"If there was hope, it must lie in the proles because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses, 85 percent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated. The Party could not be overthrown from within. It's enemies, if it had any enemies, had no way of coming together or even of identifying one another. Even if the legendary Brotherhood existed, as just possibly it might, it was inconceivable that its members could ever assemble in larger numbers than twos and threes. Rebellion meant a look in the eyes, an inflection of the voice; at the most, an occasional whispered word. But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it? And yet–!

The great majority of Proles did not even have telescreens in their homes. Even the civil police interfered with them very little. There was a vast amount of criminality in London, a whole world-within-a-world of thieves, bandits, prostitutes, drug-peddlers, and racketeers of every description; but since it all happened among the Proles themselves, it was of no importance. In all questions of morals they were allowed to follow their ancestral code. The sexual Puritanism of the Party was not imposed upon them. Promiscuity went unpunished, divorce was permitted. For that matter, even religious worship would have been permitted if the proles had shown any sign of needing or wanting it. They were beneath suspicion. As the Party slogan put it:

"Proles and animals are free".

"In reality very little was known about the proles. It was not necessary to know much. So long as they continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern. They were born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve, they passed through a brief blossoming period of beauty and sexual desire, they married at twenty, they were middle-aged at thirty, they died, for the most part, at sixty. Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbours, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling, filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult. A few agents of the Thought Police moved always among them, spreading false rumours and marking down and eliminating the few individuals who were judged capable of becoming dangerous. No attempt was made to indoctrinate them with the ideology of the Party. It was not desirable that the proles should have strong political feelings. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working-hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because being without general ideas, they could only focus in on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice."

Here as well, supposedly "working class", inferences hinge on a word. This board of "directors".

Those that work ADD their savings, their net worth. Those that invest MULTIPLY their savings, their net worth.

Adding is ecological. Multiplying is a disaster waiting to happen.

(An aside–what gated community housewife, left alone on a weekday, has not felt the frisson of fear, surrounded by a sea of sweating Mexicans, laboring grimly among the arbor vitae?)

Re-reading your post, two things come to mind. How new is this phenomenon of division? I'm reading my daughter's assigned book, 'The Jungle,' and it's a vivid reminder that society wasn't all suit-and-tie wearing Jimmy Stewarts 70 years ago. The examples multiply.

Also, your "elite" is that of the chattering class, or the gray-flannel suit-wearers of the finance class. But there is another elite, that does enjoy a greater degree of freedom: the artistic/creative elite. Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ken Tynan never had "strange opinions and personal eccentricities?" Ha! Or, for that matter, Sid Vicious, Jim Morrison, or Marilyn Manson, to name other noteworthy cultural mandarins? (I'm really dating myself, I realize)

BOTH Israeli and Palestinian communities are that, communities, moreso than abstractions.

The effort for sustainability and more direct connection is a more important issue of discussion than the issues of resentment and the artificial separations that that generates.

Another tension that is relevant is the tension of scale. Like political choices, choices of scale of governance and community include more than just two. More than just the local and the global.

In my region, many thoughtful people are pursuing "relocalization". I love the motivations, but consider the demand to be impractical.

The optimal scale for modern economy is regional, say the scale of New England. Human scale as in capable of face to face discussion, but larger than local, larger than hands on perse for organization, market scale, governance.

When I grew up in New Rochelle, NY, Garrison was the sticks, rural, just a couple miles from "wilderness" Bear Mountain. Now apparently it is suburbs.

Where did you move to Phil? Send me an e-mail please.

Also, Israel, the Jewish State, which for all it's problems was once a model Social Democratic state, is going the same way as America too.

It is a tragedy for American Jewry that you and Ron Unz are among the exceptions.

"Free trade" and the U.S. empire including the ridiculous subsidising of Israel are destroying the American nation. My hope is that our Jewish-dominated elite would see the folly of foreign, economic and many of our social policies.
As I have posted before, if the US breaks down because of no jobs, no middle class and a worthless currency, the masses will come looking for revenge…(just like the helpless, humiliated Palestinian bomber looking for revenge against the terrible injustice perpetrated upon him by the Zionists with US assistance).

Which group has done the most to create the America that we have today?

How often do we hear that service jobs will replace the lost manufacturing jobs?

The WASP elite may have run a segregated society but we have segregation too. It is just more sophisticated. Not by race but by "education", class etc Moreover the WASP elite knew the masses through militray service and cared about them . They had a genuine sense of noblesse oblige. Todays's elite (AND NOT JUST THE JEWISH PART) like Robert Reich live and think in abstractions oblivious to the harm their policies are doing.

It is depends on how it is done.

I am of the opinion that the age of genetic engineering and designer babies is rushing to the present. This changes the game a bit if we can make most of these technologies available to those in all classes at an affordable cost. To me the solution is technological, we need to improve and equalize our human capital across race and ethnic lines.

if the mob comes looking for revenge how discriminating do you think that they are gonna be?

how can you infer that I want anyone to be hurt….am I allowed to comment on our elite?