People here are NOT laughing at poor people. They're laughing at Joni Ernst

[pnwmom]

and her hypocrisy, her Stepford-wife delivery, and her blatantly manipulative attempt to act like she cared about poor people.

I don't care what she went through as a child. She is a cold-hearted, selfish, phony now.

[merrily]

1. Cannot agree. I read Luminous Animal's thread and would say some people on that thread

Last edited Wed Jan 21, 2015, 05:50 AM - Edit history (1)

even laughed at LA, who had poured her heart out in her OP about having been brought up poor.

Not a majority, by any means, though.

[ND-Dem]

3. I didn't see anyone laughing at LA. Maybe you could provide a link?

[merrily]

4. I am not comfortable with that. Sorry.

[ND-Dem]

5. OK. I was there and I didn;t see it.

[merrily]

7. I did get that from your first reply.

[ND-Dem]

9. if i wanted to emphasize the point, so what?

[merrily]

10. Wow. Which point about my comment were you emphasizing? If I replied mildly to that, so what? nt

[trumad]

16. You're not comfortable providing proof that it happened?

[merrily]

20. The proof is on this board

on a thread ND-Dem obviously knows. It's a thread with an OP that probably, in part, prompted pwnmom to start this thread.

I am very sorry that ND-Dem missed what I was referring to. However, I am not comfortable linking to a specific post because so doing would unavoidably require me to single out the poster of the post to which I link, aka IDing some individual DUer or another.

I am uncomfortable "naming names," even when so doing would let me off the hook. Maybe I've watched too many excerpts from the McCarthy hearings, maybe it's some "anti-tattletale" kid code that I can't shake. I have no clue, but this is nothing new for me. It's lifelong.

If that makes you think the worst of me, I'd rather live with that, though I don't much like either alternative.


Thanks.

ETA: As an additional point I thought that a number of posters on that thread seemed more anxious to defend themselves than to absorb what LA was saying and feeling, even today, about having grown up poor. There were also some lovely posts, but the overall feeling I got from the thread, as it sat at the time I posted on it, can be summed up "geez!".

[ND-Dem]

46. no problem; another poster linked to *me*. it seems i'm the villain of the piece, the person

making fun of poor people.

[merrily]

53. My Reply 1 on this this thread was NOTreferring to any post of yours on L.A.'s thread.

I have not been back to L.A.'s thread since I posted my Reply 1 here. No post of yours that I saw when I read L.A.'s thread laughed at L.A. Aside from posts visible on this thread, I have not communicated with anyone about L.A.'s thread or about you.

If someone else has a problem with one of your posts on that thread, that's between you and him or her. I have nothing to do with it.

[Marr]

18. Here's one.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026115094#post110

That post, and many others in the thread, betray a total unawareness of things many poor people actually do-- and a pretty blatant disinterest in same because they're more interested in making jokes about some stupid politician from the other 'team'.

[ND-Dem]

21. I see people making fun of joni ernst. Did I mention that I make $600 a month in a sheltered

workshop and would be homeless if not for the kindness of a relative? Because I got meningitis?

Don't tell me how poor people feel, because this one feels joni Ernst is dangerous and needs to be criticized and mocked as much as possible for the liar she is.

[Marr]

24. Really.

This isn't mocking a practice that some poor people engage in, or just betraying a total unawareness of it?



Tell me another one. The thread also features some choice moments from oblivious party fans who feel they've really caught the OP in a lie because... Catholic school. It's embarrassing.

Also, I'm sorry for your current circumstances, but that doesn't change the point here at all. This kind of mockery makes people look tone deaf and disinterested in/unaware of the things many poor people actually deal with-- people of whom they claim to be champions.

[ND-Dem]

29. Yeah, really. Tell me how I'm unaware of what "poor people actually deal with". Yeah, I should

be up in arms because someone made fun of a lying politician who'd like nothing better than to shred what remains of the safety net. That's what 'poor people' worry about.

At least I'm not championing Joni Ernst.

[Marr]

31. Well, you didn't know about this one. At least, that's what I'm told.

After all, calling someone a 'breadbag fashion icon' is sort of understandable if they really are unaware of the practice, or think it's just another example of some con-man politician screwing up their 'regular folks' act-- like Hillary Clinton's ridiculous drawl that she only puts on for certain crowds.

