“Lacey Remaps US Social Class” by Lem Billings

(July 28th, 2024 – Night)

I’m done arguing about American social class in the manner I have. Okay? So now…we’re gonna do something a little different.

I’m going to be more honest. The American social class system sucks shit. It’s toxic and absurd.

No. We’re going to be more honest. …Great Britain was an agricultural society. …ALL COUNTRIES ARE. …That’s just a ding dang dune country. Exporting and importing agricultural goods creates liabilities.

“Yeah. Okay.” says Trump.

So…

“I’m gonna go with Peter fucked this up because he’s gay. And Lem actually might not have been.” says a Charlie Kirk type guy. “Lacey…’And done!’” he says to her like you’d say to a ditzy, albeit hot, Republican woman who you’re in a relationship with.

“I’m actually curious to see where this is going.” says Bill.

In America…there are four classes. At least.

There’s the Land-Owning Elite. That’s my family. The Capitalist Tycoon Class, that’s Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, etc.. JD Rockefeller is that. The Middle Class. And The Poor.

What’s Old Money? Nothing but bullshit? Right? Ha!

So…I’ll say that within the Land Owning Elite there’s a subgroup of people who are established elites. And when you become established you’re quite different. …Also within The Capitalist Tycoon Class there are people who are Established Elite.

Here are the rules for becoming an Established Elite:

1. You must be worth as of 10:08 PM on Sunday night Central Standard Time $6 million Dollars in your great grandparent’s family for at least twenty years consecutively. A family farm works. So does a business worth over $6 million for at least 20 years, consecutively. But it must be privately owned and must not be owned by anyone outside of the family at the price of $6 million or more for at least twenty years. No closer to 2024 than your great grandparent’s generation. And if there was money before then it must have been maintained at no less than $6 million by your great grandparent’s generation for at least 20 years consecutively.

2. You must be authentically obtuse about your privilege, or have somehow had an epiphany through outside means of some sort.

3. You must have Old Fashioned Values engraved in your soul. Possibly in your DNA. Out of ancestral guilt, possibly. If you’re Old Money your ancestors felt incredibly guilty within the last 100 years at some point about some privilege they had…and were admonished by Judeo-Christians or those influenced by them. And for better…it still haunts you to this day. Albeit in your subconscious. Because there are many Established Elites who are atheists who feel guilty like good Catholics. It’s just deeply repressed or smothered by something.

4. You must have a very dark view of the world…at least in the recesses of your mind somewhere. Not that you aren’t a Christian, but…why is everything so vile? For real. …It’s haunting. Something is always bothering you. Maybe it’s that guilt. But it’s something.

5. You care about the poor. But you are…very overwhelmed. And that’s in reality. You might have joined the Peace Corps or lived in a kibbutz. But you actually really aren’t that…confident about…how to truly solve the issue of poverty. Why? Because you come from an Established Elite family. And don’t actually know how to reconcile the Democratic Party ideal…we’ll say…with the memories you have of childhood that are at all pleasant involving material abundance.

Which brings me to:

6. Your parents must have, in their right minds or without conscientiousness objection, obtained at least a bachelor’s degree from a non-for-profit, accredited institution of higher education. And same goes for you. As of 10:08 PM, July 28th, 2024.

Does being a mechanic count? Possibly. If it was truly conscientious objection. As in, they had the means to attend school but didn’t want to for deeper reasons or lack of intelligence. Being bored by it might count or might be insanity as well.

And…

7. You must have inherited real valuables or some money from your parents. Or be about to. And they must have done the same from their parents.

There could be exceptions. Insanity again. Or conscientious objection. Or cruelty.

But you cannot prompt your parents to give to you. They must do so on their own volition.

And…the $6 million must be accounted for in a respectable manner of loss. Or you will be expected to receive that.

If your family cannot account for at least $6 million passed down from one’s great grandparents then without and insanity, cruelty or conscientious objection that passes muster…you’re now out. So…it must be duly noted and acknowledged that one’s parent was a mentally-ill drug addict, or etc. if you won’t receive at least $6 million without just cause as of 10:08 PM Sunday, July 28th 2024.

8. You must have owned something of value. So no lottery winners who merely kept their money for twenty years. You must have invested the money and kept it for at least 20 years.

