[Peace-discuss] The concentration of wealth in the US

[C. G. Estabrook]

<http://www.toomuchonline.org/art_charts_2010/apr26_networth.png>

And the US minimum wage today is lower, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than in 1979.

Sooner or later the majority of Americans are going to object to being ripped 
off by the few.

The primary job of the Obama administration - what they know quite well they 
were selected to do - is to "maintain the disparity," both at home and abroad - 
in the words of the leading post-WWII liberal diplomat, George Kennan:

"...we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3 of its population. This 
disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In 
this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real 
task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships, which will 
permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to 
our national security. To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality 
and daydreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on 
our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can 
afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction...

"In the face of this situation we would be better off to dispense now with a 
number of the concepts which have underlined our thinking with regard to the Far 
East. We should dispense with the aspiration to 'be liked' or to be regarded as 
the repository of a high-minded international altruism. We should stop putting 
ourselves in the position of being our brothers' keeper and refrain from 
offering moral and ideological advice. We should cease to talk about vague — and 
for the Far East — unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the 
living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going 
to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are hampered by 
idealistic slogans, the better."

--George Kennan, US State Department "Memo PPS23", written 28 February 1948, 
declassified 17 June 1974




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