I was teaching an Argentinean baritone when the Belgano went down. He held citizenship in three countries. England, Argentina and Italy. At his age he had to choose which would be his country. Guess which one he chose as he moved to Europe?
Perhaps in England the wealthy are the Patrons of the Arts. Here they are the owners of the Arts. The only way that a country can own its culture is if the government of the people decide to provide salaries and create culture as a deliberate act of development of a national identity. There are no American Patrons of the Arts. That's just a name but it is not the process. They will tell you themselves that they are a culture of their own and the classical arts belongs to them. Else why do they have a system of people with seven different mansions in six different countries where all meet at arranged times of the year. My wife worked for one of those families for six years and arranged the schedules. I know of what I speak. And frankly if you asked them about someone else's child getting artistic training, the average "artistic owner" will say that is not their problem. That's why the Koch brothers will build an opera house and put their name on it in Lincoln Center then lobby for a flat tax which makes only the wealthy contributions viable as tax exemptions for the arts and charities are limited to $3,000. Refusing to support that is why a Cherokee Indian coming from a family whose European heritage in America goes the James River in 1630, has given over a million dollars in scholarships over the past thirty years to worthy less fortunate talents and still does. All on my private teaching salary and today on my social security pension. It is my business and whether I like most Americans or not, I am still an American. My parents taught me that my tradition is to be responsible to and for the community that gave me what I am. Of course my rent went up this week and my utilities. Food is up and so is everything else and they are working on cutting my Social Security and students are down. But I will keep it up as long as I can because I am an American. My family bought, fought for and has supported the ideals for as long as we have been here. Some say it's a quarter of a million years. REH From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, October 04, 2010 2:15 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, , EDUCATION; Ray Harrell Subject: RE: [Futurework] Not a very positive picture At 11:15 04/10/2010 -0400, REH wrote: Heres one below: Keith says strata is built in. That is very English as we Americans who know our history are aware. Those are the Americans that did not support England in the Falklands. There were many in England who didn't support the Falklands War, including me. And, as usual these days, it was all about oilfields actually. We -- the punters -- didn't know about these then but the oil companies and the British government certainly knew. Most of those living in the Falklands would give their right arm to leave the God forsaken place and settle elsewhere if they had the money. We could have given each family a million pounds or each farmer a nice farm in New Zealand and it still wouldn't have cost anywhere near what it did. Everybody would have left except a few ornithologists. One of the most cowardly acts ever carried out in wartime by any nation in any war took place in the Falklands War. As an ancient clapped-out Argentinian destroyer, the Belgrano, was taking troops away from the island as fast it could, and although it was well outside the battle zone, a sneaky British nuclear submarine torpedoed the ship and left over 500 to drown. Didn't stop to pick any survivors up. Mrs Thatcher's finest hour, that was. But one of this country's most shameful acts ever -- and that's saying something. We supported the Monroe Doctrine. I say strata, in reality, is competence based and that neo-classic economics creates false stratas that may initially be competence based, if not just dumb luck, but by the second and third generations have decayed and become nothing more that speculative parasites on the structure. Even Warren Buffet speaks of it. What are my children going to be? All he sees are people who are simply motivated to consume and spend with no creativity, like the aristocracy of England. America was an answer to that but the wealthy have torn that to shreds. But the wealthy are also the patrons of the arts. KSH Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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