Poor, White and Pissed

[NoPasaran]

I don't agree with everything written in this article, but I think it's worth taking some time to read it.

If you are reading this it is very likely that you are a liberal, maybe even an outright screaming burn down the goddam country commie --in which case I say, “Come sit by me comrade! (Especially if you are a blonde.) Like most lefties you probably live in an urban area, or someplace with reasonable cultural diversity. More than likely you are educated and can read this without moving your lips. Maybe you even live in the freethinking People’s Republic of Berkeley, or bustle along under the fabled lights of Manhattan where you can see independent films and buy such things as leeks and soy milk at your grocery store.



I, however, live in a town where it is easier to find chitterlings, ponhaus and souse in the grocery store than a leek … and where Smokey and the Bandit still plays to packed movie houses year after year. My hometown’s claim to fame is the 1983 “Rhinehart Tire Fire” in which some five million discarded tires burned for nine months, gaining Winchester, Virginia national news coverage and EPA superfund cleanup status. The smoke plume was visible in satellite earth photos, the cleanup took 18 years and the fire stands as my hometown’s biggest event of the Twentieth Century. As for intellectual life, this is a town where damned few residents ever heard of, say, Susan Sontag. Even though our local newspaper editor did manage a post mortem editorial on Sontag, which basically said: Goodbye you piece of New York Jewish commie shit!, most people reading the paper at their breakfast tables around town were asking themselves, “Who the hell is Susan Sontag?” They would ask the same thing about Daniel Barenboim or Hunter S. Thompson because those figures have never been on Oprah. Our general ambience was well summed up by a visiting Atlanta lawyer who looked around town and observed: “Dumb lordee I reckon!” This from a guy who’s seen a lot of dumb crackers. Laugh if you want, but this is the red state American heartland everybody is talking about these days.



Is it possible for a higher class of person to live in American places like Winchester, Virginia? Not really. Only the local old family business elite and well-paid plant managers transferred here find such a place livable -- the former for their social status and the latter in the safe knowledge they will be transferred out someday.

Most of the rest of us stuck in Winchester are what used to be called the traditional working class. These days, when we are called anything at all, it is White Trash. Poor working whites, people with only a high school diploma, if that. Nationally we at least number a quarter of white U.S. workers, thirty five million in all by the government’s own shaved-down numbers. Nobody knows for sure in a nation that calls millions of $7-an-hour janitors and marginal people working “contract labor”, with no insurance or benefits, “independent businesspersons” and “entrepreneurs”. Small independent business people are, we are told, “the backbone of America’s economy.” If that is true, then it’s a sorry assed thing because we are talking here about citizens who bring down maybe 25-30K a year before taxes. With both spouses working. I told my freelance janitor friend Gator that he was the backbone of the American economy; he said he felt more like its asshole.


quite a bit more at http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb05/Bageant0218.htm

[kwassa]

1. Move away

[kwassa]

3. actually, Winchester will soon be a DC exurb, not a true backwater

People are moving further and further out.

New home developments are listing house in the $352,990 to $444,975 range.

[Warpy]

5. That doesn't work, something most yuppie types would know

if they weren't blind to the people around them who pretty much support every damn breath they take all their lives, from the people who set the cows up to be milked for that morning shot in the cup of coffee to the people who wrap those steaks in the supermarket so they don't have to think about what meat comes from, to the people who make all that packaged microwave food they live on to the people who drive trucks to get it to them.

Honestly, that post exemplifies the kind of arrogance and cultural blindness that has cost the Democratic Party all three branches of government.

Ignoring how badly the working class in this country has been shafted over the past 30 years and concentrating on the yuppie vote has been the most serious blunder any party in the history of this country has ever made.

It's not something you can move away from, either. You take it with you wherever you go.

[NoPasaran]

8. Thank you!

There was a time when the Democratic Party was the party of these people but one way or another we've lost them over the last three decades, either to the Republicans or to simple apathy. And certainly calling them idiots is not the first step to winning them back.

[ultraist]

10. I agree that just moving doesn't "take it away"

People are products of their culture. It's fairly easy to recognize from what class one was raised in, after speaking with someone for just a few minutes. Language, mannerisms, interests, etc "class" people. Few break away from their cultural stigmas. But this writer is not limited by redneck language, his writing is fairly sophisticated. He is a poser. (He also said his income is 30k a year, that's not poverty).

Regardless, the fact is, this "liberal elite" argument is bogus. Liberals are not elitists. Liberals believe in College grant money, tech school grant money, and other programs that open the door to opportunity for the poor as well as social programs that sustain the poor.

I thought his essay was a weak commentary on classism.

[Clark2008]

26. Another valid point would be that you CAN'T move away

Who can afford to move on $7 a hour?
Even if you did it yourself, there's truck rental, first and last month's rent and a security deposit, setting up new credit for utilities in a new state (more fees and deposits) and the uncertainty of support from friends and family that won't be there when you move.
Yeah, move... right. I keep hearing that, myself.

[QC]

32. Good point. Moving will cost you at least $3,000 cash,

once you figure in renting a truck, apartment rent and deposit, utilities, etc. For a person barely getting by, that might as well be $3,000,000. And there's no certainty of a decent job once you do move--it seems to have escaped the notice of the more comfortable, but shitty jobs at low pay are the rule just about everywhere these days.

That dismissive reply--"Move if you don't like it"--which is quite popular here, nicely encapsulates our party's class problem.

[verdalaven]

68. 30K may not be poverty

but it is still pretty damn hard to live on 30K a year. We make 40K (two income home) and sometimes it feels like we are chasing our tails.

Still, we have been lucky (knock wood!) because we are both employed. I work with women who are trying to make it on 12K a year. One such woman died on Jan 1, 2005, due to a sudden illness at the age of 55 that might have been averted if she had gone to see the doctor sooner, but because she didn't have insurance or money.......She was a great person and, unfortunately, a bush supporter.

[QC]

16. Amen!

This kind of cluelessness about how the "other half" lives is a big part of why we are losing. There was a time when our party stood up for working people, and we dominated American politics for a half-century as a result. Now our only response is to dismiss their problems, call them names, and then wonder why they don't want to support us.

[NoPasaran]

18. There's a lot of that being demonstrated in this thread

Many are more interested in attacking the messenger than addressing his message.

[QC]

21. Attacking the messenger is a sure sign

either that the message hits too close to home or one cannot figure out what the message is to start with.

Having grown up working-class, I can see a lot in this article that matches my own experiences. Unfortunately, most "Leftists" these days are from more comfortable backgrounds than in the past, so working-class life is about as foreign to them as, say, the mating habits of the Great Horned Owl. That's part of why this essay is getting such a hostile response, I suspect.

[ultraist]

35. He is not a "messenger"

Shall we pretend that he is "astute messenger and voice for the poor" even though his essay is riddled with dishonesty? There are better sources to look at the conditions of poverty and the working class.

I also thought his essay was not very insightful. He failed to mention the systemic barriers poor people face nor did he offer any possible solutions. It was a shallow account and obviously an excuse to play the "liberal elite" card. Did this guy vote for Bush?

Don't jump to conclusions and think those of us who didn't like this essay have no clue. I lived in poverty during my early childhood.

BTW, Poverty is my #1 issue, that's primarily why I supported Edwards during the primaries, because he was the only candidate discussing poverty and racism. The main focus of my volunteer work for the last decade has been poverty.

[QC]

40. Every message has a messenger.

And when people make ad hominem attacks on that messenger rather than deal with what he or she says, it does not help their case. Pointing out that Rush Limbaugh is fat just isn't a very good way to refute what he says.

Besides, the shrill, hysterical "this guy must be a Republican because he criticizes the Democrats" replies popped up within a few minutes of the first posting, strongly suggesting that a lot of people did not even bother to read and reflect on the article before replying.

If you will take the time to read just a few of this guy's articles, you will see that he does, in fact, deal extensively with "the systemic barriers poor people face" and he also offers solutions. He criticizes Democrats and bourgeois liberals from the left, not from the right, and that is the kind of criticism that we do need right now.

And yes, the "liberal elitist" charge is a mainstay of GOP propaganda, and it's mostly bullshit, but it keeps its power because many people who are supposedly on our side seem to be doing their best to make it true. Read the first reply in this thread if you want a fine example.

[ultraist]

44. Critiquing an essay is not an ad hominem attack

I pointed out his dishonest use of statistics & the shallowness of the essay and a couple of people took that as a personal attack on the writer. Criquing an essay is not an ad hominem attack.

Sorry, but I was not impressed by that essay, I don't care who wrote it. My remark that he is a poser was based on the intellecutal dishonesty in the essay. Come to find out, he is college educated and hangs out with people like Timothy Leary. I'd hardly consider him one of the trapped.

[Wiley50]

55. Did you actually read the essay? or just the eexcerpts posted here?

It really doesn't look like you did.
A person who successfully climbed out of modest circumstances but never forgot where he came from is anything but shallow

[ultraist]

85. I said THE ESSAY was shallow , NOT the writer

[kwassa]

84. Since I wrote the first reply, and you think I am a liberal elitist

Think again.

I was never poor, I grew up solidly middle-class, but I did live in rural backwaters like this, and recognize what he is talking about. I went to a high school that was predominately rural and had the amount of intellectual life that he decries in this article. It sounds like he is a poor fit for the area, and should leave to find an area more suited to him and his interests. Nothing he will do will change Winchester into a town that reads Susan Sontag.

I percieved his article as nothing but whining, quite frankly.

The other reality is that Winchester is in the process of being a long-commute suburb for the DC metropolitan area, which will completely alter the economy of the area forever. This is systemic change, and far more revolutionary to this town than anything else that can happen. Who knows, there might be an influx of Susan Sontag readers into Winchester.

The issue of Democrats attracting the working class is completely separate issue, and how the Democrats lost that vote is something that needs to be addressed. This piece isn't it, however.

[kwassa]

87. In addition, elitist me has been a steelworker, cab driver,

worked a half-dozen other factory jobs on assembly lines and off, drove tractors and cut timber on our rural land, and worked a number of years in the motion picture industry which despite the glamor of the image is largely a blue-collar, heavy-lifting business.

The real issue is globalization, the departure of good-paying factory jobs for overseas. The steel mill complex I worked in Ohio had over 7000 workers earning good money, and is now out of business. There is no other economic driver in that area.

[QC]

118. If "the real issue is globalization"

then what good will it do simply to "move away"?

[kwassa]

135. Do you continously misinterpret?

The macro issue for many of these areas is globalization. The micro issue for this author, who seems to do little but whine about his situation, is to move.

[hfojvt]

117. I cannot figure out

how people made two simple words "move away", a simple suggestion, into a huge liberal elitist attack.

[Wiley50]

43. One doesn't need to pretend

I'm poor now. My whole life is riding on a SSI hearing next month.I can assure you that he speaks astutely and accurately for this poor old white, broke-backed carpet layer. I humped carpet for 27 years and have only 10 ruptured discs and 2 arthritic knees to show for it. I was one of those "contract Labor" folks he speaks of in the article who got paid by the square yard layed with no benefits. The Floorcoverers union was killed before it got its legs.
I had a prep school education and could have gone to college at the time. Why didn't I? I didn't want to end up working for a corporation. I ran away and joined the hippies, then tried to make it as a songwriter until my first son was born and I started laying carpet to make money for Pampers.
The Contract Labor scam is but one of the "Systemic Barriers" he points out.
As for solutions. Only two. Yuppie liberals. Get to know,close up, how the working poor live. And #2 ORGANIZE ORGANIZE ORGANIZE

I,incidentally,have known Joe Bageant since 1977. This guys so left he's pretty much a commie.

I find myself wondering if you voted for Bush

[ultraist]

47. He doesn't seem to understand racism, how liberal is that?

Did you write that essay? Where did I say anything about YOU? Did I say you are not working class or in poverty? Don't think so. Why are you confusing what I said about him to be about YOU?

No need to attack me personally because I was not impressed with your friend's essay. His dishonest presentation of those in poverty really turned me off.

You are more into defending your friend than really looking at the essay. I understand that you are emotional about it, since he's your friend but this is not personal for me. I don't know the guy.

You wonder if I voted for Bush because I noticed that he skewed statistics that diminished the fact that the percentage of blacks in poverty is 3x as high as the percentage of whites in poverty?

8% of whites are in poverty
24% of blacks are in poverty

44% of all of those in poverty are white; whites are 85% of the population

56% of those in poverty are minorities; minorities are 15% of the population

That is an honest presenation of the stats on poverty. Look it up at the USCB.

Furthermore, the working class are not in poverty. Yet another blur he created. It's far different to be working class than in poverty.

[Wiley50]

54. You are dodging the issue

The only reason that I mentioned that I know Joe is that in two posts in this thread you accused him of being a "Rightie" in one and "voted for Bush" in the other. I witness that I know better

It makes no sense for you to spend half of this post pointing out that I know him.

As for the race card you chose to play:
He wrote the article about a white neighborhood he grew up in. It would be out of place to bring up race in it. It's about a white neighborhood.

You are grasping at straw men that you yourself set up

[fishwax]

216. HE brought race up, not ultraist

he mentions it repeatedly in the article. He talks about the "cultural myths" that white skin is associated with power. Race is a constant thread in his article. It strikes me as carrying an undertone of racial bitterness in his article. So ultraist isn't the one who chose to play "the race card" (a turn of phrase that is, itself, indicative of the racial bitterness perpetuated by conservative elites like Limbaugh and Gingrich).

[Stew225]

147. Gee, what else is new around here? Talk about

compassionate, eh?

[philosophie_en_rose]

71. You're wrong.

If you think that the party only relates to sitting in limousines sipping champagne and eating truffles, you're dead wrong.

The Democrats fight for the working class - for unions, for a safety net of social services, for health care and education. They are against outsourcing our jobs or vilifying immigrants.

The problem isn't that the Republicans are standing up to the "other half." The problem is that the Republican elite panders to the working class, while stealing from their children for war deficits.

[secular_warrior]

19. Bingo - most liberals are in denial about this problem

Once upon a time liberals were people who cared about class issues.

However, most modern liberals do fit into the liberal elite stereotype: very educated about people, but not that smart when it comes to actually dealing with people.

But, liberals will keep denying it.

Just look at the electoral map by county - Dems are only getting the urban areas.

With this attitude, minorities will be the next to go: their cultures tend to be more traditional (especially Hispanics) and culturally conservative like rural whites. Minorities are not part of the "Starbucks" culture - which has become synonomous with liberal culture. Urban areas are highly stratified - little rich white enclaves surrounded by large areas of poverty and crime.

My opinion is that liberals are supposed to be at the forefront of class issues, but they have become more about trendiness and making themselves look good: Friends and Sex and the City is the face of modern liberal culture; "liberal elite" is not just a Republican myth.

Just the fact that most celebrities call themselves "liberal" (if they were so liberal they wouldn't care how beautiful they were, and they would donate most of their money to the poor) and don't receive any heat from real liberals tells you something is wrong. A real class warrior would spit on celebrities (and celebrity itself) - who along with the capitalists drive this elitist, materialistic, narcissistic, imperalistic culture.

[enigmatic]

28. Great post.

Thanks for this.

[ultraist]

37. The majority of lower income and working class voted for Kerry

We didn't lose any ground with whites in this bracket this election. We actually gained because the turnout was better.

But yes, we do need to reach out more to rural voters. We also need to reach out to suburban voters. Bush won the majority of the suburb vote. Middle and upper middle class voters who are educated should not be voting for the religious rightwing nut party. There is fertile ground there to swing some of those suburb votes. (Bush won the majority of the upper mid and upper income voters)

The main reason candidates like Kerry don't talk about poverty is because poor people have a very low voter turnout. There is a positive correlation between educational level and voter turnout.

One way to empower the working class and poor is to get them out there to vote. Do door to door voter registration and provide transportation to the polls. We did this, we also picked up people from shelters and bus stops to take them to go vote.

[Wiley50]

48. On these points,Ultra,, I can agree with you

But you can't just show up with a ride to the polls.
You've got to invest the time to educate them and empower them with Why is is so Important to vote. And the only way to do this is to hang out with them. Hang out in working class beer joints. Go to Nascar races. Meet them where they live. It takes real time invested.

And most of all, give them a candidate who is not a millionare Yale Skull and Bones kind of guy.They can smell a stuffed shirt a mile away.
Edwards is a start but he's still too smooth. And don't be afraid to fight as dirty as the enemy. Kerry pulled too many punches.Bush had vulnerabilities you could drive a semi through but Kerry didn't hit him hard in them

And when you win,, Follow through on the promises for a change

[ultraist]

50. Well, I wont be going to any NASCAR races or working class beer joints

But I understand your point. People who have never been around a group of people, can't possibly understand them.

BTW, Edwards relates very well to rural people. Those ARE his people. I have met his family (parents, brother, sister in law, niece), believe me, they are not "slick." If you have ever met Edwards or heard him speak live, you may feel differently about him. He can connect with the working class, unlike Kerry.

I agree, that it's not just getting them to the polls, I said that's ONE WAY to empower them. It needs to start way before election time, I don't disagree with that at all.

I am PRO social programs and college assistance as well as tech school assistance. I am nearly a socialist when it comes to social programs. I think it's horrific that 95% of the population earns under $200,000 and the top 5% hoard 90% of the wealth. There are SERIOUS problems with the income distribution in this country. 35.9 million Americans are in poverty is immoral!

