Perception is EVERYTHING!...Or Riders Who Feel They’re “the Ridden”

Morgan Gliedman (L) and Aaron Greene (R)

The other day, two well-heeled pseudo-revolutionaries and allegedly, OWS stalwarts were arrested for having a huge cache of weapons and few grams of hexamethylene triperoxide diamine, or HMTD (a peroxide-based explosive that is “the explosive of choice” for many would-be terrorists as it is not as easily detected as nitrogen-based explosives) in their Greenwich Village apartment.

Morgan Gliedman and Aaron Greene were arrested Saturday, December 29^th, 2012 for housing a wide array of weapons and explosives in their Manhattan apartment.

“Morgan Gliedman, who grew up on Park Avenue, graduated from Dalton in 2002. Her dad, Dr. Paul Gliedman, is director of radiation oncology at Beth Israel Hospital, Brooklyn Division.

“Paul Gliedman - who was included in New York magazine's list of top doctors in 2011 - received his medical degree from Columbia University.

“Morgan's mother, Susyn Schops Gliedman, is a realtor with Prudential Douglas Elliman.

Greene attended Harvard as an undergraduate and did his graduate work at the university's Kennedy School of Government.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255609/Morgan-Gliedman-Aaron-Greene-junkies-terrorists-police-say.html

Aaron’s father, Jeff Green, is the head of a well-known New York art restoration company, Evergreene Architectural Arts.
http://www.heavy.com/news/2013/01/morgan-gliedman-aaron-green/

Here we have two scions of the 1%ers allegedly “hating the rich.”

We’re supposed to believe that “All the 1%ers are bad EXCEPT these two!”

It’s almost cliché, that the wealthiest are always the ones who hate wealth creation...“other people’s wealth” the most. To paraphrase Dr Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, “If you want to sniff the stench of decadence...smell yourselves!”

To many, it appears a dichotomy that so many of the wealthiest would revile the wealthy. Certainly G. B. Shaw did, when he concocted Fabian Socialism after coming to the frustrating realization that the poor will never rise up, being too desperate for their daily bread, too insecure, too afraid of the awful specter of being fully responsible for themselves. Shaw realized that the task of true social/economic revolution would always fall to the bored and jaded scions of the wealthy and well-connected.

But what could possibly motivate the wealthiest to support any form of real redistribution and oppose the creation and store-housing of massive amounts of wealth by individuals?

Some have claimed that a natural guilt might explain it, other, more cynical and observant people have noted correctly that by leading such “reforms,” the rich retain, not only the access to the trappings of wealth (power is the primary goal of wealth creation), but control over the process in perpetuity.

Of course, I beg to differ.

In my view, the one thing the Collectivists, from Hitler to Mao have gotten right is that there are just two kinds of people – the worker bees and the queen bees, or more rustically, the riders and the ridden.

Those who are ridden appear almost born (perhaps bred) to be ridden. In fact, so much so that it is when they are NOT being ridden, that they are most miserable. The man who hates his crummy job doesn’t usually rejoice when fired, in fact he’s usually inconsolably depressed...and it’s NOT because of the loss of a pay check. He’s getting his relief check, he’s eating. No, what he misses, is that miserable boss, his “rider,” bursting into his office every morning shouting, “What’d you DO this time you moron?!”

Now, I think such traits, like homosexuality, dissociative disorder and the like are pretty much inborn, or genetic. Innately you’re either a rider or one who is ridden – a veritable beast of burden.

Now sometimes, possibly quite often, actually, one of those built to be ridden finds him or herself born into the reins of ridership.

Whoa! There is very little that can make for a more miserable existence than that! These riders who were meant to be ridden buck and rustle against the reins, as they much prefer the saddle...they WANT to be ridden, even if they are ostensibly unaware of this. Somewhere, deep down inside they know, they just KNOW that at heart, they’re just another beast of burden and that’s exactly what they REALLY see when they look in the mirror each morning.

Now a rider can’t just toss away the reins in our society. That would be unforgivably irresponsible. Far more irresponsible than one of the ridden “spitting the bit” from time to time...that’s somewhat expected, at least from the best of them, but a rider CANNOT, in any graceful way, demure from the power and control they are meant to wield.

So, what do they do? They identify with the other beasts of burden, they commiserate with those who are ridden...and that’s precisely how they see themselves, as “the ridden” no matter how opulent their lives, no matter how much privilege is foist upon them.

In the worst such cases, you get an Abbie Hoffman, a scion of Wall Street power who turned on “the establishment,” or Kathy Boudin, the daughter of a wealthy New York City Lawyer, who’d attended Bryn Mawr College before devoting her life to violent “activism” against her own class.

That’s more or less, what Gliedman and Greene seem to be.

Seriously, if such people truly wanted to improve the world and really cared about others, they could simply divest themselves of the burdens of that wealth and bestow it on someone far less fortunate. Such a recipient would almost certainly be far less destructive with it. Hell, some might actually find ways to actually improve things.

So, obviously “making the world a better place,” isn’t high on the Boudin’s, Gliedman’s or Greene’s bucket lists – self glorification and exerting control over others, certainly seems to be.

Who knows after all? Perhaps they’re born riders who THINK or “perceive” themselves to be “the ridden,” but can’t pull away from their innate riding urges no matter how hard they try.