I last heard of the Social Register in the 1970s when I had a college friend named William Golightly who was interested in that sort of thing. Since then American society has become increasingly fragmented, and the idea that anyone would care to call themselves the upper class of an idiot-led nation is a puzzle. I have been doing some research on the Forbes 400, and it seems likely that there is scant overlap between the 400 wealthiest and New York's Finest--or were New York's Finest the police force?--the 400 New York families whom the Social Register deems upper class. I've requested a subscription to the Social Register to find out whether there's much overlap. It seems evident to me that the American power elite does not coincide with either the Forbes 400 or the Social Register, but I suspect if you beat down enough hedges you'll start to find a few hedge hogs.
The bottom line is that the nation is in decline. If the social elite has any power, then they are at fault. It turns out that the Social Register's publication coincided with the Progressive era: It began in New York and Boston in 1890. Of course, there was interest in distinguishing the social upper class from mere parvenus a century earlier, by 1800 or so according to C. Wright Mills in his Power Elite, but American society may not have been concrete and stable enough until the printing of the greenbacks during the Civil War and the advent of Progressivism to permit a rigid listing that, from the 1920s to the 1950s, varied only a few percent (10-20 members) a year. The idea of a firm American aristocracy goes into print at the beginning of Progressivism, and it intensifies a century later.
If the Social Register has any meaning at all, any meaning beyond that of a mutual admiration society or an academic learned society, for I am dubious that it does, then its members must take responsibility for the great American devolution of 1950 to 2014. If so, then I feel no qualms in calling the Social Register a listing of mental retards who have allowed a once-great nation to decline. Of course, and this is more likely, social status is in the mind, and most Americans don't have the Social Register in their minds, so it doesn't have much meaning either way. In either case, it is an artifact of Progressivism's failure.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Obama and the Jay Leno Firing: Will Comcast Comment?
Dear Comcast Media Department:
I write for a newspaper in Kingston, NY, The Lincoln Eagle, and the publisher is interested in a story about the link between Comcast’s contribution to the Obama campaign and the firm’s decision to fire Jay Leno following his Obama jokes. I would be interested in a comment from Comcast. There has been coverage of this claim in several blogs ( http://politicaloutcast.com/2014/02/jay-leno-dumped-political-reasons-kind-regime-live/ , http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2014/02/17/tonight-show-writer-hosts-obama , and http://www.infowars.com/was-jay-leno-canned-by-nbc-for-criticizing-obama/ ).
My day job is that of a college professor, but I am a libertarian. I
haven’t watched television news or commercial television outside of the premium
channels on demand since 2008. I have been intending to terminate my cable
service, but my wife has deterred me until now. However, her brother, a physics
professor, has terminated his. In my case my motivation for wanting to
terminate cable service is a combination of cost and politics. I watch on
demand because I can screen out the Progressive programming and the
propaganda-cum-news. I consider American news to have the same content value
that Pravda and Izvestia had in the Soviet Union. I haven’t
watched television news, including NBC, since 2008.
Amazon.com and Netflix have sizable on-demand portfolios, yet there is
little reason for me to catch the latest episodes of the premium stations’
videos, so your business model and my $350-per-month bill to Time Warner are
likely ephemeral. I would rather watch Hitler’s Nuremburg rally than NBC news,
and I don’t see a distinction between Obama and Hitler or between the Soviet
news service and NBC.
I would appreciate your comments on the stories about the Jay Leno firing
and any other points that may address my concerns about persistent bias and the
laughable responsiveness of NBC to Washington's totalitarians.
Thanks,
Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.
Key Files Motion to Stay in April Jones Case
Mitchell,
Just a reminder that the U.S. Supreme
Court will rule on April's case on Friday. This is just an application to stay
the competency hearing and get her case back on course to getting resolved. The
Supreme Court doesn't grant these very often, so although her case is strong, I
am going to have to remain pessimistic about the ruling.
Here is the link to the docket: http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.aspx?FileName=/docketfiles/13a654.htm
(I uploaded this via Scribd.--ML)
About a week ago, I filed
a supplement to that application. It is attached.
I'm also concurrently
dealing with a nursing home director who is removing the people who have
assisted April the most. So she is now isolated even further. Of course this is
a violation of federal law, but fighting a nursing home where someone is
confined by a hostile guardian is about the most difficult situation imaginable.
It is beyond words.
Thanks
always for listening,
Earl
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Technological Elite
David Rothkopf makes an interesting point in his 2008 book Superclass. In Dwight Eisenhower's famous military-industrial-complex speech, he comments not only on the rise of the military-industrial complex but also on the rise of universities as centers of power. This is what Eisenhower said in January 1961, 53 years ago:
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist...
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades...
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
While, as Rothkopf points out in his 2008 book, the influence of the arms industry and the absolute size of the military have waned since the Cold War, the threat of terrorism poses a new complex that mingle military with civil power. Also, both the 1960s complex and the 2010s complex have relied on finance, which as an institutionalized power center was old in Eisenhower's day but since 1971 has exponentially expanded in influence.
Universities are crucial to the new power complex, just as they were to the military-industrial complex, not because universities' research is of crucial importance to technological progress--most important technological innovation comes from for-profit sources--but because university professors, who benefit from university endowments that special interests fund, lend an illusive patina of legitimacy and impartiality to federal policy.
Sadly, and this is the truly tragic development since Eisenhower's speech, the American public has shown itself to be incapable of the alertness to the global elite's acquisition of power that Eisenhower thought would be essential to maintain freedom. The reasons include apathy and an unwillingness to, as Benjamin Franklin put it, question authority. Another reason is the eagerness of Americans to conform to the norms that the mass media presents to them, and part of the reason is their indoctrination in elementary school, high school, and college. Americans are increasingly unwilling to take risks and to think for themselves; the unwillingness is both a cause and effect of the increasing power of the nation's technological elite.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist...
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades...
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
While, as Rothkopf points out in his 2008 book, the influence of the arms industry and the absolute size of the military have waned since the Cold War, the threat of terrorism poses a new complex that mingle military with civil power. Also, both the 1960s complex and the 2010s complex have relied on finance, which as an institutionalized power center was old in Eisenhower's day but since 1971 has exponentially expanded in influence.
Universities are crucial to the new power complex, just as they were to the military-industrial complex, not because universities' research is of crucial importance to technological progress--most important technological innovation comes from for-profit sources--but because university professors, who benefit from university endowments that special interests fund, lend an illusive patina of legitimacy and impartiality to federal policy.
Sadly, and this is the truly tragic development since Eisenhower's speech, the American public has shown itself to be incapable of the alertness to the global elite's acquisition of power that Eisenhower thought would be essential to maintain freedom. The reasons include apathy and an unwillingness to, as Benjamin Franklin put it, question authority. Another reason is the eagerness of Americans to conform to the norms that the mass media presents to them, and part of the reason is their indoctrination in elementary school, high school, and college. Americans are increasingly unwilling to take risks and to think for themselves; the unwillingness is both a cause and effect of the increasing power of the nation's technological elite.
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