Free Market ElitistsGone Wild!!
By John F. Miglio
We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.
-- Tyler Durden
Last month there was a video clip circulating of former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush walking amidst the wreckage in Haiti and shaking hands with the survivors of the earthquake.
Clinton, of course, was totally in his element. Bush, on the other hand, looked more than a little uncomfortable walking through the slums surrounded by hundreds of wide-eyed desperate black people.
At one point in the clip Bush shakes hands with a Haitian guy and then nonchalantly wipes his paw on Clinton's shirt. I assume the guy Bush shook hands with had a sweaty palm and Bush wanted to wipe the guy's perspiration from his hand.
But on Clinton's shirt? Would you wipe your sweaty paw on a former president's shirt? Well, maybe on Clinton's shirt--but you know what I mean. It's a pretty indelicate thing to do.
This is not new for Bush. There is another video of him wiping his reading glasses on a female stage manager's skirt on David Letterman's show. No one made a big deal about it. Actually, compared to what Bush did to the country for the eight years he was in office, it was a trifle.
In fact, most commentators in the mainstream media sloughed if off as just one more stupid Bush faux pas. You know what a dumb ass old George is" hah, hah, hah!
No argument there. But I think there's more to it than that. What Bush did to Clinton and to Letterman's stage manager is emblematic of a distinct and despicable brand of elitism that began when Ronald Reagan, the "amiable dunce," became president.
Backed by influential individuals like Milton Freidman, William F. Buckley Jr., and other conservative luminaries who hated FDR for being a "liberal" and a "socialist," Reagan was tasked to sell the so-called virtues of "self interest" and the "free market" to the mass public. And so he did.
This led to a reverse kind of noblesse oblige during Reagan's two terms in office, continued during the Bush Senior/ Clinton years, and reached its nastiest incarnation during the Bush Junior years. By then the elite class viewed average Americans as pathetic schlubs, not worthy of anything other than their scorn or indifference. Lost your home? Read the fine print next time! Lost your job? Tough titty! Don't have affordable health care? Use the emergency room!
And this carried over to all areas of the culture. When super elitist golfer Tiger Woods got caught cheating on his wife, he said he felt "entitled" to his extra-curricular sexual liaisons. In other words, I'm not just a working stiff like the rest of you-- I'm rich, I'm famous, I've got the backing of corporate America" I'm entitled.
In a way it reminds me of the line in the History of the World: Part One where Mel Brooks says, "It's good to be the king!" as he skeet shoots commoners flying through the air for his amusement.
For decades, many Americans bought into this economic philosophy, thinking maybe they too could be rich and famous someday. As Donald Trump once observed: "The average guy doesn't hate me; he wants to be me." And though I hate to admit it, Trump was right.
1 | 2
