jac's: an election 2008 diary: working class

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

what the working class knows

According to the Christian Science Monitor, recent graduates are just starting to figure out what the working class has known all along:

"What made the transition to adulthood somewhat less bumpy 30 years ago was that we had an economy that lifted all boats," she says. "When productivity was increasing, so were wages. We don't have that today. Wages certainly aren't keeping up with the cost of things like healthcare and housing."
(emphasis mine)

The working class supports Hillary Clinton because hers is the only economic approach that will address the problems faced by Americans who have to live on wages (as opposed to those who live on capital).

The last few years have seen an awful lot of workers who earned 40 - 75K per year being forced to take jobs at minimarts. We're talking about teenagers not being able to get a job in some areas, because the wives of former factory workers have taken all the fast food jobs.

These are people who used to be counted as the comfortably middle class. Now they're poor.

There are old people who worked for decades, only to be informed at the last possible minute that their pension has been hijacked. (Where do you think the money for those CEO "golden parachutes" comes from?)

Today there is precious little history taught about how it is that we came to be an affluent, prosperous, middle class nation. It didn't just happen that way. It isn't anything inherent to America. There is nothing - absolutely nothing - in the Constitution that makes us a middle class nation. It was a hard-won fight and the gains are being challenged. The working class knows this, even if the college kids don't.

The working class knows that if you aren't part of the top ten or even five per cent, then you are not a born aristocrat, no matter how many Disney Princess toys you buy your daughter. If you live on wages (as opposed to capital), you are just as vulnerable as the guy at the Ford plant. Your wage hinges on the overall value of a rapidly globalizing workforce.

If you think it's just the factory workers, you are in for a surprise.

Right now, if you go to apply for a job, many companies force you to sign a form waiving your rights under the law - this as a precondition of employment. It's considered 'voluntary' because of course, nobody is forcing you to apply for the job.

Laws protecting us from discrimination, safety violation, or other violations, are no good, if as a precondition of employment you must waive those rights.

This fight matters to the working class in a way these college kids just don't get. This, for us (and for many of them) is a national slide into poverty that will not just leave us broke, but also powerless. Barack Obama will do nothing for us.

That, not racism, is the real reason why Hillary is so powerful with the working class.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

what would it take to catch our vote?

The Democratic party is throwing all its money on the "new coalition" - that combination of blacks, rich whites, and college students, plus all the new Libertarians and other non-social conservative Republicans they are hoping to draw in.

Meanwhile, there are a lot of alienated people being kicked out of the party by Donna "Bigfoot" Brazile. Where do we go?

I like this comment:

I agree (5.00 / 2) (#158)
by hookfan on Wed May 07, 2008 at 11:55:54 AM EST

I'm beginning to think it would be better for the white working class and older women to abandon the democratic party, become independant, and wait to see which party will do what for us to earn our vote. Loyalty is a two way street. If not, it just perpetuates an abusive relationship. We have a lot of influence if we withold our money and votes until someone earns them. I can starve and freeze and die without health care on my own without adding abuse to the mix.

What would it take to catch our vote?

If we sat back and stopped assuming we already belong to a party - one that we supposedly owe loyalty to, whether or not that loyalty is recognized (let alone rewarded) - what would we want to see before we cast a vote?

I'm going to look around and see if I can find an answer to that question.

quote, unquote

...not just party officials, but also the intelligentsia that formulates the political philosophy and the echo chamber that shouts its approval, is running a campaign on little more than class resentment against former Democratic constituencies. (White) Race is elided with (working) class to create the ultimate clash of culture – to make racist demons out of people asking to have their material interests defended.

It is no less than the mobilization of resentment of the socio-economic winners against the losers. How dare you not keep us in power, when we have done so little for you and promise to do even less?

...

