The View From Your Mansion
Thomas Friedman reads somebody else’s book about creeping commercialism in everyday life — “I had no idea”, he repeats each time he learns something like ShopRite “sponsoring” a public-school gym — and comes to this stunning conclusion:
Throughout our society, we are losing the places and institutions that used to bring people together from different walks of life. Sandel calls this the “skyboxification of American life,” and it is troubling. Unless the rich and poor encounter one another in everyday life, it is hard to think of ourselves as engaged in a common project.
This is where Thomas Friedman lives. We had no idea.
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That’s cause Tommie gots himself a sugah mommie. A bajillionaire sugah mommie who owned a chunk of a commercial real estate corp made up of mallls… till the commercial real estate crash which put the company in bankruptcy and now she’s just a millionaire.
Ever wondered why a dick like him got to meet so many fabtrabulous people and hung out at Davos? Cause they run in the same circles as sugah mommie.
I call booshie on Mr. Six More Months. Doesn’t he know who Wrigley Field is named after? Did he not pay attention to the way Disney has put their corporate imprint on all their kid products (he DID watch Wonderful World of Disney, right?)?
It may be more prevalent, yes. We have been derelict because we sit back and allow everything to be corporatized, ’tis true. But this is not a new phenomenon by any stretch.
I have nothing to say to the poor.
This guy is such a hack – “I was talking to my cab driver in Kuala Lumpur …” SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU TALENTLESS ASSHOLE.
This has been my experience with the wealthy: They’re not as hostile towards others as one may (rightly) believe–like Chase CEO and man-of-the-hour Jamie Demon–however they are wrapped up in their own lives and are completely oblivious to those around them. We have no choice but to think about them, because their decisions greatly effect the rest of us, but they have the luxury of never thinking about us. And if they do think about us, it really is a mystery to them why we’re choosing to barely scrape by. After all, they’ve “made it” (or inherited it), so why can’t everyone else?
Oh, and at least the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age had taste, unlike the current crop of plutocrats that keep building these gawdawful, trashy, titanic McMansions. It’s unlikely that those homes will last longer than thirty or forty years, thank the FSM. Hopefully, the contruction materials will be recycled into something better.
Welcome to Downton Abbey. Now I must go. Nanny wants to tuck me in bed. Otherwise I’ll get smack bottie.
“I’ve hung out with One Percenters. Ninety-nine percent of them are assholes.” Tina Fey
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