Who is the ruling class in the U.S.?

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[Technowitch]

1. The word you're looking for is the "Plutocrats"

Government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy.

[The Sheik]

2. The media leaders for they control consumer and political culture

[rigel99]

7. who are the wealthy...

in Europe, they are tired, bored aristocratic snobs like the Rothschilds but in America, they are the saudis....

our wealth is new wealth, still not sure of who the 5 or so families controlling Cheney.... have not gotten those names yet.. working on it.. in Europe, pretty much 5 main families with old world style profits from medieval taxation that's still paying off.. here the taxation is war mongering.... 250 years of pilfering the public is nothing compared to europe or parts of asia.... think numbers people... or as my friend would say, 'the people are sheep the money must flow'...

Europes is old wealth so to keep up in America we have to kill all over the world to get our wealth anywhere close to theirs.... bill gates notwithstanding, there are too few of his type in America....
and with China almost calling in our bank loan, I'd be willing to bet America is cash starved and in a mad rush to sell killing widgets to get back to our place of economic leadership, which will never happen under trillion dollar debt economies.... I know for a fact the RBOCs are poised on bankruptcy with their huge debts and bad purchases.... (sprint buying Nextel, the poor buying the poorer)....

watch china in all this.. they have taken over our telecomm industry and working on cable/entertainment industry... watch them closely.....

[NAO]

3. Concentrated Private Wealth/Power

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist (from the movie The Usual Suspects).

The greatest trick The Ruling Class ever pulled was convincing the world that they should fear government power.

All along the real menace has been private power - private wealth, corporations, etc.

All this clap-trap about "too much government power" and fear of the government is a clever distraction from the real menace, which is the increasing consolidation of wealth and power by private concerns.

[ultraist]

4. ummmm...the wealthy white people who have who have more than they need?

The ones who vote Repuke and promote a CULTURE OF HATE by not supporting policies that would alleviate: racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism.

AND the ones who make BIG donations to their Repuke candidates.

These are the oppressors. Those that keep the few Repuke candidates in power and ensure that only a very few hold all the wealth.

[hfojvt]

10. so people like Oprah, Jordan, Cosby or Tiger

are not part of the ruling class? And neither is Barbara Bush?

How much is even a US Senator "in power"? Do they have power or are they public servants, or servants of the movers and shakers. As Douglas Adams, and I am sure others, wrote - "the primary job of the President was not to wield power, but to draw attention away from it." Perhaps in that sense, even George W. Bush is alot like Zaphod Beeblebrox.

I think of Edward Bellamy's analogy, that in life some people are pulling the coach, and some people are riding in it, or as Lincoln put it - "you work, I eat". The ruling class are the people who eat better and who do work that is more to their liking. Dick Vermeil was complaining about the stress of his job, but clearly, unlike me, he is not working because he needs the money. But is he really ruling class, when he does not even come close to the Forbes 400? He does not reach the level where he can laugh at the rules the rest of us live by.

[KingoftheJungle]

5. "The Family" outlined in this article

http://www.insider-magazine.com/ChristianMafia.htm

Check out "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" for the corporate angle of this nasty NWO cult.

[Lexingtonian]

6. hmmm....

a few selections from Ambrose Bierce's "The Devil's Dictionary"....

IMPUNITY, n. Wealth.

MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT, n. Government.

ARISTOCRACY, n. Government by the best men. (In this sense the word
is obsolete; so is that kind of government.) Fellows that wear downy
hats and clean shirts -- guilty of education and suspected of bank
accounts.

BRAIN, n. An apparatus with which we think what we think. That which
distinguishes the man who is content to _be_ something from the man
who wishes to _do_ something. A man of great wealth, or one who has
been pitchforked into high station, has commonly such a headful of
brain that his neighbors cannot keep their hats on. In our
civilization, and under our republican form of government, brain is so
highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of
office.

FOOL, n. A person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation
and diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity. He is
omnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscience, omnipotent. He it was
who invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, the
telegraph, the platitude and the circle of the sciences. He created
patriotism and taught the nations war -- founded theology, philosophy,
law, medicine and Chicago. He established monarchical and republican
government. He is from everlasting to everlasting -- such as
creation's dawn beheld he fooleth now. In the morning of time he sang
upon primitive hills, and in the noonday of existence headed the
procession of being. His grandmotherly hand was warmly tucked-in the
set sun of civilization, and in the twilight he prepares Man's evening
meal of milk-and-morality and turns down the covers of the universal
grave. And after the rest of us shall have retired for the night of
eternal oblivion he will sit up to write a history of human
civilization.

[Blaq Dem]

8. Capitalism no different from Communism

As if you don't know, the same few people who control big businesses are the same ones who control our government.

The right-winged capitalist accuses his communist counterpart of controlling not only government but the media, education, entertainment institution. Of course, we all know that in America, money talks. The money you have, the greater your influence buying newspapers, tv's, radios, making endowments to universities, owning book publishing companies, etc. Your financial contributions makes or breaks political candidates. If you're insanely wealthy and privately own everything there is to be owned, you're not going to have anything that goes against your own interest. You have the power to threaten to fire a Dan Rathers for saying something you don't want the public to hear.

See? There is no difference. The ruling class are the ones who control how you fart.

[libodem]

9. old money

Bush 41 and his cronies are so f-ing rich their kid's kids will be living off their trust funds for centuries. They are hiding behind private corporations that exceed most small countries national treasuries. They are the new aristocracy. They didn't want that inheritance tax rescinded for nothing. I'll bet Chaney's stock portfolio is arresting. By the time they got done with the rolling black-outs in Calif. and then took a dump on all the Enron employee's pensions, they must be rolling in it. Then to grab Afghanistan for the pipeline and the dope, loot the national treasury and send American soldiers any where you can't pay a contractor to go....Not to mention not taxing their stock dividends... god it would be far too much to give back to the country that affords them such luxury