quote: Who do we really think has more disdain for the American people, one who tries to address complicated issues honestly and sometimes awkwardly, or the one who is consistantly trying to fool us?
I think it is difficult trying to figure out which, if any, candidate is which in your example
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote: Which is exactly the type of urban, educated elitism that I find so irritating about progressives.
Which is exactly the kind of southern backward thinking elitism that I find so irritating about anti-intellectuals.
See? I can do it too. But the problem is that both are correct. There is an anti-intellectualism to what SenojRetep has said, which is much like the AI many others feel in this country, and from that anti-intellectualism, it is highly possible that some people believe in the things they believe in because they don't want to be told otherwise.
And then of course, there is a prejudice amongst many academics who see all of those who disagree as anti-intellectual, southern, non-progressive, and backward, and I think, thats the mistake that SenojRetep and Barack Obama have made. Each of them fit so nicely into their divisive sides, each fail to hear what the other side has said, and each has failed to understand that the manner in which they argue this debate, whether they are correct or not, makes it look like they are just another divisive intellectual or anti-intellectual.
Edit: Of course, all of this breeds anger, which is the problem that clouds the judgement of both the anti-intellectual and the intellectual, and anger is the thing that divides. Barack Obama is right when he says that anger divides and that some people vote on social issues through feelings of anger (and some anti-intellectualism/elitism)especially when they feel they are being told what to believe (nobody likes that), but SenojRetep has a point too when he tells us of the anger that exists about those elitist/intellectuals that tell them what they should and need to believe, and even more so, the anger that many of the people who vote against progressive issues maintain because they are lumped in with the stupid and ignorant.
Posts: 457 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Obama is an elitist of the left-wing type. You can't possibly disagree with him honestly. No, it must be because you're embittered or somehow warped.
And Hillary is a liar. A fairly poor one, at that.
Personally, if we're going to have a liar in the White House, I'd prefer it to be someone who isn't very good at it. That's a point in favor of Hillary.
But I'd rather have someone like Ron Paul, who won't lie, and isn't the worst of the left like Obama.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Something wrong with Cambridge, Senoj? I know it's no Lexington or Concord, but I think we can all agree that Massachusetts is better than Kansas.
Posts: 1314 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Obama is an elitist of the left-wing type. You can't possibly disagree with him honestly. No, it must be because you're embittered or somehow warped.
And Hillary is a liar. A fairly poor one, at that.
Personally, if we're going to have a liar in the White House, I'd prefer it to be someone who isn't very good at it. That's a point in favor of Hillary.
But I'd rather have someone like Ron Paul, who won't lie, and isn't the worst of the left like Obama.
Im sorry I left my gibberish dictionary at home.
IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by BlueWizard: My personal belief is that the next President should create a new Constitutional branch of government. A branch that has the same power over Congress that the IRS has over the average citizen.
That sounds like a good idea. Except:
Why only Congress? Why not over the Executive as well. God knows they can't seem to be trusted either.
It wouldn't be a Constitutional branch of government unless it's in the Constitution. Which means an amendment. Which isn't to say it it's not a good idea. The more I think about it, the more I think it's a great idea. But it would have to be an amendment to the Constitution. Maybe we here at Hatrack could put our heads together and come up with appropriate language. And then send it to our Representatives and try and get it passed.
A branch with powers like that is would be a recipe for tyranny unless there were checks and balances on it as well. I'm not backtracking on saying that it's a nifty idea, but it would definitely require there to be some weakness in it to make it safe. Maybe let the judiciary appoint and unappointed members?
Actually, I made a limited statement for simplicity. In my vision the GOA (General Accounting Office) would have police powers over all departments of government, elected and non-elected, in all matters regarding expenditures. Any branch or department of government, like the Dept of Agriculture, would be fiscally and legally held responsible for the misappropriation or misapplication of government (meaning people's) funds.
The squandering of our money, the misappropriation of our money, and the blatant waste and cronyism, is so substantial that we could come close to eliminating personal income tax if we could get it under control.
That level of corruption and maleficence is criminal in the extreme in my mind.
Yes, in a sense that money is pumped into the economy, but why should we the citizen finance people who are already rich in an attempt to keep them rich.
