Response to Stump

Stump, you know damn well I was not inferring "savagery" or anything like it. Ritual torture etc, when taken in cultural context, is just as "moral" as is the extra strict treatment of children in boarding schools.

One of the hallmarks of today's touchie-feelies is the routine and deliberate misapplication of Cultural Relativism and the equally cynical singling out of "blamees" from the past while "forgiving" others for similar or "worse" practices.

The point is, as you should know, the past CANNOT be understood by applying today's values to people who had no knowledge or experience of them. This becomes particularly apparent when purely evil intent is implied.

Beyond question tomorrow's critics of today's record, who we hope will have evolved to a more humane treatment of their fellow humans, will, if they follow your example, look at the record and say "Look at those ignorant people, they must have known that...(insert new commonly accepted moral value here)"

And so we see people like Duncan Campbell Scott, who as a Canadian DIA bureaucrat, has been vilified as a racist creator of anti FN policies, while discounting that at the same time he was writing prose and poetry favourable to aboriginal culture. Just as with us today, he had little control over the direction his culture took.

Over 40 years ago, an elder from Hartley Bay explained the vision quest ritual to me. The young boy would be taken a considerable distance from his home village to a place where for some days he was in a potential danger of being taken captive by a neighbouring tribe.

To be sure, he had plenty of time to overcome fear and to access spirit guardians, and his homecoming was a time of real rejoicing, a celebration of his major step toward becoming a man.

Today's vision quest is more an assertion of aboriginal cultural values than anything else. If I was to choose a more appropriate rite of passage, it would be Outward Bound, in which the spirit and the body is more genuinely tested and trained.

As for GWest's comments, nothing in them is the least relevant to what I wrote, and the whole is more in keeping with his penchant for dangling red herrings than anything else.

thank you for your reasoned response ME2

Aren't hazing and vision quests, while similar in method, actually engendering quite different attitudes? My understanding is that puberty rituals, partic. in aboriginal cultures are more about welcoming people into the larger world of adults, while hazings are rituals of passage into an exclusive subset of society, usually one which the joiner will consider 'superior' to the rest of the population.

Further, doesn't hazing have an aspect of humiliation to it that's absent in other puberty rituals?

ME2

I didn't address your penchant for forgiving the sins of the past because we've been through all that before - ad nauseam.

My remarks had to do with what I see as the evils of the English public school system and its close relatives in this country. I’d assert there’s little or no logical, factual or philosophical connection between the lives of the First Nations peoples who ‘owned’ this land in every respect before Europeans took it away from them to their subsequent cost and injury and the kinds of things that go on in an all male dorm at UCC, St Michael’s University School, St Johns Ravenscourt or St George’s.

That's all.

I await your apologia for the events of 1933 - 1945 in Deutschland. Considered in the cultural and geographical, not to mention the economic, context of the times, I suspect you can find a way to excuse that too.

As for red herrings, I’d expect you to know all about them.

Re Hazing

Well, thank you for the complment, Stump. I am given to wordiness, and so appreciate being forgiven for it.

A couple of nights ago, I saw on TV a ritual in which young African tribespeople used whips on each other, creating wounds which result in permanent scars. Because this was at a friend's house where no one else was interested, the sound was off, so I was unable to learn the reasoning behind it.

I would guess this would have some similarities to hazing, where violence by the group is accepted by the individual, as an acceptance of group solidarity, among other things.

Hazing is in a sense democratic, inasmuch as every member is subject to it. Outside of practical jokes at work, we the workng class have no analogues to it. Rather, we are increasingly split up into groups which see few common interests.

IMO, if the power elites want their hazing rituals, its their business and none of mine. It becomes of interest to us only when it is done against someone's will, or progresses to the point when people get seriously hurt. After all, the inductee has joined of her/his own will, and if he/she
spills the beans because of "humiliation", the hazing has fulfilled its purpose, hasn't it?

The above does NOT apply to cases such as at University where randomly-selected students are hazed against their will, which is simple bullying.

GWest

No, we haven't been been trough all that, GWest, since you've refused to address ANY point, other than constantly repeating that any perspective than yours is racist.

Beyond all question, Hitler was a great man, depending upon how you define great.

Most certainly he was a man of his times, whose only major error was attacking Great Britain, which set his eventual downfall in motion.

And with the exception of some in Great Britain, all the power elites of his time in the Western so-called democracies thought Fascism as a bulwark against Socialism was the best thing since sliced bread.