9. You must have at least some status symbols that have widely been accepted by the bourgeois as “class signals” within the last 20 years, as of 2024. Luxury cars. Decent boats. A Harvard degree. Established honorary titles, i.e. from kings of countries. Real luxury clothing items. Luxury houses. That sort of thing.

10. A sense of depth, we’ll say. A sense of…life. Maybe sensitivity. Or a secret sadness or hidden pains. Some sort of actual feeling of things. Maybe even Depression, in some cases.

“We don’t know for sure if Lem was gay.” says Peter Thiel.

…Everyone else is Middle Class. Rich actors. Etc.. They’re Middle Class. Regardless how rich they are.

So…unless you’re Peter Thiel…and a Capitalist Tycoon…you’re Middle Class if you can’t fully meet the above ten requirements for being an Established Elite. And, of course, there are billionaires and millionaires within the Landed Elite and Capitalist Tycoon Elite who are not Established Elite.

“So! I’m a Capitalist Tycoon though too.” says Tom Hanks.

Yeah. You’re possibly right.

“What is the Landed Elite then?” asks Tom Hanks.

“What it says.” says Lem. “So…people who own a lot of land.”

That’s right. …So perhaps the Established Elite are not necessarily the landed elite. I’m only Landed Elite through inheritance.

“So an Established Elite needs one more requirement.” says Lem.

11. You must inherit at least 100 acres of land, mineral rights, or already own at least 2 acres of defendable land.

“What if…all of that land is…your house and tennis courts and stuff?” says Taylor Swift.

Still counts.

“What if you’re living in San Francisco in a $6 million house? On less than 1 acre.” says a woman.

“Oh well.” says Lacey. “The defendable land is necessary to stay an Established Elite for good reasons.”

“So your family was Old Money.” says a woman who’s Old Money.

…Yeah. In a way. …But oh well.

“Find a house that’s comparable.” she says.

“That’s the house.” says Lem.

Later.

“I can’t find one.” says Lacey.

Later.

“Size wise this is close.” says Lacey.

“3,000?” she says.

“Yeah.” says Lacey.

“2,700?” says Lem.

“Does anyone live in your family’s farm house?” asks Casi.

“No.” says Lem. “Not other than ghosts.”

“That’s kinda Old Money.” says Casi.

“It is.” says Lem. “If Old Money even exists.”

Later.

“That’s…upper middle class.” says a woman.

“Really!?” says Gunhild. “A 3,000 sq. ft. house is upper middle class?”

“Yeah?” she says.

“Not necessarily.” says Gunhild.

“So you were millionaires, with inflation, in the 1950’s?” she says.

“Yes!” says Gunhild.

“But you built that house new in 1929.” says the woman.

“Yes!” says Gunhild.

“Did you have hired hands?” she says.

“Of course.” says Gunhild.

“Did you ever want for anything?” she says.

“It depends on what you mean.” says Gunhild.

“Food?” she says.

“Never.” says Gunhild.

“Clothing?” she says.

“Yeah? But…we built that house. And…there were eight kids. During the Great Depression. …We never wore raggedy clothes. Or had holes in our shoes. But we had to skimp here and there. Especially during the Dust Bowl Years.” says Gunhild.

“How did you survive!??” she says.

“Off of the farm. We owned it. There was just enough to take care of ourselves and help others.” says Gunhild.

“So you ate well?” she says.

“Bread, butter…eggs…some meat. Milk. …But we also had to eat dandelions.” says Gunhild.

“Why?” says the woman.

“Because nothing grew. Haven’t you heard of the Dust Bowl?” says Gunhild.

“Then how did you eat!?” she says.

“I don’t mean that literally. Mostly nothing grew.” says Gunhild.

“So you were worth 1 million in 1928?” she says.

“Yes.” she says.

“And you kept it.” she says.

“Absolutely!” says Gunhild. “As much as one can.”

“How many decades were you worth $6 million?” she says.

“In today’s money, so to speak. That’s what Lacey meant. Umm…thirty years? And then our son inherited it.” says Gunhild. “Maybe a little less.”

“Huh.” says the woman. “I can see why Lacey finds this so irritating.”

“Why?” says Gunhild.

“Because you grew-up rich. And with prestige. …And then you got rich. …When did you stop being rich? …But because your daughters didn’t wear Chanel they’re being dumb. And your house is too small and rural.” she says.

