Class Part II

On an earlier Oprah, Morgan Spurlock of FX's Thirty Days and his wife agreed to live on minimum wage for (yes) thirty days. It turned out to be an impossible task. Minimum wage has not been raised in the past ten years, although the cost of living continues to rise, and is one reason the rich get richer, as the poor get poorer. USA Today is also on the bandwagon. What can you do? Contact your national leglislators and pressure them to get raise the national minimum wage. If you want the American Dream to persist, we have to create a fair environment for competition.

In prepping my lesson for class today, I covered 'settler colonies' like The United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. One of the distinct differences when compared to the mother country? No social hierarchy--everyone was more or less on the same plane, with the advantage of immediately instituting democratic political systems. This is one reason why class hasn't been a big issue in America, and we don't like to think of ourselves in that way.

But has an 'aristocracy' developed in the US? What about the Vanderbilts, Carnegies, Hiltons and Johnsons? What about Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, or celebrities? While you'll never hear me say that money makes a person 'classy'--it does give opportunities that not everyone can easily afford. In some historical cases, the class divide was great enough to provoke anger and social unrest. We aren't to that point here.

Bottom line: we still live in the greatest country in the world, where hard work and education can open doors and we can aim high to achieve. It's not magic--it doesn't just happen--it has to be maintained, like all good things.