This is part of a self-serving artificial economy that is feeding inflation and screwing ordinary citizens big time.
quote:What's offensive to me is suggesting that small-town, working-class, gun-toting and/or religious Pennsylvanians are somehow injured by a politician's words.
Are you kidding me?
They're injured all right, but the injury is long-term and from lots more than "just words."
They've been injured from decades of neglect by political cultures in Washington and Harrisburg driven by special interests.
They're injured by a system of isolated, insulated political leadership that protects itself and the status quo above all else.
They've been harmed by a lack of political guts to fix a health-care system that works against the poor and forces middle-class families to pay more for less, while at the same time giving politicians the best coverage taxpayer money can buy.
They've been taken for granted by political parties and candidates who stay in power by - and this was the apparent gist of Obama's remarks - forcing attention and debate on issues tied to guns, religion and race (precisely because such issues resonate) rather than real problems such as health care and the economy.
I'll be interested to see if there is more of this kind of response in the days to come from columnists and letter-writers in Pennsylvania papers.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't know how it will ultimately spin. But I do know Obama was talking about the rural precincts rather than to them when he used the word "bitter".
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
I agree. I also think it was an incredibly stupid thing to say in front of that particular audience - and wouldn't have been that great in that context even if he'd worded it better.
If I was on Obama's strategy team, I'd be scheduling town hall meetings in some of those small Pennsylvania towns - today - to talk the issues out with representatives of those towns.
The tough part is how to make it a truly representative crowd - not just fervent supporters, but making sure the crowd isn't dominated by Hillary supporters who have no interest in having him come out well.
I suspect that it's something that's do-able.
And maybe his best chance to stop free-fall in Pennsylvania if the events go well.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
He's not actually experiencing free-fall in Pennsylvania, according to the few recent polls I've seen.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Tom, the national polls show him holding his own so far, but we have one poll now that was conducted in Pennsylvania April 11-13. That poll shows Clinton with a 20 point lead.
It's one poll - but it's the only one that's been conducted in Pennsylvania in the aftermath of the "bitter" fiasco.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
If Obama and his team are as adept as they've been in the past, they can probably close things up to an extent.
But, given the time to the primary, I'd be surprised if he hasn't blown a chance to really close the distance between his support and Hillary's in Pennsylvania.
It *looked* like Obama was headed from being twenty points down toward a real squeaker in the state - potentially devastating for Hillary.
At the least, he's probably lost some votes he won't get back. It's a question of how many.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't buy that 20 point number. An average of polls I've seen lately gives Clinton a 5 point lead at best. Even if this controversy was the reason, which I don't see given the public reactions, I don't think enough Democrats in PA are even paying attention to the process and watching CNN every day to the point where they'd even notice for it to have that big an effect. Most people aren't as hyperinvolved in the process as we are. Would that they were. But I await a few more polls before I make a judgement on how this has hurt him. The "Wright controversy" didn't hurt him at all in the polls. He's steadily climbed in PA ever since it came out, and in the last couple days he's gone on the offensive.
Oh, and did anyone else see the video of Clinton in a small town bar doing a shot and a beer? It was hilarious. She was being all chummy with the local small towners, whilst wearing her garish pants suit and looking like a twit. The Clinton campaign, in the face of some scrutiny over the incident, pointed to a video of Obama in a sports bar last month. He looked to be sitting quietly drinking a beer. Believe me when I say this has nothing to do with gender, as in my time I've seen far more girls pack it away than guys (and all of them better than me), but she just looked ridiculous.
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Im sorry I left my gibberish dictionary at home.
Since when does an author need to have his book with him to remember the details?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote: Which is exactly the type of urban, educated elitism that I find so irritating about progressives.
Which is exactly the kind of southern backward thinking elitism that I find so irritating about anti-intellectuals.
I agree, mostly, with what you wrote. The problem isn't intellectualism; it's elitist intellectualism. Similarly, I see a problem with elitist experientialism, espousing the idea that if you've never been hunting you can't speak about gun rights. Its the elitism (pride, if you will) that is the problem.
P.S.- You probably shouldn't automatically correlate "anti-intellectualism" with "Southern." I've met many intellectual elitists from the South and many experiential elitists from the North East.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Launchywiggin: Something wrong with Cambridge, Senoj? I know it's no Lexington or Concord, but I think we can all agree that Massachusetts is better than Kansas.
