182
PART III: AMERIC A, THE UNFINISHED PROJECT
almost three-quarters of the nation’s industrial (nonfinancial) assets, almost two-thirds of all banking assets, and more than three-quarters of all insurance assets, and… directed the nation’s largest investment firms. They commanded over half of all assets of private foundations and universities and controlled the television networks, the national press, and the major newspaper chains. They dominated the nation’s top law firms and the most prestigious civic and cultural associations, and they occupied key federal government posts in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches and the top military commands.3 These are truly America’s Cloud Minders, members of a privileged elite that rule from a separate world of luxury and privilege far above the mundane. Traveling in private jets and chauffeured limousines, attending elite schools, living in gated communities and private estates, socializing in exclusive clubs, and getting their news from elite publications and news services that cater to an exclusive audience, these are the have-mores who live in world far removed from the mere haves, let alone the have-nots. The 2004 U.S. presidential race between George W. Bush and John Kerry, two white males from wealthy families who had each graduated from Yale University and belonged to the Skull and Bones society, underscored the narrowness of the path to the highest positions of political power. Indeed, the two presidents prior to Bush II, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, also held degrees from Yale University, and Bush I had also been a member of Skull and Bones. As history and a close reading of the original U.S. Constitution make clear, the intention of the architects of what we look to as American democracy was not to create a democracy; it was to create a plutocracy, a nation ruled by a wealthy elite — and they were very successful. Their efforts are worth a brief review, not only to remind ourselves of the realities of our history, but also to comprehend how past misdeeds and slanderous political rhetoric formed a template for our own time.
WHO WILL RULE? A NATION BY, FOR, AND OF WHITE MEN OF PROPERTY The members of the Continental Congress who had issued the Declaration of Colonial Rights in 1774 and the Declaration of Independence in 1776 were all white male property owners named as representatives to