I know jack shit about Joni Ernst, and don't care. I'm not interested in the red/blue food fight bullshit, to be honest.

[ND-Dem]

32. She was never poor. She's using her fake poverty for political purposes, and to SCREW the poor.

Yes, she's a con-woman.

I'm not interested in the re/blue foodfight; I have a direct and compelling interest in keeping the safety net intact. Because unlike the poster whose feelings are so important to you, I have a direct and immediate interest IN NOT BEING HOMELESS. and my lousy $600 sheltered workshop is one of the few things between me and that fate.

So fuck joni Ernst; she has the money and connections to defend herself, she doesn't need you.

[Marr]

34. I think we're being needlessly divided here.

My point was about rhetoric, and optics. I don't think there's much light between us on actual policy.

[merrily]

25. I am very sorry about that ND-Dem. You and I have already had at least one discussion about

homelessness in which I expressed my dismay about how callous we are about the homeless. I am not sure I realized at that time that you yourself are currently homeless.

I don't think anyone tried to tell you how poor people feel. And, yes, Ernst is dangerous. But that was not a thread about Joni Ernst. It began with a cry from the heart of a fellow DUer who was going through some stuff and trying to tell us how she felt.

[ND-Dem]

30. I'm not currently homeless. I *would be* homeless if an elderly relation hadn't taken me in.

Yes, people are trying to tell me -- and everyone -- how poor people feel. Like they all feel the same; like most even know who joni Ernst is; like all poor people wear breadbags.

I'm going through a lot of stuff too.

[merrily]

35. Well, then I am sorry I misunderstood your post.

I am glad someone was able to help to help you.

Yes, people are trying to tell me -- and everyone -- how poor people feel.

OK. I am not sure if I did that. If I did, I apologize. However, my wording did not reflect what I meant, which was that I didn't think Luminious Animal was trying to tell anyone how poor people feel, but trying to tell us how she feels.

By the same token, no two people have an identical experience of poverty. And I can benefit from sharing.

I'm going through a lot of stuff too.

Good grief, what an understatement. You are going through more than a lot. Physical, financial, emotional, stuff. Massive life changes. Again, I wish you weren't and I am sorry.

[merrily]

36. That was not the post I meant, but, I agree as I posted to trumad, the tone of the thread

sometimes seemed to lose sight in general of the fact that we had a brother or sister in pain. The more personal threads usually appear in the lounge, where people are in the mindset to post, "I'm sorry," or "Isn't that great," or whatever seems appropriate to the OP. So, maybe the fact that it was in GD where people are in the current events mindset accounted for some of the tone.

[KingCharlemagne]

39. I don't think this post in particular does what you think it does. Perhaps you intended

to link to another post?

Post #110:

This is my reaction to her too. After enduring her endless Koch fueled ads here for a year that were fact checked to proved how false they were, she continued in the finest tradition of the right--keep lying as if you are telling the truth and wear people down.

Am I missing something here? Is there a put-down in post #110 that I'm just not getting?

[Marr]

42. I'm referring to the image.

"Bread bag fashion icon".

[KingCharlemagne]

43. Ah. Mystery solved. I believe that image is a part of post #111 (immediately

below the one to which you linked). I suck at trying to link stuff accurately, so no biggie. I just thought I was asleep at the wheel.

[Cha]

2. Thank you! I hate those ignorant accusations of "mocking the poor" against people

who are calling out Joni Phony. and, if you disagree you get a bunch of obscenities blown at you.

[ND-Dem]

6. she didn't go through anything as a child. she had an upper middle class upbringing.

[Skidmore]

8. Joni is not known for her honesty.

http://www.salon.com/2014/10/07/exclusive_contracts_awarded_to_joni_ernsts_father_raise_conflict_of_interest_questions/

She is downright self serving and weaselly in the finest tradition of Repubicans, and mean spirited too

[ND-Dem]

11. she started the graft very early in her career. usually it takes a little longer to catch on.

