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To: Thomas M. who wrote (396)	12/3/2003 8:25:36 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Respond to of 718

ELITISM, DEFINED Thomas, Respectfully, I disagree. I think you paint with too broad a brush. Re: The intellectual elite in this country are the exact opposite. They are socially liberal, but economically conservative. I think it is important to make a distinction between those who would have formerly have been called the intelligentsia and those who are the financial and economic elites. The intelligentsia is left leaning, consisting primarily of the creative artistic leaders, Hollywood, Broadway, regional theater, musicians, etc. Also in this category would be a preponderance of very well educated academics and a smattering of malcontents like the remnants of the Socialist, New Left, civil rights, women's rights and gay rights movements. A very flexible and democratic mix of constituencies. On the polar opposite end is right leaning financial elite who tend to be very traditional about social values, repressive of the desires of the rest of society who they desire to subjugate, profligate with society's common wealth when it is accessed for the benefit of the very few, and rigidly hierarchical in attempting to dominate the economic, social and political life of the nation. These are the enemies of democracy and quite antithetical to the idea of self-determination for any except themselves. What this leads to is the great political divide of today. The finacial elite have hijacked a large portion of the media, and are using it to lie to, cheat, steal from and disinform the public. The title of John Stauber's excellent book sums up the dismissive attitude of these elites toward society in general: "Toxic Waste Is Good For You". **** This dichotomy isn't new. It played out dramatically in a hotel room in Mexico City in 1940, when Leon Trotsky was assassinated. In the epic struggle for dominance in Lenin's U.S.S.R., the main battle was between the middle brow Stalinists, (the financial elite of their world) and the high brow Trotskyists, the intelligentsia of Russian culture. Excluding, of course the coarse aristocracy for the sake of a facile comparison.

To: Thomas M. who wrote (396)	12/3/2003 9:05:00 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Respond to of 718

I think you may have started something interesting: Message 19559660

To: Thomas M. who wrote (396)	1/28/2004 3:32:36 PM
From: Thomas M.	Respond to of 718

Here is Chomsky reiterating my point. Fox and the rest of the marginal right-wing media are crucial to this effort. They play up the Republican values that cater to Joe 6-Pack, in an effort to divert him from the important issues, such as labor activism. <<< ... Bush succeeded in getting a majority of the working class vote even though he's harming them and the two issues on which people voted - the main issues - were religiosity and gun control. When I think of top issues of concern ... they care about their jobs, their pensions, their health care and things like that, but those things are not on the agenda. For good reason. Because on those things public opinion and elite opinion differ sharply so they are not on the political agenda, they're barely discussed in the media and people are left with voting about whether the guy is religious or not. The point is to create top down forms of democracy in which the public is marginalized but elites remain in control and they support power ... >>> zmag.org