And in the hope that he would defeat Russia, Hitler would have been allowed the conquest of Europe, even while he pressed for "The Final Solution" through the Holocaust, and even while the World's churches and leadership were fully aware of it.

"When Adam dolve and Eve span, Who then was the gentleman" Ambrose Bierce.

Your fanciful linkage of the Holocaust with our treatment of FNs is just plain silly, Garth.

Despite your groanings,

Hazing is not "democratic"

...the past CANNOT be understood by applying today's values to people who had no knowledge or experience of them.

Hazing is in a sense democratic, inasmuch as every member is subject to it.

Ok, ME2, as someone who like Marc Lee (but somewhere else) witnessed these things first hand, I can say that the situation has been more than "strict" in many of these schools. Caning of children by teachers, and abuse of weaker children by others.

Some hazing was organized and far-reaching, but it was never "democratic".

Maybe now we can get back to the main points of Marc Lee's article. Some new insights to add perhaps?

power elites

Unfortunately, w/r/t these kinds of private school hijinks the power elites are kids, and aren't given much of a choice.

hazing

It came up in the posts discussing the article ME2 and you addressed the issue. Don't play games just because I've pointed out the very big difference between the puberty rituals you are referencing and the type of thing that goes on in private school dorms and fraternities.

Bobby Peru:

What a load of bollocks. Put down the Ayn Rand dude.

Hazing, Rites of Passage, and UCC part 1

Speaking as a survivor of Upper Canada College the issue of "Hazing" doesn't really do the subject justice. There are "inniations" that go on in the boarding houses but they are harmless compared to the systemic violence and social abuse which made up a staple of my two years in boarding at Wedds house.

The blend of white privilege, economic privilege, homophobia, rampant mysogeny, male rape and the kinds of violence you would expect from stacking three floors with kids aged 12 to 18 who in many cases believed they were above the law and who were encouraged in this view by the school establishment is something that the term "hazing" understates.

In the two years I was there I saw or knew about several cases of older students forcing themselves sexually on younger or weaker students, had a knife puled on me and was made to believe that my life was in specific and immediate danger, knew at least one student who had major gang affiliations--or so he claimed--and who after being caught stealing valuables from other boarders got away with a slap on the wrist from the "house master" and faced nothing worse than a gating (being grounded for the weekend basically). Actually all of these episodes were studiously covered up by the adults in charge of the boarding house and probably the school administration as well. In grade 9 when I called the police from a friend's house after getting away from the person who was threatening me the dispute was settled between the officer who brought me back and the house master, the kid who pulled the knife got gated, the knife was confiscated and the rest was hushed up.

Add to that the sorts of bullying that any teenager gets at school when he doesn't like sports, dresses like a punk when not in uniform and listens to "Alternative" music. And it's almost like being bulied at school only to go home to a family full of physical and sexual abuse which few people care about and which you have no recourse against.

What UCC taught me about clas dynamics and upper class, male privilege in Canadian society was much geater than anything that I learned in their classrooms.

Actually aside from the small class sizes and the massive budgets--My grade 9 english teacher had the second highest salary of any teacher in the country, the teacher with the highest salary taught in the Geography department--there was next to no real difference between the quality of education I recieved there or at public, private day schools, or alternate schools--I went to all three before I graduated.

Hazing, Rites of Passage, and UCC part 2

I can't help but find the comparison between Indegenous initiatory rites and private school "hazing" to be off the cuff and insulting to the traditions of first nations people. I am left to wonder if ME2 has ever gone to a boarding school or read much about Shamanic and Medicine cultures.

There are serious and marked differences between juvenile innitiation gags or the more sinister "Old Boys network" cronyism of schools like UCC and the variety of shamanic and other religious experiences of indegenous first nations people.

For one thing the attitudes are remarkably different between the cycles of class and gender motivated institutional violence in our society, and the cultures like the Cree or Innuit or Jivaro, who all practiced ritually violent acts as rites of pasage or inniation into Shamanic traditions. The religious and cultural signifficance of ritual in indegenous culture is of real value to the society it is a part of and in some real ways held many tribal societies together for tens of thousands of years.

The North American equivalent is litterally nothing more than the children of the rich and powerful playing "ookie cookie" and beating younger kids with tennis balls in socks after lights out.

Shamanic rites which may include violent or individually masochistic acts like being tied up and shot, prolonged exposure to the elements, ingesting potent hallucinogenic drugs, fire walking or the like are meant either to induce trance like and extatic states where the innitiate achieves contact with archetypal forces that aid in his or her training as a Shaman or to demonstrate ones capacity to recieve further inniation to the rest of ones people.

