The American Ruling Class

Jack Bellamy:
Well, I've got an offer from Goldman Sachs to work in investment banking in New York City.

Himself - Fmr. editor Harper's Magazine:
That's fantastic. Are you excited about that?

Jack Bellamy:
Sure, I guess.

Himself - Fmr. editor Harper's Magazine:
No guess. Great career. You meet a lot of nice people. Make a lot of money. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Jack. And what about you, Mike?

Mike Vanzetti:
Actually, I thought I might take a year to write and work some odd jobs.

Himself - Fmr. editor Harper's Magazine:
A shocking misuse of your parent's money.

Mike Vanzetti:
So they tell me.

Himself - Fmr. editor Harper's Magazine:
Both you gentlemen have a chance to become members of the American ruling class and I don't see why you don't avail yourself of that opportunity.

Jack Bellamy:
Ruling class?

Himself - Fmr. editor Harper's Magazine:
As was true in the early years of the Republic, the country is governed by a commercial oligarchy and the citizen who cannot afford the luxury of a contrary opinion learns, of necessity, to dance the beggar's waltz.

Himself - Folksinger:
/singing/ Some say that human kind won't long endure. What makes them feel so doggone sure? I know that you who hear my singing could make those freedom bells go ringing.

Mike Vanzetti:
No offense, but do you really think you can change things, much less the world, by walking down a country road singing a song? By singing a song anywhere, at any time, for anybody, for that matter?

Himself - Folksinger:
I suppose not, but I am going to make darn sure the world isn't going to change me. It's like this. Imagine a big sea saw and one end is on the ground, because it has a basket half full of rocks in it. The other end is up in the air, because it has a basket one-quarter full of sand. And some of us got teaspoons and we are trying to fill it. And of course most people are kinda scoffing at us. They say, "Don't you see it's leaking just as quick as you are putting it in? People like you been trying for centuries, but it's never going to change." And we say, "You might be right, but we think we get more people with teaspoons all the time and one of these days that whole seasaw is going to go zooop, and people will say 'Gee, how did it happen so suddenly?' Us and all our little teaspoons, over the centuries." Who knows? /Starts singing/ And so we keep on, while we live, and have no, no long to give. And when these fingers can strum no longer, and the old banjo to young ones stronger.

Mike Vanzetti:
So as chairman and publisher, how do you balance all these competing interests you've got - the family, the trust, the newsroom, the audience, the advertiser?

Himself - Chairman, New York Times Company:
The stock market?

Mike Vanzetti:
Thank you.

Himself - Chairman, New York Times Company:
We worry a little bit about our earnings and our stock prices. Once every quarter, the executive editor, in this case, Bill Keller, gets into the ring and the CEO, Russ Lewis at the moment but soon Janet Robinson, and they duel it out. They just have a fistfight, and whoever wins for the next quarter we worry more about the journalism or we worry about the profits. It's a very simple operation. It's a balancing act. It's easy. Anyone can manage for one. Anyone can manage for the other. You manage for nothing but the quality of the journalism. You can manage for nothing but the quality of the profits. And that's easy. The challenge is to manage for both.

Jack Bellamy:
We've been trying to discover: if in fact there is an American ruling class?

Himself - Fmr. CBS News Anchorman:
I'm afraid there is. I don't think it serves democracy well, but that is true, but I think there is. The ruling crass [sic] is the rich, who really command our industry, our commerce, our finance, and those people are able to so manipulate our democracy that they really control democracy... I feel. [Cut to historical footage] And that's the way it is.

Jack Bellamy:
How do you get into the ruling class?

Himself - Fmr. CBS News Anchorman:
If you are smart enough, the ruling class will invite you in. They need smarts, they need intelligence, they need education, and they need to continue to survive as a ruling class.

Himself - Fmr. State Dept. Spokesman:
There is something fatally attractive about joining the ruling class, starting of course with the pay, but also with the prestige and the like. But fatally ought to go with attractive, in many cases, because it means for a large part you're getting ready to forget about half of what you learned at Yale or anywhere else, that there are obligations in this democratic republic which I still, perhaps naively, believe need to be factored in. I do not actually believe that society is best served by everybody running avidly after their own self interest. I particularly think: that it is betrayal when the best and the brightest decide that their being the best and the brightest means that they jump on the gravy train and tell everybody else kiss mine as I leave the room. If there is no last morality here to be offered, it is an individual question. The last thing people always say as they go out is not 'I wish I had had more money.' They're usually wishing something else, about what they did with their lives.

[first lines]

Man:
[singing] Here we are a sailing, adrift without a dream. We live for God and country, and yes our God is green. So put your arms around me, until the break of dawn. 'Cause late at night the great and mighty Wurlitzer plays on.

Himself - Fmr. editor Harper's Magazine:
"Civil liberties"? Extremely expensive, far too numerous.

Himself - Fmr. editor Harper's Magazine:
Americans are an inventive people, Mike. Manufacture our ruling elites, we like to call the meritocracy, in the same way that we build SUVs or 747s. The members come and go, and power for a season or generation, then replaced by new technology, fresh money. What never must change, Mike, is the belief that by doing well one is also doing good.

Himself - Frm. Secretary of State:
Leadership is nothing more than knowing what to do, and doing it.

Himself - Fmr. editor Harper's Magazine:
Why try to catch a falling star if there's no market for the product?