Some thoughts on Bitterness, and the disbelief I've seen here.

[nemo137]

It's true. Bad times breed racism. Jobs going offshore, or seeming to go off shore, breeds racism against Indians. A friend of mine suggested the other day that Indian, not bitch, is the new Black. The perceived influx of Mexicans taking our jobs breeds racism and contempt against Mexicans. People I know who used to use blacks as the butt of jokes now use Mexicans. Think about those two ads during the Superbowl - the one with the terribly stereotyped Indian business and the pidgin-speaking pandas. You think those would have aired if times weren't bad, and public perception wasn't that those two were to blame?

Another example: I go to the University of Illinois, one of the greatest engineering schools in the country. Sadly, I'm a history major, so I get to claim nothing for myself. Most of my high school friends here, however, are engineers of various types. There's a good deal of resentment there against Indians and Chinese. We're from a failed industrial town in Northern Illinois. My friends, mostly children of engineers, not factory workers, are wondering how long Sundstrand is going to be open, because the engineering jobs are going to India and the manufacturing jobs are going to China.

Bad times do breed racism. It goes straight up from the laid-off workers to the formerly-secure professionals.

Suggesting that this shit doesn't happen is what I'd expect from either a "color blind" RW'er or someone who lives in Barrington or one of the other rich exurbs.

Yes, working class people tend to be religious anyway, but when you're out of work, when you're feeling hopeless, the Church is there. They have cheap or free dinners, they have people you've known all your life, who share the same concerns. The promise of "the meek shall inherit the Earth" or "it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than to inherit the kingdom of God" is comforting. Blaming hard times on our immoral country is comforting. The prosperity gospel, as poisonous as you and I and thousands of Americans secular and religious, is comforting. It's what communists mean when they say "opiate of the masses." It's not going to set you're broken leg, but it'll keep you from screaming in Pain.

Guns, if you're rural, are a tool, and when you're looking at cutting costs, having meat in the freezer is a good thing. You're probably not going to hump them, but you're going to be more glad of them in hard times than in easy ones.

If you're urban or inner-suburban, and you watch the news, you're combining constant shock reporting with already existing fears of insecurity and lack of control, and having a gun makes you feel that much safer, that much more in control. Still, you're not likely to hump it, but you'll be glad you have it.

So, before you snark about how Obama insulted small-town, Rust Belt voters, think about this. Think about how he said it in a room of San Francisco liberals. They needed to know, so do you.

[rug]

1. I'm a little short. Will you take $23?

[nemo137]

2. I'm working pro-bono tonight, but thanks.

n/t

[rug]

4. Good post, I disagree with some of it, but good post.

[housewolf]

3. I've read several reports from people who were there and they say the room was not filled with rich

people. Check your facts on the $2300 donation requirement. While it was a fund-raiser, I don't think that amount was required in order to attend.

[nemo137]

6. Thanks, friend.

I can't support it, so I'll edit it. My point about it being in San Francisco, among people who are generally not in daily contact with life in the Rust Belt, still stands, I'd hope.

[grantcart]

5. He wasn't lecturing these folks about it

somebody was going to spend a couple of weeks in PA for their vacation working for him. They wanted to know what kinds of reactions they were likely to encounter.

[nemo137]

7. Thank you.

I shouldn't have tacked on the sanctimonious ending.

[grantcart]

9. No that wan't my point.

My point was that he was asked because he was motivating people to actually do more than act like a traditional liberal and pay to ease your conscience, he was answering people who were actually motivated to give up their time and go to another part of the country and beyond that ask about what they might be encountering. He is motivating people to do things that they have never done before.

[nemo137]

11. and he was being honest.

It's a rare and wonderful thing.

[papau]

8. People are religious, hunt, are against illegal immigration because they're bitter?

[nemo137]

10. No

But trying to claim that bad economic times don't make racism worse, the insecurity doesn't make the church more attractive, and that times like these don't make people more glad that they have guns is almost willfully ignorant.

[stillcool]

19. People who choose to vote...

because they are fearful of 'liberals' taking away their guns, or will not overturn Roe v Wade because of their religious beliefs, or think that immigration is the reason why they lost their job...are filled with fear, anger, and bitterness...much of it spoon fed to them from the cradle.

