A+Class+of+Broken+Bootstraps

 

A Class of Broken Bootstraps
"This denial of class divisions functions to reinforce ruling class control and domination. America is, after all, the supposed land of equal opportunity where, if you just work hard enough, you can get ahead, pull yourself up by your bootstraps.//**What the old bootstraps theory overlooks is that some were born with silver shoe horns**.//" -Donna Langston, "Tired of Playing Monopoly?"



"In the myth of the classless society, ambition and intelligence alone are responsible for success. The myth conceals the existence of a class society, which serves many functions. One of the main ways it keeps the working class and poor locked into a class-based system in a position of servitude is by cruelly creating false hope." -Donna Langston, "Tired of Playing Monopoly?"

"[The elite] are very ready to good to the people, but they still choose to keep them at arm's length; they think that is sufficient, but they are mistaken. They might spend fortunes thus without warming the hearts of the population around them; --that population does not ask them for the sacrifice of their money, but of their pride." -Alexis de Tocqueville, // Democracy in America //



"The property is the man, stronger than he is. And he is small, not big. Only his possessions are big--and he's the servant of his property." -John Steinbeck,//The Grapes of Wrath//

"But--you see, a bank or a company can't do that, because those creatures don't breathe air, don't eat side-meat. They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money. If they don't get it, they die the way you die without air, without side-meat. It is a sad thing, but it is so. It is just so." -John Steinbeck, //The Grapes of Wrath//

Reflections on Broken Bootstraps Questioning American Heterosexism >> << Race in America, A Narrow Vista