[Cha]

12. Thank you for the link, Skidmore.. so glad so many are speaking out against her. Her not poor

people. That's for rw.. this is still Democratic Underground.. afaik

[alterfurz]

13. "Senator Ernst described herself, her friends and family as the type of people...

...Republicans didn't applaud for when the President spoke of addressing their needs." -- FB comment

[Bettie]

14. Joni Ernst is the one laughing at poor people

She tells a bunch of lies to make herself look less evil than she is and then laughs as she works to advance her agenda (and that of her colleagues) to make the already poor truly destitute and the middle class poor.

And far too many of them listen to her and think she understands what it is to be poor. She doesn't. Not even a little bit.

[KingCharlemagne]

40. Ernst personifies in a way few other current American politicans can the idea of "the banality

of evil."

[PatrickforO]

15. Regardless of what Ernst said or did not say, and I could only stand

to watch about five minutes of it, it is the American people who were stupid enough to vote in this Republican majority in November. Now they have come to Washington like a bunch of plague bacilli, and the ONLY good thing about it is the American people will get to watch these cretins systematically undermine every policy that actually helps us. We know most Americans are incredibly ignorant, but with any luck the Republicans will touch a third rail that cannot be ignored or glossed over by popular media, like trying to privatize Social Security or actually repealing the Affordable Care Act. If they do this, they guarantee their loss in great numbers in 2016.

Ah, but will the average John Q. Public in America even notice?

Nah.

Most are too busy being ignorant and watching reality TV. People who can't even name the three branches of government are...well, you choose the adjective.

[Bluenorthwest]

17. If you say so. I was raised not to do that sort of thing, my parents were poor and my Mom quoted

Jesus an awful lot. So that's not my style at all.
Personally I could rip Ernst to political pieces without ever needing to make use of her childhood because the Ernst I have issues with is an adult with right wing views.
She's stridently anti gay and extremely anti Choice and for me those are the positions of an ignorant sexist bigot. To me those positions make her a bigoted and ignorant person.
Even those of you who are more comfortable with those who share those views with her might be able to criticize Ernst for her opposition to the Federal Minimum Wage, her desire to dismantle the EPA or her support for Privatizing Medicare.
So even folks who don't want to criticize her for being anti choice and anti gay could do way better than bread bags.

[pnwmom]

19. No one is criticizing her for putting bread bags on her shoes. Many are questioning

her credibility. I don't think she has a speck of empathy for poor people, and this story of hers does nothing to show me she ever was one herself.

[Bluenorthwest]

22. Whatever. I stated why I don't do that stuff. I have actual policy disagreements with her.

Example, she's anti gay and anti choice. I see that as bigotry because it is. I don't have to nor wish to talk about what she wants to talk about.
She's a bigoted, atavistic homophobe. Let's talk about that, not about bread bag childhoods.

I don't have to do 'bread bags' to condemn an anti gay and anti choice Republican who wants to dismantle every social program and the EPA. So I don't.

[ND-Dem]

48. So, her stated intention to rip up the social safety net isn't an actual policy disagreement?

Her stated desire to shitcan the federal minimum wage isn't an actual policy disagreement?


The woman has registered, loud and clear, what she's about so far as poverty goes and I repeatedly referred to my disagreements with her policy in my posts.

And I'll continue to call her on it every time she uses the symbols of poverty to claim some authority about poverty: bread bags and anything else.

She's a manipulative liar who needs to be called out, over and over, until she has no reputation left.

[Marr]

28. Many have, and you know this because you're one of them, suggested that

her story about bread bags worn over the shoes isn't even something that's done.

Not being aware of that fact/mocking the very notion of it, makes it seem like you're not really interested in poverty issues at all-- just politics as a kind of team sport.

[pnwmom]

38. Where did I suggest that no actual poor person has ever done that?

Link, please.

I could believe that a poor person might have tried that (though it wouldn't work very well, because a plastic bag would tear on grit and ground), but if she was ever poor herself, she doesn't show a smidgeon of empathy for people in that situation. I think she's a complete phony.

Most middle-class people in the baby boomer generation could tell similar sob stories if we wished. My husband was raised in a solidly middle class family but they economized by, among other things, not buying him shoes till he was required to wear them to kindergarten. They weren't poor, though; just as I doubt that this valedictorian/cheerleader/prom queen (or whatever) was poor. They just had other things they thought were more important to spend money on.

