Very quickly -
I listened to a podcast last night in which Glenn Greenwald interviewed Dr. Nathan Burroughs about the alarming growth dynastic families controlling our government. The entire transcript can be found here, http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/radio/2009/01/09/burroughs/index1.html
Dr. Burroughs' research indicates that 22% of the Senate and 14% of the House consist of members who are from political families.
The podcast was actually a follow-up to a piece that Glenn did back in December about the growing aristocracy in our government and media,
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/03/aristocracy/
I came to the conclusion not so long ago that our federal government is, ideologically, a single-party aristocracy. Apparently we are moving ever closer to have a ruling elite controlled by a handful of families.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the worship of fame and royalty in this country.
2 weeks ago
2 comments:
That is a very interesting idea. Did he indicate by how much this has grown? I can think of instances all the way back through American history where political families existed.
This is from memory so...
He specifically studied the primary races since World War II and, if I remember correctly, it has grown substantially.
I think his concern was that we were approaching the point to where a handful of families could, through their own members and their increasing influence over the parties, come to completely dominate the political discourse in our country.
I was particularly shocked at the pervasiveness in the major media outlets. I pay them so little attention that I hadn't really noticed it.
Interestingly, the problem is much greater among Democrats than among Republicans.
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