometimes there are communication misunderstandings but that’s not hatred. Also “race” doesn’t exist. Racism is caused by colonialism and didn’t exist as we know it before modern colonialism.

Imperial xenophobia had existed in the past but no one was so simplistic as to lump whole continents of people into single word descriptors like we do today.

Moreover it’s not jealousy no matter how you frame it. It’s completely rational contempt that comes from centuries long theft. A class of people doesn’t get to steal, rape, murder, enslave, brutalize, genocide, war with and dominate another class of people only to have their warring targets be framed as “jealous.” If you’re rich, I don’t want to be you, I want to abolish your class and my own class. No more masters we cannot progress as a species until we are all free.

Any gestures towards wealth I’ve displayed in the past or future for cryptocurrency are simply to claim financial security like any working class person has the right to if they reasonably can without hurting others. I could go into the ethics of it if someone wants. But in essence it is not wrong for a poor person to try to become a millionaire in order to survive but it is wrong for a millionaire to become a billionaire and take more than they could ever need in this economic system. I hope this isn’t read as hypocrisy completely missing the point.
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peekpok
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Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

Post by peekpok »

I tried to read the article linked by OP, but that is some of the worst writing I have ever encountered. Do they ever get to the point? Before I gave up all I could surmise is that it's the bottom 90%s fault for having their money stolen by the top 0.1% because they don't have the right attitude in life. :lol:
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TanishaTanTan
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Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

Post by TanishaTanTan »

erowind wrote: Tue Jan 10, 2023 2:26 pm
funkervogt wrote: Mon Jan 09, 2023 4:33 pm
That works if enough of the "new aristocracy" donates enough to charity to mitigate the worst of the problems caused by the rising inequality of wealth.
The presence of rich people creates problems of jealousy just as the presence of more than one race of people in a country creates problems of racism.

One does not follow the other. I’ve lived in an ethnically diverse place my whole life and don’t feel any substantive negative feelings towards people of different cultural groups. Sometimes there are communication misunderstandings but that’s not hatred. Also “race” doesn’t exist. Racism is caused by colonialism and didn’t exist as we know it before modern colonialism.

Imperial xenophobia had existed in the past but no one was so simplistic as to lump whole continents of people into single word descriptors like we do today.

Moreover it’s not jealousy no matter how you frame it. It’s completely rational contempt that comes from centuries long theft. A class of people doesn’t get to steal, rape, murder, enslave, brutalize, genocide, war with and dominate another class of people only to have their warring targets be framed as “jealous.” If you’re rich, I don’t want to be you, I want to abolish your class and my own class. No more masters we cannot progress as a species until we are all free.
I read a lot about the American aristocracy. I don't have anything against it. But I got an american dream, found our website for it. I would like my children to be aristocrats. But I won't force them. It's just my dream, nothing more, nothing less. As they say so be it.
Any gestures towards wealth I’ve displayed in the past or future for cryptocurrency are simply to claim financial security like any working class person has the right to if they reasonably can without hurting others. I could go into the ethics of it if someone wants. But in essence it is not wrong for a poor person to try to become a millionaire in order to survive but it is wrong for a millionaire to become a billionaire and take more than they could ever need in this economic system. I hope this isn’t read as hypocrisy completely missing the point.
And that there will be no controversy about this?
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