I wrote a long series recently on the oligarchy in America, and since then came across some good articles that I thought others might enjoy.

Matt Taibbi reflects on the flip side of a society that tolerates an oligarchy, which is the peasant mentality that prevents people from seeing who their real enemies are and whose anger can be easily misdirected.

Actual rich people can’t ever be the target. It’s a classic peasant mentality: going into fits of groveling and bowing whenever the master’s carriage rides by, then fuming against the Turks in Crimea or the Jews in the Pale or whoever after spending fifteen hard hours in the fields.

Meanwhile Glenn Greenwald further elaborates on how the oligarchy operates.

[Michael] Paese went from Chairman [Barney] Frank’s office to be the top lobbyist at Goldman, and shortly before that, Goldman dispatched Paese’s predecessor, close Tom Daschle associate Mark Patterson, to be Chief of Staff to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, himself a protege of former Goldman CEO Robert Rubin and a virtually wholly owned subsidiary of the banking industry. That’s all part of what Desmond Lachman — American Enterprise Institute fellow, former chief emerging market strategist at Salomon Smith Barney and top IMF official (no socialist he) — recently described as “Goldman Sachs’s seeming lock on high-level U.S. Treasury jobs.”

Meanwhile, the above-linked Huffington Post article which reported on [Senator Dick] Durbin’s comments [that “The banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.”] also notes Sen. Evan Bayh’s previously-reported central role on behalf of the bankers in blocking legislation, hated by the banking industry, to allow bankruptcy judges to alter the terms of mortgages so that families can stay in their homes.

And that’s not all. As the Wall Street Journal reports (via Washington Monthly):

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York shaped Washington’s response to the financial crisis late last year, which buoyed Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other Wall Street firms. Goldman received speedy approval to become a bank holding company in September and a $10 billion capital injection soon after.

During that time, the New York Fed’s chairman, Stephen Friedman, sat on Goldman’s board and had a large holding in Goldman stock, which because of Goldman’s new status as a bank holding company was a violation of Federal Reserve policy.

The New York Fed asked for a waiver, which, after about 2 1/2 months, the Fed granted. While it was weighing the request, Mr. Friedman bought 37,300 more Goldman shares in December. They’ve since risen $1.7 million in value. (…)

Mr. Friedman, who once ran Goldman, says none of these events involved any conflicts. He says his job as chairman of the New York Fed isn’t a policy-making one, that he didn’t consider his purchases of more Goldman shares to conflict with Fed policy, and bought shares because they were very cheap.

Conflict of interest means nothing to the members of the oligarchy because they really think they own the country and the rules that apply to you and me are irrelevant to them. You know you are living in an oligarchy when the very rich get into fits of aggrieved rage when even the tiniest of their privileges are taken away. Here are some reactions from Wall Street executives, as reported in a fascinating article in New York magazine.

“No offense to Middle America, but if someone went to Columbia or Wharton, [even if] their company is a fumbling, mismanaged bank, why should they all of a sudden be paid the same as the guy down the block who delivers restaurant supplies for Sysco out of a huge, shiny truck?” e-mails an irate Citigroup executive to a colleague.

“I’m not giving to charity this year!” one hedge-fund analyst shouts into the phone, when I ask about Obama’s planned tax increases. “When people ask me for money, I tell them, ‘If you want me to give you money, send a letter to my senator asking for my taxes to be lowered.’ I feel so much less generous right now.”

You should read the whole article. The petulant sense of entitlement, their immense sense of self-importance, and their contempt for everyone else, is astounding. They really do live in a different world from you and me.

POST SCRIPT: The Onion on Trekkies reaction to new Star Trek film

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As ‘Fun, Watchable’