The New Grievance Elite

Wife is getting better, but still not completely recovered.

This morning I had to get the oil changed. The franchise that does this - you probably know who I am referring to - cleans your windows, changes your windshield wiper fluid and check an entire host of other things. The thing that they are really good at is scamming you into thinking that you need your air filter changed every "5 minutes" (laugh) thereby jacking up what is supposed to be a routine oil change cost to what amounts to a freakin' down payment for an Escalade!

Anyway, I didn't get the Escalade, but I got the oil change, and told the moron that I didn't need the air filter change - well, actually, they changed it the last time - and was on my way home by 11am. To be quite honest, those guys are so good at sales, it is quite possible they could have sold me on the air filter scam again. Hell, they may have even had me sitting in a dealership by the end of the day.

Another nice Fall day. No snow in my part of Pennsylvania. Sorry New York.

I took the picture above late this afternoon, just outside of the bedroom window facing West. The screen is still out of the window since I had trouble putting it back in; had to give the wife another excuse. She doesn't read my blog, but this will be the ONE she reads. Watch. I used a digital camera the wife bought me for Christmas - I think 2 Christmases ago. These things are awesome! Anyway, what appears to be yellow leaves are actually the sun's reflection!!! No kidding! The sun is setting, but still bright. As of this moment, the tree has very few yellows. I know it looks like yellow leaves on on this thing, but it is the reflection of the sun. I pointed the camera North. The tree is right in front of the bedroom. If you are a photographer you may understand this.

A few years ago, a former professor and I were engaged in an interesting discussion on Civil Rights and immigration etc., subjects that seem to never go away. He recommended that I read Shelby Steele's, Content Of Our Character, a very interesting, yet predictable treatise on race relations from someone who happens to be black, but privelged. I find particularly interesting how successful African-Americans write from a cacoon of wealth about "how others" have not taken advantage of Civil Rights, when all along they appear to be far remove from the endeavor. Reminds me of the blacks who enslaved the freed slaves.

Moreover, I also find it interesting that there is a large group of well educated African-American scholars who abandon their own academic communities only to teach at the very institutions that they suggest are insensitive to minorities. (e.g., Cornel West)

But what is really interesting - and this I do agree with Steele on - is that there is this "grievance elite" out there that believes they are entitled to certain things just because of "what happen". In the case of African-Americans, they feel that they are entitled to things because of slavery, although no one living today who is African-American was ever a slave. I will admit that the way whites treat blacks today is still unacceptably inappropriate, I do not believe that constitutes an argument for entitlement. But I do believe that there is still this faction who feels that they are entitled to something. Blacks think they are entitled to things because "of the struggle". Whites feel that they are entitled to things, because they think they are superior.

The problem, which is more important here, is that this mindset has infected other minorities who have come to America. Now, let me say that this is not hate talk. I will admit that I am a bit confused, for lack of a better term, when someone wants a broker and then demands a Spanish interpreter. If I go to a Spanish speaking country, before I go, I will try very hard to learn that country's language. But I will not go there looking/demanding and feeling entitled to something. During this one particular call, after spending several minutes to get this person his Spanish interpreter, he spent most of the time on the phone answer the questions in, not Spanish, but English!!!!

So, corporations in America have to spend extra money to hire Spanish interpreters to accommodate people who do not want to master the English language, but want the benefits of liberty. Pat Buchannan said it best when he complained about people who come here to work, but still give allegiance under their native flag.

This is the nature of the new grievance elite. They are different people - and not always minorities, because there are PWT that feel entitlement too - who feel for some reason, that they deserve things, regardless of the circumstances; they feel that they are owed something because of the color of their skin (i.e., black, white...) or because the government has opened the borders and the courts has failed to clearly interpret the Constitution.