The ultimate shadow of Reagan is that you don’t win by defending losers, only by securing the interests of the winners. That is the dark heart beating in the chest of the Unity Democrats. They are done with the losers.
- Anglachel

They're just not used to somebody really smart. They’re just not used to somebody who’s really well educated. They just don’t know quite how to handle it. Cause if he’s as smart as Barack is he must not be from my neighborhood.
- Joe Biden
(on why "Republicans and blogs on the far right" are 'mischaracterizing' Obama)

One of the things I really like about PUMA is that, unlike an unfortunately growing faction of the Democratic Party, there are no loyalty oaths, no uniforms to wear, no hierarchical leadership structure to pay homage to or suck up to, and no demagoguery to reflexively swallow. I’ve read and participated in many disagreements on The Confluence, esp. recently with regard to voting McCain, and never once been told ’you’re not a true PUMA!’ or had ’you’re a Republican/bitch/trailer trash/freak because you disagree!’
- commenter, Corrente

Whatever Palin’s political impact, her cultural significance is profound. For better and for worse, she introduces a new and likely long-running cultural type to the national stage—the red-state feminist.
- Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal

The vice-presidential candidacy of Sarah Palin is, in part, an effort to wrest the leadership of the feminist movement from the elite and militant left, and to put it in the hands of a silent majority of relatively traditional but ambitious women. It is a bold move to try to separate abortion from other issues generally associated with women’s rights.
- Conrad Black

I think we need to add a new term to the lexicon to sum up that prevalent bit of sexism. I'm calling it Penis Years* (not a coincidence that it echoes the term dog years.)

*Penis Years: Each year of any experience of a person with a penis is equivalent to five years of experience by someone without a penis.
- The Confluence
(alleging bias in the media's treatment of female candidates Clinton and Palin, as compared to the media's treatment of Obama)

Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman.
- Wendy Doniger, Newsweek

They believe that the Democrats are right in the same way, to the same degree, that 2 plus 2 equals 4 and the Earth revolves around the sun. They take the ‘rightness’ of liberal and Democratic views as such a given, that they are not even able to think within any other framework.

Conservatives, and I am one, understand that some people disagree with us and it’s up to us to sell our ideas and get their vote. Liberals think that their correctness is self-evident and that those who don’t agree are uninformed, stupid or evil. They should be lectured and if that doesn’t work, mocked or ignored.
- commenter, FT.com

[Democrats'] concern is real and admirable. The trouble is, they lack respect for the objects of their solicitude. Their sympathy comes mixed with disdain, and even contempt.
- Clive Crook, columnist

She added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn't already have sewn up, the white trash vote, the demographic that sullies America's name inside and outside its borders yet has such a curious appeal for the right....

...Palin was not a sure choice, not even for the stolidly Republican ladies branch of Citizens for a Tackier America. No, she isn't even female really....

...Palin has a toned-down version of the porn actress look favoured by this decade's woman, the overtreated hair, puffy lips and permanently alarmed expression. Bristol has what is known in Britain as the look of the teen mum, the "pramface." Husband Todd looks like a roughneck; Track, heading off to Iraq, appears terrified. They claim to be family obsessed while being studiously terrible at parenting. What normal father would want Levi "I'm a fuckin' redneck" Johnson prodding his daughter?

...Palin has it all, along with being vicious....
- Heather Mallick, CBC

Sarah Palin thinks she is a better American than you because she comes from a small town, and a superior human being because she isn't a journalist and never lived in Washington and likes to watch her kids play hockey.
- Michael Kinsley, TIME

...those numbers showing a 20-point swing in the support of white women have got to be in error -- unless of course, they meant to say ditzy white women, and the first adjective was omitted in error.
- commenter, TalkLeft

On the day McCain announced her selection as his running mate, Palin thanked Clinton and Ferraro for blazing her trail. A day later, Ferraro noted her shock at Palin's comment. You see, none of her peers, no one, had ever publicly thanked her in the 24 years since her historic run for the White House.
- Tammy Bruce, San Francisco Chronicle

One ''hot-button'' issue is whether a woman with young children could be a good president and still handle her domestic obligations, or would she become conflicted, so that, say, if the Russians were getting ready to launch nuclear missiles at us, and the president was supposed to get on the Hot Line, she would instead be seized by an uncontrollable maternal instinct to make a pediatrician appointment.I don't know about Palin. But I do know this: women in general are WAY better at work/home multi-tasking than -- to pick another gender at random -- men.
- Dave Barry

She was put on this earth to do two things: kill caribou and kick butt. She's all out of caribou.
- Jonah Goldberg
(enthusing over Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin)

And Hillary….I know you want to keep your job but for God’s sake woman how much abuse are you willing to take?
- Mountain Sage