Other rites like the Sun Dance or the vision quest frequently perform the same social functions as a Briss or Barmitzvah: rites which signify a person's passage to adulthood or simply memberhip in the nation.

Cannibalism in Papua is still preserved in some funerary rites, but the practice of eating one's enemies for a meal ended not with the gift of "civilization" but with the advent of Kuru (CJD, or the human equivalent of mad cow disease).

To summ up: boarding school can teach a boy a lot, but not about "self discipline" or "manliness" or anything as lofty as that. Not at least in my experience.

However, if you want to give your child an expensive tutelage in greed, cruelty, sexism, racism, male privilege, ruling class mentality, sexual abuse and personal/institutional cowardice then by all means, expend your fortune, exhaust all your connections, maybe slip a "donation" into the coffers of a bunch of already over rich families and send your kid packing for Upper Canada College.

on talent

Rewarding talent would seem to be at odds with your affection for inherited wealth Bobby.

ME2

Sorry.

I don't agree. I know exactly what YOU think and I've said, and supported with numerous references, exactly why I disagree with you so fundamentally.

Choose to ignore that if you will - I'm not prepared to spend time debating it further with you.

I think you are demonstrably and comprehensively wrong - but discussing it further is pointless.

Genocide is genocide - whether it is (or was) practiced by the Spanish, the British, the Portuguese, the French, the Germans, the Soviets, the Iraqis, the Americans or the Sudanese.

You continue to make apologies for the 'great men' or enlightened cultures of your choice.

Leave me out of it.

As for 'groanings'; look back over my words and compare them to your own.

I think you 'might' realize who's groaning my friend.

Roots of Canada's class structure

ME2, why is it that having concern for the well being of children makes someone a bleeding heart?

Marc Lee may not have specifically written about hazing, but he did allude to negative experiences at UCC:

So based on my own experience in a similar school (we played soccer and other sports against UCC) I commented on what seems to me to be part of the essential nature of boarding schools. Anarchist Christian has described this in much more detail.

I believe there may be a relationship between the practice of messing up rich kids and rich adults messing up the world.

btw I thought Marc Lee's main point was this:

And no, as a feminine bleeding heart, I don't believe that this class structure is serving Canada well.

Bobby Peru

Clearly you don't like the right-wing governments that have ruled Canada since Confederation. I'm putting you down to receive the Socialist newsletter Bobby.

Like you, lots of us believe the governments you voted for were incompetent or worse, welcome aboard.

working with one's hands

As one who was fed and clothed by a mechanic's salary as a child, let me extend a hearty [EDITED. -MODERATOR] to you Bobby and challenge you to take that elitist crap to the garage or contractor next time your car is busted or your roof leaks and see how far it gets you.

I'll bet we won't hear a peep from you now that Anarchist Christian has put paid to your ignorance.

A "proper" education

Well said, Stump. It's too bad so many people don't consider "vocational training" like "wood and auto work" to be "proper education".

I wonder if it's part of the curriculum at UCC. If not, too bad for the kids who don't get to learn useful skills. One more way for them to be disconnected from the real world.

As Red Green says, "if you can't be handsome, you might as well be handy". Personally, I love working on the ol' router table ;-)

GWest

Garth, I haven't "debated" you re FN issues for a year at least, for reasons I wrote above.

Surely your last post has to be about the fiftieth time you've written: "I'm not prepared to spend time debating it further with you."; and then launching into a lengthy bout of shadow-boxing the ideas I'm supposed to hold.

I learned a long time ago that it was wrong to play with yourself like that, since it becomes too easy to forget what the real thing is like.

ME2

I'm pushing the offensive button on that one my friend.

Please check the posting guidelines.

ME2, G West call it quits please

You two aren't getting anywhere with each other and you've made your points. Avoid the personal attacks ME2.

Curious timing of this with

Curious timing of this with the story today in the Ottawa Citizen of 4 Ashebury College students being removed by the school for some sort of sexual assault incident on other students while on a school trip. Like UCC, Ashbury is prep school for the future power parasites (please stop calling the one percenters "elite")

A fitting postscript to a petered out thread

Perhaps these words from Cyril Connolly:

"Were I to deduce any system from my feelings on leaving Eton, it might be called The Theory of Permanent Adolescence. It is the theory that the experiences undergone by boys at the great public schools, their glories and disappointments, are so intense as to dominate their lives and to arrest their development. From these it results that the greater part of the ruling class remains adolescent, school-minded, self-conscious, cowardly, sentimental, and in the last analysis homosexual." [Enemies of Promise, 1938]

Undoubtedly still largely true.