Unfortunately, things ARE going to get much worse under Bush. He has cut food stamps, Medicaid, small business loans to low income entrepreneurs, and a whole myriad of programs that help to lift people out of poverty or the working class.

[airfoil]

60. Your numbers are way off

I am PRO social programs and college assistance as well as tech school assistance. I am nearly a socialist when it comes to social programs. I think it's horrific that 95% of the population earns under $200,000 and the top 5% hoard 90% of the wealth. There are SERIOUS problems with the income distribution in this country. 35.9 million Americans are in poverty is immoral!

Where do you get this figure? The wealthiest 10% in the US get 30% of the money. In Europe the wealthiest 10% get 25%. See http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2047.html for more info.

Note that a third of folks in poverty own a house, 62% have a car, etc, so poverty in the US isn't as bad as poverty elsewhere.

Also, when the US calculates poverty, it does so wihtout including whatever assistance the person in poverty might be receiving. The example here (albeit dated) cites that someone that would be reported as earning $7K/year in Medicaid would actually be getting just under $20K/year when their gov't assistance is factored in. See
http://www.heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/BG791.cfm

[bread_and_roses]

64. Quoting the CIA and Heritage on income inequality? Try these #s

http://www.newsbatch.com/econ.htm

<snip> In real dollars, the GDP has tripled since 1960 but wage increases have been stagnant. The gains that have occurred have been in the higher level occupations. Real wages for many occupations which do not require a college degree have actually decreased and salary ranges vary significantly for various occupations. But the income level of the upper 1% of families has almost tripled and only the income levels of the top 20% of families have significantly increased in the past two decades. Today, the top 20% receive over half the country's income and their share is growing. (Click to see chart) Income inequality is greatest throughout the entire southern portion of the country and in New York. The most publicized and extreme example of income inequality has been the rise in compensation levels for CEO's of major corporations.

Economic inequality can also be measured in terms of overall wealth. The imbalance in wealth is far more dramatic than the imbalance of incomes. The top 1/2 of 1% of the population has nearly as much wealth as the bottom 90%. During the past two decades, the imbalance has grown. The already substantial share of wealth owned by the top 1% of American families continues to grow. The increase in wealth for the top 1% of households compared to everyone else is remarkable. <snip>

You note that "poverty" calculations do not include benefits such as Medicaid but fail to note that the US poverty threshold is artificially low and is based on a calculation developed in the '60's that has little relationship to economic conditions today. Any sort of valid "poverty index" would be political dynamite - which is why it is not revised.

[ultraist]

89. Good points kenzee13. OF COURSE the Heritage Fdtn MINIMIZES poverty

The Repukes are always minimizing poverty making erronous statements like, 'it's not so bad for people in poverty, 1/3 own houses....' BS THAT is a blatant lie and a way for them to SHRUG THEIR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. Their policies and actions, such as CUTTING FOOD STAMPS, are immoral.

We know how much Bush and his cronies "care" about the poor based on their elitist policies.

1.3 MILLION PEOPLE FELL INTO POVERTY THIS PAST YEAR THANKS TO BUSH AND THE REPUKES. 35.9 MILLION people live in poverty. This is INEXCUSABLE in a country as wealthy as ours.

I'm tired of my tax money going for corporate welfare to companies that outsource or companies here in the US so that their CEOs can rake in 20 million dollar salaries. Why should my tax money go to subsidize a salary like that?

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer under Bush. THESE ARE THE FACTS based on US Census Bureau stats.

[Just Me]

103. Correct. A 30-yr-old 2BR trailor on a plot of deceased gramma's land,...

,...is included in the Heritage Foundation's numbers. Of course, those "think tankers" don't dirty themselves with actually taking a gander at the abject poverty these folks survive.

It seems that I, a highly educated liberal/progressive, am a rare bird having chosen to live in rural America. Well, more accurately, I didn't choose the extremely difficult personal circumstances that led me here; but, I am choosing to remain for awhile. It's been a wonderful experience that I will take with me for the rest of my life.

The two most important strengths I have acquired as a rural American are a healthier sense of humility (allowing me to actually "listen" to people no matter what their particular path in life) and an even greater love for the human spirit. I suppose taken together those two strengths represent a purer form of tolerance.

[airfoil]

157. Things were worse for the poor in the 90's

1.3 MILLION PEOPLE FELL INTO POVERTY THIS PAST YEAR THANKS TO BUSH AND THE REPUKES. 35.9 MILLION people live in poverty. This is INEXCUSABLE in a country as wealthy as ours.

It's not just this administration.

The rich got MUCH RICHER during the 90's while the poor just kind of sat there. From 95 to 97, those with the highest incomes saw their salary grow 31%, while those at the bottom saw theirs grow 3.4%

Also, "From 1993 to 1997, the top one percent of tax filers achieved after-tax income gains of 41 percent, on average, while the bottom 90 percent experienced a relatively modest gain of five percent."

See http://www.cbpp.org/9-4-00inc-rep.htm for more data. Clinton was VERY good to the rich...so was Bush 41, Reagan, etc.

What you point out has been happening for a long time and will continue to happen, regardless of who is in office or the policies that are in place. In fact, it has little to do with policy and who's in office.

[airfoil]

98. Your data agrees with mine...

...it looks like.

My response was to the original poster that claimed "the top 5% hoard 90% of the wealth"

That statement is so far from true. Even your data shows it's very far from true (and your+my data isn't at all inconsistent).

And I'll bet it's a suprise to many of us that our top 10% earn about the same piece of the pie that those in the EU do, too. C'mon! You gotta admit that data point is interesting, no?

I've come to the conclusion over many years that we need to implement a wealth tax in the US. I used to be so very against it, but it bugs the living crap out of me that we're seeing folks with Theresa Kerry's money get taxed at an effective rate of just 14% (I cite her only because so much analysis is already out there on her money: we can use her as a proxy for all fo the superwealth) while a school teacher mom and firefighter dad are getting taxed at 28% rate.

Look at her numbers: Net worth of $2B, likely annual income of $160M (8% return on investments), reported income of $5.1M, taxes of $750K (14% of $5.1M).

If you REALLY want to see the super-rich squirm, then DEMAND an annual wealth tax on estates in the amount of 0.1% of the estate values over $100M. That'd have forced THK to kick in an extra $2M, on top of the laughable $750K she paid.

[ultraist]

115. The top few do hold MOST of the wealth

Perhaps those numbers are incorrect, but the lower 90% of this country does not hold the majority of the wealth.

Only a few small few earn over $200,000 and are able to pass on wealth to their children.

It is the Repukes who have cut capital gains taxes and inheritance taxes. Not the Democrats. The Repukes coined the term "death tax" not the Democrats.

I suggested on another thread that income taxes for those that earn over $150,000 should be severely increased and that inheritance taxes should be increased, not eliminated as the Republicans have set into motion.

BTW, I'm not sure why you used THK as an example, but it is the have mores that vote for Bush that support eliminating inheritance taxes. Kerry did not support this.

[airfoil]

154. You are mixing data

For income, my data point is valid. For wealth, I don't dispute the data you cited. You used income and wealth interchangably, which they aren't.

I totally agree with you on increasing inheritance taxes. I tire of seeing generations benefiting from marginal activities a great-granfather did so long ago.

I don't agree with your on increasing income tax. If someone is willing to put in 80 hours a week building their business and are willing to risk lots of their own $, then they shoudl be able to keep most (70%) of the gains they experience.

Just curious, but what do you believe the top-end tax rate should be?

I simply used THK as an example because she's ultra wealthy and the last election provided a unique opportunity into her finances. We seldom don't get to see that usually.

[Mojorabbit]

141. I have a problem

with lumping people who make 200k with people who are making 600k or more. There is a big difference there.

[ultraist]

153. Top 6% is often lumped

Of course there is a big diff between 200k and 600k and there is a huge diff between 600k and 20M per year. No one said there wasn't.

It's a commonly used cut off point because the USCB uses this as a demarcation point. Check out their stats on income distribution.

[Mojorabbit]

159. Still I read posts saying anyone who makes

over 150k should be taxed up the wazoo. Hell, it took twenty years of scraping to start a small business and keep it afloat which is finally now able to hire three people with decent wages and make a bit of a profit ourselves. We pay a ton of taxes as it is.
It ticks me off to read posts like that. It isn't like someone is handing us some cash for free. A lot of sweat goes into it and it would not take a whole lot for it to go under either. No golden parachutes here.

[xmas74]

57. I volunteer time at the local HeadStart

they never have enough volunteers in this area. I assist with the children and many times I get to meet the parents.
When I am out shopping at a later time, one of the parents will walk up and talk to me. I have had political discussions with many parents (from very poor backgrounds) this way without shoving the points in their faces. And they have been very receptive to the message, since many are now feeling that they have been lied to by our current administration. Some are already talking about attending various meetings and fighting for what they think is fair.
This is the way to motivate the working classes. Meet with them wherever they would normally be. Don't push yourself on them-be friendly and let them come to you. Then, calmly state your point with no namecalling and never "dumb down" your statements.

I was raised in a working class background. I have a college education but, with the lack of jobs in my area, I am still living in a working class background. I am proud of how I was raised.

[ultraist]

123. HeadStart is an excellent program. Created and supported by Democrats!

Thank you for your volunteer work! Working with economically underprivileged children is extremely important and honorable work.

That's great news that some of the conservative poor voters are receptive to what you are saying.

The Democrats have traditionally won the majority of poor and working class voters, as we did this election. But, there is still some fertile ground there, IF these conservative poorer voters let go of their religiously based stands on issues such as gay marriage and abortion.

[jeffrey_X]

161. Strongly Disagree.....

I am an urban dweller and I think that Starbucks and Friends are Freeper activities....I hate them and I hate the yuppie scum that live over in the safe part of the city with all of the other rich, white people.

Starbucks culture is definitley not liberal culture.

I am a white male, and I'm a minority in my neighborhood.

[UL_Approved]

178. You are absolutely right

If it weren't for the wretched excess of Hollywood, the cold and aloof intellectuals of the New England states, and the disrespect that the more radical liberals show to "Red State America", then the right wouldn't have one single issue upon which to base their rhetoric.

I consider the masses of middle and lower class Americans to be as much of the hope for this nation as the informed intellectulas.

These people deserve the respect that all people in this country should recieve. They get no consideration because of their beliefs. They may not have the level of understanding that college graduates have, but this should be more than understandable. Many older people in this country have no High School education, let alone college/university instruction. This makes it VERY difficult for somebody to see what diversity is, when you are fighting for a living in a harsh, unfriendly culture of poverty and disinformation.

To all DUers, liberals, progressives, independents, moderates;
To all PHd's, Masters Degree graduates, college graduates, high school graduates, elementary school attendees;
To all filthy rich, wealthy, upper middle class, working middle class, struggling income earners, welfare recipients, disabled veterans;
To all New Englanders, Southerners, Midwesterners, Northwesterners, Southwesterners, and people of Alaska;
To all the buisness professionals, investors, day traders, professors, teachers, tutors, home school parents, sales associates, factory workers, farmers, ranchers, farm hands, loggers, mill workers, self employed, unemployed;

We have a mad man at the helm of the United States of America.

We have one country, divided, as it stands, with prejudice and mistrust amongst us all.

There is one America, a free America, and a united America.

And this one America has been divided and conquered time and time again by people who know what magic words to say to separate us.

We are all on each others side, but we can't see it past the rhetoric.

Conservative America, Liberal America, but all America.

[Kansas Wyatt]

25. The working class is the Democratic Party's salvation...

Agreed, the working class has been neglectfully treated for the last 30 years. I would take it one step further back 30 years ago, in which a change occurred in America. At that time, rural America saw their way of life come to an end and change with so many family farms going under. The republicans have managed to manipulate most of those in rural America by talking about a way of life when rural America thrived. Never mind that this rural America setting will never return like it once was, and most of these people are clinging to low paying jobs now trying to survive and they cannot just pack up and move to urban America. Most of those red States are agriculture States. The republicans have managed to pull the wool over their eyes by making them think that the republicans want to take this country back to the 1950's.

The population centers will tend to vote Democratic, because they know who the republicans really represent and how it benefits them to vote Democratic. But, most working class people in the rural areas do not fully understand how much help they get from the Democrats to improve their lives and that the republicans are only selling them an illusion. The republicans are tagging the Democrats as the wealthy elite who destroyed rural and small town America with their big city ideals.

Regardless of rural or urban America, when the Democratic Party puts the working class at the top of their priority list and keeps them there, the Democrats will start winning elections again. Perhaps a new deal with the working class America is in order, and a lot less of a Government for, of, and by corporations.

[QC]

29. Unfortunately, a lot of hip, mod Democrats think working-class people

are too tacky to embrace. I mean, they've never even heard of Noam Chomsky, and one time when I was out there I went in a cafe and asked for a double-decaf mocha latté frappucino and they had no idea what I was talking about. And lots of them were fat, too! And wearing polyester! I don't know how I survived the trauma of that day!

If you think I'm exaggerating much, just stick around here for a while. Since being at DU, I have learned the working-class people are solely responsible for racism, sexism, homophobia, the Iraq War, and Bush being in the White House, among many other things. They are, it seems, the source of all evil in the world. They are ignorant and closeminded, and their poverty results from their own stupidity and lack of ambition, not because the system is stacked against those who do not have the privileges that so many people here consider their birthrights. When misfortune comes their way, it is something to be celebrated with hundreds of gloating, told-you-so posts.

I quite agree with you that we Democrats need to return to our blue-collar roots, but I expect that proposal to go over about like a turd in a punchbowl. When it comes to class issues, a lot of so-called Leftists are really about as radical as my Aunt Ethel.

[SheepBootHero]

169. Details please

>>The population centers will tend to vote Democratic, because they know who the republicans really represent and how it benefits them to vote Democratic.

How do the population centers benefit more by voting Democratic compared to rural areas?

[Kansas Wyatt]

177. It was not a statement about population centers benefiting more...

Rural areas are being sold a myth by the Republicans, that the Republicans want to bring back the good ole days when small town America once thrived and the Democrats only want to bring you big city ills. When family farms went belly up in rural America, small towns started decaying in strong agriculture States (RED States or what people call "Jesusland"). The Republicans have convinced these people that they want to take America back to that small town way of life, where you didn't have to go to population centers to make a living, you still did your shopping in your small town, your small community flourished, and it was common to see a lot of the townspeople going to church on Sundays. Republicans have sold rural America a myth that they want to bring back a time period when rural America thrived, because they are playing on the memory of how things used to be in small town America.

It's not that the population centers benefit more, it's just that people there know which party helps them more and which party hurts them.

[livinginphotographs]

73. Thank you.

"...something most yuppie types would know if they weren't blind to the people around them who pretty much support every damn breath they take all their lives, from the people who set the cows up to be milked for that morning shot in the cup of coffee to the people who wrap those steaks in the supermarket so they don't have to think about what meat comes from, to the people who make all that packaged microwave food they live on to the people who drive trucks to get it to them."

This describes my neighborhood and even my city to a tee. The farms are getting swallowed by McMansions, and then malls when the yuppies demand to not have to drive back to the city (you know, all the scary black people are still in the city) to go to their Pier 1. They move out to remote areas (to get away from it all) then still demand their grocery stores, malls, etc. So these things get built. So they "get away from it all" again, leaving the concrete monster they helped create behind. Then the concrete monster follows. It's like a virus, and it's rotting the city I live in from the core.

The attitude you posted above has not only cost the Democratic Party, but it has cost our country dearly.

It's the reason people drive 7 MPG SUVs when kids are dying over in Iraq to keep those monsters gassed up. It's the reason corporate factory farms are able to rape the environment, torture animals, and run family farms out of business. And it's the reason that the whole world will eventually look like a goddam strip mall before people wake up and realize that they live in a fucking SOCIETY, and need to start acting like it.

[HeeBGBz]

149. You got that right

"Ignoring how badly the working class in this country has been shafted over the past 30 years and concentrating on the yuppie vote has been the most serious blunder any party in the history of this country has ever made."

I wish everyone with all the shit jobs in the country would go on strike for a month or so.

[kazoo35]

172. Yeah.

True. They have no need for the Dems now.

[MsTryska]

184. here's the problem tho....

you know the working class has been shafted, i know the working class has been shafted. and god love em, i'd love to make it so they're not getting shafted anymore.


however, rush limbaugh has these same shafted folks thinking i'm some sort of commie liberal socialist anti-american fag-lover, and they'd prefer to kill me than let me do my thing and make it better for everyone in the long run.



(btw - i'm speaking of me in the meta-sense right now)

[RapidCreek]

210. Beautifully said....but.

You are much to kind. It isn't arrogance or cultural blindness that brings about such remarks....It's being an ignoramus.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

2. OK but let me smack this guy

THE POOR WHITE TRASH HE CLAIMS HE GETS CALLED VOTED FOR THOSE FUCKING RIGHT TO WORK LAWS IN 18 FUCKING STATES INCLUDING HIS OWN WHICH WAS ONE OF THE FIRST TO UNDERMINE LABOR UNIONS.

How the hell does he want us to organize on his behalf when his own compadres voted for the policies that made that kind of organizing all but fiscally impossible?

