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DJP Update 7-22-2010: Article by Angelo M. Codevilla, PhD, entitled “America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution”

DJP Update 7-22-2010: Article by Angelo M. Codevilla, PhD, entitled “America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution”

DJP Comment: Here is an article that is generating a lot of debate, “America’s Ruling Class…” by Dr. Angelo M. Codevilla, professor at Boston University. Rather than rely on heresay information about the article, read the entire article yourself. Dr. Codevilla is professor of international relations at Boston University and Vice Chairman of the U.S. Army War College Board of Visitors. You can find titles of books he wrote at the Brief CV link below.

Agree or disagree, the issue is what are the citizens of America going to do? Lots of discontent exists among the citizens. Lots of name calling on radio and TV and in Congress.

Will someone emerge who can bring civility, science, and fair play in the actions of those elected to office? Leadership and earned respect are needed immediately. Medicine, as just one example, has gone from the primacy of science in the development of policy to to the power of politics. The disruption and uncertainty about the future already are causing problems and affecting career decisions and access to care. That is sad.

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The American Spectator

America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution

By Angelo M. Codevilla from the July 2010 – August 2010

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE:

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/print

or

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the

The article is lengthy but worth the read. You can check the Web for pro and con about this article but it is time for a debate about what is going on in Washington, DC regardless of your political affiliation.

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The first two paragraphs of the article:

“As over-leveraged investment houses began to fail in September 2008, the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties, of major corporations, and opinion leaders stretching from the National Review magazine (and the Wall Street Journal) on the right to the Nation magazine on the left, agreed that spending some $700 billion to buy the investors’ “toxic assets” was the only alternative to the U.S. economy’s “systemic collapse.” In this, President George W. Bush and his would-be Republican successor John McCain agreed with the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. Many, if not most, people around them also agreed upon the eventual commitment of some 10 trillion nonexistent dollars in ways unprecedented in America. They explained neither the difference between the assets’ nominal and real values, nor precisely why letting the market find the latter would collapse America. The public objected immediately, by margins of three or four to one.

“When this majority discovered that virtually no one in a position of power in either party or with a national voice would take their objections seriously, that decisions about their money were being made in bipartisan backroom deals with interested parties, and that the laws on these matters were being voted by people who had not read them, the term “political class” came into use. Then, after those in power changed their plans from buying toxic assets to buying up equity in banks and major industries but refused to explain why, when they reasserted their right to decide ad hoc on these and so many other matters, supposing them to be beyond the general public’s understanding, the American people started referring to those in and around government as the “ruling class.” And in fact Republican and Democratic office holders and their retinues show a similar presumption to dominate and fewer differences in tastes, habits, opinions, and sources of income among one another than between both and the rest of the country. They think, look, and act as a class. ”

Brief CV of Dr. Codevilla

http://www.claremont.org/scholars/id.25/scholar.asp

Angelo M. Codevilla

Angelo M. Codevilla is professor of international relations at Boston University and Vice Chairman of the U.S. Army War College Board of Visitors. His most recent book is Advice for War Presidents, published by Basic Books.

He received his B.A. from Rutgers University, an M.A. from Notre Dame University, and his Ph.D. in Security Studies, U.S. Foreign Policy, and Political Theory from the Claremont Graduate School.

At Boston University since 1995, Professor Codevilla has been a U.S. Naval Officer, an Assistant Professor at the Grove City College and North Dakota State College, a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, and a member of President-Elect Reagan’s Transition Teams within the U.S. Department of State. He dealt with Western Europe and with matters affecting the U.S. Intelligence Community. He served as a U.S. Senate Staff member dealing with oversight of the intelligence services, a professorial lecturer at Georgetown University and a Senior Research Fellow for the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

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Lagniappe: I am off to Washington, DC, Saturday to give a speech on leadership on Sunday to the “American College of Surgeons 2010 Leadership Conference for Young Surgeons and Chapter Leaders.” Departing on a lecture trip on July 24, my birthday, is not my favorite time to be out of town for a lecture but the young doctors are the future and one day we may be on a stretcher looking up at one of the new generation. We need to share with the next generation just as those who came before us generously helped us in this wonderful profession called Medicine.

Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill

400 New Jersey Avenue

Sunday, July 25, 2010

3:30-4:30 p.m.

Joint Plenary Session 2: Leading Your Community: Serving Locally and Nationally

SPEAKER: Donald J. Palmisano, MD, JD, FACS

Surgeon leaders have an important impact in the community at local and national levels. In this session, participants will learn the pathways in which they can become more engaged at both levels. Also, participants will understand how to influence their communities and organizations, and appreciate how these commitments can affect their personal goals and objectives.

MODERATOR: Dr. Steven Li-Wen Chen

————–

Stay well,

Donald

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