Mid-Western Bitterness
ut the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they 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 would be the money-quote that’s getting Barack Obama in so much trouble recently, because he called us poor mid-western heartlanders, the salt of the earth, the working poor, the middle class, all us good, decent folks that the bloody politicians are so fucking worried about during election years, he called us “bitter”.
I’m not bitter. No, really. Heh.
Let’s parse this comment for its true meaning, since our wonderful media and a shit ton of politicians would have you believe that we’ve been so dreadfully insulted. What Obama is saying here, as simply as I can put it, is that he believes that people are “bitter” (read: angry, disillusioned, disheartened, crabby, etc) because Washington D.C. has been ignoring our needs and screwing us over for at least thirty years. Further, because we’re pissed-off over this treatment, we’re picking a cause du jour to push, such as gun laws, or religion, or illegal aliens, or NAFTA, etc.
I’ve got news for you folks. Obama is right.
Let’s face it — a lot of us don’t pay attention to what’s going on out there in Political Land. I mean, we have jobs and wives and husbands and kids and bills to pay and lawns to mow, and ain’t none of it easy, and in there somewhere most of us want to squeeze a little fun. We’re busy, tired people, and if we get to watch what these elected fucktards are doing at all, then we get to watch them in thirty-second sound bites on the cable news network of our choice, and the news isn’t even telling us the whole story. So, questions of intelligence entirely aside, most of us don’t have the time or the resources to find out every little detail of what our politicians are up to, so we pick one symptom among many and mount a campaign. We cling to that campaign, because we want things to be better, we just aren’t exactly sure how to get it that way.
Take me for example. I have one full-time-plus job, and I’m hunting for a second part-time job. I’m writing a novel. I’m hanging out with my friends, playing with my dog, visiting my folks, and dealing with a divorce. I’m a busy woman, and even though I devote more time than average to finding out what these assholes are doing to me, I still can’t catch everything. What I can tell you is that for the last thirty years or so, our government has been fucking us working folks right in the ass, and you’re goddamn right I’m angry about it. I stand up and applaud Barack Obama for having the balls to point it out.
Which is exactly what he did. He did not, as our beloved media and wonderful politicians would have us believe, insult us. He was not being “elitist”. He was telling us the truth.
(Photo credit: National Clergy Council.)
April 15th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Oh, everyone knows that. But they take this opportunity to point to where he mentions guns and religion, and say that he obviously is belittling them because he’s clearly portraying those values as crutches to which people cling in the face of adversity.
I don’t believe that’s what he meant, but he really did word that part poorly. :/
JavaElemental Reply:
April 19th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Yeah, he needs to swat his speech writer for that one. And honestly, I’m not so sure that everyone does realize that’s not what Obama said. Like I said, most people don’t double check for themselves. No time.
Which, of course, means they probably aren’t reading this, either, so I guess it’s moot point.
April 16th, 2008 at 6:19 am
Guns? a crutch?
Religion? a crutch?
Hmmm, why next I suppose youre going to tell me the government are full of lying douchebags! You crazy kids these days…
JavaElemental Reply:
April 19th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Meh, not crutches so much, as just the bit that most folks have time to understand and fight over.
ja Reply:
April 24th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
yup, religion used as a crutch—when it should be a gift of wings.
sadly scared people will cling to anything, or anyone that gives them hope or comfort during hard times–hitler being a nifty example of this)–i am suprised he did not mention drugs and alcohol–use of which dramatically increases in areas of economic downturn–remembering I just spent the last year living in Flint MI, i got a crash course in observing poverty and its impact. and while everyone bickers over the connotation vs. dennotation of his words– the ISSUE he was speaking of has been largely ignored. hmmm.