People in VA were so busy claiming the Dems were the party of special interests that they forgot WORKING CLASS PEOPLE WERE AND HAVE been a special interest to the Dems.

He' writing his rantings to the wrong people. He should make an audiotape (since half his neighbors probably don't read) and play it on a boom box in his neighborhood.

[KissMeKate]

4. "right to work " laws equal a downward spiral in wages.

however so does a globalised economy. Mexican jobs are going to China.

The wages for nurses are such that many nurses just go into real estate or waitressing in the south.

[ultraist]

7. Well said! He's bitching about the wrong group.

It's not Dean or the Democrats who have failed the working poor.

I also didn't like his sneaky little way of twisting the stats on poor people. He noted that 51% of those in poverty are white. But he failed to mention that whites are 70+% of the population and that only 8% of all whites are in poverty. 24% of all blacks are in poverty, three times as many percentage wise, so his little spin on "all minorites combined" is bullshit.

If the number in poverty were proportional to general society by race, whites would make up nearly 80% of those in poverty. In other words, there are a disproportionately HIGH NUMBER of minorities in poverty.

The guy is asshole and way off base. He should be bitching about the Repukes that keep elitism alive and well. Democrats are not elitists.

His "liberal elite" arguement is bogus. LIBERALS don't believe in elitism. That's why we vote FOR Affirmative Action, Pell Grants, Food stamps, and other social programs that sustain the poor and open doors.

[ChairOne]

9. Yah - he's too fucking stupid to vote for a party that would....

.... actually *help* him and his family...

Even a horse knows to drink, for fuck's sakes...

[Iris]

11. "elite"

I never will understand how educating yourself to the point that you TRULY understand the issues that affect your life is considered "elite"!?!

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

14. I have to laugh at billionaires calling me an elitist simply because

I bothered to educate myself.

[secular_warrior]

23. education or intelligence has little to do with it

it's the whole culturally elite attitude, as promoted by urban liberal culture and it's followers (TV, movies, Madison Ave, etc).

It's a very prissy attitude: "I'm white, upper class, educated, hip, good looking - and you down there, you're just some unsophisticated, low class idiot."

All style/delivery/big words - no substance or real connection with human beings.

I'm to the left of most Dems, and celebrity culture sickens me - I could only imagine what some poor farmer in a rural area (or a poor black kid in an urban area) thinks when he sees Friends on TV - a bunch of rich, whiny, elitist "liberals".

[ret5hd]

31. i'm probably way to the left of you...

(just guessing, of course) but...

i grew up in oklahoma, a good part of it rural...
and i currently live in texas (urban but definitely in a lower working class area)...

and i'll be damned if i know anyone that thinks "friends" bears any resemblance to reality, much less use it to take political cues from.

just sayin'.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

12. Exactly, it's how to use racism to divide the left

I wouldn't be surprised if this were written by a righty.

[Wiley50]

36. Rightie,MY ASS! I've known Joe Bageant since 1977

We met in Boulder in 77 and have many common friends along the way such as Allen Ginsberg, Tim Leary and Stephen Gaskin. Are (were, as the case may be) these guys Righties too.
When where you born? A lot of us here have been at this longer than when your parents were in high school.
Just because you are too smug in your "Starbucks" liberalism to see the need to really grok (intuitively understand) the working class you are vowing to defend,, you think we are righties?

The Bushistas depend on liberals like you.

[misanthrope]

46. Excuse me...

...not trying to get in your face about anything, but I'm definitely confused.

Earlier in the evening (post #15 below), you seemed to state that your acquaintanceship with Mr. Bageant was basically comprised of e-mail correspondence.

You also wrote of consuming his backlog of writings from a website as if this was something you did after first being introduced to his work.

Now, a few hours later, you post that you've known Mr. Bageant since the late '70s and mention him as if you two share a loose social circle of acquaintances.

These scenarios seem to conflict. Have you known him and been aware of his work since the Carter Administration, or just since the advent of the Internet?

[Wiley50]

56. We met in Boulder in 1977

But had had no contact for many years until recently.
We have had many mutual friends in the years between.

Sorry if I didn't make that clear

[Misunderestimator]

62. LOL...

Judge much? It's comments like "you are too smug in your 'Starbucks' liberalism..." that the Bushistas depend on from liberals like you.

And btw... the little age remark... way off base there. Whether or not you are friends with the person that wrote the article, doesn't change the way that it is perceived by liberals.

The post by ultraist highlighting the fact that the way it was written confuses the real ratios, that given the proportion of our white population, whites should be 80% of the working poor instead of such a relatively LOW number, that is made to look HIGH in the article... do you not see that? Do you not see that this article attacking his own party, calling liberals elitist, is damaging? Especially because it is not true?

I've met far more elitist conservatives than I have met elitist liberals. Conservative elitism is about religion and power and money... I'd prefer their elitism be about good food and coffee.

[xmas74]

58. "LIBERALS don't believe in elitism. "

I live in a small town in MO. I am a dyed in the wool liberal (and I guess you could call me a Democrat too). I coexist with the people that he writes about in this article. They are in every small town in America.
I know that liberals don't believe in elitism and you know that liberals don't believe in elitism. There is a problem, though-many small town people do not know that. Many small towns no longer have a newspaper or even a library, so many of the residents have nothing to read. For news, they depend on what they can find on television. You and I both know that there is a problem with many news programs.
They watch FOX News because they feel that it is geared toward them, that the "reporters" are just like them. They attend services on Sunday as a way to give thanks for what they do have (since most of the small town working class know that life can always get worse, they don't want to "jinx" anything), but I rarely hear them "bible-thumping" on a daily basis. Truthfully, most people in small towns find the fundies to be a little "wacko", a little too far gone.
Most in small towns enjoy an Old Milwaukee, Old Style, Olympia or a Natural Light at the end of the workweek with their group of friends. They don't necessarily want to focus on politics-they just want to unwind.
I have heard from many of my friends that they do not care who is in office. Why is that? "Because either way, they will bend you over and fuck you in the ass" is one of the most common answers. They do not see the Democrats as the party of the working class. Then again, they don't necessarily see Republicans as the party of choice, either. The number one reason that I have always heard in my small town to vote against the Democrats? It's not about gay marriage or pro-choice or Iraq or any of those things. It is nearly always "I heard the NRA say that them Dems will take away my hunting rifle. Can't let that happen. We get most of our winter meat thataway." Silly, but true.
Instead of condemning the working class, instead of the attitude of "You got what you deserve" we need to learn how to connect with the clerk at Walmart. We need to connect with our waitress. We need to connect with the fundie who is knocking on our door handing out tracks. That is the way we will win this country back. Not by ourselves, but with the help of our brothers and sisters who do their best to make this country the best that they can.

[QC]

59. A lot of that sounds very familiar.

More than once I have had people say to me that they don't particularly like the Republicans but vote for them because "the Democrats don't respect people like me."

Yeah, it's dishonest for the party of the billionaires to pretend to be looking out for the little guy, but a big part of why the Republicans have had such success with the "liberal elitist" line is that there is a kernel of truth to it, enough to make it stick. Some of us *are* dismissive of working-class people and their concerns. Some of us *are* disrespectful. Not the majority of us, of course, and we're not the ones who are busy screwing working people up one side and down the other, but when you are raised poor, you know what it's like for people to look down their noses at you, and that sting is unforgettable. So when Jeanene Garafolo and Sam Seder put on their best cornpone accents and devote a show to bashing "rednecks," any "rednecks" who tune in will not see it as a harmless joke. They'll see it as yet another example of educated, affluent people looking down on them. And when those educated, affluent people are professional liberals, well, you see how damaging that can be.

[verdalaven]

72. "Because either way, they will bend you over and fuck you in the ass"

With the exceptions that we do have a library and a newspaper, you came pretty close to describing my small town.

We are a farming community, fairly progressive with some fringe red elements, but you are so right about how most people think of national politics.....they really don't think much of it at all. Around here they are more interested in local sports or the bowling leagues than what bush is doing, they are active in the schools and their churches because those are the arenas where they do have an impact. Many of them (like my husband and myself) work 40-50 hours a week, still make time to attend their children's' school activities and if they have time or energy left over they pursue whatever hobby pleases them.

I've never heard the bush supporters in this town express a belief in "liberal elitism". I have heard them say that they vote republican because they always voted republican, their parents were republican. Like a bad habit. Embroiled in a lifestyle that puts their free time at a premium, thinking about politics gets in the way of too many other things. Such is the life of the working class.

[ComerPerro]

61. No shit. Its complete BS to blame the Dems for "failing" the working poor

The Republicans have been screwing everyone but the top 1 percent at every chance for the past twenty five years (they continuted to do during the eight years of a Democratic Presidency).

This jerkoff wants to blame us for failing to stop the Republicans from expoliting these people, when they turn around and proudly vote for Republicans?

Fuck them.

They want to be serfs, I say let them have it.

[UdoKier]

211. The fact that the democratic party does much better than the GOP...

... doesn't mean that they have done enough.

And if the party is indeed helping poor and working whites as well as the other minority constituents, it still has failed, because it has failed to make sure that working white people actually understand that.

[Tomee450]

217. You may be correct in saying

that the Democrats have not reminded poor whites of how much the party has done for all poor people. However, it is still wrong for poor whites to condemn the Democrats while voting for the Republican party, a party that has done virtually nothing to improve the lives of the poor. Even now the Republican party is continuing in it's attempt to get rid of what remains of the safety net. Why aren't such people outraged at that? Why spend time blaming the people not in power but instead express outrage at the party in power, the party for which many have been voting for decades.

Three of the last five presidents have been Republican. For a while now, most governors have been Republican. And for the past few years, the Republican have controlled at least one legislative body of Congress and during the Bush administration all branches of government. Since the Republicans have had such power and done nothing to improve the lives of poor whites, why blame the Democrats. Just doesn't make sense to me.

Many people are reluctant to state the truth about why some poor whites continue to vote Republican. Lyndon Johnson said when signing the Civil Rights bill that the Democrats would lose the south and he was right. Some of those very poor people can think of nothing but voting for a party it thinks will impede the black man's attempt to obtain equality. That is why they and many others vote Republican. As long as the Democrats are seen as the party that supports civil rights, such persons will continue to vote against their best interest hoping the party they vote for will act to keep blacks down.

I really hate the undercurrent of racism I detect in many of these posts. As I said earlier, there is an attempt to scapegoat, an attempt to blame blacks for the problems being experienced by poor whites. Many African Americans are not doing well in this country. Thousands have lost their jobs since Bush came into office and are having a difficult time making it. Blacks are not receiving any special treatment from either party.

This election was very close. African Americans did their best. They voted for a party that has a history of trying to improve the lives of the poor and middle classes. If only a few more poor whites had joined their black brothers, perhaps we would have an administration that would not be now trying to end or severely slash programs proven to have benefited the poor of all races.

[DinahMoeHum]

6. Wow! I wonder if talk-show host Ed Schultz has heard of the author

or the website?

Bookmarked, and I will read more of Mr. Bageant's stuff. Very thought-provoking.

These folks are in a position many minorities in urban centers know all too well - when you are sore and beaten down, even a hug is painful.

:hangover:

[ultraist]

13. This author is a fucking poser

Who has found an excuse to trash Democrats and call them elitists.

[Wiley50]

15. I hear Joe Bageant Loud and Clear

I'm a fan having read all of his essays at Dissonantvoice.org in the six months since I read the first. I've also exchanged email with him. He sounds educated because he is (as am I). But, that has no bearing of his knowledge of this subject. He is a long time, free lance magazine writer and currently a highly paid magazine editor at a major organization.

But that doesn't mean he knows not of what he speaks. Those of us who are natives of the great unwashed working class and who have made our life within it, hear him loud and clear.

I grew up in Columbia, TN, a virtual mirror image of Winchester, Va. I'm telling you folks, he paints a photographically accurate picture of working class America. He describes it to a tee. I live in it as well. It ain't pretty, but it's the kind of gut level honest those of you who have never experienced it may never see. Much less truly understand.

But, it is our ONLY HOPE for success as a party. It is rightfully the Democratic Party's base, but has been stolen by Madison Avenue Repukes who have sold them a preppy/Harvard/Yale blue blood who talks a mean down home schtick. Only because we haven't offered an authentic alternative. Once the Sheeples( as I've seen them called here) see the two side by side, They can tell the difference. My town folks may be uneducated, but they ain't stupid.

Joe Bageant shines a searchlight on the political blind spot of the Democratic Party. Promise (but then deliver) universal health care, decent jobs with living wages, the opportunity of higher education and a better standard of living and they will forget all about God, Guns and Gays and chase the Money changers from the temple with pitchforks, if necessary.

Ignoring Joe Bageant is probably fatal to this party.

[ultraist]

17. There was a lot of intellectual dishonesty in his essay

No one is denying that poverty is a serious problem or that the working class are getting screwed.

This guy is not who he claims in his essay. He CLAIMS he is uneducated and trapped by classism. He further distorts statistics. These are two of the many examples of dishonesty in his essay.

Attacking the Democrats all while using dishonest tactics is not something that I have much respect for.

Why should we consider him an authorative voice on this important issue?

[Wiley50]

24. He does not claim what you seem to think.

He does not claim to be these folks. He tells the truth: that he grew up in it and is living there once again now. In between,he rubbed shoulders with icons of the counterculture and literary world along the way. William Burrows, Allen Ginsberg, Tim Leary, Stephen Gaskin, ect.
He grew up in a working class home in Winchester. His father didn't finish school. He is back, once again, living among the folks he grew up with, attended school with and knows intimately,intuitively.
As far as statistics. He misrepresents far less than most of our political leaders on both sides. For every statistic,there is always someone who can dispute it by manipulating them in another direction by focusing on a different viewing angle. It's just part of the arsenal.

[Boomer]

20. Just a stone's throw away

I work in Winchester and live in the Shenandoah Valley, and although I may not agree with everything Bageant says, he paints a very familiar picture of what I see every day. There is no way to "move away" from this life unless you have money, education and prospects.

[QC]

22. "money, education and prospects"

That's the real heart of the matter. To nice, middle-class people, those things are a birthright. To working-class people in this country, those things are what other people have.

Here's a key quote, one that has been ignored so far:

...poor laboring whites live within a dead end social construction that all but guarantees failure. If your high school dropout daddy busted his ass for small bucks and never read a book in his life and your mama was a textile mill worker, chances are you are not going to be recruited by Yale Skull and Bones and grow up to be president of the United States, regardless of our national mythology to that effect. You are going to be pulling an eight-buck-an-hour shift work someplace and praying for enough overtime to make the heating bill. A worker.

That says it very nicely. And the fact that some of us escape, as I did, does not mean that the effects of class are not an issue, and doesn't mean that we, once we hit $30k, are "posers" if we side with the people who gave birth to us and raised us.

[ultraist]

34. I didn't say that, you are misquoting me

I said that He is a poser, not all working class people. Perhaps you need to read my post again. I didn't even incinutate such a thing.

That author is not trapped. He has left there, obtained an higher education, is a writer and now has supposedly moved back to that area. He is not trapped by the barriers that many working class people face as he claims.

[QC]

38. Where does he claim to be trapped by those barriers?

He's pretty forthright about having escaped from Winchester and then having returned. The guy has a history, after all, and a paper trail running back to the 60's, so it's not like he could plausibly claim to be a sharecropper toiling away in obscurity or anything.

He speaks of working people as "we" because he identifies with them. They are his people. That's the class he came from. The fact that someone manages to get an education and make a decent living, as I did, at great sacrifice, doesn't mean that one suddenly becomes part of the bourgeoisie. Less than a year ago I was living on $900 a month and had a kidney stone the size of a pigeon's egg that I could not get removed because I did not have insurance. The fact that I now have a decent job for the time being doesn't mean that I have forgotten all that or that I suddenly identify with people who have had all the good things life has to offer just drop into their laps. I still identify more strongly with the people who now work at WalMart because the factory shut down than I do with the people who dismiss them as losers. Who else would I identify with?

That's a great article, by the way, with some keen insights into the American class system. It's well worth reading. If our party is going to win again, we have got to start fighting back in this class war that the GOP has been waging for decades. That means dealing with the issues that Joe Bageant raises.

[ultraist]

41. I never said that we shouldn't look at poverty issues

I'm glad a few Democrats like Edwards and Dean are talking about poverty.

People are distorting the fact that I didn't like this essay with the false assumption that I have no concern for those in poverty or the working class. That's just not so.

It's absurd and illogical to assume that people have not had hard times financially just because they don't like one author who hangs out with Timothy Leary.

[QC]

42. I never said you said we shouldn't look at poverty.

So I'm not quite sure where that one came from.

The point I have tried to make is that dismissing this guy as a poseur is just, well, downright bizarre.

If you have problems with the substance of the essay, then let's discuss them--that could be a lot of fun and a real learning experience. But baseless accusations of poseurism don't leave any room for discussion.

As for the one substantive point you did raise, Bageant is right about the number of poor white people being very large. He did not try to give the impression that white are more likely to be poor than other people, which would be dishonest. He was talking about absolute numbers, as is appropriate in the context of a discussion of voting. Put up a platform that will bring poor people out to the polls and you will win, since there's a hell of a lot of poor people. That's the point.