[merrily]

27. I will criticize her for being anti-gay. No reluctance whatever. And then, I will criticize her

for her other positions too, and for lying about having suffered as a poor person as well.

[ND-Dem]

47. It's the hypocrisy of pretending solidarity with and understanding of the poor while stabbing them

in the back. It deserves mockery.

It's the hypocrisy of pretending one was poor (though one was not) and pulled oneself up by the bootstraps.

Sorry you don't get it.

[Orrex]

23. I grew up so poor that I had to lie in order to look like I cared about rich people

Your analysis is 100% correct IMO.

K/R

[woo me with science]

26. Irrelevant garbage. We are, as usual, being propagandized to divide into our Red and Blue teams,

fixate on spitting at Joni Ernst or any convenient Red nearby, and embrace the delusion that the corporate Blues are going to save us.

It's Oligarchy Theater.

The same predatory agenda as before is headed right toward us, orchestrated and approved by both corporate parties: Predatory, antidemocratic, job-strangling "trade" agreements, endless MIC war for profit, police/surveillance state.

Bipartisan.

All wrapped up in pretty progressive-sounding words that are finally safe for our neoliberal president to say out loud, now that Republicans hold a majority. The DCCC campaign of "Accept Doom" for midterms went exactly as the oligarchy planned.

Now that the R's hold the majority, corporate- purchased neoliberal Democrats can again ostentatiously lie to our faces and pretend to support all the policies they insulted Americans for wanting for the past six years, dismissing them as as fringe, extremist, pony dreams.

But make no mistake what the plan really is. Neoliberals and neoconservatives are going to shove this "free trade" garbage into every American orifice, laughing all the way to the bank. And they'll use that money siphoned from our pockets to hire more mocking propagandists to lie to us and tell us our democracy is still functional, corporate Democrats have our back, and the chocolate ration is being increased yet again.


We have united oligarchy, not divided democracy.

[KingCharlemagne]

41. Ernst is particularly evil, though. She reminds me of Thatcher without the

smarts or Marie "Let Them Eat Cake" Antoinette.

[bullwinkle428]

33. She's absolutely guilty of POVERTY APPROPRIATION, if not out-right lying.

[ND-Dem]

49. Her 'poverty appropriation' is why this conversation is so ridiculous. She was never poor but I'm

not supposed to make fun of her because she appropriates the symbols of poverty?

[Gormy Cuss]

37. There were some scoffing at the idea of wearing bread bags on or under shoes.

Because there are no poor parents who would allow that are dumbasses.
Here's one thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6114894

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

44. I can't help but hear "Bababoey, bababoey" in the background as she speaks.

Yikes, her teeth are as big as Gary Dell'abate's from the Howard Stern show.

[treestar]

45. +1

that thread was dumb. Talk about trying really really hard to be a victim of other DUers.

[roody]

50. I grew up in Minnesota and Iowa. I have had bags on my feet.

My dad grew up during the Depression on a farm in Michigan. He says, "We weren't poor; we just didn't have any money." They produced most of their own food.

[Blue Owl]

51. Rule #1 about bread bags is you don't talk about bread bags

No matter what your social status...

[JustAnotherGen]

52. Joni Ernst

Last edited Thu Jan 22, 2015, 08:45 AM - Edit history (1)

Is an ass wipe. Plain and simple. When you start out dismissing the SOTU in a response to it - you are an ass wipe who is out to serve the interests of someone other than the American people.

So everything after that dismissal is irrelevant. And consider the hypocrisy of these assholes with their whine about "class warfare" pulling this stunt. And low information people will fall for it.

ETA: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/read-excerpts-gop-response-obama-sotu-article-1.2086060

A few moments ago, we heard the President lay out his vision for the year to come. Even if we may not always agree, it's important to hear different points of view in this great country. We appreciate the President sharing his.

"Tonight though, rather than respond to a speech, I'd like to talk about your priorities. I'd like to have a conversation about the new Republican Congress you just elected, and how we plan to make Washington focus on your concerns again.

^Who the f*ck does she think she is anyways?^