The Insidious Nature of the Culture of Wealth

Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun.

-Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

The news of the scandal came with nothing more than a sarcastic snicker to the people around me. More concerned with the “famous names” involved than the scandal itself. Around 50 elites paying hundreds of thousands, and one case, MILLIONS of dollars to get their children into prestigious universities. They didn’t do this the old fashioned way, you know, by donating buildings (which, surprisingly, is TOTALLY LEGAL?!); these elites instead paid a company, designed to assist the 1% to get their children into college. Using underhanded tactics like, getting other people to take their children’s SAT’s, paying their own proctors to administer SAT and ACT tests, photoshopping their kids heads on the bodies of other children to lie and say they were athletes. Getting coaches of the universities to “recruit” their children for sports…