[ultraist]

45. Yes he did attempt to skew it

He wrote that the "number of whites are more than all minorities combined" but failed to mention that the percentage of blacks in poverty is THREE TIMES that of whites.

Of course 44% of those in poverty are white (USCB). Whites are around 85% of the population. If there were a proportionate number of whites in poverty, 85% of those in poverty would be white, not half that.

That was a dishonest way to present the facts. I also was not impressed with his attempt to use vernacular language. I live in the South and his use of the language came off as superficial.

Again, I don't disagree that classim exists.

[QC]

49. He also failed to mention

that the genus name of the horsetail plant is Equisetum and that the Vietnamese currency is the dong.

Of course, those facts would be irrelevant to the point he was trying to make, just like the one you keep raising over and over would be.

Here's the passage in its entirety:

To be poor and white is a paradox in America. Whites, especially white males, are supposed to have an advantage they exploit mercilessly. Yet most of the poor people in the United States are white (51%) outnumbering blacks two to one and all other minority poverty groups combined. America is permeated with cultural myths about white skin’s association with power, education and opportunity. Capitalist society teaches that we all get what we deserve, so if a white man does not succeed, it can only be due to laziness. But just like black and Latino ghetto dwellers, poor laboring whites live within a dead end social construction that all but guarantees failure. If your high school dropout daddy busted his ass for small bucks and never read a book in his life and your mama was a textile mill worker, chances are you are not going to be recruited by Yale Skull and Bones and grow up to be president of the United States, regardless of our national mythology to that effect. You are going to be pulling an eight-buck-an-hour shift work someplace and praying for enough overtime to make the heating bill. A worker.

He is critiquing two common ideas, neither of which has anything to do with the disproportionate impact of poverty on racial minorities:

1. The notion that being white is all one needs to be successful, and
2. The capitalist bootstraps myth.

Saying that those two ideas are bullshit does not mean rejecting the importance of race. His point here is that there's an awful lot of poor white people in America, so those two myths must be false. Unfortunately, many "liberals" embrace those false ideas just as fervently as the most ardent conservatives, which is why we never, even see a real critique of capitalism in our party.

[enigmatic]

51. Thanks for your posts on this..

Great stuff.

[QC]

52. Thanks! n/t

[solinvictus]

53. The old "Horatio Alger" mentality...

It's deep set among the white Republican poor, and it's coupled with a near Puritan belief that wealth is the result of God's blessing rather than any other set of circumstances. Many view just getting by as being a blessing.

The sad reality is that Clinton was likely the last president we'll ever have from a lower class background who actually worked his way to the top. Welcome to the oligarchy.

[ultraist]

142. What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

What does your comment here have to do with the fact the he presented the stats on poverty in a very dishonest manner: "that the genus name of the horsetail plant is Equisetum and that the Vietnamese currency is the dong."

My point was, that through omission and a skewed presentation of stats, the author showed intellectual dishonesty with regard to poverty and minorities. The author included discussion of poverty and minorities. I didn't add that to the mix out of the blue.

[wildeyed]

189. I thought that was dishonest, too.

Also an effort on the part of the author to further divide poor people, as though poor blacks are taking something away from poor whites.

But what is true, I think, is that many poor whites BELIEVE that blacks are taking something away from them. The trick will be to show them who is really screwing them blind, the corporatists in the repub party.

[wildeyed]

186. I have friends who 'moved away'

but they did it by joining the military.

[wildeyed]

185. Here is an interesting article by James Webb about the Scots-Irish

in this country. He has an intersting, and similar perspective.

Commentary:
Secret GOP Weapon: The Scots-Irish Vote

To an outsider George W. Bush's political demeanor seems little more than stumbling tautology. He utters his campaign message in clipped phrases, filled with bravado and repeated references to God, and to resoluteness of purpose. But to a trained eye and ear these performances have the deliberate balance of a country singer at the Grand Ole Opry.

Speaking in a quasi-rural dialect that his critics dismiss as affected, W is telling his core voting groups that he is one of them. No matter that he is the product of many generations of wealth; that his grandfather was a New England senator; that his father moved the family's wealth south just like the hated Carpetbaggers after the Civil War; that he himself went North to Andover and Yale and Harvard when it came time for serious grooming. And as with the persona, so also with the key issues. The Bush campaign proceeds outward from a familiar mantra: strong leadership, success in war, neighbor helping neighbor, family values, and belief in God. Contrary to many analyses, these issues reach much farther than the oft-discussed Christian Right. The president will not win re-election without carrying the votes of the Scots-Irish, along with those others who make up the "Jacksonian" political culture that has migrated toward the values of this ethnic group.

snip...

The Scots-Irish comprised a large percentage of Reagan Democrats, and contributed heavily to the "red state" votes that gave Mr. Bush the presidency in 2000. The areas with the highest Scots-Irish populations include New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, northern Florida, Mississippi, Arkansas, northern Louisiana, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, southern Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and parts of California, particularly Bakersfield. The "factory belt," especially around Detroit, also has a strong Scots-Irish mix.

The Scots-Irish political culture is populist and inclusive, which has caused other ethnic groups to gravitate toward it. Country music is its cultural emblem. It is family-oriented. Its members are values-based rather than economics-based: they often vote on emotional issues rather than their pocket books. Because of their heritage of "kinship," they're strangely unenvious of wealth, and measure leaders by their personal strength and values rather than economic position. They have a 2,000-year-old military tradition based on genealogy, are the dominant culture of the military and the Christian Right, and define the character of blue-collar America. They are deeply patriotic, having consistently supported every war America has fought, and intensely opposed to gun control -- an issue that probably cost Mr. Gore both his home state of Tennessee and traditionally Democratic West Virginia in 2000.

The GOP strategy is heavily directed toward keeping peace with this culture, which every four years is seduced by the siren song of guns, God, flag, opposition to abortion and success in war. By contrast, over the past generation the Democrats have consistently alienated this group, to their detriment.

http://www.jameswebb.com/articles/wallstjrnl/scotsirishvote.htm

[NC_Nurse]

27. This guy doesn't strike me as a poseur

and I think I understand what he means when he says the middle class left doesn't understand or acknowledge the needs of the poor, rural whites. I certainly think it's worth pondering, especially in states like mine where there are a LOT of towns like he's describing.

[Name removed]

78. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[enigmatic]

30. Great article..

I have family that grew up (and live in)this kind of area in the UP of Michigan; I've seen it myself.

[DU GrovelBot]

33. ## PLEASE DONATE TO DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND! ##

==================
GROVELBOT.EXE v3.0
==================



This week is our first quarter 2005 fund drive. Democratic
Underground is a completely independent website. We depend almost entirely
on donations from our members to cover our costs. Thank you so much for
your support.

[solinvictus]

39. Economic and cultural elitism...

I'd have to agree that the article is spot on in illuminating the problem of cultural elitism and the cognitive disconnect between the educated members of our society and the working class. The first response to this thread, which was "they should move" is similar to Reagan's solution for displaced workers during his regime and seems out of place on a "progressive" web message board.

The core issue is becoming a class struggle; meaning a tangible fight for survival of the poor working class against those who control the economic and political life of the country. To place things in perspective, the poor workers described and discussed in the opinion piece likely have a monthly grocery budget that is less than many urban professionals spend on Starbucks on a weekly basis. When economists and pundits speak of the transformation of America to a "service economy", it's a code word for low paying jobs as call center workers, janitors, chefs and cooks, nurses, home health workers, and retail clerks. At one point in our economic life, any and all of the above professions could be counted on to provide a subsistence living and even lead to a real career path that allowed an eventual ticket into the middle class. Many, if not all, of these jobs pay little money for long hours, are dehumanizing, and subject the worker to abuse from both customer and employer. Call center operators, retail sales clerks, and restaurant workers at all levels often receive humiliating treatment at the hands of "customers" who feel the need to assert some measure of petty superiority over the poor worker. Home health and domestic workers are all assumed to be thieves who are awaiting an opportunity to steal anything of value. It seems, in my experience at least, that many middle and upper income people, likely of all political beliefs, treat average workers as if they lived only to serve their immediate needs.

[RedstDem]

63. Progress Will Catch Up To Winchester

But In The Meantime, Come To Sterling.

[Skinner]

65. Thanks for posting this.

This article is a very interesting and thought-provoking read. I suggest everyon actually click on the link and read the entire thing.

And I must comment that if anyone wonders why the Democratic party is doing so poorly in places like Winchester, they need only read this discussion thread. There are large numbers of people in this country who know in their gut that they are getting screwed by the system, and they should be a natural fit for the Democratic Party. But when someone dares to tell the story of these people, we get offended because he dares to call us elite, or because he points out that there are lots of white people who are poor. Why in the hell would anyone vote for the Democratic party when its clear that large numbers of our members believe their concerns aren't worthy of our concern? It is a kind of arrogance. We call them morons, but scratch our heads and wonder why they don't vote for us.

[Misunderestimator]

66. You're right, the entire article should be read...

I disagree however that anyone here is calling them morons. Personally I reserve that word for the other side, and these are our people. The problem I have is with the assumption that all educated liberals are elitist... they aren't. I honestly think there are fewer elitist liberals than there are elitist conservatives. HOWEVER, it is VERY true that conservatives have been successful in wooing poor whites, dishonestly, but successfully. The problem is not as much with elitist liberals looking down on them, as it is with ALL of us liberals not reaching out honestly to them.

Their concerns should be central to our party's concern... we just need to let them know it.

[Skinner]

67. I would argue that this thread strongly suggests

that in fact many educated liberals are elitist. Obviously, not all educated liberals are elitist, but there many. The values of working-class Americans are routinely mocked on this very website. Heck, I do it myself sometimes. The elitism is there, and conservatives are more than happy to exploit it and amplify it for their own selfish ends.

[Misunderestimator]

69. With that I agree.

Conservatives have exploited the perception that liberals are elitist, and we WILL have to work hard to educate everyone and to reach out especially to those hardest to reach out to, the working and non-working poor of all races.

The article does hit home in many ways, and does offer a poignant look into the reality of poverty and the reasons why they feel abandoned by the democratic party.

But, it also evokes some defensiveness in me because it does slam all educated liberals as elitist, and it highlights white poverty in a way that makes it seem as if poverty is as prevalent among whites as it is among blacks. It is also written by an educated person from the perspective of a non-educated one in the first person... which smacks of disingenuousness.

That is what I have seen in the posts that have criticized it.

One thing I didn't mention was my reaction to this paragraph:

"But here in this particular heartland, once I step away from the fundamentalist, I am simply not seeing the homophobia so widely proclaimed by the liberal establishment. Hell, we’ve got three gay guys and at least one lesbian who hang out at my local redneck tavern and they all are right in there drinking and teasing and jiving with everyone else. As my hirsute 300-pound friend Pootie says: 'Heck, I have a lot in common with lesbians!' (I would concede however, that homosexual marriage, however, was just a bit too much for some of the working class to accept in the 2004 elections. It was the visuals.)"

I live in a redneck rural community, and I can tell you that I have NOT been treated with such open arms in redneck establishments here. And, it's a bit insulting to drag gay marriage into his article, as if it's not a problem at all politically, since in his town we're "tolerated." I really don't think he needs to be reducing every other problem to highlight the problems of white poverty in this article.

I know that the article was intended to arouse the readers to action for this particular (and yes, large) group, and I think it does that well... but the way it is presented is not one that would receive no argument.

(edited for typos)

[kwassa]

104. Great point

Misunderestimator:
"It is also written by an educated person from the perspective of a non-educated one in the first person... which smacks of disingenuousness."

It also invalidates a lot of his ranting, for me. I've been in these areas with people like this, and frankly, I don't buy much of what he is selling.

[ulysses]

74. ok, so a bunch of us are elitist.

I suppose I am - college educated professional and all. Then again, here's a working class white guy calling for folks to, among other things, "quit voting for that pack of undead hacks called the Democratic Party and ORGANIZE", something that a lot of us have been called elitist for actually *doing*, or trying to do. If I'm elitist, what the hell are the folks running the party? It ain't just progressives.

As to "values", we still need to clarify, for ourselves and for the rest of the country, what that word means. I've known a lot of the folks Bageant is talking about, both in Oklahoma and Georgia, and he's making a strong point when he brings up Seattle and Miami. He's not extolling Clintonism, not suggesting that NAFTA or welfare reform are the way to support the white working class. He's talking about taking stands that a lot of progressives have been taking for a long time.

[Skinner]

79. I'm not saying that any sub-set of our coalition has a lock on elitism.

I have not singled out any specific group of progressives. It's obvious that there are plenty of elitists running the party.

But my original point didn't really hinge specifically on "elitism," whatever the heck that means. The point I was trying to make is that there is a lesson for us in this very thread. A guy tells the story of working class people in small-town Virginia, and he gets attacked. Call it elitism, call it whatever. The point is that we are extremely understanding when it comes to the challenges faced by some people, but much less understanding when faced with the challenges of other people.

[ulysses]

81. I do think he made a good point about that

re: the Dalai Lama vs. our own working poor, but I have to agree with nsma's point about what the folks he's writing about have done to themselves and us in terms of labor laws and the right to organize.

The ghosts of Joe Hill, Roosevelt and Ghandi indeed. Add Tom Joad's to that. None of this is going to change until we really do organize outside the party structure and really do press for economic change in ways that directly impact those in power. I wonder if we have the stomach for it any more.

[ultraist]

106. I criticized his essay for his racist slant on poverty

Racism is not a liberal value. Lying about the facts in order to minimize the plight of poor blacks bothers me. Furthermore, working class and poverty are not the same and this authors attempt to confound the two is dishonest.

I stand with my comments that the Democrats are not the main enemy of the working class and those in poverty. I also agree that there is a disconnect between liberal elites and the working class. I was very disappointed that Kerry did not talk about poverty during the campaign.

Having spent my childhood in poverty, I have always supported social programs that lift people out of poverty or sustain them, so poor children can eat.

Perhaps there are a lot of liberal elites on this board that ignore this issue, but many of us have talked a lot about poverty and the inequitable distribution of income. Bouncy ball started a an excellent discussion on how minimum wage workers get screwed and there were a lot of compassionate and insightful comments on that thread.

I've stated elsewhere on this board, I'm very pleased that Dean and Edwards are talking about poverty. Helping those in poverty is a core Democratic value.

I think someone (the friend of the author) mistakenly took my lack of respect for this particular essay as denial of the seriousness of poverty and classism.

[hootinholler]

171. In my experience the eliteist are eliteist before they are educated. NT

[QC]

96. Good point, Skinner.

Would one of these abused, alienated voters think that the Democrats were looking out for her if she chanced on DU and found the following post, which is a real one:

White trash suffer from what psychiatrists call "no insight."

They will never agree with anyone from outside their zone of consumer culture ignorance because their desperate pride includes the right to be dreadfully wrong about everything and telling people more educated than themselves to "fuck off!" That's what makes them feel good....

The only thing that gets a rednecks attention besides the next six pack, is a good swipe upside the head with a two by four. And when the self awareness dawns, it's too late, because he's bankrupt, homeless and in jail.

[ultraist]

111. I don't know who wrote that but...

I have also seen a lot of compassionate comments about the working class and those in poverty. Bouncy Ball's min wage threads and the thread about what should min wage be are two areas you can find such posts.

Again, I'd not denying there is a disconnect between liberal elites and the working class but to put the focus on the liberal elites as the main enemy of the poor is misguided. Liberals support an increase in minimum wage and social programs, if they don't, they are not liberals.

[QC]

113. You're right--a lot of people here do "get it."

But the fact that someone would post something like that and so very few others would object shows that an awful lot of people don't get it. (Or maybe they're just tired of fighting a losing battle--I know I'm getting there.)

I also agree that even the nastiest "liberal elitists" are not the real problem. The trouble is perception here, I think, but perceptions are very real, and this particular perception is hurting us bad.

[HeeBGBz]

156. I have seen many of the redneck/rural comments here

White trash, trailer parks, beer guzzlin spam eaters.

Just because I live in a trailer, on land handed down from my grandparents, just because I work as a waitress in a town known for fundie hoopla, make less than $15k a year and have no health insurance, no financial future, does not mean I'm stupid and don't see and hear what goes on around me.

It sure as hell doesn't mean I have ever voted Republican.

Many view politics as same stink, different piles. There are a lot of disgruntled working class people out there. Many have turned to the Repukes because they were recruited in their churches. Many others just won't participate in politics because loss of faith in the system.

There is no inspiration.

I find inspiration here. For the most part. Except when I hear one too many red-state-trailer-park comments coming from the snobbery lobbers. Some times it hurts my feelings. Sometimes it just makes me sad, because those kind of comments cause me to lose respect for the person who made them.

[ultraist]

101. I did read the entire article

I didn't get offended because this writer attempted to point it out, I was offended by his dishonest presentation of the stats on poverty and the shallow description he offered.

Additionally, he blamed Dean and other Democrats for the fact the working class are screwed. I think the Repukes are far more responsible than the Democrats.

The right wing talking point that liberal elites are the ones really screwing the poor is absurd.

This is not to say, there is room for progress in the Dem party, of course there is. As I noted, I supported Edwards during the primaries, in large part, because he was the only candidate addressing poverty and racism.