There is always talk of conservatives loving to start cultural war when they are down, but I can’t say that I’ve found this any more sickening and disgusting than the liberals’ tactic of belittling and demonizing much of the population of this country. I’ve found it incredibly hard to get mad at their usual attacks on liberals when my fellow liberals attack with the same degree of ferocity, but in a different way. If they are stereotypically “cheerfully vicious”, than we are most definitely “blissfully smug”.
- commenter, Corrente

What is it about Republican Conventions that bring out America's inner police state?
- Tennessee Guerilla Women

He's a one-trick (unity) pony, whose trick has been trotted out once too often. His sole and only schtick – standing at a podium in front of huge crowds and offering himself as their mirror – is already so yesterday that nobody can even work up much energy praising it anymore. Witness the speeches at this convention. All anybody could say on his behalf is that he isn’t John McCain.
- Falstaff (on Obama)

The reason that some of us will support Palin, even though we may not agree with all of her political positions, is that she is not an illegitimate candidate. She did not steal votes from her opponent. She did not smear us with charges of racism. She actually has a lot in common with some of us (mother, businesswoman, athlete, etct). And the man that will be her boss showed us that he is at least listening and aware of our presence. He didn’t flick us off his shoulder and tell us we weren’t needed. He didn’t play the abusive boyfriend and say “where else are you gonna go babe?”.
- The Confluuence

Party bosses fixed a title fight between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. In bare knuckles Scranton where I’m from, that’s tantamount to treason. So they better watch out when I come looking for a rematch.
- Steve Corbett, talk show radio host

All those years I took pride in my party loyalty and now I realize I was just a fool, because I was telling the Democratic party and candidates they could take me for granted and ignore my wants and needs. The could pursue their own agendas without interference from me, because no matter what they did (or failed to do) they could count on my vote.

If I had been more disloyal they might have offered to pay me for my vote instead paying me no attention. Who knows what I could have got in return for my vote? I might have universal health care right now instead of my current plan which is called “don’t get sick.” We might even have “Congressional oversight” of the Bush Mob.
- Klownhaus

Nancy Pelosi said not too long ago that she supported Obama because he has the judgment to be President. This is of course, like a homeless person giving advice on how to fix the housing crisis.
- Marc Rubin

The Republicans couldn’t have come up with a better way to destroy the progressive movement from within if they’d invented him. Which maybe they did.
- Reclusive Leftist

Resolved, that 18 million Americans voted for Hillary Clinton, more than any other presidential primary candidate in history, and they have a right to help shape the agenda and processes of the Democratic Party.
- Declaration of Objections

I know that candidates usually run toward the center during the general, but, damn, they don’t usually run all the way to the opposite goal!
- commenter, Corrente

who I am

I am an alienated former Democrat, who intends to vote independent from now on.

I took down my blogroll because I don't want to belong to any communities at the moment. I think groupthink is the biggest threat there is right now.

I always did like to play devil's advocate, and I think an honest debate is worth more than a hundred "right" opinions. Two hundred if it's lively.

I'm not ashamed to place myself near the center of the political spectrum. I have little respect for people who are way out on either wing, who see nothing but their own little bubble, and hear nothing because they can't listen to anyone but themselves and their mirrors.

I am an unashamed member of the low information bitter small town gun totin' hick crowd, though I've lived in cities too.

I've been a Democrat ever since I could vote, but I'm fed up with the sneering contempt liberals have aimed at everyone outside their little gated-community world.

To me, the word elitist brings up images of Brad Pitt on ice skates, and it is exactly how I think of the Democratic party. And, no, "elitist" has nothing to do with how wealthy you are. It is merely the opposite of someone who believes in equality (or, ironically, democracy), but who believes that 'some pigs are created a little more equal than others'.

I don't pretend to be particularly well-educated; I have no fancy degrees and I've learned (the hard way) to be very cautious of assuming a fancy degree is worth jack.

I care about eradicating poverty and I care about dignity for all (even poor people, trailer trash, Southerners, and Republicans). I care about education, equal access to opportunity, FDR's Four Freedoms, minimum protections for workers, and a fair shake for anyone willing to work hard and obey the rules.

I care about an honest dialog, and the idea that everyone ought to have a voice. I care about fair and honest elections. I am angry about how manipulative the media is. I care about procedures being followed and process being respected.

Also: when I comment on other blogs - which I don't usually do ever since I noticed someone going around posting this site as his or her personal link (??) - I use this Blogger account. If the name is the same as mine, but it's not a Blogger account - it isn't me.