[jnbiche]

I'm ambivalent about this article. While I agree that the hidden power of mega-philanthropists is unsettling, the hidden players of our "public" government are orders of magnitude more powerful.

Frankly, differentiating between the "public" and "private" when discussing the ills of the %1 is pointless [1]. People at this level of society move in and out of the top levels of corporations and government all the time. They socialize together, intermarry, and share family bonds. Only together have big business and big government created this massive feedback loop that promotes inequality and loss of freedom for the common man.

It pains me to see my "right" and "left" leaning friends blame one side of the coin while completing ignoring the damage wrought by the flip side.

1. To be clear, the top 0.01% is what the article is really referring to, since the top %1 includes people like successful everyday doctors and lawyers. Perhaps a small cadre of powerful bureaucrats at this income level could be reasonably included in the top tier group the article refers to, but for the most part, these are people who are wealthy and influential in their local communities, but decidedly not actors at the level the article describes.

[laotzu]

>It pains me to see my "right" and "left" leaning friends blame one side of the coin while completing ignoring the damage wrought by the flip side.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and many others explicitly warned about this.

>The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty. Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

-George Washington, Farewell Address

It's the age old strategy of divide et impera. It couldn't work if the masses weren't arguing futilely among themselves:

>Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we've got to stay together. We've got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity.

-MLK, I've Been to the Mountaintop. Last speech given the night before assassination.

[cmdrfred]

I consider myself a skeptic. To me JFK was killed by a lone gunman, we went to the moon, and 911 wasn't a inside job. Then I read I've Been to the Mountaintop and wonder if there wasn't some involvement, at some level, from the US government (or those who control it) in MLK's death. It is already proven they attempted to discredit him, did they simply take that one step further?

Then I look at stuff like black lives matter. More white people were killed by police last year than black people. What did all the people murdered by police have in common? They were male, and they were poor. Are we sure this is a white/black problem and not a rich/poor one? Framing it in the black/white context seems to keep the for profit prisons humming along happily.

[adam1davis]

There's a kernel of truth here, but you have to be careful about comparing _numbers_ of white/black people killed/jailed. You need to look at the per-capita (percentage) killed or jailed. There are way more "white" people so of course there are more of them killed/jailed/whatever! But when you look at the percentage then you see the injustice. "The country is about 63 percent white and 12 percent black... death rate due to legal intervention was more than three times higher for blacks than for whites in the period from 1988 to 1997."

Source: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/aug/21/...

[cmdrfred]

I understand that but black people have statically lower incomes and that might be a reason that they are over represented. What you never see is police killing women or the wealthy of any color.

[laotzu]

Indeed. After winning the right to vote in 1965, King greatly redefined his scope of action targeting economic justice for the poor in general, regardless of skin color.

>I want to say to you as I move to my conclusion, as we talk about "Where do we go from here?" that we must honestly face the fact that the movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society. (Yes) There are forty million poor people here, and one day we must ask the question, "Why are there forty million poor people in America?" And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising a question about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. (Yes) And I'm simply saying that more and more, we've got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life's marketplace. (Yes) But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. (All right) It means that questions must be raised. And you see, my friends, when you deal with this you begin to ask the question, "Who owns the oil?" (Yes) You begin to ask the question, "Who owns the iron ore?" (Yes) You begin to ask the question, "Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that's two-thirds water?" (All right) These are words that must be said. (All right)

>Now, don't think you have me in a bind today. I'm not talking about communism. What I'm talking about is far beyond communism. (Yeah) My inspiration didn't come from Karl Marx (Speak); my inspiration didn't come from Engels; my inspiration didn't come from Trotsky; my inspiration didn't come from Lenin. Yes, I read Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital a long time ago (Well), and I saw that maybe Marx didn't follow Hegel enough. (All right) He took his dialectics, but he left out his idealism and his spiritualism. And he went over to a German philosopher by the name of Feuerbach, and took his materialism and made it into a system that he called "dialectical materialism." (Speak) I have to reject that.

>What I'm saying to you this morning is communism forgets that life is individual. (Yes) Capitalism forgets that life is social. (Yes, Go ahead) And the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism, but in a higher synthesis. (Speak) [applause] It is found in a higher synthesis (Come on) that combines the truths of both. (Yes) Now, when I say questioning the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. (All right) These are the triple evils that are interrelated.

-Where do we go from here? MLK, 1967[1]

You can see plainly why the establishment labeled him as one of the greatest threats to national security.

[1] http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentse...

[Retric]

Most doctors don't qualify into the top 1%.

Make 422,000$ / per year in the US? Your in the 99% ;)

[jnbiche]

Which is why I used the term "successful" ... lawyer or doctor. But perhaps I should have added, "specialist doctor".

But regardless of whether a successful doctor is in the top 1% or the top 1.2% is beside the point I am making. All these people are at a different tier of society than the societal elite this article describes. The only chance a doctor has of making it to that tier of society is too become a successful entrepreneur or politician. Practicing as a successful doctor isn't enough (even though practicing medicine may be far more useful to society).