But to say, the liberal elites are more to blame than the Repukes is simply dishonest.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

108. 3 questions

Which party has put raising the minimum wage out on the floor of congress in nearly every single congressional term for the last (20?) years?

Which party fought right to work laws?

What is elitism really? Drinking a latte? Or purchasing policy so that you make 1000 times the average workers pay?

Of course there are poor white people. In fact, our WELFARE LAWS came into existance to rescue them (in fact people in this geographical area) following the industialization of coal. But if you ask someone in THAT neck of the woods who welfare helps, they'll use some euphamism like welfare queen.

Since the 70's republicans have accused Democrats of class warfare every time the working poor are brought up, but have easily seduced these people into believing we want to take their guns, desegregate them and send their sons to a bathhouse in San Francisco.

I don't call it arrogance when one votes against their own interests, I call it ignorance. The one thing nobody has ever taken from the poor is their ability to think... that they DON'T hoists them by their own petard.

[Skinner]

122. To be clear, I was not accusing working class whites of arrogance.

I was accusing some on our side of arrogance. We mock working class whites, and then scratch our heads when they don't vote for us.

I don't wish to pick on you, NSMA, but we betray our own preconceived notions when we say things like "if you ask someone in THAT neck of the woods who welfare helps, they'll use some euphemism like welfare queen." How many people in "THAT neck of the woods" have you asked about welfare? I'll answer for myself: None. Yet I and people like me are perfectly comfortable making broad-brush statements like this about their attitudes.

Are there some people in "THAT neck of the woods" who buy the "welfare queen" line of crap? Of course there are. Are there some people in "THAT neck of the woods" who don't use the brain that God gave them? Absolutely. But we don't do our party any favors when we pigeonhole all of them with the same broad-brush.

Sure, it's in their economic interest to vote Democrat. But we're not going to convince them to do so by telling them they're a bunch of ignoramuses.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

127. Please see my post further down in the thread

and the answer to your question is YES I HAVE had these conversations not with people in THAT neck of the woods but with their soulmates here in the California heartland where a similar mentality exists.

Of course we aren't going to win them by calling them ignoramuses, but if you had any idea the number of UNION people who told me Arnold was more down to earth and Gray Davis was an elitist, you'd know where I was coming from.

I don't sit in my comfortable office in suburbia. Having been in labor issues all my working life, these ARE the people I deal with.

It takes every cell in my body to STOP myself from calling them an idiot while my liberal elitist educated ass continues to volley for their rights (while they vote for tort reform as they are getting represented by myself and my colleagues in lawsuits)

[enigmatic]

120. Thanks, Skinner

I agree w/ you, as do many others. We're doomed to fail if we can't figure why a large part of the working class/rural population won't vote Democratic anymore, all the while mocking them.

Maybe the light will finally turn on for some people; I don't know.

[SheepBootHero]

167. You are exactly correct

Hell, I'm new here and espoused a few just left of center thoughts and was more or less told my stay would be short. There are plenty of good and decent Democrats like me that are totally disgusted with the pompous more left than thou screed and find it hard to vote for those that offend us with their preaching.

[Goldeneye]

70. Wow, what a great article.

There is a void in this country that needs to be filled. Bush isn't filling it. A vote for him was sort of a protest vote. Not a particularly well chosen one, and I'm convinced Fox news has something to do with it. They were voting against the elitists. And there are elitists in the democratic party, just as there are in the republican party.

These are people that we can reach. We have to humble ourselves a little bit. No more of this "stupid redneck hick" talk. First, insults never got anyone anywhere. Second, these people were screwed by the system more than any of us. Challenging authority, critical thought, history, etc. are things you learn in school. Their schools aren't good. They don't have the money for college. We are at least a little to blame for their situation. We had more power than them and we let the system go bad.

[Name removed]

80. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[livinginphotographs]

88. Working class poor and white does not equal "stupid redneck"

Just like working class poor and black does not equal "drug dealer."

Sorry to interrupt your counter-productive stereotyping session.

[ChairOne]

97. Then talk to the person I responded to. Sheesh. /eom

[steve2470]

75. The corporate media traps these people more than anything

else. See my post in Editorials.

[Nikia]

76. I grew up in a town becoming like this and live in a town like this

Granted these towns are not Southern. They are in Ohio and Wisconsin, respectively. Most people are not in poverty, but many struggle economically.
My hometown in Ohio is semi rural. For over 100 years though, the rural aspect has been also balanced by the industrial aspect. Starting around the time of my birth, 27 years ago, the town has been in decline. Factories close. Others cut their work force. A few new factories have taken their place, but these are factories who have come there to take advantage of a skilled desparate workforce and pay less than half of the wage of the ones that have closed. These factories used to be locally owned, but for the most part are not now. Even though a large portion of the population has been blue collar, the blue collar workforce is barely making it now while the blue collar workforce of 30 year ago was solidly middle class. There are colleges there and there is a strong educated element, but the lifestyle of the average resident is going downhill and the best and the brightest move away.
I moved away. I went to a private liberal arts college with intellectual elitists and felt more comfortable in that world because I grew up as an introvert in the world of books. There were still things that I didn't understand though about the world of work and life outside of academia and the values that get you good jobs. I graduated from college 4 years ago. I work in a semi professional position in a factory with living wage jobs, in the sense that people live on them alright if nothing goes wrong. These are people like the ones from the essay. Most of them were born working class, never had college aspirations, and accept their lives. They may or may not stay at that factory, but it is one of the best paying places not requiring education or skills in the town or the rural side of the area. They do not have jobs for career fullfillment. They have jobs to pay the bills.
The reason that people do not leave my towns in Ohio or Wisconsin is because a person's roots are more important than they are in an urban area. In their small towns where they have lived all their lives, they have families and friends and aren't anonymous like they would be in a bigger city. That is what they have that people don't have in urban and suburban areas. They aren't just out for themselves, which is something else that consumer culture and many politicians seem to miss. Why doesn't concern for others extend outside their small town community? I think it could, but recoprocity is also importnat in their culture. If politicians don't offer them anything, they don't want to offer anything either.

[kwassa]

92. Great analysis.

I also grew up in Ohio, and you hit upon the entire problem right here. It is the economic decline in rural life in America, particularly those that had the support of some local industrial base. This is due to globalization.

you said:
"Starting around the time of my birth, 27 years ago, the town has been in decline. Factories close. Others cut their work force. A few new factories have taken their place, but these are factories who have come there to take advantage of a skilled desparate workforce and pay less than half of the wage of the ones that have closed. These factories used to be locally owned, but for the most part are not now. Even though a large portion of the population has been blue collar, the blue collar workforce is barely making it now while the blue collar workforce of 30 year ago was solidly middle class.

[IronLionZion]

77. definition of elitism

e·lit·ism or é·lit·ism Audio pronunciation of "elitist" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (-ltzm, -l-)
n.

1. The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources.
2.
1. The sense of entitlement enjoyed by such a group or class.
2. Control, rule, or domination by such a group or class.


It's not whether you think of yourself as an elitist or get offended when called it. But do OTHER PEOPLE think you're an elitist? And what in the hell makes them think that? (not directed at you NoPasaran)

so instead of poking fun at the poor rural people in "Jesusland" we should welcome these people back to our party. That's exactly what our new chairman is doing.

Save the insults for the real elitist assholes: Bush, Cheney, Rove, et al.

[secular_warrior]

82. it is liberal culture that is the left's biggest problem

If you can't connect with the people, you can't get them to vote for you. If the culture is so repulsive to them, they won't listen to anything else.

Besides that, the culture desperately needs a pounding from the left ! Why is materialism and narcissism so acceptable to some liberals !? The last time we got any serious critique of the culture from the left was the early 90's (from indie/alternative artists, eg. Kurt Cobain) -- but it collapsed on itself, and gave way to the predatory, libertarian dog-eat-dog fuck fest we currently enjoy, where fame thirsty Ken and Barbie wannabes rule over us.

Secondly, the left needs to reach out to poor people - regardless of race. Poor whites are angry because they feel liberals hate their culture, and blame them for social problems like racism. Many whites do have racist views, but if you talk to them, it's obvious that they just feel left out - nobody celebrates them like they do for minorities and women. Nobody puts them in sitcoms and blockbuster movies. I am a minority, and I don't want this done in my name - we need to reach out to poor whites and stop acting like they're the third reich - because they're not. They're just poor people with nothing, who hold onto their church, their family, their flag - and protect what they have with "hateful" rhetoric - because they have so little.

Third, if Dems don't find a way to connect with working class men - they do so at their own peril. Dems are only lucky to have the vote of black men, who don't like cultural liberalism. The party can't simply appeal to the concerns of trendy women and professionals ! Remember, FDR's Democratic party was the party of working class men - real, tough, profanity spewing men -- not the type you'd find in a Starbucks.

[ulysses]

83. what is "liberal culture"?

Do you mean that what's perceived as liberal culture (Volvos, lattes, etc.) is the left's biggest problem or that *actual* liberal culture is? If you mean the latter, what does that culture actually entail? I've never really known, and I'm one of the more liberal folks here.

[secular_warrior]

86. The perception has become reality,

because principaled people on the left don't speak out against many in the culture who claim to be on our side, but are really worse than right wingers, in terms of how much they love themselves, and use cultural/social liberalism - not to create a flatter social structure, but a steeper one.

[ulysses]

90. who are you talking about?

...many in the culture who claim to be on our side, but are really worse than right wingers...

[secular_warrior]

102. Hollywood, to begin with. Entertainment. Urban yuppie culture.

To understand my point you have to understand that class isn't simply about money in today's world.

Class, in simplest terms, is about one person being above another - for whatever reason.

The culture we have today promotes an image of the rich, perfect looking, socially sophisticated, upwardly mobile, cultural liberal. These elite liberals, working along with the capitalists, use sex and image to make people feel bad about themselves, to make people feel inferior, to make money. They sit in their elite circles at the top of society laughing at the "little people". They live in their rich white oases surrounded by large poverty and crime stricken areas.

Sure, real liberals aren't about materialism and selfishness - but many in the culture who associate themselves with the left are. The celebs and yuppies talk a good game, but at the end of the day they go home to their gated mansions, to their penthouses.

My point is that these folks should be excoriated by the left, for epitomizing the opposite of liberalism, even if they are only a minority, because they are a very visible minority destroying the image of liberals as fighters for the working class hero. As long as the left looks the other way, the faux liberals (the liberal elite) will continue to be associated with real liberals.

[bleedingheart]

107. are you advocating communism for the left?

So while americans like the capitalist society they have built, it is okay for the rightwingers to live in their gated mansions and have no regard for others but it isn't okay for lefties to talk the talk and even give money and time to their causes but actually sleep in a fancy house???

[ulysses]

109. I'm supposed to get exercised about actors?

The image culture I get, but I don't see that as being a promotion of liberals in the entertainment industry. If we've lost the image of "fighters for the working class hero", maybe it's because we've become too dependent on a party that no longer fights much for the working class.

Put another way, neither the image nor the reality of the left depends on Martin Sheen.

[kwassa]

110. Huh? How is Hollywood the same as urban yuppies?

"The culture we have today promotes an image of the rich, perfect looking, socially sophisticated, upwardly mobile, cultural liberal."

How do you see this culture as liberal?

And how are yuppies liberal Democrats? To me they are mostly Republican.

"These elite liberals, working along with the capitalists, use sex and image to make people feel bad about themselves, to make people feel inferior, to make money. They sit in their elite circles at the top of society laughing at the "little people". They live in their rich white oases surrounded by large poverty and crime stricken areas."

Where in the world does this social analysis come from?

I think you bought a Republican line, someplace. Most of those rich white oases are Republican, not Democratic.

[secular_warrior]

114. "What's the matter with Kansas?"

Thomas Frank does a much better job at explaining this in his book Whats the matter with Kansas?

Before I looked into his book, I myself dismissed the argument.

It has to do with perception, and how the Republicans are using it to take over America, while liberals deny they have a perception problem.

[kwassa]

134. Oh, I agree there is a huge perception problem

The Republicans have been superb at creating little messages that they repeat that are untrue but become accepted because they are unchallenged by Democrats.

[bleedingheart]

94. What??? I am curious to know what you are talking about as well

sorry right-wingers like Scalia, Cheney and their social set drink fine wines, send their kids to the best schools and they shit on the poor....

Left-wingers like the Kennedys, Roosevelts and their social set ..drink fine wines, send their kids to the best schools and they try to LIFT PEOPLE up!....


perhaps you fell for the PR from the republicans but to be honest it doesn't take much consideration and further thought to realize that the RightWingers are just playing people for fools while they vacation in the Hamptons....

[mark414]

91. well said

[Tomee450]

128. I am also

a minority and I would like to know in what manner my community is being celebrated. Is discriminating against me in the area of housing and employment celebrating me? When applications with black sounding names are thrown out is that an act of celebration? What about racial profiling of blacks, should we consider that a celebration? And what of police brutality. Is the fact that blacks have a high infant mortality rate indication of celebration? And what of the black who are so poor now that they are having to flock more and more to food banks at the end of the month. Others have had to move in with relatives because they can't make it. And of course there are those draconian drug laws which give blacks much longer sentences for possession of crack than are given to whites who posses powdered cocaine. Black people with good credit are charged higher interests for loans than whites. That's celebrating us?

Have you visited the many inner cities where most blacks live? Streets full of holes, block after block of run down houses which landlords won't repair. Vacant lots overgrown with weeds and full of old rubber tires, glass and other debris dumped there by people who do not live in the area. Schools in disrepair, many with not enough computers and some without chemistry labs.

I just don't get it. Here we have another thread about how bad poor whites have it. I'd like those poor whites to walk in the shoes of black people. By the way, I find nothing wrong with saying people should move if they can't find work. The first person in my family to leave the south was my uncle. He couldn't find work so he hopped a train and came north where he took any job he could find. He worked in the fields picking crops and as a janitor. He cut lawns and painted houses. He also worked as a gardener. He just wanted to work and wasn't to proud to take the most menial of jobs. He left his family behind and went to a place where he did not know a single soul. I am a liberal and I look down on no one. I have nothing but sympathy for the poor, no matter the color. I am in agreement with those who say that many of the problems that the white poor have are brought on by themselves. How could they vote for a party that refused to extend unemployment insurance, that attacks unions, that cut back on welfare for poor while granting subsidizes to corporations. Sometimes people want to blame others when they should actually think about what they themselves have done and take responsibility.

I live not to far from a poor black neighborhood. It breaks by heart when I see men and women, some of them old, out early in the morning collecting bottles and cans to turn in for their deposits. I've even had people coming to my door asking if I had any bottles they could turn in for recycling. I know three young black persons who cannot continue in school because they don't have the money. Poor whites think they have it bad. They have no idea how much worse many poor blacks are faring.

[secular_warrior]

131. My point was that poor whites and poor blacks both have it bad

and somehow the urban yuppies are the focus of the Democratic Party.

I mentioned several times how the urban areas are highly stratified, with pockets of rich, culturally liberal white areas surrounded by much larger, poverty stricken (mostly minority) areas.

Poor whites aren't alienated from Dems because of blacks, IMO, but because of the yuppies who thumb their noses at 'hicks'.

Democrats need to help poor people, of any color - period. Even if they are racist. Because you and I both know that people think and do bad things (urban crime, for example) when they are poor and struggling. Poor whites are no exception, IMO, who are maybe culturally conservative, but not as racist as they come across (again, this is not to excuse them, but poverty makes people come across worse than they really are).

[ultraist]

136. Democrats do support helping the poor

We vote for social programs that go to feed the poor, even if they are racist white poor people. All children have a right to eat, regardless if their parents are ignorant and hateful.

The FACT is, that Kerry won the large majority of lower income voters. Check the exit polls. Just because this author skews the truth, doesn't make it so.

The few lower income voters that voted for Bush are the racist, conservative whites than cling to their fundie culture of hate.

FACTCHECK: Kerry won the large majority of lower income voters. Those that voted for Bush didn't do so because the liberal elites are snobby acting towards them, they did so because they are FUNDIE types that are caught up in a culture of hate.

Should we pander to a culture of hate and disregard our core values?

[kwassa]

137. I think you are wrong on this point

secular_warrior:
"I mentioned several times how the urban areas are highly stratified, with pockets of rich, culturally liberal white areas surrounded by much larger, poverty stricken (mostly minority) areas."

You keep saying this but it isn't true.

The rich areas are not necessarily liberal at all. Why do think that they are?????

Urban areas can also contain vast middle-class or working-class neighborhoods.

[ultraist]

140. Yes, Urban areas are the most diverse areas in the nation

It's the wealthy white gated community suburbs that insulate themselves from economic and racial diversity. The large majority of these wealthy white communities are heavily REPUBLICAN. Very few diverse neighborhoods are Republican strongholds. Bush won the majority of the white flight suburban votes.

The large majority of upper income voters voted for BUSH. This is a long time trend. Bush's base is the insulated haves and have mores.

Someone has failed to review the demographics of Democrats vs. Republicans and the exit polling data. The facts speak for themselves.

[Tomee450]

143. I can't understand

what leads people to believe that the so called liberal elites are not concerned with the plight of poor whites. I know of a retired wealthy couple who decided to work for Habitat for Humanity building houses for the poor.