A Post Postscript.

Garth, one thing I learned a long time ago is that you can find a book about anything, and written from any perspective, such as Hitler as a good guy.

Moreover, I've also learned that a good writer can make one want to believe almost anything, after which the task of finding out what was actually true must begin.

And re your quotation, I could probably dredge up any number to prove the contrary.

The tenor of the quotation you've offered proves it is hardly an objective observation, and as such is not to be trusted. Just note the homophobic reference.

I disagree

You're not the only person who went to a private school ME2.

As for the reference to homosexuality, the connection between buggery and English public schools is a long-standing English and literary tradition - you might want to read a little more - C S Lewis - for example - about it.

The family, balanced, properly housed and with sufficient resources for a decent life, is the proper atmosphere in which children should be brought up.

I don't know whether Connolly was a homophobe or not, in fact I couldn't care less. He was writing in 1938, before the Beveridge Report began the process, which led to the concept of the modern welfare state and ended the demonization of homosexuality.

He was a product of the same public school system as Orwell: St Cyprian's and Eton.

The point I was trying to make, a point which I should have thought was obvious and essentially the same one Marc Lee was making, is that private schools are hateful elements of a class system that should long ago have been rooted out of our culture – especially here in Canada where such anachronistic connections to the old country are nonsensical – especially as ‘breeding’ grounds for the upper class.

The fact that such schools in this province actually receive public funding is both anachronistic and, in my view, criminal.

Public vs private shools?

Garth, contrary to what you infer, I do not advocate sending children to a boarding school instead of giving them a home life. That said, I believe a case can be made (and balancing the "good" against the "bad") for sending them there for the last two-three years of High School.

In my case, those six years were unquestionably the most unhappy of my life, due to circumstances made worse by my rebellious nature. To my great surprise, when in later years I have questioned classmates about their experiences, most have said those days were among their happiest, and from only a few a non-committal "so-so". Those responses echo, incidentally, those of many FN elders I put the same questions to prior to the recent hullaballoo.

For many years I was solidly against the public funding of private schools, primarily because of the indoctrination aspect, and as a delegate to an NDP convention voted against such funding.

In more recent years I have reversed my opinion, having come to realise that we can not preserve our freedom of choice by restricting the freedom of others to choose. IMO, the predilection of Lefties to favour social engineering is our Achilles Heel, though few can see why.

I recall once hearing someone say that while the Military will spend millions to train a pilot to fly an aircraft, anyone can elect to raise a child, with no training for it at all. The unfortunate thing then, is that children are hostages to chance re the treatments of every kind they will receive. Even so, other than trying to provide through the State the best opportunities possible and prevent the worst in the home, there's little else we can and should do.

And as I recall, the main point Marc Lee was trying to make was not that private schools should be banned, but rather that public schools are underfunded, a point I only half-heartedly agree with, since it is only a partial explanation.

I cannot resist pointing out that the school I attended had no more, and probably less amenities, plus larger class sizes than its public school competitors, but still managed to provide a better education.:-)

On being more Canadian than thou

Yes, ME2 is right to say that the Canadian left's love of social engineering, of imposing their entire proletarian morality denies all Canadians of free choice. Which is why Canada is no longer 'strong and free'. As I said earlier, many of our economic and social advances were created by driven, single minded people.

To answer an earlier jab of course society needs mechanics and carpenters, I am saying that these courses should not be taught in senior high school. Rather, the curriculum should be focussing on reading, writing and 'rithmetics. And if there are kids who are having trouble with these topics we should be investing in remedial education. Shop courses are a 'cop out' for the system, giving into something easier rather than preparing our kids to be reasonably educated citizens. If you want to learn auto mechanics there's plenty of time for this in vocational school.

I detect more jealosy and ignorance over private schools- naming Eton and others. I know and have worked with people from many of the top US and UK institutions. You get all kinds- some deserved to go and others didn't. Some impress, others do not. Going to these schools is no guarantee of success or anything; that they produce a disproportional number of social elites is neither good nor bad.

But, it is hard to dispute that your children would have a better chance at a good, world class education (I say that rather than 'success') at a top private school than one of Vancouver's public schools. Never mind the class ratios and facilities- indeed, a US school like Choate's campus is better than UBC's. Your child will meet more interesting, international students. Never mind that their parents will probably be important people and your child will have relationships that will be more useful in the future. It's just a more enriched environment.

