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Who are the elites?


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And not surprisingly, the elites HOWL!

 

Yah, I hear this sort of thing from folks sometimes. I expect I'm just out of the loop on modern vernacular.

 

Could someone explain who the "elites" are?

 

As close as I can tell from context it often seems to refer to "anyone with more education than I have." That confuses me, since I thought education was a good thing, that folks should aspire to.

 

Sometimes it seems to be a throw-away synonym for "liberal twit" or somesuch. That confuses me too, since if yeh are going to denigrate them or their position, why would you call them elite?

 

Sometimes it seems to refer to social or political leaders. That confuses me, too, because as oft as not those folks are conservatives and Republicans, and da way SP used the term that doesn't seem to fit.

 

Can someone help out an old furry fellah?

 

Beavah

 

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I can't say for sure but I think the 'elites' are at a club not too far from here. It's called 'The ELITE Club' and it has lots of neon lights and (this is weird) no windows. The sign says women get free membership. I guess men have to pay but since I'm not one of the members, I don't know how much. :)

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Beavah, that's a tough one. Near as I can tell from debating my oldest when she was in college, elites are people who love all the bennies of of being an American citizen and living in a capitalist society, yet pride themselves on denigrating America and big business. Oh yes, and people that work with their hands are inferior--I think that is another "elitist" viewpoint. Hard to say. All I know is that I'm definitely not elite, either by my own reckoning or anyone else's.

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It's not that we think they are elite over us...it's that THEY have an attitude and self opinion that they are an elite set of being next to us.

The peole who think they are too good, too special or we are beneath them due to economic, regional, or blodlines.

 

 

Totally forgot her whole name, but remeber the hotel queen?

Leona someething or another. She was qouted as saying : "Taxes are for the little people."

 

She was an elitist!

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Who are the elites?

Very often there seems to be a need to give a name, title, tag to a group that we might not be in agreement with.

My feeling is that the elites are maybe up there with:

"Them rich people"

"Them know it alls"

"Attorneys"

"National"

"Right wing twits"

"Left wing twits"

"The idiots in Washington"

"Over paid ...." fill in the blank.

Anyone who went to Berkly, Oxford or Cambridge.

Moderators!

And of course anyone born in England!

Ea

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I always have fun with my American Gov't students (mostly freshmen) when we talk about who should be making policy decisions and what the role of the "ordinary" citizen should be in that process. Many of them make the argument that only people who know what they're talking about should be involved in making policy decisions - in other words, the "elite." Then they tend to proceed to bashing the current "elite." And typically they define "elite" to exclude themselves, and most of their fellow students, too.

 

In a country where only about 24% of adults have college degrees, I quite enjoy pointing out to them that by virtue of being in my classroom, they're all on their way to becoming the "elite." Something to think about at their next kegger party! Kind of scary, isn't it?

 

 

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The elites are the ones who get the obscenely large government rebates as their reward for selling us foreign oil, shipping jobs overseas and providing the same sort of financial "services" that brought us the Great Recession of 2008 while the rest of us continue to fight over the leftover crumbs.

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In the US, the "elite" is a label used by the conservative right wing media, and often, conservative right-wing politicians, for any person, any organization, or any broad grouping of people (ie "liberals", "gays", "Washington Democrats", "unions") that they disagree with as a way to convince their followers of the rightness of their position without having to actually work to develop and express a cogent set of facts to back up their assertions.

 

This doesn't neccessarily mean the conservative right wing media/politicians are lazy, rather, I tend to believe it means their followers are lazy and really don't care for or need any explanation other than "the liberal elite think health care for all is a good idea" to decide that universal health care is a bad idea. Why make an actual case for your position when your followers can be convinced with one meaningless statement.

 

Either one must have a fine tuned sense of irony, or be completely oblivious to irony, to state or believe that someone else is "elite". Somehow Democratic Senators are "elite" but Republican Senators are "one of us". Somehow union members making $60K per year are "elite" but commentators making a million or so per year calling union members "elite" aren't. Somehow, billionaire George Soros is "elite" but the billionaire Koch brothers are not.

 

 

 

 

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>>In the US, the "elite" is a label used by the conservative right wing media, and often, conservative right-wing politicians, for any person, any organization, or any broad grouping of people (ie "liberals", "gays", "Washington Democrats", "unions") that they disagree with as a way to convince their followers of the rightness of their position without having to actually work to develop and express a cogent set of facts to back up their assertions.

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Eagledad makes some good observations. Calicopenn's attitude is that of an elitist - my thoughts, ideas, and viewpoints are more intellectual than conservatives. This is despite both sides having very thoughtful and intellectual proponents.

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