"It's the wealthy white gated community suburbs that insulate themselves from economic and racial diversity. The large majority of these wealthy white communities are heavily REPUBLICAN. Very few diverse neighborhoods are Republican strongholds."

True.

[JanMichael]

93. I started a thread last week about terms like "White Trash"...

..."Trailer Trash", ecetera, and low and behold, some people thought that I was trying to equate those Class Division word weapons with the very real and insideous Institutional Racism in this country. Amazingly I was being called a Racist for trying to point out some trashy language that divides all People. Fortunately there were more DU'ers that actually understood what I was talking about as opposed to those who were confused.

I see that the same sort of thing on ths thread. People are angered that someone has tried to, more or less acurately, explain the obvious disconnect between the Working Poor and the Middle Class Left.

He's called a Republican I believe by someone, that's ludicris, he's just pointing out an ugly relationship.

It's no wonder that the Republican Party has made inroads with the "White Trash"/"Trailer Trash" voters...at least not when looking at this thread.

[QC]

100. Yep, talking about class gets you in trouble everywhere.

I can understand why people on the Right are resistant to the subject, but it's a mystery why those who claim to be Leftists object so violently to the very mention of what used to be the defining issue for Leftists.

If you bring up class on this site there are those who will reflexively accuse you of neglecting race, as though both are not important and it's impossible to deal with more than one issue at a time.

Yes, Virginia, there is a class system in this country, and when those at the top of it are finished chewing up and spitting out the people Bageant describes they are coming after those of us more fortunate, including those who seem to get some kind of charge out of loudly asserting their superiority to the "rednecks" fifty times a day.

[solinvictus]

112. "White Trash"..

I view the terms "white trash", "redneck", "cracker" and such along the same terms as others see "nigger", "kike", and "spic"; they are racial and classist perjoratives. However, in America, poor whites are the last target for socially acceptable derision and inevitably are portrayed in the media as ignorant, Bible thumping racists. I suppose if poor whites ever find their equivalent of rap music, they can make this an acceptable sub-culture and profit from it.

[misanthrope]

119. Not trying to be a jerk...

...but it's "ludicrous."

Sorry, just a pet peeve from a feared side effect of hip-hop's glamorization of ignorance.

[JanMichael]

130. Thanks!

Drat. If only I could still edit it.

My utmost and sincerest apologies.

[Tsiyu]

95. You people are making my head spin

I was raised working class in a house full of books - Brittanica, F. Scott Fitzgerald novels, a bust of Mozart on the piano we rented so I could have lessons.

I live in a rural area, on the fringes of one of the most rural counties in Tennessee. Kerry won the county.

The problems of poverty and the working poor cannot be summed up so easily. I have worked for the staunchest Democrat in this area and he paid the worst wages. Many rural employers "get away" with paying their help poverty wages because "everybody else does it."

Many working class folks are caught up in the materialism game. There is a great deal of income wasted on fast cars, rental furniture, A&F clothes ( cuz the kids gotta have 'em), fast food, video games.

It's not that lower or middle income folks shouldn't have cool stuff. It's just that you shouldn't get the toys before the retirement and the college funds are well on their way. I didn't follow that advice myself so I know how stupid it is to spend all your pay on trinkets at Wal-Mart.

We need to educate kids about financial realities so that people can build their futures rather than squandering them. We need to encourage ALL employers to pay a living wage.

And we sure as hell don't need the stereotypes I read in the OP. I earned around $5000 last year. Our household income- with four adults ( two students) will be around $12,000. ( I don't have a mortgage or car payment - own home and auto - so that's how we make it). But we still have Brittanica and cases full of books.

[Tsiyu]

129. And yes

I spelled Britannica wrong.

I'm old.

[steve2470]

99. Call me ignorant but I have never perceived the Dems as

being liberal "elitists". Liberal, yes, but elitists, no. The Republicans are the true elitists. When I look at the Republicans on TV, they are almost always white, well-dressed and their radio dogs have such elitist attitudes, such as Neal Boortz. Again, the media has been bought by the Republican corporate elite and hence has lead us down the golden path back to the 1920's.

[progressivebydesign]

105. He has some points... BUT he's off-base on some things..

Okay. I grew up poor and white. But.. being poor and white does not make you "white trash" as some people like to think. YOu can be poor, on welfare, living in a hotel occasionally, but it does not automatically mean that you 1) don't or can't read 2) drink beer 3) watch Dukes of Hazard or Nascar 4) litter and live like pigs 5) think that people who go to school are elitists. or 6) have no desire to better yourself or go to college.

He states that Rush Limbaugh is successful in pushing the rich, liberal, elite meme.. when it is the REPUBLICANS that hold most of the wealth and power in this country. He is demonizing the liberal elite... when in fact, if you look at MOST social service workers and volunteers, teachers, etc., they are liberal. THEY care for the poor. He, and the people he writes about, are misguided. They have demonized the wrong people. I am white, fairly educated, I live in a Blue state, on the coast. I am a liberal. BUT.. I am not rich, I am not immune to the struggles of the poor and working poor in America.. regardless of color.

What he does not acknowledge is this. CORPORATE AMERICA is what is fostering the beliefs he writes about. THEY are the ones pushing Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, etc. People did NOT seek those things out.. they were the ONLY voice once Corporate America took over the media.

I'm sorry that people whose lives are so lacking in hope and promise, people who will never have health care, people whose children will never see the promise of a good education or career... CONTINUE to vote for REPUBLICANS. THAT is ULTIMATE display of ignorance.. NOT being poor.

[ultraist]

121. Good point!

I think a few here are confusing the fact that we noticed a lot of dishonesty in the essay with the idea that we don't believe classism exists or that we don't support programs that help the poor. That's a ridiculous leap of logic.

As you noted, Liberals are the ones who fight against classism, not the Repukes. This author's attempt to demonize liberal elites and Democrats, and blame them for classism, is just what the right wingers do. All of the major social policy has been put forth by Democrats. From the food stamp program (Kennedy and Johnson) to Pell grants to Affirmative Action.

The Republicans do not support social programs, liberals do. They wooed some of the working class to their side by using wedge issues such as abortion, gun control and gay marriage. That's what the author of "What's the matter with Kansas" is saying.

Again, this is not to say, Democrats need to more effectively articulate their core values, one of which is to lift people out of poverty. But, the Democrats should not forgo their other core values in order to woo the conservative working class voters. We are the party of equal opportunity for all, including being pro choice.

If conservative working class voters continue to be taken in by Repukes based on a few wedge issues and vote against their own economic interests, so be it. We should NOT sacrifice our core values.

[phusion]

116. Author shows his own prejudice...

While I enjoyed the article, I think there is a lot of prejudice shown by the author. For example:

"Howard Dean is just another millionaire Yale frat boy."

He seems to equate education/monetary wealth with arrogance...This is unfortunate because I think there is a lot of truth in what he says, but he's not going to win any friends w/ comments like that...Besides, Dean was calling for some of the things this guy wanted i.e. guaranteed healthcare.

[ultraist]

124. Dean's state has a VERY LOW poverty rate

The author is again being dishonest blaming someone like Dean. Look at Dean's state, the poverty rate is WELL BELOW the national average. Dean does support the working class and the poor.

Dean was talking AGAIN about poverty this weekend during the debate with Perle, while Bush has cut food stamps, grants to low income entrepreneurs, Tech school grants, after school programs for poor kids, Medicaid, pay for overtime, Section 8 housing voucher funding, and a myriad of other programs that help the working class and those in poverty. All programs that the supposed "liberal elite" SUPPORT.

[Blue Wally]

144. Vermont has very few minorities

"The author is again being dishonest blaming someone like Dean. Look at Dean's state, the poverty rate is WELL BELOW the national average. Dean does support the working class and the poor.


Vermont has very few minorities. The state is mostly white. Given that minorities have a much higher poverty rate than whites, the state would look better. If you took Wayne County (Detroit) away from Michigan and gave it to Ohio, the Michigan poverty rate would drop and the Ohio poverty rate would go up. Apples must be compared to apples and oranges muct be compared to oranges.

[ultraist]

145. Apples to apples

You make an excellent point! I agree, that since a disproportionately high number of minorities are in poverty, that should be accounted for with Dean's state poverty level.

What percentage of whites are in poverty in Dean's state?

Nationally, 8% of whites are in poverty.

In Dean's state, which nearly all white, the poverty rate is around 6%. This means, that the number of whites in poverty in Dean's state is LESS than the national average.

Any way you cut, Dean has done well with the poverty issue. So my point still holds true. ;)

[solinvictus]

125. Bad side of "liberal culture"...

There is a perception, often justified, among working class people of all races that educated, upper income liberals are patronizing hypocrites. I'll give my own firsthand example of a stereotypical Starbuck's liberal.

A few years back, I lived in an apartment adjacent to a small retail area that straddled two high income areas of Birmingham, AL. The store next to my apartment building was an eco-hippy clothing, shoe, and accessory shop which carried the typical gamut of Birkenstocks, hemp jewelry, and lefty bumper stickers. There was a small vacant area about 45-50' between buildings that was part of our parking area as tenants. A priest in the building worked with the local AIDS hospice and took in people who were terminal. One of the hospice patients set up a small yard sale on the sidewalk, one table with some of his meager things, a few lamps, and a couple of pieces of furniture. The "liberal" owner storms out of the store and begins screaming at the poor sick man to "get your shit out of here". It's to the point that the man is crying, so the priest comes over and helps him move his things back into the apartment. Yes, she drove a (then) new Volvo wagon adorned with "Clinton/Gore" and various conservation bumper stickers. It made me want to throw a concrete block through her store window. I guess her notion of compassion didn't include AIDS patients trying to scrape together a few bucks.

It's the same cognitive disconnect that occurred after (and I say before) the election. Kerry and Edwards virtually wrote off the entire South except for Florida. If you remember, Clinton carried much of the South in 1992, but for God's sake, he took the time to visit Southerners and campaign among those of us from various races and socio/economic backgrounds. That's what Dean was talking about in his campaign: you have to reach out to Southern, white working class people who like guns, NASCAR, and likely have a Confederate flag sticker on a beaten pick up.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

126. Coming back. The real tragedy of this article is that America has no

legislative memory and the community of Winchester remembers Smokey and the Bandit more than they remember the history of legislation that has kept them where they are.

I will take this article legislatively point by point. The author plants little stories within but never gets to the real issue which is WHO MADE THEIR LIFE THIS WAY?

The first even the author sites is the Rhinehart Tire Fire. The whole point of Superfund legislation was that so business would pay for the communities they spoil.

As of 2002, Virginia was scheduled to get $16,ooo. The site has cost 10 million to clean since 83. The local newspaper who defended George Bush as a "uniter" on cultural issues claims the site is nearly cleaned but environmental advocates disagree:

http://www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?ContentID=2165&Page=2&subnav=&project=&colorback=ffffff
http://www.winchesterstar.com/TheWinchesterStar/020723/Area_fire.asp
http://www.scorecard.org/env-releases/land/site.tcl?epa_id=VAD980831796#threats


Now, in exchange for liberal advocacy of an issue that SHOULD be close to the hearts of the inhabitants of Winchester, how are liberals rewarded whether they have a latte in their hand or not?

We are called "treehuggers." We are told that we don't respect the notion of private property (Rhinehart had a bazillion tires on his private property that despoiled the entire community.

Our advocacy of this issue DIRECTLY benefitted the people of that community. What do they remember? That we desegregated their schools and stand for protecting the rights of all Americans including gay people. They CHOSE a culture war over their own air and water.

Nationally we at least number a quarter of white U.S. workers, thirty five million in all by the government’s own shaved-down numbers. Nobody knows for sure in a nation that calls millions of $7-an-hour janitors and marginal people working “contract labor”, with no insurance or benefits, “independent businesspersons” and “entrepreneurs”.

That may be true, but a janitor in the "people's republic of berkeley" makes 6.75 per hour if they are getting minimum wage and get's 5.15 in Virginia. That janitor in berkeley might still belong to a labor union making far more since California is not a right to work (for nothing) state and Virginia is.

He discusses the ire of living without health insurance or working at 67 in order to afford healthcare.

What did Virginia calle her? Hitlery? What does Winchester think of Jesse Jackson? An advocate of unions?

Yet most of the poor people in the United States are white (51%) outnumbering blacks two to one and all other minority poverty groups combined.

There are far more white than black people in America, that's why. Proportionally there are more poor black families, but the author doesn't hesitate to play the race card even if doing so is EXACTLY what has resulted in the poor staying exactlty where they are.

Consequently we find many books/studies focusing on ethnic minorities, but few credible ones about our defiant native homegrown poor. To my mind, it is impossible to be tenured and have street cred, but then I am just a prejudiced redneck prick from Winchester, Virginia, otherwise referred to as “Dickville”.

3 words "Nickled and Dimed." : It's short and the author doesn't use any big words like that commie Susan Sontag.


Consequently, liberals are much more familiar with the social causes of immigrants, or even the plight of Tibet, than the bumper crop of homegrown native working folks who make up towns like Winchester. Liberal America loves the Dalai Lama but is revolted by life here in the land of the pot gut and the plumber’s butt. Can’t say as I blame them entirely, but then, that is why God created beer. To make ordinary life more attractive, or at least stomachable.

Again see my first point. HIS FUCKING COMMUNITY BENEFITTED FROM OUR ADVOCACY!!! How gaddamn hard would it be for him to tell us that?


They cannot understand a career limited to yanking guts out through a chicken’s ass for the rest of one’s life down at the local poultry plant (assuming it does not move offshore). Being born working class carries moral and spiritual implications understood only through experiencing them. It comes back to street cred.

Gee that's funny. Tyson and Wal-Mart were sponsors of Arkansas' right to work laws. Who voted for them on the ballot when the time came due?

A good start on healing this rift might be this: the next time those on the left encounter these seemingly self-screwing, stubborn, God-obsessed folks, maybe they can be open to their trials, understand the complexity of their situation, step forward and say, “Brother can I lend you a hand?” Surely it would make the ghosts of Joe Hill, Franklin Roosevelt and Mohandas Gandhi smile.

Sure it would. And I'd gladly sit there being called a Jewish dyke or getting lynched for offering my support.

Before I am asked the more specific question, “What the fuck do you think middle class liberals should do then?” I’m gonna answer it. ORGANIZE! Quit voting for that pack of undead hacks called the Democratic Party and ORGANIZE! Howard Dean is just another millionaire Yale frat boy. ORGANIZE!

Reminder to the author, Joe Hill got the death penalty in the mindset prevalent then that is once again making a comeback. Howard Dean MAY be a frat boy but HE WAS THE ONE TALKING about WHITE GUYS WITH CONFEDERATE FLAGS ON THE BACK OF THEIR TRUCK . I personally objected to the code talk but it's simply proof that the author has not only his dick-in-yhe-dirt but his fucking head.

[ultraist]

132. Excellent commentary NSAM!

solinvictus: If you think that the liberal elites treat AIDS patients worse than conservative white voters, let me remind you that it was a conservative white leader who made the statement, "AIDS is Gay's punishment for being Gay." USSC Justice Rehnquist, one of the darlings of the Conservative whites.

Jesse Helms is a HERO to those white conservative voters. Do you have any idea how racist and homophobic he is? The man is evil.

These people listen to Rush Limbaugh for fucks sake. Who hates Gays? Liberal elites or Conservative fundies?

Your one andectotal example is an exception to the rule. Liberals do not hate Gays, and if they do, they are NOT liberals.

[Tsiyu]

201. Awesome response

I have had it well. I have had it not so well.

I've been pretty open about my present financial status here on DU.
So sue me if I'm just not the paranoid type...

And, with VERY few exceptions, I have been treated better on DU, among fellow Democrats, than I have been treated by Repukes.

The Repukes are caught up in the image thing. Yes, some Democrats are, but there is a difference in the way Democrats treat the poor overall. Repukes have only recently stated that people are poor because of God's wrath upon them.

That's a real good reason not to promote programs for the poor ( unless you feed em Jeebus with the soup). Democrats would never say such a thing. If any have, I'll personally kick their ass.

[fedsron2us]

133. Interesting but depressing thread

As a Briton I live in a society where a persons class sticks to them from the moment they are born until the day they die. No amount of education will prevent your neighbours and work colleagues from discerning your true origins. Usually individuals only have to open their mouths for people to slot them into their place within the social hierarchy. This pernicious evil has rotted my country for centuries. It is sad to see this cancer has taken such a firm root in the USA. What is particularly depressing is that some on the left who are rightly outraged at homophobia or racism still find it acceptable to express hatred towards poor, uneducated working class whites. This sort of prejudice is just as vile and corrosive as any other. It is a gift to the ruling elites who know how to play off disadvantaged groups against each other.

[ultraist]

138. Who has done that ?

It's the conservative racist, homophobic whites that we dislike. People who support leaders like Jesse Helms, Bush, and Rehnquist.

Liberals support programs that help the poor. We support programs that alleviate classism.

Bush et al are the ones who promote classism. Look at their tax policies or their cuts to social programs. It's not by accident that the rich are getting richer and the poor are becoming poorer under BUSH.

Where on this thread has someone criticized poor white Democrats?
Please cite an example to support your claim. TIA!

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

139. I really hope that isn't directed at my posts. My entire professional

life has dealth with the working poor. It is an exercize in futility getting past "culture war" issues to even address what they consider to be THEIR concerns.

