Who's more of an Elitist?

18 wrote: Obama Gets Honest About Small Town America's Decay, Elitists Lash out[/size]

By Jane Smiley, Huffington Post. Posted April 14, 2008.

When Barack Obama tells the truth about conditions as we know them Hillary takes the low road.

You know, I just spent seven and a half years disagreeing with the administration that has given us an unprecedented military and economic mess. I saw it coming, it came, and in some ways it was worse, and promises to get worse, than I foresaw. I the course of these seven years, I have had my patriotism questioned and demeaned fairly often. I was even put in a book, as one of a hundred people who were hurting America.

When I got into this book, my relatives worried that I would get shot by some rightwing nut, even though several of them were and are rightwing nuts themselves (and they carry guns). All this time, though, I considered myself a patriot and a loyal American because I was able to see the destruction that was being wreaked upon the nation, and in particular, upon the middle and working classes, by the Republican liars and war criminals and job outsourcers and health care destroyers and army wreckers and infrastructure ignorers and media whores and agriculture blackmailers (see this month's Vanity Fair).

So now, Barack Obama tells the truth about conditions as we know them -- that the countryside and the small towns are dying in many places in our country, and that the corporatocracy doesn't care enough to do a thing about it. He points out that immigrant-baiting, gay-baiting, gun-baiting, and religious pandering have helped to destroy those towns and that countryside, that those being destroyed have been cynically enlisted by their very own destroyers to provide the votes that help accomplish the destruction. And this is what Senator Hillary Clinton says about it: "Senator Obama's remarks were elitist and out of touch. They are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans."

From Senator Clinton's remarks, I infer that to actually see what has gone on in the US in the last 20 years is unAmerican. It doesn't matter who you are, where you were born, what you pay in taxes, what else you might have contributed to the culture, how you vote, who you support. If you don't support fundamentalist religion, job outsourcing, and free access to guns, then you are not even American.

I cannot believe how angry this makes me. I cannot believe that after the last seven and a half years, I can even get this angry. Yes, I know she is pandering to her audience. Yes, I know she will do anything to get elected. Yes, I know that she and Bill Clinton are corrupt to the core, and that I should have never expected anything better of her.

But, please, any of you angry white women who still support this craven shill, don't mention it to me. Do me the following favor -- apologize to your children for not stopping the war that Hillary voted for, the war that is going to impoverish them. Then apologize to them for the effects of global warming that are going to make their lives hell. Then apologize to them for the school shooting they may someday see, the one where the kid gets the guns out of his father's gun case, or buys at a gunshow. Apologize to them for the meaningless wars they are going to fight and pay for. Then tell them that "American values" killed their hopes and maybe killed them. And ask them if they think it's going to be worth it.


Jane Smiley is a novelist and essayist. Her novel A Thousand Acres won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992.

Subject: Re: Who's more of an Elitist?

Livetotravel wrote: John McCain? Who has a net worth of over $40 million. The bulk of his wealth comes from his wife Cindy who is chairman of Hensley & Co., the Anheuser-Busch beer distribution business she inherited from her father. She is an only child and is in charge of the family trusts that are worth millions.

Hillary Clinton? Who, along w/Bubba, earned $20.4 million last year - $15 million coming from Bubba's partnership with his friend, supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, and his Yucaipa companies. Burkle and his firms invested heavily in Dubai. Their net worth is somewher close to $25 million.

Or, Barack Obama - with a net worth of around $2 million coming mainly from his book deals.

Um, the clintons have a net worth of over 100 million since 2000. Give Barry time, he's a lot younger and wait till more Rezko info comes out.

daver wrote: I can't do it right now because I'm on my elitist internet cell phone and not at work, but somebody ought to post Obama's quote from SF. I'm not saying the Huffington article is necessarily *wrong*, but it is interesting that they included Hillary's direct quotes, but for Obama rather than including the direct quote, they providing an interpretation of what they thought he intended to say.

Interesting, that.

in total agreement. if I weren't stuck at work watching shit un-rar and dodging a really aggressive associate, I'd track down the quote myself. actually, I just ran some google news searches and have found tons of posts slamming the clintons and/or b.s. from the right wing conspiracy but can't seem to find the quote? how dumb is that? I guess I'll freak out about guns and race.

Here it is, and in context! Which was more difficult to find than I thought:

So, it depends on where you are, but I think it's fair to say that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the places where people feel most cynical about government. The people are mis-appre...I think they're misunderstanding why the demographics in our, in this contest have broken out as they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to 'white working-class don't wanna work -- don't wanna vote for the black guy.' That's...there were intimations of that in an article in the Sunday New York Times today - kind of implies that it's sort of a race thing.

Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter).

But -- so the questions you're most likely to get about me, 'Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What's the concrete thing?' What they wanna hear is -- so, we'll give you talking points about what we're proposing -- close tax loopholes, roll back, you know, the tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama's gonna give tax breaks to middle-class folks and we're gonna provide health care for every American. So we'll go down a series of talking points.

But 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.

http://www.brutallyhonest.org/brutally_honest/2008/04/projection-hypo.html

And since Newt Gingrich hasn't had the decently to go gently into the dark night yet, here is his response:

If you go to the most expensive private school in Hawaii and then move on to Columbia University and Harvard Law School, you may not understand normal Americans. Their beliefs are so alien to your leftwing viewpoint that you have to seek some psychological explanation for what seem to be weird ideas.

They can't really believe in the right to bear arms.

They can't really believe in traditional marriage.

They can't really believe in their faith in God.

They can't really want to enforce the law on immigration.

Therefore, they must be "bitter" and "frustrated."

This is the closest Senator Obama has come to openly sharing his wife's view that "America is a mean country". Not since Governor Dukakis have we seen anyone so out of touch with normal Americans. It makes perfect sense that it was in a fundraiser in San Francisco that he would have shared the views he has so carefully kept hidden for the entire campaign.

http://newt.org/tabid/193/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/3321/The-real-Obama-shows-up-in-San-Francisco.aspx

As much as I dislike ole Newt, the thrust of what he is saying is what bugs me about what Obama said. And further, we see it all the time on this board. It is the elimination of having a meaningful dialog on a topic (any topic) by characterizing the opposing view as simply bitter. Or misguided. Or too white. Too black. Too urban. Too midwestern. Too newbie. Too old school. Whatever.

If you are anti-immigration then you are frustrated and your anti-immigration stance is simply an expression of that frustration. *shrug* I'm actually not religious, pro-gun, anti-immigration, anti-trade (qualified), so it isn't a personal thing.

Was the comment as said elitist? I say yes. It was. I don't think it was his intention to put down the religious, or pro-gun, anti-immigrant or whatever. But that is certainly how it came across. *shrug*

Do I think that he is an elitist? To some degree. Probably a lesser degree than many others in his position, so...

Lastly, I agree that while wealth can go hand in hand with elitism, it can't be said to be any measure of it. The more money you have, the more elitist you are? I'm not buying it.

There are elitists and there are elitists. And then there are "l33tists" -- but, that kind of proves my point, that ultimately you've got a lot of different people pointing fingers at each other and saying "You're not like us, so we're better than you" for all different reasons.

And, as I saw someone say elsewhere in the Internet, if you think about it, EVERYONE in Congress is a comparative elitist -- it's not like there's ever been any Congressman who had to miss a vote because he couldn't get anyone to cover his double shift at White Castle.

Wow, how unusual! A video I can actually see through my work filters!

Funny, he's a comedian so I wouldn't expect any different. Three minutes on how Obama was taken out of context and whatnot (you can view context above.) Four minutes spent _taking_ Hillary out of context, not that she doesn't deserve it. And then a final couple minutes explaining why it is OK to be elitist, working both sides of the game and reversing course on the first three minutes. *shrug*

Not a lot of good info, just your basic cheerleader for Obama, it would appear to me. Not that there is anything wrong with that, Hillary and McCain certainly have stables full of cheerleaders as well.

Now's the time to slip this article about Tony Blair-----er, Barack Obama (a truly eloquence speaker, who has not been discoverer, yet)............


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/opinion/14kristol.html?th&emc=th

Yet another article.

Last week in Terre Haute, Ind., Mr. Obama explained that the people he had in mind “don’t vote on economic issues, because they don’t expect anybody’s going to help them.” He added: “So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. And they take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don’t believe they can count on Washington.”

This is a remarkably detailed and vivid account of the political sociology of the American electorate. What is even more remarkable is that it is wrong on virtually every count.

Small-town people of modest means and limited education are not fixated on cultural issues. Rather, it is affluent, college-educated people living in cities and suburbs who are most exercised by guns and religion. In contemporary American politics, social issues are the opiate of the elites.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/opinion/17bartels.htm

jeffrey wrote: First, no one cares about this issue other than those looking to smear a candidate. It's not just me saying this, it's the aggregate opinion of the entire measurable, projectable universe of US adults.

And this is why there is a lack of meaningful dialog. Either you think this is a meaningless issue, or you are out to smear Obama.