Cambridge is a nice place to visit, but, well, you know.
Honestly, I've felt very alienated living in eastern MA. I identify much more with people from NH. Heresy, I know.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
The irony is that out of McCain, Clinton and Obama, Obama is far and away the least elitist and most in touch with the average American. Why else would he have so much grass roots support? All this latest "scandal" really means is that both McCain and Clinton are grasping at any chance to erode that advantage.
The thing that most impresses me about Obama is that he doesn't treat the American people like we are morons or simpletons. Ever sense Reagan's success, US politicians have been dumbing down their message. Obama is the first serious candidate I've seen who addresses the voters like we are sensible adults who are not only able to handle discussion of difficult issues but are anxious to have leaders who will do it.
Although I still cynical, I'm hoping his optimistic view of American voters is correct. If it is, most of them will see through the rhetoric coming from his opponents and brush this one off as another non-scandal.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote: Honestly, I've felt very alienated living in eastern MA. I identify much more with people from NH. Heresy, I know.
For the record, I can relate to the alienation. I moved from the bible belt of Southwest Virginia--so it's been a big adjustment living in Cambridge.
I can ALSO agree that NH people are much more likable. I drive up to Nashua every week to sing in a chorus (even though there's about 40 in Boston). So--I'll happily join in the heresy. Posts: 1314 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:P.S.- You probably shouldn't automatically correlate "anti-intellectualism" with "Southern." I've met many intellectual elitists from the South and many experiential elitists from the North East.
How is that any different from automatically correlating "elitist intellectualism" with "urban"?
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I admit that 20% spread for Sen. Clinton over Sen. Obama in Pennsylvania is hard to believe. It makes us eagerly look forward to some other polls that are due out later this week, such as the LA Times/Bloomberg poll.
One Rasmussen poll taken after Obama's "bitter" characterization of small-town and rural PA residents says this:
"Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters nationwide disagree with Barack Obama’s statement that people in small towns 'cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.'"
In this context, the ARG poll could be credible. I suspect that as the effects of Obama's latest gaffe are processed and more poll numbers come out, the people in the Obama campaign have got to be getting really tense.
[ April 15, 2008, 01:17 AM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:"Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters nationwide disagree with Barack Obama’s statement that people in small towns 'cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.'"
This gives us a pretty good statistic: 56% of Americans are not honest with themselves. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:P.S.- You probably shouldn't automatically correlate "anti-intellectualism" with "Southern." I've met many intellectual elitists from the South and many experiential elitists from the North East.
How is that any different from automatically correlating "elitist intellectualism" with "urban"?
It's probably not; we all have our own prejudices to overcome. I used "urban" as shorthand for a set of beliefs that is certainly not specific, and only weakly correlated, to people living in urban areas. I apologize.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:"Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters nationwide disagree with Barack Obama’s statement that people in small towns 'cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.'"
This gives us a pretty good statistic: 56% of Americans are not honest with themselves.
I think the statement is ambiguous, and interpreting the results as you are is unfair.
Do you believe all people who 'cling to guns or religion or ...anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment' do so solely out of bitterness and frustration?
Do you think bitterness always plays a role, but is (at least in some cases) supplemented by more rational reasons?
Do you think that it plays a role for some people, but that others believe these things absent bitterness and frustration?
I'm just trying to determine how unfair you're being versus how deluded you are.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:"Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters nationwide disagree with Barack Obama’s statement that people in small towns 'cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.'"
This gives us a pretty good statistic: 56% of Americans are not honest with themselves.
The thing giving this story legs is the deep suspicion that Obama is less like the image he wants to project and more like Tom.
Not specifically Tom, of course, but people like him who seem to think they know why other people think the way they do, where the "why" is some obnoxious oversimplification that paints those people as either idiots or dupes.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Which is what bugs me about this particular controversy. The speech was about how those people aren't stupid. They knew that politicians weren't going to help them economically so they didn't vote based on economic issues. Instead they focused on issues close to home, and some of them became bitter and clung too hard to their religion, guns, and anti-immigrant stances because they were easier, they were cut and dried, and because politicians kept tossing them knee-jerk issues to vote on rather than address the larger issues.