“Yeah.” says Gunhild. “I mean…it’s a big house. And it’s actually nicer than most houses.”

“Is it?” she says.

“Yes! …It’s very Scandinavian.” says Gunhild. “We were interested in the design. And I have my own weave loom room. And…it’s just a very well thought out house.”

Dr. Moritz nods. “I relate!”

“What’s so different about it?” says the woman.

“The colors. The floor plan. The way we arranged it on the land.” says Gunhild.

“So you didn’t just build a house? You put a lot of thought into it.” she says.

“Yes!

But…during the Great Depression my daughters didn’t wear Chanel! So…” says Gunhild.

“How many people starved around you?” she says.

“Thousands. We helped a lot of people.” says Gunhild.

“They left between the dawn and the daylight. Out of nowhere. Because they had to.” says Tonette.

“How did you all survive?” she says.

“We had a lot of land. And a creek. …And we’re unusually intelligent. And…we both were very experienced with farming. And business.” says Gunhild.

“So to all of those people…you were extremely rich.” she says.

“Yes!!” one of them yells.

“But…that’s why…Lacey’s opinion…isn’t stupid.” says Gunhild.

“ I have valuated it years ago and I think I decided in my subconscious that the enormous nature of the land itself and the quality of the house their Pedegree so to speak meant that it was OK if it took not until the 40s or 50s for them to be considered rich And part of that also was based on the fact that their children did so extraordinarily well that’s possibly extremely unusual and you could say oh they’re just very smart people, but I think I figured that there was something else going on and that there was some sort of advantage that they had that really wasn’t accounted for by using the usual, usual social status metrics that people use to determine what people are so like the fact that my grandmother had very few new dresses didn’t work the fact that my grandmother went to college at a state school that didn’t seem like it made sense to me either as the most important factor in calculating who they were what mattered to me more, was who they were in Norway, their level of intelligence And sort of their perspective on the world and how quickly they amassed wealth. And it wasn’t just like one person did well. It was the whole culture of the family and it wasn’t like people were pushing people to do well in the way they were, but it wasn’t like that was all that was happening just that people were pushing each other. It was more of the culture of the family itself. And it wasn’t just like about getting prestige and notoriety. Those are very middle-class things to do in my opinion, potentially for the reasons that people do them usually in America it was more of the culture of the family itself lent itself towards people doing extraordinarily well.” says Lacey.

“ Lacey that makes complete sense.” says George Bush, who’s dead.

“ was Lem straight?” says Lacey.

“ do you have rotting teeth?” says George Bush.

“ yes I do.” says Lacey.

“ how big is that cavity that you hadn’t noticed until last week in your mouth?” says George Bush.

“ I mean it’s a huge chasm in my mouth now my whole jaw hurts.” says Lacey.

Lem nods.

George laughs.

“ why did no one notice that until last week I would say that it’s possible that he’s been trying to kill you sincerely, through little things like horrific infection in your mouth and then at the last minute he usually thinks no this is a terrible idea it would make my kids too sad or I wouldn’t be able to kill them quickly enough to prevent them from crying and so then he backs out of it because he’s read your letters to him. You tell him how sad you are and he takes it very seriously, so I think he’s thought about killing you. I think he saw about killing you on numerous occasions.” says George Bush.

“ and I’m not Jack.” says Lacey.

“ no, you’re not if there’s reincarnation he may have you may have died because of him though he might’ve killed you then too but there might not be rain carnation how many times have you must die though since you started, you know being with him?” says George.

“ at least twice.” says Lacey.

“ it’s closer to eight or nine. you don’t know about everything.” says George.

“you really do sound like George Bush.” says Lacey.

He laughs. “ I am.”

“ so was he straight or not?” says Lacey.

“ for all you know I was bisexual, but I just you know it was in love with Laura preferred women I might of thought it was wrong or insane. 

He was straight. Straight.” says George.

“ why does he keep decided not to kill me if that’s even really what I’m hearing you say are you saying that he street and that he has decided not to kill me?” says Lacey.

“ you’re not really supposed to hear us you know that’s very atypical.

