Bob Smith correctly pointed out in the comments to yesterday’s post that the system as it exists now is one that promotes credentialism as opposed to learning, competition, and excelling do to one’s merits.  It is also the case that so long as certain groups of individuals are favored over more qualified individuals in regards to access and/admittance to these institutions then what we have cannot be a true meritocracy.

I also didn’t address the clear fact that the system actively discriminates against males.  If we  have a system where we desire the best and brightest be nurtured, advanced, and encouraged to realize their full potential, then the system would have to acknowledge both racial and sexual disparities when it comes to intelligence.  I am not saying that I think a system based on intellect would be a good system or necessarily the system that we should have.  I am just pointing out that, at least here in the United States, for all the talk of equality, people’s actions belie the fact that they believe intellect and intellectual achievement are what truly matters.

Finally, I am going to end this extension of part 2 with a partial list of the powerful and connected in the United States.  Those few who actually do wield true power and control:

John Roberts, Chief Justice of the SC: Harvard College, Harvard Law School

Samuel Alito, Assoc. Justice of the SC: Princeton, Yale Law

Clarence Thomas, Assoc. Justice of the SC: Yale Law

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Assoc. Justice of the SC: Cornell, Harvard Law

Anthony Kennedy, Assoc. Justice of the SC: Stanford, Harvard Law

Antonin Scalia, Assoc. Justice of the SC: Georgetown, Harvard Law

Stephen Breyer, Assoc. Justice of the SC: Stanford, Oxford, Harvard Law

Sonia Sotomayor, Assoc. Justice of the SC: Princeton, Yale Law

John Paul Stevens, retiring 80 y.o. Assoc. Justice of the SC: Norwestern School of Law

Elena Kagen, SC justice nominee: Princeton, Oxford, Harvard Law

President Barack Obama: Occidental College, Columbia University, Harvard Law

Harry Reid, Senate majority leader: George Washington School of Law

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House: Trinity College, now Trinity Washington University

Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve: Harvard, MIT

Alan Greenspan, former Chair of the Federal Reserve: New York University, BS, MA, Ph.D.

Tim Geithner, Sec. of the Treasury: Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins Univ.

Henry Paulson, former Sec. of the Treasury/former head of Goldman Sachs: Dartmouth, Harvard Business School

Lloyd Blankfein, Chair and CEO of Goldman Sachs: Harvard, Harvard Law School

James ‘Jamie’ Dimon, Chairman, President and CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co and a Director of the NY Federal Reserve: Tufts Univ., Harvard Business School

Former Presidents:

George W Bush: Yale, Harvard Business School. Bill Clinton: Georgetown, Yale Law. George HW Bush: Yale. Ronald Reagan: Eureka College.  Jimmy Carter: US Naval Academy. Gerald Ford: University of Michigan, Yale Law. Tricky Dick: Whittier, Duke Law School.

United States Attorneys General:

Holder: Columbia, Columbia Law. Mukasey: Columbia, Yale Law. Gonzales: Rice, Harvard Law. Ashcroft: Yale, Univ. of Chicago Law. Reno: Cornell, Harvard Law. Barr: Columbia, George Washington Law. Thornburgh: Yale, Univ. of Pittsburgh School of Law. Meese: Yale, UC Berkeley. William French Smith: UCLA, Harvard Law.

Other Notables:

Sergei Brin and Larry Page, founders of Google:  Stanford (among others). Bill Gates, Microsoft: Harvard drop out. Jeffrey R. Immelt, Chairman and CEO of General Electric: Dartmouth, Harvard Business School. Warren Buffet, Bershire Hathaway: Penn, Univ. of Nebraska, Columbia. Hillary Clinton, U.S. Sec. of State: Wellesley, Yale Law. Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of NYC and founder of Bloomberg, LP: Johns Hopkins Univ., Harvard Business School. Rex Tillerson, ExxonMobil: Univ. of Texas at Austin.

By now you should be getting the picture.  Harvard and Yale dominate the upper echelons of power in the United States, and to a large extent the rest of the Ivy league schools fill out the rest of the list.  These are the schools where the rich and powerful send their children in the hopes of perpetuating their oligarchic hold on power.  Is it any wonder that those who hold power in this country all seem to think, plan, act, and react in such similar fashions regardless of all the talk of political differences?

Part 3 is still coming.