Or you are outside the universe of US adults.

Le sigh.

daver wrote: [quote=jeffrey]First, no one cares about this issue other than those looking to smear a candidate. It's not just me saying this, it's the aggregate opinion of the entire measurable, projectable universe of US adults.

And this is why there is a lack of meaningful dialog. Either you think this is a meaningless issue, or you are out to smear Obama.

Or you are outside the universe of US adults.

Le sigh.

exactly. the issue isn't that clinton is running a smear campaign and that obama misspoke, the issue is that he misspoke and said something that I really think is disgusting. if clinton is forced to woman-up to all the b.s. she's said, which she does regularly, he should own up to the fact that he's dumbing down middle america. and if middle america is willing to put up with it, that's a whole other issue.

a great quote from the article I posted a few days ago:

Perhaps it is thanks to the admitted cool factor that among educated liberal voters, the assumption is that you're for Obama, that he is the more "progressive" choice. Obama loyalty, like white masculinity itself, has become normative -– if you're not for him, you'd best be prepared to explain your deviation.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/04/14/obama_supporters/print.html

(response to alaf)

And yet my mention of the public opinion all the large 3rd party independent polls is somehow dismissed as Obamania kool-aid on my part?

At the heart of the claim being made is that this is a huge disconnect and offense toward the broad public.

f someone mentions that all major polls of broad public opinion happen to indicate otherwise, and that person is dismissed as some sort of candidate-partisan zealot, isn't the reverse the case? That anyone with a valid argument that favors Obama, and is critical of Clinton, is dismissed as either anti-feminist or utterly, mindlessly and unreasonably drunk on the bromide of the opposing candidate?

So...with the other article entering the conversation here, I see two issues, which appear to be the:

1) Can a person refer to actual 3rd-part independent sources of what the broad public is really thinking...

and

2) Can a person honestly express distrust of Clinton and the Clinton campaign due to actual statements and actions...

...without being immediately dismissed and/or attacked as either against women in general or a mindless candidate-obsessed zealot?

At what point are actual statements, issues, policy and research allowed in to the discussion for the merits of actual substantive conversation, without regard for whether some element or another is inconvenient for some?

My 3 cents (adjusted for the current inflation):

Did Obama put his foot in it? Yeah, I'm starting to think so.

Did Hillary put her foot in it when she spoke of dodging sniper fire in Bosnia? Yeah, I think so.

Do I think either one is more or less "elistist" or "in touch with the common man"? I honestly couldn't give a shit, because that's not the kind of thing I look for in my leaders. All that stuff about bowling and kissing babies and eating bratwurst and whatever smacks of pandering and popularity contests, and that's not what I'm looking at. I realize that it's a necessary evil, but it's one I really hate. (Hey, there's a reason I liked Dodd, and that reason I liked him is also the very same reason why he got nowhere in the polls.)

But the big thing is: do I think any of this is an indicator of whether one or the other is ultimately going to win or lose in the primary?

It is way, way too soon to tell.

The Democratic national convention isn't until the end of August. That's four months away. As my politico-geek friends remind me, four months is an EON in politics. A LOT can happen in four months -- any one of the candidates could get embroiled in a scandal, make a public policy coup, suffer a family death, contract a terminal illness, run over a Girl Scout with their campaign bus, decide to join a religious order, or any one of a number of things that could affect the outcome of the campaign in an unpredictabe, unforseen way. If we were having this conversation in July, that'd be one thing -- but it's only April, and who the hell knows what's going to happen this summer.

So I'm continuing to just watch and observe, and not pick sides. The story is still unfolding. For all we know, Hillary could get abducted by Trafalmagorans and Chelsea could decide to run in her place, and will win the nomination on the "such a brave young woman to be stepping in at a time of personal crisis out of tribute to her mother's name" vote.

jeffrey wrote: [quote=alafairnadia]exactly. the issue isn't that clinton is running a smear campaign and that obama misspoke, the issue is that he misspoke and said something that I really think is disgusting. if clinton is forced to woman-up to all the b.s. she's said, which she does regularly, he should own up to the fact that he's dumbing down middle america. and if middle america is willing to put up with it, that's a whole other issue.

Regarding the integrity of Obama's statements versus those of Clinton, the difference I see is one of context. [Admittedly, perhaps with some exceptions that don't come to mind at the moment] Obama is being criticized for statements in spite of the context of his faith, love of country, experience as community organizer, Constitutional Law professor, elected legislature experience and actions, etc.

