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I don’t think the Ultra rich see us as people. I just don’t. And by us, I mean everyone with less than a million dollars in the bank. Anyone without a private jet. Anyone who can’t on a whim buy an island.
Why do I think this? Well I can get in to the usual politics, of how the donors influence our politicians to craft policies for their benefit that fuck everyone else in the eyesocket, but I don’t want to tread old ground here.
I don’t even think it’s the fascist tradition of othering those people you wish to persecute and discriminate against. I think it’s more how the French aristocrats saw the peasants as things they owned, not people in their own right.
Part of that is control. To be a billionaire is to have so much power over everyone else in this country. Even those around you. Like the million dollar man in professional wrestling, do they imagine they can get those around them to do anything for the right price?
Or how about something less sinister. You know how when you look down from a tall building like the Empire State building or the John Hancock building in Chicago, and all the people look like ants? Imagine if you had the power to hop in your private jet and be in Hawaii in six hours anytime you wanted. How could you relate to someone who will likely never have the money to take a vacation to…
