"WHITES Only" Can Kill A Mockingbird [View All]

[FrenchieCat]

"they're gonna pull in the next election is the same old scam they've been pulling on us for decade after decade after decade.When their economic policies fail, when the country's coming apart rather than coming together, what do they do? They find the most economically insecure white men and scare the living daylights out of them. "-- BILL CLINTON
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/13/bill-clinton-flashback-al_n_96433.html

As far as I am concerned, this is the only explanation for the "Indignation" against Obama for his temerity to have made statements regarding the very familiar Wedge issues that keeps rural Americans voting Republican. There has been books written on this subject, and we have all witnessed Republicans boldly use these wedge issues, and we have seen Democrats ponder about the fact that these voters tend to vote against their best economic interest. In fact, this has been an issue explored for the last couple of decades. There is no mistery here in what Obama said, and it has long been stated publicly and privately by public figures. The fact that he may have used inartful words, does not merit the type of reaction by both the media and the Hillary campaign and supporters that it is getting.

"The natural base of the Democratic Party, working-class folks, looked at both parties and saw they weren't going to get any more help on economic issues. The one place they thought they could make a difference was on these divisive social issues, so that's how they've been voting." - Jim Webb
http://www.alternet.org/story/42726/?page=entire

Apparently, what we are finding out via this election season is that only certain White People are allowed to analyze the voting patterns of White Middle America, and how Wedge issues affect their decisions. I have located quotes from Jim Webb, Bill Clinton, Howard Dean, John Edwards, and other notables making similar comments without the same kind of vitriol and indignation that seems to have been reserved for Barack Obama. Lou Dobbs does it nearly every day on his show.

Dean had told a DNC meeting that white folks "who drive pickup trucks with Confederate flag decals in the back ought to be voting with us." Maynard Jackson praised his words as "very gutsy," while New Orleans native Donna Brazile called Dean's comments "the medicine to cure my depression."

Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., whose father's 1988 presidential campaign had some success building a biracial coalition around economic populism in the South and Midwest, was one of several black Congressional leaders to endorse Dean soon after the "flag flap" erupted. Jackson praised Dean for moving past the Democrats' "stereotypical and condescending approach of appealing to whites in the South with a 'balanced ticket' and 'social conservatism.' Dean dares a new approach--to join whites and blacks around a common economic agenda of good schools and healthcare."

But Dean's approach--both in his campaign and with his new "fifty-state strategy" for the DNC--was hardly a hit with white national party leaders, who complained bitterly about the expense of hiring Democratic organizers, in the words of ex-Clinton adviser Paul Begala, to "wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose."http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070212/moser/4

And North Carolina Sen. John Edwards cleverly exploited regional pride by telling Dean, “the last thing we need in the South is somebody like you coming down and telling us what we need to do.” Dean’s flag image was “condescending,” he said.

Dean was forced to say, “I do not condone the use of the flag of the Confederate States of America” and to add that “I regret the pain that I may have caused” to blacks or whites.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3403684

David 'Mudcat' Saunders stated these kind of utterances on a daily basis :

"It's very simple. I am much, much more a rural advocate than I am a Democrat. And I'm plum fed up with the way rural America—56 million of us—have been screwed. What deregulation and these trade treaties, what corporate pirates have done to us is unconscionable."
http://www.mensvogue.com/business/politics/interviews/articles/2007/06/david_mudcat_saunders

"I thought that we were getting screwed in the southern Appalachians, with our loss of textiles and furniture jobs. You know, with these ridiculous trade treaties. But as I look at rural Iowa, I've never seen people screwed like these people have been screwed out here.....Think of a guy whose farm has just been foreclosed on and he's lost his health insurance and his wife's lost her job. He's sick, and both his kids have left home because they couldn't find a job.

Now you ask him if he's living in poverty, and he'll say 'hell, no, you know, I'm having some rough times, but I'm not living in poverty.' But you ask him if he's getting screwed, he's gonna say, 'hell, yeah.' Basically what we're gonna tell them is the truth. Those people that've been screwing you, we're gonna screw them."--David "Mudcat" Saunders -
http://smokyhollow.blogspot.com/2007/08/mudcat-saunders-john-edwards-is-plum.html

I know for a fact that Pollsters are allowed to determine via stereotypes that Hispanics will not vote for Black candidates because of Black/Brown conflicts. That didn't seem to enrage the Hispanic community, nor was the Black community up in arms about it.

"the Hispanic voter - and I want to say this very carefully - has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates."--Clinton campaign Pollster, Sergio Bendixen
http://www.digg.com/2008_us_elections/Clinton_at_Root_of_Racist_Stereotyping_Hispanics_vs_Blacks

But was Bendixen's blanket statement true?

"Far from it, and the evidence is overwhelming enough to make you wonder why in the world the Clinton campaign would want to portray Hispanic voters as too unrelentingly racist to vote for Barack Obama."
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=713782


I wrote about this phenonemon here: http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_frenchie_080413__22bitter_22_double_stan.htm

I received an email from a reader from Tennessee who stated that ......

I believe that there is, as you pointed out, a racial aspect to the Clinton/McCain outrage. It reminds me of the trial in "To Kill a Mockingbird," where Atticus states that Tom Robinson's real crime is that he had the temerity to feel sorry for a white woman. Poor whites, as exemplified by Bob Ewell, find Tom Robinson's compassion demeaning. Within that context, I find the outrage expressed by Hillary Clinton and John McCain is derived from the fact that Barack Obama, a black man, had the temerity to express compassion for small town, white Pennsylvanians who have seen their towns decay and their jobs vanish. I believe that McCain's campaign even stated that Obama was "arrogant!" The arrogant black man! Both Clinton and McCain are really saying that it's demeaning to small town whites when a black man expresses understanding and compassion for their life condition.

I am a 64-year-old white woman from a small town who is offended and outraged by the Clinton/McCain reaction. I find it elitist, racist, and hypocritical.