Clinton is being criticized for the very context of her statements and actions, for how they conflict with other accounts of these matters and her own prior statements and actions.

I do not see these have anything to do with her as a woman, or inference that if you disagree you must be a racist.

I am looking merely at what was said and done in any instance, and what the larger context of that issue is and how things match up regarding the last few decades of what these candidates have done with themselves.

Again, that's just me. Everyone has their own criteria.

hear you on this point, as well. however, and I guess this is just my own criteria coming forth, I appreciate the fact that even when clinton is lying through her teeth (dodging sniper fire) she's making definitive statements. because in terms of fixing what's wrong with this country, she's made a lot of definitive statements and has stated a lot of policy that she'd like to have implemented - a health care plan, for instance, that covers anyone who needs health care, not just little kids. she articulates a problem and then follows through with articulating a solution. what I read with obama's stuff is a lot of froth and statements "open to interpretation". unfortunately, for someone like me, who doesn't feel like reading between the lines and wants to actually know wtf he's going to do (how, exactly, is he going to end the war the day he takes office?), I get "people are bitter so they're focused on guns and race and religion" or whatever he said. uh. lame.

and I think it's lame that america is okay with that. but, again, I'm obviously not in the majority and can totally understand where folks are coming from who disagree with me. amusingly, I'm bitter about all of this crap and guess what I'm focused on? the fucked up economy, the soliders buying it, and health care so I can quit my job already. yep. I'm focused on the chaff.

Make no mistake about it, these are two people who seriously give a damn about all this, and have considerable resources to do something about the sore state of affairs here.

We are down in the weeds with all this (for what would compare 'n contrast be otherwise), but zooming 100 (or heck, 10,000 feet out), the two are both roughly, reasonably similarly suited to take the helm of fixing what has been a horribly misguided, damaged and neglected ship of state thus far.

Even at 10,000 feet out, the present administration (and those that would extend the gaze and policy of it, and/or now whee FauxNews! those that would revise out any fault of it and decry all others as unpatriotic motherland-haters) are still not even in the picture.

They both have different occasional afflictions regarding how and what they say from time to time, and folks weigh accordingly according to what matters most to them.

For the record about his statement, yes he did f*ck this one up, as we expect and people are counting on their candidates not to provide any opening whatsoever. I have no doubt (as with anything) that it did certainly piss some folks off, and I also have little doubt that many out there [fair disclosure: especially on the Repug side] are making it their job to make more people pissed about it, whether they actually initially felt that way on their own or not.

I remain unconvinced that his policy suffers from lack of specificity or overall merits, as he happens to have some of the most highly-regarded U. of Chicago quant, econ and public policy folks working with him to create plans that seek the most efficient, equitable, sustainable results untethered by the burdens of outdated methods (not a Clinton reference at all, more a reflection about the current rut we're in due to inertia and other powerful special interest influences).

This may be a completely unsubstantiated point, but the fact that Hillary has drawn so many of her advisors from her husband's team has me wondering if there will be any inertia issues, where people tend to stick to prior positions for personal reasons, perhaps at the silent expense of consideration of radically new approaches that may be warranted by recent development. This concern of mine goes for public policy as well as foreign policy. But, as I said, perhaps there is less to be concerned of there, certainly when the context of Republicans' positions are thrown in.

***edited to add: Regarding the differing health plans of the two candidates, on a certain level it all comes down to differing sets of projections for how reality and externalities factor in, and therefore which plan provides the greatest opportunity for greatest success along several criteria. On that level, it all comes down to whose projections you trust more (for it is relative and an art in the end, as the science can only take you so far into navigating irrational externalities), and this seems to be where the chips fall to one side or the other. Again, wholly a personal thing, given that it hinges on different views of predicting irrational behavior.***

Regarding the war and the pace of withdrawal, I view both candidates as making statements to tread water right now until they have the chance to view actual matters in office and devise the best plan. Both want troops out asap, and to stop the excessive bloodletting (on many levels) and move forward to reclaiming those resources toward better use. I have confidence that what both say now lacks the benefit of what they will know once either is in office and taking this up on best intelligence.

I appreciate the folks who focus on all aspects of the important stuff like the economy, our soldiers, health care, education, international standing and policy, constructive immigration policy etc. Those are the criticisms and comments (from any side) that I ponder and weigh internally and foolishly wish there were more of, as opposed to all the other floparazzi (ooh, did I just coin a new one? ) crap.

But again, we're debating specifics here because that's the party nomination process, but zooming out to the bigger picture, I would hope that all folks here consider the vast difference between either of these two and 4 more years of current administration policy and "priorities."