He chose his words poorly. But he wasn't wrong. Some people are bitter. Some people do pay more attention to religious arguments or gun control or anti-immigration issues instead of, say, the American economy or the war in Iraq or the way the executive branch is trying to become 2/3 of the government because those are issues the people feel they can actually do something about. And those are the issues that wily politicians pitch at them to distract them.
What amuses me is that numbers may have dropped slightly for Obama but they aren't really rising for Clinton. She could have easily stepped aside and let the media tear Obama apart over this while remaining positive, but instead she chose to go on the constant offensive, accomplishing the remarkable goal of turning people off both Obama and herself at the same time. She's dragging them both down, and the only one to benefit will be McCain.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:The speech was about how those people aren't stupid. They knew that politicians weren't going to help them economically so they didn't vote based on economic issues. Instead they focused on issues close to home, and some of them became bitter and clung too hard to their religion, guns, and anti-immigrant stances because they were easier, they were cut and dried, and because politicians kept tossing them knee-jerk issues to vote on rather than address the larger issues.
I think that's almost as bad as the caricature of what he's saying. It's essentially saying that they really don't care about those issues. Even the description of "knee-jerk issues" betrays this attitude.
It's also questionable as to whether the speech really was about how those people aren't stupid, because to support that premise one has to concede that they consider the economic issues more important than the other issues if someone would just listen to them.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't care about the guns and I don't care about the immigration - I already don't see eye to eye with most republicans on those things (and I don't even know where McCain's statement comes since he was against but is having to move toward for with the nomination). I mean, those things were ugly, but the inclusion of religion is what makes Obama a hypocrite, after what we've just been through with his pastor.
It makes him a hypocrite to me, I have no idea what the effect will be on people who think he's Muslim. Yeah, there are those people, but unfortunately, they do vote. Sure people should be educated. Which reminds me, I don't know what religion McCain is or where he went to college.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
What I'm missing is why it's bad. Many people are bitter about how the promises of campaigning politicians never translate to actual economic help in many cases. People in stress do tend to become more focused on their local communities. Religious attendence, gun ownership/defense, and anti-immigration sentiment are stronger in poorer areas. You don't need numbers; drive through any city, any city, and count the number of churches in different areas per economic capita.
Maybe it's just not something that can be expressed by someone who is not presently in that situation without sounding condescending, but that just means it won't be addressed.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Religious attendence, gun ownership/defense, and anti-immigration sentiment are stronger in poorer areas.
So that provides enough evidence to say "you hold your beliefs on these unrelated issues because you're bitter"? Not because one has strong faith or believes in the rights of citizens to arm themselves?
That's where it becomes condescending, not just sounds condescending.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Bob Herbert in the NYTimes suggested that "bitter" just has the wrong connotations entirely, which is a better way of expressing what I'm saying so poorly:
quote:Are working people bitter? There’s no doubt that many are extremely bitter over the economic hand they’ve been dealt. Those who believed that America’s industrial heartland was secure and everlasting have been forced to adjust over the past several years to an extremely bitter reality. Jobs and pensions have vanished. The value of the family home is sinking. Health care is increasingly unaffordable. For many, the cost of college is out of reach.
But “bitter” has a connotation that is generally not helpful in a political campaign. Bitter suggests powerlessness and a smallness of spirit. Most people would prefer to be characterized as “angry” — a term that suggests empowerment — rather than “bitter,” with its undertone of defeat.
posted
I don't care one iota about whether he used the word "bitter" or "angry." It's the oversimplification that the bitterness/anger is what leads people to care deeply about certain issues I find problematic.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
No, because at no point has he ever said that the only reason anyone would hold those beliefs is from bitterness. At no point. Yet that's how it's being parsed.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
The problem is that even in his backpedalling, Obama continues to link guns and religion. The people on the right know that Obama and Clinton both want to regulate guns, the want to legitimize immigration, and they just see a huge disconnect between themselves and Obama on what he sees himself as an answer to.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:No, because at no point has he ever said that the only reason anyone would hold those beliefs is from bitterness. At no point. Yet that's how it's being parsed.
I didn't say "only." I also didn't say "anyone." I'm sure Obama thinks there are some people who holds those beliefs sincerely.
I don't think there has to be an "only" or an "anyone" in there for the statement to be worthy of criticism.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
[edited to clarify]I think when he says religion he means taking religion into the public square by voting on certain issues based soley on religious belief, therefore trying to legislate religion. [/edit: Sorry Dag, it's hard to make perfectly clear what I mean here -- specially when people are looking hard to see something else.]