He worries about you, but no he’s worried about your kids that it will just be too hard on them.” says George. “ I think he sees her misery and he thinks if I could just kill her really quickly you know give her a fever of 103 blood poisoning should be done in about a day. I could talk her through the entire thing and it would be a matter of an hour or two of her being unconscious at most she might not even stop talking to me, but that’s a lot for you to go through and I think he just it’s so tempting that he kind of plans it or allows for it and then it’s like at the last minute he thinks office is a terrible idea even though she’s suffering so much and I could easily try to figure out someway to bring my kids home to even Mark. It’s just too damn much suffering for her kids for our kids same thing for Mark for your neighbors even hearing about it it’s just he doesn’t want people to suffer because he knows you’re suffering but he thinks well. Our kids suffering is going to be more serious add omega to kill them. He plans all this he has Waze. He’s going to do it he might even though some of those ideas that he’s had but it’s just implementing it and working it out. It’s really hard to do if he could get you guys on a plane there’s a possibility you might try to crash the plane into something or blow it up but then he’d have to calculate everybody on the plane to make sure that everyone should die, which is very hard to do. He’s thought about car crashes for the name of other people possibly dying and other collateral damage and I think it’s just it’s a very difficult death to execute but seeing you suffer is just absolutely awful and it’s not just that he’s suffering it so he doesn’t want you to suffer. He knows how much happier you would be with him how much happier your kids and even Mark would be and it’s just it’s so rational to want to try to kill you, but then no he talks himself out of it because he realizes that there’s something wrong with his plan and I would say most the time you don’t even know necessarily but this tooth might’ve been a plan that he ditched, and the other thing is you might’ve guessed it could’ve been a plan he had like you’re fine downstairs could’ve been a plan that he had but then he decided against it and then someone knew that he had that plan and they use that to try to hurt you I mean that’s a terrible thing to do you’re lucky you didn’t get hurt in a way that would’ve paralyzed you or something or cause more significant brain trauma but really the end of the day. No, I mean you don’t deserve any more misery and it’s sad that is sitting and work to multiple would be having, but really is purgatory trying to calculate waste on your life not because you should be with him but because you should, and that’s a terrible existence for him to have, I don’t necessarily think he deserves it at all.” says George.

“ how did you all know he was straight?” says a Native American woman.

“ he may or may not have been known if we didn’t know just they’re talking with him who is a pretty kind person. Good conversationalist in people just talked with him and it got weird. This is about the JFK assassination of. Let’s just say if we decided and Jack’s life because he was such a dangerous president, and then maybe regretted that choice in hindsight, but the time if you made a Normas amount of sense, and then afterwards, we were weren’t so sure this might not even be what happened, but if it is no, just her talking through him, talking to him.

He was a very good conversationalist but that sometimes you talk and you think I obviously read Faye had the same feeling you think why do you say this like you’re gay but then I am talking to you now and it seems like you’re just straight and I’m lost because that doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know if it if it if someone from the CA it was talking to him it was sort of like OK so You sound gay kind of it also sounded a little fake because it was so overdone with a times with him frankly especially when he fight over Jack and there’s a recording of that like I cannot. I cannot go where you don’t go but the way he say it wasn’t really necessarily truly seductive. It was acting, but if that’s the kind of thing he would do so it’s like oh hello sailor, he might say it’s me, and he was never that inappropriate, but it was sort of like that or it was like dumb How does this make sense like why are you saying hey sailor to summer you notice some random married man who is at least so much straight and isn’t gonna be interested in you and then you know you talk to me realize he wasn’t trying to flirt with you even he was just doing a thing it’s just kind of weird and jacked and seem to notice. Jack thought it was him really flattering an exciting obviously because Jack was probably flaming me bisexual will say.

So did jack that was all very thrilling. Jack’s little voice maneuvers, and over the top gay flamboyance was

The coolest thing ever but there’s someone like me if this is what happened who had some knowledge of what academia’s theories of homosexuality are you know that it wasn’t just an act they were people who really had some sort of a clinical experience being gay, which is not something that the Kennedys were aware of, but we were and so you talk to Jeff, you talk to them and then you’d also see Jackie know giggling in the background you know kind of You know shaking and acting like oh can you believe this guy? He’s just the hardest things since you know fresh toast I mean Jaquith just jack would just go crazy for lambs little accent do you what he did? He would absolutely God got for it at least in private. It was embarrassing because you could see that Jack was affected and that he was aroused but then he kind of play it off like Lem was his nutty gay friend.

