Just figured out why "Joe the BLANK" bothered me so much

[JJ]

Does anyone else find referring to someone by their first name and occupation to be elitist and demeaning?
It's only blue collar occupations that get that kind of treatment, "Joe the Plumber" "Tito the builder" etc. They're not significant enough for the Republicans to learn their last name, they're just "the help."
You don't hear "Larry the CEO" or "Ralph the lobbyist."
Imagine the reaction to this treatment you'd get from "Bob the Brain Surgeon" or "Tom the Lawyer."


edited for stooopid spelling

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. I don't know

Where I grew up, there was Tony the Nose and Freddy the Flat (I have no idea) and Nance the Cutter and someone with a heavy beard who was called Aunt Mary.

[Sal Minella]

10. WHERE did you grow up, ferpetesake?????

[Tangerine LaBamba]

12. In a land far, far away, where the air

was thick with coal dust and blood splatters mixed with pixie dust and sequins. Sometimes it was hard to breathe.

[Sal Minella]

13. Wyoming, then? With the coal mines and rodeo queens, and Dick Cheney was there?

How else to explain the blood spatters? I hope you had a good hiding place.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

17. I hid out in the sauna,

disguised as a thick terrycloth robe. Most of the folks were naked and hardly ever noticed me. When they did, I just told them I was picking up the numbers, they gave me some cash, and I fled. I got dehydrated a lot, but I also always had folding money.

No, Dick Cheney wasn't there. He'd never have survived among that bunch, whiny little wuss that he is, not ever serving in the Armed Forces. These guys all did their military time, and all agreed that the food at Leavenworth was much worse than the food at Fort Dix.

[DemoTex]

21. Didn't Aunt Mary run a gay biker bar in Houston?

On Westheimer?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

23. After retirement, yes.

Not a bad place, I heard. You were familiar with it?

[Muttocracy]

2. It reduces people to how they earn money. Haven't heard Mary the Mom or

Dave the disabled former worker or anything like that.

[Heather MC]

15. Bob the Unemployeed guy, Or Tom the Legless VET with crappy medical care

Or Pete the PTSD VET shh don't tell PTSD is made up

[SoCalDem]

3. and it reinforces the odd tendency to turn people into what they DO, instead of whom they ARE..

like Mom...the housewife/laundress/cook/babysitter..or Dad the grasscutter/car-fixer/gadget hooker-upper

[JJ]

5. I think of Dad as a title

And I'm damn proud of it.

that's just me.

[whathehell]

4. I think you might have something there...It's NOT done to "white collar"

people.

[Xenotime]

6. I hear Larry the Cable Guy on TV

Is that elitist?

[Iterate]

7. Sure, we're "the help".

We're only recognized in their world to the extent we're useful to them, and only for as long as we are useful.

And those who buy into it go by the names of "strawboss" or "trainee" or "junior-something", and a dozen other names.

I once knew the owner of a very large retail chain who spoke in just those terms. He would rise at five AM and by the time he would get to his office at 7:30 he had the lives of hundreds of people mapped out. "Get me the trucker" he would say, or "get me the designer", and even "get me the mayor". Even the corporate VP's became pawns, sycophants.

Contemptible and putrid.

[JSK]

8. "Lucky the Bastard"

Steven Weber called him that this AM on Stephanie Miller.

[Lancer]

9. Mack the Knife

That's what Jon Stewart said the other night after running a clip reel of Palin giving shout outs to dozens of "Joes."

It hasn't always been a lower middle class thing:

Pliny the Elder
Erik the Red
Alexander the Great
Henry the Eighth

[Buns_of_Fire]

22. Don't forget Vlad the Impaler!

(One of those poor misunderstood victims of history, you betcha!)

[Javaman]

11. george* the lesser. nt

[hfojvt]

14. I said that from the start. I am at least as blue-collar as Joe

but I don't want to be called hfojvt the janitor. Especially not when I used to be the bookman. or the economist.

[Uncle Joe]

16. In this case, I believe it was meant to emotionally appeal to as broad a cross section

of the people as possible.

The average Joe, Joe six-pack, Joe blow, G.I. Joe, Joe mamas, plumbers, middle America, blue collar workers, white men threatened by change, bald white men, men in Ohio, small business people or small business wanna be people, now they're talking country music, so that includes country music fans.

It's an emotional appeal or linkage, not a logical one as the vast majority of these people would benefit far more from an Obama Administration than they would a McCain one. So that's why McCain and the corporate media to some extent have been so desperate to tie him self to this one individual while blowing Samuel's significance out of proportion.

It serves to distract from the critical issues of day and McCain's corporate loving, screw the people, George Bush supporting ways over the past eight years.

[electricD]

18. APPROVED

Hi, I'm D the electrician and I approve this message. When some one pigeonholes some one, they put them in that hole to lesser them. There was once a time when your "average joe bluecollar" was a highly respected man in his community. He worked every day to support his family, he helped his neighbors, he stood together with his workmates to make sure that not only HE but every one he worked with got a fair share.

It started changing when the repugs made it ok to live your life with the philosophy of, "I've got mine so, FUCK YOU!!" Let's face it, when people start learning about their neighbors and finding out that they are, as a general rule, in the same boat that we are, people will stop believing that good fences make good neighbors.

[malaise]

19. Great post

Palin even does it with Barack Obama. I've never once heard her refer to him as Senator Obama.

[NV Whino]

20. I dunno, Joe the former Senator works for me.