He doesn't mean having faith, believing in religion or even letting it guide once life.
He means people who vote in such a way as to attempt to foist their religious beliefs on everyone else. He means the sorta of religion that leads people to vote against gay marriage or civil unions. That leads people to attempt to get evolution removed from schools or Intelligent Design put in.
He worded it poorly, and I think he's still wording it poorly. He may not know precisely how to word it well, but I'll bet that's what he was getting at.
posted
I don't know that he's saying it leads them to those things, Dag... I think that's just as unfair an interpretation ans Tom's.
When I read it (with a sympathetic bias), I thought, "Duh." I mean if my jobs have been going away for a couple of decades, despite the rhetoric from the government, of course I'm going to take extra comfort in those institutions I trust and cherish. Like various past-times, or like church, which they have believed in and worshipped at since they were small.
And in my experience, xenophobia is stronger in those folks affected by (illegal) immigration, and less so among the professional set. And when people talk about it (not write about it, or present it on TV) damn right they sound bitter. Which isn't surprising to me. In fact, I'd say they have good reason to feel bitter.
I think it's the presumption that people think Obama believes these people have their bitterness/anger misplaced that is the least charitable of all. After is "Race Speech", I don't think that's a fair read. I think Obama sees some bitterness, and particularly with his clarification, he was simply pointing out the difficulty he has, as who he is, in getting those folks to believe that he will do anything differently than anyone else has.
posted
That's because these people he's trying to describe kind of like the "One nation under God" thing. Obama, not so much.
If it takes a charitable read of something for you to get the meaning, chances are you shouldn't have said it.
Now I appreciate that I have had a few things come out wrong in my day, but denying it and insisting that everyone else needs to change isn't going to really help me or anyone else.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:I think when he says religion he means taking religion into the public square. He means voting on religion, trying to legislate religion.
Of the three things mentioned, only "trying to legislate religion" is problematic. So I'm not sure why that makes it any better to say that he meant three things are caused by bitterness, two of which are pretty ordinary and desirable activities.
quote:He means people who vote in such a way as to attempt to foist their religious beliefs on everyone else.
Can you point to what he said that makes you think that? Because, if that's what he said, I would have thought it would have been picked up on more vocally.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by pooka: That's because these people he's trying to describe kind of like the "One nation under God" thing. Obama, not so much.
If it takes a charitable read of something for you to get the meaning, chances are you shouldn't have said it.
Now I appreciate that I have had a few things come out wrong in my day, but denying it and insisting that everyone else needs to change isn't going to really help me or anyone else.
Then again, if we can't afford to give even this simple charity to those who appear to be speaking/acting in good faith, how poor are we as a citizenry?
If only I could gave gone back in time for the last eight years and told myself that we would soon be debating statements from a presidential candidate that was not only intellectual but controversial as well.
I'm starting to like America again Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Then again, if we can't afford to give even this simple charity to those who appear to be speaking/acting in good faith, how poor are we as a citizenry?
That's like when Mormons want people to tolerate our "intolerance." If he was trying to use "religion" as a code for "family values", shame on him. Shame on me for taking him too literally. By the coded reading, we go back to my earlier statement that he has gone negative on certain voters.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:No, because at no point has he ever said that the only reason anyone would hold those beliefs is from bitterness. At no point. Yet that's how it's being parsed.
I didn't say "only." I also didn't say "anyone." I'm sure Obama thinks there are some people who holds those beliefs sincerely.
I don't think there has to be an "only" or an "anyone" in there for the statement to be worthy of criticism.
No but you did say -
"It's the oversimplification that the bitterness/anger is what leads people to care deeply about certain issues I find problematic."
Which is a hopelessly misguided and seemingly self-serving interpretation of what Obama said. Though, you are certainly free to hold on to your opinion.
I think you are doing what people here in this group are doing to each other, and what the media is doing to Obama. Things are being taken unreasonably out of context to serve an personal agenda. In some cases that agenda is to simply manufacture news and controversy out of nothing. In other cases, it is simply because some would rather see controversy than the truth. In some cases, as in the other candidates, they twist the obvious and reasonable truth in a pathetic attempt to discredit Obama. But, in my opinion, these attempts to discredit, do not discredit Obama, but discredit the other candidates. Especially Hillary's recent attacks have made it seem as if she is desperately grasping for straws. In my mind, it is her admitting she is in the desperately weak position.