Of course, certain elite schools like Eton don't do themselves a favour by producing grads with a certain attitude. But, again that's a matter of freedom of choice. Or check out the UK public school, Charterhouse, whose alumni included great explorers and Mike Rutherford, founder of rock group Genesis and Mike and the Mechanics. Above all things, great schools inspire students to be the best and make a difference.

suuuuure it is ....

"...it's all about IQ and smart people will succeed no matter what, and tough luck for the dullards..." - hahaha - considering upper class schooling in general, this is pretty obvious BS when you think about a certain president to the south of us ....

Exactly

And that's what is anachronistic about it ME2.

As long as public schools are under funded, it is, in my opinion, criminal for public funds to be used to support 'private' education - an education which is (as Mark Lee points out) unavailable to the average voter/citizen /taxpayer.

I'm not in any way limiting the freedom of choice of anyone. All BC citizens are encouraged to support public schools and send their kids there.

As soon as the funding deficits are made up and the public schools can do the job they ought to be doing, the absurdity of the rich sending their kids to schools where they're taught that they are the chosen, the elect and the elite - will become clear to all.

If the rich decide to waste their after tax money on elite institutions where their kids are taught that the average British Columbian is a benighted puke that's their business and that's 'freedom of choice'.

As to another's suggesting above here that the cream always comes to the top and smart people will always do well....it isn't even worth addressing.

Furthermore

The suggestion that it is the left wing which is into social engineering these days is risible. Clearly the view of someone who hasn't recently sat in a class in a place like St George's or St Michael's University School.

It's the headmasters at places like that who believe in social engineering and they relish their role in preparing the 'future leaders' of the country.

How do you think we got into the god-awful mess we're in anyway?

I'm not into social engineering - I'm into equality of opportunity.

progress

Most of our economic and social advances were achieved through collective pressure from groups such as trade unions.

I guess history wasn't your strong subject.

As to shop class. It's taught in conjunction with the three 'Rs... it doesn't replace them.

Which is better a kid attentive and interested (and learning) in auto mechanics or bored and learning nothing in English Lit?

I hear lot of gum-flapping, but I don't see much to anchor the hot air to the real world BP.

The class system is alive

The class system is alive and well in Canada. I recently looked at the school report for Lord Roberts in West End (Downtown) Vancouver. The PAC is fundraising for bathroom supplies, new bathroom sinks and math textbooks. Over in Kerrisdale, the school website says that they're half-way to their $150k goal for the new classroom.

I live downtown. You can bet that I'm already looking at moving to another part of the city or sending my kids to private school. And I'm against fundraising in schools and I'm against private school! But I will NOT let my children attend a school where poor people are fundraising for textbooks, while folks across town simply whip out a chequebook.

Andrea from BEC...

Of course, that's understandable.

If I lived in False Creek I'd probably be thinking the same thing. When it comes to your own kids, every parent (if they have the health and the resources) will fight like a wildcat to see their offspring are not shunted into the also-ran stream.

But for so many - especially single parents - that isn't an option and it destroys lives, futures and souls.

That's why it's so important to try and get people to wake up to the mess we've created by even starting (and it has gone way past starting) to believe the lies that Campbell and his crew of alchemists at the Fraser Institute want us to believe.

This line from Bobby Peru - you'll find it up thread here - is the symptom of a disease that is going to ruin this country and it's time it was rooted out and exposed for the lie it is:

So, andrea, you do what you have to do for your own kids - but don't stop fighting the good fight for all the other kids out there who are getting short shrift from the likes of Bobby Peru and Gordon Campbell.

Know your enemy! And don’t imagine that, if you manage to safely negotiate the shoals and reefs of the education system for your own kid(s) that the work is somehow over and you can wash your hands of the responsibility of humane citizenship.

Cheers!

more on schools

I acknowledge the underlying reason for GWest's hatred of "upper-class" schooling, the graduates of which are seen as somehow more "worthy" of a higher status in society than those from lesser institutions. I am also in full agreement with his disgust for their self-promotion of that notion.

Nonetheless. I believe we MUST encourage and reward superior academic achievement. But when no accounting is made for greater opportunity. that idea is prostituted in the erroneous asumption that wealth and privilege is the just reward for such achievements. Marc Lee identified this as Social Darwinism, or, as one poster here put it, the belief that "Cream rises to the top". But as we all know, that game becomes mere hypocrisy when the rules for the game are set by the wealthy themselves.