[beltanefauve]

12. Well written !

Would you consider submitting it to a newspaper? It does a lot in the way of explanation.

[quakerboy]

13. Thank you

Well reasoned and well written.

[MagickMuffin]

14. In case you missed this thread, I think you should take the time to read it

It is very well written by sfexpat2000, she explains in it that San Francisco isn't any different than any other city or small town in America. We are ALL struggling all across this country. It's always been true that the "white race" has held on to racist tendencies when they think their jobs are being taken from them by the "black race", the "brown race" or the "yellow race", even though most of the jobs in the past are jobs the "whites" wouldn't want anyway.

I grew up around this kind of racist nonsense. It appears it will always be with us. I would have hoped we could have evolved beyond this sort of trap, but when times are hard sometimes that is all there is, blame the people who take our jobs away. We never seem to place the blame where it truly belongs, which is the Corporations who will sell out to the lowest bidder. All the while they can increase their salaries, bonuses, platinum parachutes for their retirements.

When outsourcing became so popular, who do you think it benefitted. The CEO's and the broad of directors. With every worker they laid off, they took their pay checks and added it to their salaries.

We should ALL be bitter at the Corporations for selling us out. And the politicians who helped let it happen.


Now please go read this thread. I'm certain you will agree with sfexpat2000.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5517464

edit to change a word

[nemo137]

16. Thank you, I read it earlier.

I get the sense that times are hard all over, and I don't particularly want to make any special pleading for my region, but there seems to be either false outrage or outright disbelief from some (not all, I'm not saying that) Hillary supporters over Obama, a Midwestern senator, saying things that are patently true on the ground. After about the third thread saying "OMG! Barack Hussein Obama called Midwesterners and Rust Belters racists! How could he say such a thing?" my patience ran a little thin.

[2rth2pwr]

15. You are still on rationale #2, when everyone else is on 3

Let's see:

1) He could not possibly have intended something so offensive and absurd.

2) But he's 100% right about that offensive and absurd characterization.

currently according to Bob Hebert of the NY Times-

3) He can't be held responsible for his offensive and absurd characterization, because he misspoke; he actually intended something more insulting.

There is no mystery here. Except for people who have been hiding in caves or living in denial, it’s pretty widely understood that a substantial number of those voters — in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and elsewhere — will not vote for a black candidate for president.
...
Senator Obama has spent his campaign trying to dodge the race issue, which in America is like trying to dodge the wind. So when he fielded the question in San Francisco, he didn’t say: “A lot of folks are not with me because I’m black — but I’m trying to make my case and bring as many around as I can.”

Instead, he fell back on a tortured response that was demonstrably incorrect. Referring to the long-term economic distress of many working-class voters, Mr. Obama said: “It’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or antitrade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/opinion/15herbert.html?ref=opinion

Bob Herbert: Don't Blame Obama For Calling Pennsylvanians "Bitter;" He Only Meant To Say They Were Unenlightened and Hopelessly Racist

Don't forget that in addition to the HuffPo-reported remarks, he actually did say (paraphrase) "these people don't believe the message when it's coming from a 46-year-old black guy named Barack Obama," to which the billionaires laughed appreciatively. So when Herbert says Obama couldn't come right out and say they're racist, well, he did.

[nemo137]

18. I'm sticking with it because it matches what's going on here.

Bitter wasn't he politic word, but it was the right one.

[cornermouse]

17. If you're rural...

you probably have some chickens, or rabbits, or pigs, or cows. You don't need a gun for those. You know nothing about what people in rural areas are like. No one is denying that there is anger. Bitterness is not correct and even if it was is a remarkably stupid thing for a politician to say while running of office.

[Adelante]

20. Thank you

Very interesting post. I'm originally from NYC. Although white working class, I never had exposure to guns and not much to religion, either. I was strictly anti-gun always, but have come to have a better understanding from DU discussion of these things over the years. There is something to what you say about people in other regions, where cultural mores and experience are different, learning about what it takes to live someplace in particular. I think this has been one of the most ridiculous, at the same time cynical, of political brouhaha's. In order for Obama to have been wrong, both in what he said and where he said it, it is necessary to take his words out of context and then twist the sense of them out of recognition.