Now, let's look at what Obama said in a fair, reasonable, and unself-serving unhysterical perspective.
Hark working citizens have been screwed so often by failed self-serving economic policy that there really isn't much point in addressing that issue. The economy is controlled by the rich for the rich, and what should 'trickle down', never does. The rich get rich and the poor get screwed. Despite the polls indicating that the economy is a major issue with voters. They know they are powerless to affect it or control it.
So, rather that fight a lost cause, rather than fight a fight they can't win, those 'bitter' voters concentrate on issue they can control.
On issue of gun, religion, and immigration, regular people do feel they have some say and some power. On the first two issue, they have the Constitution backing them up. And try as they might, politicians have yet to repeal the Constitution.
So, Obama is saying that rather than fight a battle over which the rich and elite have been screwing them for decades, they chose to fight for the battles in which they know they still have some power.
They don't settle for guns and religion because they are bitter. They continue to fight for guns and religion because they know they don't have the wealth or power to influence the battle on the economy.
It's not 'bitterness' the leads them to care about these issue, they have always cared about these issue. It is bitterness over being continually economically screwed, that leads them to concentrate on battles that they feel they have some hope of winning.
In my mind, any other interpretation of Obama's words is a hopelessly misguide and self-serving interpretation. What Obama said is absolutely true and valid, unless you twist the context into some distorted perversion of the truth.
"It's the oversimplification that the bitterness/anger is what leads people to care deeply about certain issues I find problematic."
Which is a hopelessly misguided and seemingly self-serving interpretation of what Obama said. Though, you are certainly free to hold on to your opinion.
You should address this at the person to whom I was responding and who said:
quote:What I'm missing is why it's bad. Many people are bitter about how the promises of campaigning politicians never translate to actual economic help in many cases. People in stress do tend to become more focused on their local communities. Religious attendence, gun ownership/defense, and anti-immigration sentiment are stronger in poorer areas. You don't need numbers; drive through any city, any city, and count the number of churches in different areas per economic capita.
Dag, I get my impression of his meaning from the speech he gave early in the campaign called The Call to Renewal which spoke about religion and politics and their connection. I liked the text of it above. I'll quote the more pertinent points.
Actually rereading it, trying to quote small bits of Obama's speeches is bloody hard, so I suggest you just read it. That or watch it (after all he has amazing oratory talent and watching his speeches is a pleasure), I'll see if I can find a link for that.
But given what he said in that speech, I really doubt that he meant what people are accusing him of meaning: that people only believe in religion because they are poor.
posted
Steve nailed it much better than I did, without the fumbling.
However, I am curious which of my statements are not true. Note that I am not even suggesting correlation between them, just observing them.
"Many people are bitter about how the promises of campaigning politicians never translate to actual economic help in many cases." Is this true?
"People in stress do tend to become more focused on their local communities." Again, Steve spoke of the reasons for this much better than I did.
"Religious attendence, gun ownership/defense, and anti-immigration sentiment are stronger in poorer areas. You don't need numbers; drive through any city, any city, and count the number of churches in different areas per economic capita." This last, at least, is demonstratably true. The numbers of churches rise as the local income falls. I'm not sure why this is apparently insulting to religion for me to notice this.
I have not suggested that bitterness leads to religion. I have not suggested that the only reason people would turn to religion is out of bitterness. But that seems to be what you're taking offense at.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Bokonon: Which way is the coded reading? I'm not clear on what you mean, pooka.
-Bok
The "coded" reading is him saying "religion" and meaning gay marriage, school prayer, science curricula and a bunch of stuff like that (the old contract with America/family values stuff). I thought when he said religion, he meant religion, which I thought was a very awkward thing for him to discuss.
I can see where he's coming from now, but I still don't like it, and there are very few people on the right more inclined to be charitable toward Obama than me. But I guess the main worry was not offending the right, but whether he would offend people on the left. I guess by reiterating the gun thing, he's reminding the blue collar democrats that he wasn't talking about them, but the gun people.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
I know it's no Lexington or Concord, but I think we can all agree that Massachusetts is better than Kansas.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