If THEY are more concerned with abortion than their economic lot what am I to do?

If anyone WATCHED Erin Brokovich, she worked with and attempted to HELP the very subjects of this article. As someone who regularly travels to the community where she was, I can tell you her type is VILLIFIED there.

The white working poor needs to take a double take at their hatred as well. A "leftist" author arguing and USING race, sex, religion and culture and justifying the manner in which that has cystallized amongst those MOST HARMED by BUYING INTO those distractions from economic and other quality of life issues needs to do a gutcheck.

[fedsron2us]

150. As A Briton I am an outsider on DU

and I do not want to intrude on the private grief of the Democratic party. However, any discussion of class prejudice is bound to resonate with someone born in the UK. My comments were not intended as an attack on any particular post in this thread. Nor am I claiming any sense of moral superiority on this issue because on occasions I have fallen just as readily into the trap of dismissing a huge section of the white working class as dumb racists. However, recently these easy descriptions have made me feel more and more uncomfortable. I suppose it is because I have recently been tracing the background of my working class ancestors that I have come to understand the grinding hardships that they had to endure on a daily basis. It has made me realize that sub consciously I have absorbed quite a lot of the innate prejudices and assumptions that prop up the British class system. What I have come to realise is that when you are at the bottom of the social and economic heap race, religion or sexual orientation make very little difference because the system is going to screw you regardless. It is hardly surprising that the working class are not always sympathetic to those who they feel do not truly understand their struggle to make even a basic living. They are easily deceived by the right wing lie that there is 'liberal elite' who are keeping them down. Of course, in the real scheme of things the true ruling class regard educated liberals with just the same contempt and disdain as they do the poor. In their world view we are really all just so much lower class scum.

I suppose what worries me is the number of posts that I have seen on the DU that just pour scorn on all the working class Republican voters as idiots who live in 'Jesus land' and deserve have their jobs outsourced and their Social Security taken away. If you do not believe that class prejudice is alive and well on DU try entering the word 'Sheeple' in this site's search engine and see how many hits you get. Of course, it is just possible that all these posts are trolls by Free Republicans etc who just want to discredit the DU in the eyes of poor whites. Unfortunately, I suspect that there are too many people on the left who are only too happy to do their work for them. What I would like to see is more effort to understand why so many of the white working class are prepared to vote against there own economic interests for G.W. Bush. Solving that problem just might be the first step in the Democrats winning back some political power.

[UdoKier]

196. Thanks for that insight.

I hate American's willing blindness to class. We have a greater income disparity than most other western democracies, but persist in pretending that we are a classless society.

When I first heard Pulp's "common people" or Chumbawamba's "She's Got All the Friends" - I just really thought "These people get it!" For some reason, Americans working 2 jobs for peanuts, in debt up to their ears, actually think they are "middle class" because they've got a car and a color TV.

[Mabel Dodge]

146. I'm reposting my response ....saving our own asses

Social economic divides are a reality in America. I work with Appalachian’s and my husband is an Appalachian. Most of the Appalachian families I know are good hard working decent people. However they deal with prejudice everyday and to make matters worse it’s not even recognized as prejudice. It’s not ok to use the “N” word but its sure ok to call someone a dumb hillbilly.

It’s amazing how the slightest “twang” and smallest cultural differences will deny good people opportunities enjoyed by the rest of us. I have known Appalachians that have worked to get rid of the twang, divorce themselves from family and their culture just to get ahead. It’s not easy to deny who you are to advance your place in society, and it’s not healthy.

It all boils down to the same thing, the closer you are to being the upper class image of perfection the better off you are. Just ask the black community; they’ve known for years that the lighter you are the easier it is to survive in America. The problem is that the working class isn’t “white” enough and it’s ok to hate them for it.

It's time to embrace the working class in order to save our own sorry asses.

[Tomee450]

148. There are some

upper class people who will look down on anyone not of their own class. But in many cases a snobby, upper class, person given a choice between renting or hiring a white hillbilly with a twang and an African American, will choose the hillbilly.

There are many black people who can tell of being skipped over for promotions in favor of a poor white who did not have the education or experience that the black had. Some of these people had even trained the white person.

[Mabel Dodge]

151. I'm not arguing the fact that there is racism...

I'm saying there is also classism. The bottom line is that it's cool among liberals to take up one cause and not the other. I'm saying it's all the same deal, and we had better take up all causes that keep people disenfranchised from the system. If not, we will lose the race.

It's also the moral thing to do, it's not right that people have to give up their culture to get ahead. That's asking them to exchange their soul for money.

[Tomee450]

152. What causes are liberals

taking up that help only minorities? Are social programs like Medicaid, Food Stamps,SSI, Section 8 Housing only for minorities? And what of educational grants. Are only black students eligible for them? I cannot see any policy that the so called democratic elites are advocating that benefit minorities only. Even Affirmative action benefits people of all races.

There are people who do not wish to speak the truth about the real reason why so many poor whites vote against their own best interest. It is race, period. It doesn't matter that the Republican party is really the elitist party, the party that favors the rich over the poor. It is perceived as the party that will do as little as possible to advance equality for black people. For some white people, especially those in the south, that is THE important reason to vote for the Repubs. During the Clinton administration, I saw whites being interviewed who said Clinton was doing too much for the blacks. A review of Clinton's record reveals this not to be true. Clinton did not give blacks special treatment.

I don't see too many liberals out there talking about civil rights for African American. Usually it's members of the Congressional Black caucus or other black activists. Gone are the time when one would see white liberals on television discussing the plight of many of the very poor in the black community. I sympathize with the poor of all races, but poor whites might think a little better about their plight had they the opportunity to step in the shoes of many minorities.

There is no reason why any poor white person should vote for the Republican party. There just is too much evidence that that party is a party of the rich, a party that is not against using race to achieve their goals. Unfortunately, many whites cannot see the truth and vote against their own interest. African Americans refuse to do that even though a lot are not that happy with the Democrats.

[ultraist]

155. Why should we embrace racist, homophobes?

Those lower income voters that voted for Bush and his racist homophobic policies are not going to swing Democrat.

Should we give up "our liberal culture" to appease them? A culture that promotes equal opportunity and respect for diversity so that they feel comfortable? No thanks. If they choose to support homophobic and racist leaders, that's their problem. We should not be forced to let them "feel comfortable."

I live in NC and encounter all income Repukes on a daily basis. I don't care what their income is, rich , poor, or somewhere in the middle, if they support homophobic, racist candidates, they are REDNECKS.

[Mabel Dodge]

158. What a nasty thing to say about a large group of people....

So you are saying to embrace poor whites is to embrace racists, homophobes?

It's true there is the element of racism and homophobia among SOME poor whites (I've also seen homophobia among poor blacks too). Maybe poverty, lack of education and having to compete for very limited resources has something to do with it. I’ve also seen great amounts of tolerance among people who’ve had very little.

The point, is these people need our party and I feel strongly we need them. We should be the one’s reaching out to them and improving their lot. Instead of being just one more jerk who judges them harshly.

[ultraist]

162. I said those that VOTE FOR BUSH, don't twist my words

You need to read my post again. I DID NOT call all poor whites racist and homophobic.

I said, POOR WHITES THAT VOTED FOR BUSH. I have no interest in making people feel ok about being racist and homophobic. It's not ok to be racist and homophobic.

I don't see poor black people voting for the homophobic Bush party. 90+% of blacks vote Democrat. Your statement about poor blacks being homophobic is not true. They vote Democrat.

We don't need racists and homophobes. We already have the LARGE MAJORITY of poor white voters. Check the exit polling and the long term trends of how poor whites votes.

The few poor whites that vote for Bush can go fuck themselves.

[Tomee450]

164. But why mention

poor whites specifically as if other poor people are receiving benefits that poor whites are denied. There are poor people in all communities who are hurting. Both the Democrats and Republicans should be trying to help such people. The Democrats do try to help the poor but all I see from the Republicans are slashing of the safety net and an acceleration of the outsourcing of jobs. Why are the white poor angry with Democrats when it is the Republican party that does little to help them. Even now the Repubs are attempting to destroy Social Security as we've known it. People should read how bad it was for the elderly before Social Security. Many people, particularly women, lived in bitter poverty. It's the Republicans who are slashing Medicaid and Section 8 benefits. It should be obvious what party favors helping the poor yet, the white poor continues to vote for the Republicans. They vote against their own best interest while complaining about the Democrats, the party that for years has advocated policies to assist the poor.

[ultraist]

166. exactly!

Singling out the very few poor white Bush voters as being a group we should pity is absurd. Blaming liberal elites for their plight is equally ridiculous. That's why I pointed out the racist slant by the author of the essay in the OP.

The fact is, the majority poor voters voted for Kerry. The poor whites that voted for Bush, fucked themselves. If they are so caught up in promoting their homophobic and racist ideals, there's not much reaching out we can do to them. We should NOT sacrifice our core values as Democrats to win over a few poor white voters that don't turn out to vote very well anyway.

Total percent/Bush/Kerry

Under $15,000 (8%) 36% n/a 63% KERRY WON

$15-30,000 (15%) 42% n/a 57% KERRY WON

$30-50,000 (22%) 49% n/a 50% 0% TIED

$50-75,000 (23%) 56% n/a 43% 0% BUSH WON

$75-100,000 (14%) 55% n/a 45% 0% BUSH WON

$100-150,000 (11%) 57% n/a 42% 1% BUSH WON

$150-200,000 (4%) 58% n/a 42% * BUSH WON

$200,000 or More (3%) 63% n/a 35% BUSH WON

[solinvictus]

160. Poor Blacks...

In this last election cycle, Rove and company succeeded in luring many black voters to Bush because of gay marriage. There's a black talk show host here in Birmingham who's liberal on everything except gays. So much for the "big tent", eh?

[ultraist]

163. 90% of blacks voted for Kerry

I think you are confused about your facts again. Blacks HAVE ALWAYS VOTED DEMOCRAT. They are a stronghold of our base.

Democrats need to get back on the ball with issues about racism, yes. Dean is right, we need to do more and not take our black voters for granted. The Democrats move to the center was bullshit. I agree with Dean on this.

But it's the Democrats that passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, not the Repukes. Democrats support Affirmative Action, not the Repukes.

[Tomee450]

165. I don't think too

many African Americans were fooled since most blacks still voted Democratic. Most black people are not going to vote against there best interest just because they disagree with the party's support of one issue.

[wildeyed]

188. Not all low income Bush voters are racist homophobes.

I know a few. They are not well educated and getting really bad information from their religious leaders. They are getting so completely fucked by this admin's policies, but the little church bulletin says they have to stand up for family values and the unborn by voting repuke. And they do. Meanwhile, they are losing their home because their son broke his arm in three places, they have no health insurance and no savings despite the fact that all adults in the household work two jobs.

[ultraist]

192. Why do they vote Repuke then? Not financial reasons, that's for sure

I'd be interested in hearing their reasons for voting for Bush. If it's not about Gays, Blacks, and Women's right to choose, then what it is?

[wildeyed]

212. I clearly stated in my original post that it was abortion,

biased info from their church leaders and a lack of education. I also think it has allot to do with branding and marketing, which the repukes are good at and we are not.

My sitter is a white, low income Bush voter. I picked up a magazine she brought to work one day called 'Guideposts' which looked pretty innocuous. I was horrified when I actually sat down and read a little bit. It was one long pro-Bush opinion piece. When I questioned her about it, she did not understand that the articles in that mag were opinion, not news or facts.

These religious leaders seem to have decided that it is ok to sacrifice the physical well being of their people, as long as their conservative social agenda is being implemented. But I don't think the people really understand the deal that is being made in their names.

Democrats have allot to offer these people. We need to quit stereotyping them. Nobody enjoys being stereotyped.

[confludemocrat]

168. Your white liberal pain is palpable

Within many of your families is a strain, passed down from generation to generation I guess, of racist legacy culture. Many of you seek to leave it behind in your self-evolved liberalism. I see it in my white colleagues when they talk about family members they love but who represent the know-nothing, anti-gay, anti-black, poor-disparaging, militarism- loving thought patterns that have been instilled in them (perhaps mostly-to-entirely rejected in these progressive peoples own growth). These liberal people become uncomfortable when they recognize that their milieu that nurtured their upbringing is so transparently hiding near the surface a deep white supremacy. Minorities have lived in fear of this and now the whole world does because the Bushites have broken the bounds of a principle of self-imposed requirement to seek consensus before the killing and bombing starts in earnest. Unbridled power that operates under the guise of spreading freedom and democracy but which really so not taken seriously by those outside the country but so acquiesced to by so many liberal political operatives. Those of us not in the power structure are hoping our mainstream white countrypeople will recover from their temporary insanity and not allow the crazier elements to drag us all to destruction. We can't do anything but give you moral support since any progress toward getting to truly sit at the table has been suspended by 9/11 and you hold the key.

[Carni]

170. Winchester is not a *poor* backwoods community IMO

And I am a life long Northerner from one of those ethnically diverse zip codes (I can even buy panko crumbs right up the street)

If anything Winchester always struck me as a town with some money in it's history and I haven't been there in about 7 years (I understand it has expanded quite a bit since I last visited)

In addition a lot of people that commute to DC live in Winchester.

JMO but this article kind of misses the mark.

[Mabel Dodge]

173. Speaking of pissed...

Somehow taking a stand against classism is somehow being equated with racism and homophobia. First off I find any kind of intolerance, nasty behavior. I don’t like it and I don’t put up with it. That’s why this thread is really “pissing me off”. I’m hearing some smug self righteous people tell me how they feel the pain of one disenfranchise group while putting down another group that has just as many societal problems to grapple with.

As I’ve stated before I work with Appalachians and my husband is a proud member of that subculture. The people I know are good people who struggle every day against discrimination themselves. The majority certainly understand when someone else has the same problems they do. Do a little research and look up Afrolachian. Do you know what that is? It’s Appalachian African Americans and the group is embraced by the Appalachian community as being one of “them”.

Many Appalachian people (and I’m sure other rural whites) work hard to distance themselves from their culture. I know a 60 year old woman who in her youth, took speech lessons and changed her religion (Baptist) so that she could pass. This is no different than light skinned African Americans trying to “pass”. The bottom line is you’re running from who you are just to make it in the bigger society.

My last point is that being poor and uneducated sometimes can carry with it a lot of baggage. Not everyone poor and white is a bigot and homophobic. Those that are, might just be expressing fear in the competition for limited resources.

Let’s not forget who the enemy really is. It’s the guy who has control over all the resources who encourages the infighting so that we remain divided. Is that what you want, so that you don’t have to associate with the poor white trash? Then go ahead and give it up now, because without everyone we are going to lose this fight for America and ourselves.

[Tomee450]

174. I strongly disagree.

"I’m hearing some smug self righteous people tell me how they feel the pain of one disenfranchise group while putting down another group that has just as many societal problems to grapple with."

The above statement is inaccurate. I will not deny that poor whites have problems but to equate their problems with that of minorities, particularly African Americans is wrong. The problems of African Americans and other minorities are compounded by racism. How often do you hear of white youth being gunned down by the cops? Are poor whites racially profiled? Are white women routinely stripped searched for drugs at airports as has been the case of black and Latino women? Are the applications of whites thrown out as is the case of applications with black sounding names? There have been many programs that have shown two couples, one white, the other black with equal qualifications seeking jobs or housing. Most often it is the white couple that is hired or allowed to rent the apartment. There are more blacks living in poverty than whites, many blacks without health insurance. Blacks having the same credentials as whites get paid less. Do poor whites get longer prison sentences for drug possession or use than blacks? The answer is no. A study has shown that even the three strikes law is most often applied to black defendants.

Your anger, IMHO, is misdirected. I will readily acknowledge that there are poor whites but they and the black population do not suffer equally. Poor whites have far more advantages in this society than African Americans.

There appears to be an undercurrent of racism in the original and other posts. It seems that some people feel that the needs of minorities are being addressed by the Democrats whereas those of poor whites are not. I would like someone to show me where the Democrats are doing more for minorities than poor whites. While people complain about what the Democrats are NOT doing, I would like them to indicate what it is that the REPUBLICAN PARTY, the party that quite a few whites vote for IS doing for the poor.

All evidence points to Democrats as being the party that has cared about the poor of all races. It is the Democratic Party that has proposed legislation in an attempt to improve the living standard of all poor people.

[ultraist]

175. There is an undercurrent of racism, just look how that author skewed...

the stats on poverty. Then he sought out to blame liberals for the plight of poor whites that voted for a racist and homophobic political party.

The fact is, I have no pity on those racist homophobes that voted for Bush. ANYONE who votes for Bush is a racist homophobe. ANYONE who supports his policies, PERIOD. I don't care if they are poor or rich.

I'm so sick of these, po' whites have it worse than anyone threads. Bull fucking shit. Go spend some time down in the hood and read scholarly works on racism.

Now we all have to pay the price for their hate. Like I said, those po white rednecks who voted for Bush can go fuck themselves.

[Mabel Dodge]

176. Still pissed.....

Your anger, IMHO, is misdirected. I will readily acknowledge that there are poor whites but they and the black populations do not suffer equally. Poor whites have far more advantages in this society than African Americans.