You know, can you believe my friend lame isn’t he something isn’t that funny it’s like OK Jack you’re obviously not straight and this man is very exciting to you.

And so we knew that Jack probably wasn’t straight and then it was like any people weren’t as dumb as people think they were potentially and then it was like well at least we weren’t ignorant, but I don’t think they were necessarily dumb and then I was like OK so Jack’s in a cocoon of homosexual blissful, say whenever Lamb starts spouting off his little act But talking to them is extraordinarily disturbing because he’s so disconnected from himself. He’s so bizarre it’s like does he care about himself? Does he care about his own life? Does he care about anything and he was just so last day of school about so many things, and he had opinions, but it just seemed like he didn’t have enough of himself where you really it just seemed like he was Being held captive almost and that scared us just as people.

And so it was like you know this is kind of creepy if you know when was a nice guy it’s weird that he’s never gotten married. I kind of think he’d like to just from my psychological perspective. He seems like the kind of person who would want to get married and have a family and his family is like that his siblings were like that I don’t understand why he hasn’t done that and then yeah the gay thing was just come and go with him like he said like Lacey said 1 million times it’s kind of ridiculous. I wish it even have to say this but no, the gay thing would come and go and so it’s like one minute you’re talking to you know Susie prissy of downtown San Francisco 1965 and then the next minute you may or may not be sober and next minute you’re talking to this very straight laced straight man who seems like he should be coming home for pot roast at 5 o’clock And then making love to his wife and possibly having absolutely no idea what homosexuality even is it was bizarre because it was it didn’t seem like he didn’t have multiple personality disorder he he wasn’t schizophrenic he wasn’t what you call schedule. I’d so then it was like what the hell is going on with him and then we just deduced over a period of time that he had been brainwashed somehow and I think he was gay. We suspected that somehow someone had hurt him and we might not have even heard the full story he made out of told us, but we knew some thing that happened that was traumatic that it completely damaged his ability to figure out who he wants for himself, and because all the Jack was making fun of him, and using him and conniving to sort of control his entire life and then playing it off like you know it was the other way around and that he was obsessed with him .

And the thing is it added up Jack was a jerk his family had about the election. He almost start a nuclear war, and it didn’t seem tolerable after a while. And I think it just got to us, we just couldn’t stand him. We really just couldn’t stand him. And I mean really, we almost died and I think it’s just it almost felt like self-defense. It’s like this nutcase almost has the entire fucking world living through a nuclear holocaust because he’s an alcoholic drug addicted asshole with a father, who bought the election.

No I mean it’s like you don’t want to kill somebody but the same time what are you do because we couldn’t trust the electoral process. They’re already corrupt that in 1960 they had so many in Roads that we kind of felt if we even did this like we had to find somewhere else That made everyone culpable because we caught a lot of people involved and that sort of kept everyone quiet after the fact that also made sense I know it we might’ve felt like Vietnam needed to be fired and then he try to prevent Vietnam or that he would cause a worse war and so it’s like we have to fight Vietnam or we have to figure out someway to fight Vietnam and make it less dangerous than he’s already making it because he did escalate the problems he did he escalated that mean he was he was a terrible president so we thought we have to fight you know this war now and he’s going to screw it up somehow and make it 10 times worse possibly will have another nuclear war almost and he’s a terrible person he’s raping teenagers and then he has the sad, utterly depressing man walking around, following him, who thinks he’s gay and let me tell you there are people who went to school with One possibly even a Choate, who remembered when Lem wasn’t gay.

No, they work they were guys possibly working in the Secret Service even oh, or maybe working in different positions who knew that one wasn’t gay because they knew him before he was ““ gay they knew him from grade school or they knew him from Choate before he met Jack and double down on his gay act they knew what lambs actual mannerisms were like Before he suddenly decided that he was a homosexual. This could actually be what happened so lame got this idea in his head when he was about 12 or 13 that he was almost actual, seemingly and him that would’ve meant that before then people knew what he actually sounded like when he looks like there could even been some people who knew that he used to have crushes on girls that were real not just you know that he thought he had a crush on them like he really felt something and they just could not imagine that this sweet, sensitive romantic guy who they always imagine growing up and getting married and having a family was following Jackie around like some sort of a