Even so, we cannot escape the fact that we require leaders, (in all fields) and that we should look for the brightest among the aspirants to such leadership. In that process we should seek to provide the best resources necessary to develop ability in our young, regardless of social class.

Both the rich and the religious realised long ago that providing such resources is the means toward training their young for leadership, and along with indoctrination, this strengthens their group's relative position in Society. The Catholic Church provides a good example of that.

Our response to this cannot be the weakening of their right to educate, particularly since they subsidise it with their own money. Rather, the response should be strengthening our own methods of education to achieve the same high standards.

This runs counter to current goals in BC education, where the percieved "right" of everyone to a HS education has dumbed-down the process to a point where University entrants cannot write a paragraph or survive more than a multiple-choice exam.

The result is that we, the "working class" become even more dependant upon the well-educated - and/or more motivated - wealthy.

Don't know if you saw the article in the Financial Times

But you can read about it here, from Paul Krugman in tomorrow's NYTimes, ME2:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/opinion/18krugman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Money quote:

So now we have another, even more compelling reason to be ashamed about America’s record of failing to fight poverty.

L. B. J. declared his “War on Poverty” 44 years ago. Contrary to cynical legend, there actually was a large reduction in poverty over the next few years, especially among children, who saw their poverty rate fall from 23 percent in 1963 to 14 percent in 1969.

But progress stalled thereafter: American politics shifted to the right, attention shifted from the suffering of the poor to the alleged abuses of welfare queens driving Cadillacs, and the fight against poverty was largely abandoned.

In 2006, 17.4 percent of children in America lived below the poverty line, substantially more than in 1969. And even this measure probably understates the true depth of many children’s misery.

Living in or near poverty has always been a form of exile, of being cut off from the larger society. But the distance between the poor and the rest of us is much greater than it was 40 years ago, because most American incomes have risen in real terms while the official poverty line has not. To be poor in America today, even more than in the past, is to be an outcast in your own country. And that, the neuroscientists tell us, is what poisons a child’s brain."

Relying on leaders educated in elite institutions - whether they are religious schools or prep schools that are not public institutions will merely deepen our problems, not alleviate them, in my view.

Stop funding any and all private schools and let us start revitalizing the system that Michael Walker wants to marginalize even further.

By the way, I certainly have no problem with your dissatisfaction with the product of our current public schools.

Anyone who's marked an undergraduate paper in the last dozen years could hardly be anything but worried.

Only in the sciences is any rigour and real critical thought still a prerequisite for graduation and, even in that area, the situation is worsening by the year.

Without even addressing the stagnation and alienation of the middle class in Canada, it's clear we have a similarly bad situation here in this country.

Income spreads (but not downward)

As usual, Garth, we share much the same views here, but as is also usual, we differ on key points re the solving of some problems, among which is the issue of private schools, so I'll leave it alone.

We agree that poverty, which includes that of the working poor, is fast progressing beyond endemic toward epidemic levels. Interestingly, if measles or somesuch approached even 5% levels, there'd be massive shutting down of airports, schools etc, but a 16% child poverty rate is ho-hum. Could that have anything to do with child poverty not affecting the rich?

But it is not only the wealthy who are uncaring, there is also something basically wrong with a system that tolerates the charging of $200 hr and skywards by some professionals such as doctors, dentists, lawyers etc, for services to people who are making only $10-15 hr or less.

- And that includes the legions of CEOs who receive from well into the six-figure to seven figure brackets yearly.

We are being governed and administered by a Meritocracy (as described below in one of the definitions WIKI gives us) in which merit is automatically conferred by one's credentials, the validity of which are theoretically guaranteed through the sham of self-governance. What is worse, the use of such people is mandated by gov't.

"Meritocracy is used both to describe or even criticize competitive societies, that could accept large inequalities of income, wealth and status amongst the population as a function of perceived talent, merit, competence, motivation and effort."

That, of course, is grist for a future rant about the function of a university. :-)

The only credential that means anything

The only credential that means a thing is cash - doesn't matter how you get it - It's the dollar sign in front of the digits and not the initials after the name that make the difference.

Hasn't a thing to do with talent, education, knowledge, wisdom or hard work.

You might enjoy reading this guy's stuff:

http://www.kunstler.com/

Pay particular attention to the 'Clusterfuck Nation Chronicles.'

I certainly do agree that the increasing ratio between the average industrial wage and the remuneration of 'some' professionals, investors and business figureheads is a huge problem.

I certainly don't think we are being ruled by a meritocracy though.