There appears to be an undercurrent of racism in the original and other posts. It seems that some people feel that the needs of minorities are being addressed by the Democrats whereas those of poor whites are not.

I really resent any inference that I’m a bigot because I state that Appalachians and poor rural people face discrimination in this country. You’re not an advocate of justice for all, if you don’t defend the rights of all including “poor white trash”.

Who has the best deal in a crooked race is not the point. Next you’ll be telling me that Democrats shouldn’t support feminism since most feminists are white women. I’m not into pitting one disenfranchised group against another, save that for the Republicans. I rather work on making the game fair for all involved.

[Tomee450]

179. Getting pissed solves nothing, Honest

discussion sometimes does.

You seem to want special treatment for poor whites. I say that poor whites are not any worse off than any other poor people in this country and indeed, they have a better chance to pull themselves out of poverty than non whites do. You want to talk about discrimination, just be black for a week in this country and you would change your tune if you think that all people are discriminated against equally.

The Democrats are not paying any more attention to minorities in urban areas than they are to people in your community. As far as I can tell the Republicans don't care about ANY of the poor except to use race to convince many poor whites to vote their prejudice and pull the level for the GOP.

And I really would like you to tell me what rights are being denied to people you refer to as "white trash?" that are only available to minorities? I see nothing but an attempt by the original poster to scapegoat. Some of the white poor accuse the Democrats of not helping them and infer that it's only minorities whose problems are being taken care of. That is not the case.

I am not suggesting that poor whites don't have a hard time but poor blacks have an even harder time since they run up against discrimination AND class bias. As much as some would like to believe, minorities are not getting special treatment from the Democrats or the Republicans. There are no special social programs for minorities.

You want to equate the problems of poor whites and blacks. I totally reject that and if you really thought about it you would realize they are not the same. White skin does carry an advantage. It's not the white rural farmers who have lost their land because the Department of Agriculture refused to give them loans. And even after the black farmers won their case, this administration has not honored the settlement. Some of the claims were denied, others were settled for very little. So you can be in denial all you want but you will never convince me, a black person, that poor whites and poor blacks are in the same boat. THEY ARE NOT!!!

African Americans don't vote against their best interest. Frankly, many whites do. Now we hear white farmers in the Midwest expressing surprise at the cuts in aid. Well how many of them voted for John Kerry. I think the Midwest states went to Bush. IN Ohio, thousands of people lost their jobs but yet that state supposedly went to Bush. People voted Republican even though thousands of jobs had been lost during this administration.

For decades, certain people have been voting Republican and for only one reason RACE. They vote against their own interest and then blame the Democrats for their lives going bad. Mind boggling.

[ultraist]

190. That's true, many of those po whites still vote Repuke due to race

They obviously don't vote based on their economic interests. They vote Repuke because they are bigots. They hate Blacks and Gays and feel women should not have a Right to Privacy over her own body. What other reason would they be voting for Bush for?

[Nikia]

180. Appalachians do have many of the problems of urban blacks

They suffer from many of the problems of urban blacks: high incarceration rate (there are a higher percentage of Appalachians imprisioned in Ohio than any other) minority, poverty, lower graduation rate, children out of wedlock, ect. I have cousins who live there. The oldest in the family was her class president and is now going to college in Michigan. Despite graduating with a relatively large class for that area, she was the only one going to college out of state and one of few that was going to a 4 year college at all. She recounted a conversation to me where she was called a snob for being too good to have a boyfriend in jail. They are a different culture and people from that region are stereotyped, especially by those living just outside of that culture.
My cousins have advantages. They speak with the Appalachian accent, but their father was originally from outside the region and they visited with his parents (our grandparents) often during vacations. They are in effect biculturual.

[Misunderestimator]

181. "What rights are being denied to people you refer to as 'white trash?'"

"What rights are being denied to people you refer to as 'white trash?' that are only available to minorities?" ... was his question, not whether or not Appalachian poor are treated as badly as others... in fact, that was his point, that all poor are treated badly.

I would also like to know how the other poster he was responding to thinks that white poor are more disadvantaged than minority poor, or what advantages he/she think minorities enjoy that whites do not.

[Nikia]

182. I see what you are saying

Personally, I was just adding my insight into the Appalachian situation. The only real "right" that I can think of usually denied Appalachians is that they are not a protected minority. They can be discriminated against legally in employment, but so can long haired men, homosexuals in many cases, obese people, and people fitting any other personal predjuduces of the interviewer. When I looked at applying to grad school at Ohio University though, I was suprised to see though in their diversity statement that they said that they did not discriminate on the basis of Appalchian status in decisions for admittance to their educational programs or employment.
I think that the reason that the plight of poor whites is pointed out in particuliar is that unlike blacks, poor whites tend to vote Republican more than they vote Democaratic. With Civil Rights being championed by the Democratic party, blacks came to identify with the Democratic party for that reason. Poor whites often do not believe that they have the same personal interest in voting for Democrats. Blacks already identify with the Democratic party. I guess the question is how to get poor whites to identify with the Democratic party.

[Misunderestimator]

183. Well said, and I agree that that is the real issue...

the article, though, the way it is written, is offputting in many ways, and does diminish the problems of minorities, seemingly intentionally. Of course, I'm sure that that was part of the author's first-person, poor, uneducated, angry, white, male persona... so it bears considering that there are people out there who think that their problems are worse than others even if they are wrong.... and how to make them understand that liberals DO want for them what they want for themselves, and that they should vote in their best interest.

(on edit... I had put my other post in the wrong spot, I thought you were responding to Tomee... sorry about that... was using a proxy today that didn't load the posts properly and it was hard to tell which post was which... I only just noticed since I'm not using the proxy now.)

[ultraist]

193. Racial disparity in incarceration rates in Ohio

[Tsiyu]

202. Appalachia is forgotten

and you paint an accurate picture.

[UdoKier]

199. Even if poor whites ARE advantaged over poor blacks...

The "advantage" can be so small as to be almost meaningless, and certainly undetectable to the poor whites struggling under those circumstances.

If "advantage" could be measured on a scale of 0 to 10, (0 being completely disadvantaged, 10 being perfectly advantaged), I would estimate it like this:


0 = mentally disabled black
1 = mentally disabled other minority
2 = normal, capable poor black
2.5 = normal, capable poor whites, other minorities
3 = working to middle-class blacks
4.5 = working to middle-class other minorities
4 = middle-class blacks with educated parents
4.5 = middle-class other minorities with educated parents
5 = middle-class other minorities with educated parents
7 = Upper-middle - class minorities
7.5 = Upper-middle - class whites - the trust-fund kids
10= "mayflower" types - The Bushes, The Vanderbilts


Of course this is totally subjective - such things are impossible to quantify accurately, but in my mind, ALL poor people are bunched way down at the bottom, and anybody under about 3 has about as good a shot as lottery odds of ever making a halfway decent life for themselves.

And I agree. ALL the people 5 and under should band together and strip the bones of the 7s and 10's clean and watch them dry in the sun.

[ultraist]

203. IF? Your scale makes NO sense whatsoever.

8% of whites in poverty (FPL)
24% of blacks in poverty (FPL)

POOR WHITES ARE A HELL OF A LOT LESS LIKELY TO FALL INTO POVERTY. THEREFORE, POOR WHITES ARE A LOT MORE ADVANTAGED THAN POOR BLACKS. THE FACTS ARE THE FACTS. LOOK AT THOSE NUMBERS AND TRY TO JUSTIFY YOUR REMARKS.

Shall we look at incarceration, income, health care, educational level disparties as well?

Or how about transgenerational affects of racism?

Sorry, but RACISM DOES EXIST and CROSSES ALL INCOME STRATAS.

[UdoKier]

205. Please explain to me how the 8% of whites in poverty....

... are so much better off than the 24% of blacks living in the same poverty?


Again you are generalizing and stereotyping "proportionately fewer whites are poor therefore ALL whites are better off!" What nonsense. The fact that most of the super-rich are white does me about as much good as the fact that most millionaire rappers are black helps out poor black people.

*I* am not "white people". My friend Avril is not "black people". We each are faced with a unique set of circumstances.

Even if you get the "poverty rate" (using that ludicrous federal guideline of less-than-subsistence income) of blacks down to 8%, or you get the poverty rates of whites up to 24%, or even if you get them both to 16%, you will still be talking about a big group of people who are SHIT OUTTA LUCK, for whom all this talk about statistics does not one whit of good.


We need to help POOR PEOPLE in this country. Not black people, not white people, not green people - POOR PEOPLE.

[ultraist]

207. That is not a steretype, it is FACT

Poor whites are far less likely to fall into poverty. There is ONE ADVANTAGE they have.

Your exception to the rule argument (ie reverse racism) is a product of preconventional reasoning.

We need to STOP DENYING RACISM EXISTS as well as help those in poverty.

We are looking at problems on a societal level, not going by your personal situation of you and your friend. That's ridiculous.

[UdoKier]

209. Man, your rhetoric is SO deceptive.

"Poor whites are far less likely to fall into poverty." That is the very DEFINITION of a stereotype. Let me rephrase it - "Blacks are far more likely to be good at basketball" "Blondes are far less likely to get postgraduate degrees"

"Poor whites are far less likely to fall into poverty."

Do you know how funny that sounds? You mean less likely than poor blacks? But how about compared to rich or middle-class whites? So what?

"There is ONE ADVANTAGE they have."

What advantage? Let's say I'm the ONLY white who ever got sickle-cell anemia. How the hell am I advantaged just because no other whites ever get it?

"Your exception to the rule argument (ie reverse racism) is a product of preconventional reasoning."

No, it's a product of being HUMAN. It's not about logic or reasoning. Poor whites are not "the exception to the rule" they are EXTREMELY common. - and I have NEVER, EVER, EVER complained that reverse racism had anything to do with white poverty rates. It's classism.

"We need to STOP DENYING RACISM EXISTS as well as help those in poverty."

Who the hell is denying racism? I'm 100% in favor of full enforcement of anti-discrimination laws. Our society makes feeble efforts to address racism. It does next to nothing to address poverty, or the ridiculous income disparities in this country. Christ we had a "democrat" as president for 8 years. He should have left office with a $9/hr. minimum wage and a top tax rate of 48% - the taxes from which would have been used to help all the millions displaced by his damn NAFTA.

"We are looking at problems on a societal level, not going by your personal situation of you and your friend. That's ridiculous."

Poverty is a problem on an individual level. A person making $12K/year is in a world of hurt no matter what his color is. It's ridiculous to claim otherwise.

[ultraist]

213. That is NOT a stereotype, it is FACT evidenced by statistics

Drawing a conclusion based on facts, is not a stereotype. For example, the FACT that Blacks have a shorter life span is not a stereotype, it is a FACT.

Here's another example, smoking increases your chances of getting lung cancer. This is not a stereotype, it is a fact based on research and statistics. Does this mean every single person who smokes will get lung cancer? Of course not.

You are confused about conclusions based on research and stereotypes based on prejudcial beliefs. These are two very different animals. FACT based vs. Belief based

Regarding the denial: You stated that poor whites have it just as bad as poor blacks. So, in other words, institutionalized racism or other forms of racism do not exist for poor blacks. How can that be? How can only middle and upper income blacks be discriminated against and not poor blacks?

Racism exists for poor, middle, and upper income blacks. Being poor, does not shield blacks from racism. That is simply absurd.

I never said that all people in poverty don't suffer. I said, that poor blacks are hit with racism and classism therefore, even poor whites have some advantages over poor blacks. Poor whites DO NOT FALL INTO POVERTY NEARLY AS MUCH AS DO BLACKS. THAT IS A FACT BASED ON US CENSUS BUREAU STATISTICS.

[newblewtoo]

187. A thought provoking article kick

This is a great article with great comments. Like many here I spend more time reading than commenting. This article highlights much of what needs to be addressed not only in the party but also in American life.

[UdoKier]

191. I'm poor, white and pissed.

I'm pissed mostly at the right and the corporations that make life hell for people like us.

But I'm also pissed at affluent, effete liberals who don't REALLY care at all. I know my share of them.

And I'm pissed at other poor whites who buy into the right-wing propaganda that minorities are the enemy. Poor and working people of every color need to be united - now, more than ever.

[ultraist]

194. You are also pissed at Liberals?

Liberals vote for policies that support the poor. Why are you pissed at them? What more do you want from them?

I thought you said you were white, male, hetero, college graduate making in the 30k range. Or do I have you confused with someone else?

www.census.gov
Poverty Rate Thresholds

Two persons............................
Householder under 65 years...........12,649 13,020
Householder 65 years and over...... 11,418 12,971

Three persons.......................... 14,776 15,205

[UdoKier]

195. You got the first 4 right.

I made 21K last year, my wife made 4k. We live in San Francisco, where the rent is obscene. Oh yeah - that college degree? Still $18K to go on the student loans I took out while working and going to school full-time....

Those poverty levels you cite are false, since $12K wouldn't be enough to support a single person even in a cheap city like Topeka KS.

And I didn't say I was mad at liberals. I'm just mad at the ones (usually affluent) who get all incensed about the slightest deviation from accepted PC dialogue, but couldn't care less about the plight of working poor white people, because they are "privileged" -

Personally, I'd rather just have enough to feed my kids than this so-called "privilege".

[ultraist]

197. Yes, rents are obscene in San Francisco

Those poverty rates are the federal poverty rates. 35.9 million people are in that bracket. So, if one is legally in poverty, they fall in those rates.

People in poverty cannot support themselves, that's the point. They have to obtain assistance, just to eat. They go without heat, ac, adequate clothing and shelter. The plight of those in poverty is different than those who are able to independently sustain themselves.

"Poor" of course is a relative term, depending on how it's used. I didn't like how this author confounded poor with those in poverty. He used poverty statistics but referred to the lower income working class folk. Factory workers he referred to in that region generally earn around $10-15 per hour, which is 20k-25k a year. That is not poverty level.

[UdoKier]

198. 20-25K for a family of four is poverty level in the Bay area.

Not saying that to be snobby. You can't afford a two-bedroom in the ghetto on that.

[ultraist]

200. That's not the legal poverty rate

Poverty rate is determined by the government, it's called the Federal Poverty Level (FPL).

25k may be your personal definition of poverty, but it is not the legal definition of it.

[UdoKier]

204. The legal poverty rate is irrelevant.

It has no relation to what it takes to keep a person fed and dry in this country.

The poverty level as the government defines it is UNCONSCIONABLY low.


BTW, not only are rents exorbitant here, food staples at the supermarket generally cost about 20~25% higher than they do in other states and rural California.

I'm grateful to live in a Chinatown, where I can get many staples for much less at the Chinese markets.

[ultraist]

206. Do you realize...

what it sounds like to hear a white college educated male whining that he is oppressed? I mean really, do you have any clue how absurd that is? If your wife worked and made what you did, you'd be ABOVE the national median.

The poverty rates are not based on "your personal reality." If you feel poor, fine. You do earn well below the median which is unusual for a college educated white male. But YOU ARE NOT in poverty.

[UdoKier]

208. I'm sorry, did I call myself "oppressed"? Pretty sure I didn't.

If my wife made what I made, I'd be about 30% BELOW the median for the Bay Area.


Walk a mile in my shoes, or the shoes of truly poor whites before you talk smack about me.

I never claimed to be at the bottom of the barrel, heck, I even get to take the kids to the MOVIES a couple times a year! But living on what I live on gives me a great deal of empathy for the MILLIONS who live on much less. What annoys me is that people like you only seem to empathize with the people among those millions who happen to not be white. I empathize with ANYONE in that predicament.

I don't expect to make this little forever - I stick with this job because it allows me to work at home, help with taking the kids to school, and remain eligible for subsidized pre-school for our younger child - if I earned an extra 7K or so per year - I would suddenly be ineligible - and preschool costs would eat up ALL the added income - so I'm waiting until fall until my son can go to public kindergarten, then I can take on a bit more freelance work - but translation is not a big-money job...


BTW - you say that earning below the median is "unusual for a white, college-educated male" - so why is it that I know so many white, college-educated males in their 30s making $8/hour in retail?

[ultraist]

214. I have been poor and I lived in POVERTY as a child

I feel for all who live in poverty but I am not in denial about racism. I am practically a socialist when it comes to funding social programs and programs that lift people out of poverty. I am VERY FAR LEFT on this. I was opposed to Clinton's welfare reform. Granted, we needed some reforms, but his time limits and other new criteria were callous and cruel. Now, partly due to Clinton's welfare reform, we are seeing an increase in the poverty rate.

You may know many white college educated males in that boat, but guess what, REALITY is not based on who you know. It is bigger than that. If you want to know the average income of white college educated males, look it up at www.census.gov

And no, you didn't use the word oppressed, but you stated you were, poor and pissed, the title of the article in the OP. The theme of the article is how poor whites are oppressed. I don't think I drew an unreasonable conclusion there. Why are you pissed?

[sendero]

215. This article leaves me confused..

... it is great writing, but how much real substance is there?

As far as I can tell, JB's message is "it's Dems fault that poor whites are so easily led by the nose using wedge issues like god, gays and guns and racism".

No, it's not our fault and the poor downtrodded folks who are getting killed are voting for their killers.

It's pretty hard for me to gather up much sympathy for them, because it is their own negative personality traits that are doing them in.