If THIS doesn't describe it, THEN,PLEASE tell me what would...

[MrMickeysMom]

I want to share somebody else's rant of why I want to tear my hair out over all those people who vote against their best interest... and confuse the hell out of "all of us" for "us versus them".

Just exactly who are "them"?... The willfully ignorant don't even want to know. It's the kind of dangerous thing we need to keep pointing out over and over again, so here it is...

(Courtesy of Al Stefanelli - see his link below)

“You should read “What’s the Matter with Kansas” & “Deer Hunting With Jesus”. Both are great takes on a working class, anti-intellectual, redneck culture that has been convinced to consistently vote against their own best interests. I listen to my own father, who has been the victim of layoffs from corporate merger after merger, who’s had his retirement fucked, who’s lost money on wall street – he’s done everything he was ‘supposed’ to do. He joined the military, went to college, had 2 kids, bought the house, invested & saved his money, worked his fucking ass off all his life & he still has squat to show for it. Now as a man well into his 60s he’s feeling the wrath of age discrimination, he’s finding his skills becoming outdated & his pay & benefits today (for the last 10 years) are lower than what they’ve been in the last 30 for him. Living the american life he finds his health failing as he’s a lifetime smoker with a growing waistline.

He’s the prototypical uncultured, red-blooded american male. He slathers his streak in ketchup, votes conservatives down the line, and wants the good old days before the women, blacks and fags took over. He’s a flag waver, supports his troops, and fends for himself. He’s always bitching about how much money corporations have to spend bc of regulation & about how the upper class need a tax cut. Nothing in the world makes him angrier than “socialism” & the so-called welfare state. Working people getting needed services bothers him tremendously because a few extreme token examples get painted as degenerate leeches by the likes of AM Radio & Fox News. ANd then he’ll turn right around & support corporate subsidy for just about anything from corn to oil – b/c it “stimulates jobs” and it “trickles down”.

He refuses to recognize that we as a nation spend more money at the beckoning of corporate America than we even begin to touch what we spend on our own citizenry through what he claims is “welfare” or infrastructure. He’s a working class guy who’s been fucked by the system all his life. He still puts his suit on with a kind of sad pride, every day, & goes to work downtown to phone-monkey job nowadays. He’s doing a job any body could do but he likes to pretend all his education & experience has gotten him somewhere. He’s deluded about what America’s exceptional way of life has brought him personally as he is deluded about what the world is like at large. So he denies global warming, blames the unions, blames teachers & other government workers, blames regulation, blames the EPA & the FDA, blames those struggling to make it in this world, blames the blacks, blames the immigrants, blames everyone & anyone but those at the top.

He’d rather blame fellow working people trying to grab a piece of the pie, rather than blame the crooks who deprive us all. Because somehow – be it by gender identity, racial identity, national identity, he thinks his class, his type belongs at the top. He’s the top dog! But he’s not. He’s a nigger, i’m a nigger, muslims are niggers and mexicans are niggers, teachers and steel workers, and farmers too. To people like the Koch Brothers, we’re all niggers and my dad can’t see that. This is an us vs them game and people like my father are fucking deluded as to what side they’re on or can be on one day. Somewhere deep down inside, he admires those at the top – he wants to be them & even though he knows he’ll never be one of them, he likes to pretend.

More... http://alstefanelli.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/about-people-who-vote-against-their-own-interests/

[HughBeaumont]

1. "My opinion is better than your facts"

Yep.

Kind of like creationism - right-wing theories, policies, actions and beliefs of nearly any kind are nothing but refuting facts to belive a story. And these spoon-fed opinions almost always revolve around two abstracts: fear and meanness.

[MrMickeysMom]

8. What I get sometimes from the uninformed is this...

...." Well, you're stating YOUR opinion, and I have mine..." refusing to see any reference as any more than "opinion", even though it's a historical fact. Then, they say, "well, it was someone who wrote that history, which is their slant"...

You can't win with the willfully ignorant... not at first blush and and second and third higher flush, which could either give you a head ache or high blood pressure.

[Norrin Radd]

15. The writer Harlan Ellison said that people

are only entitled to their INFORMED opinion.

[Scuba]

2. "He’s a flag waver, supports his troops..." ...

Waving flags and putting little yellow ribbons on the back of your truck ain't "supporting the troops".


Taking actions to stop sending our troops into danger to protect corporate profits would be supporting our troops.

Try this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWUQ_N_vHc0

[MrMickeysMom]

11. That is an excellent YouTube to show these people...

... most of whom its' meaning would be lost, perhaps some it would stand a chance of making them evaluate their "patriotism"

I like to paraphrase Matthew Arnold, who said of these kind of "patriots" something like...

"Standing there with their balance sheet in one hand, bible in the other... so sure of their solvency in this life and salvation in the next..."

[polichick]

3. EXCELLENT PIECE! K&R

[Catherina]

4. Only too happy to recommend this

He’d rather blame fellow working people trying to grab a piece of the pie, rather than blame the crooks who deprive us all. Because somehow – be it by gender identity, racial identity, national identity, he thinks his class, his type belongs at the top. He’s the top dog! But he’s not. He’s a nigger, i’m a nigger, muslims are niggers and mexicans are niggers, teachers and steel workers, and farmers too. To people like the Koch Brothers, we’re all niggers and my dad can’t see that. This is an us vs them game and people like my father are fucking deluded as to what side they’re on or can be on one day. Somewhere deep down inside, he admires those at the top – he wants to be them & even though he knows he’ll never be one of them, he likes to pretend.

There were two kinds of slaves, the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes — they lived in the house with master, they dressed pretty good, they ate good because they ate his food — what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near the master; and they loved the master more than the master loved himself. They would give their life to save the master's house — quicker than the master would. If the master said, "We got a good house here," the house Negro would say, "Yeah, we got a good house here." Whenever the master said "we," he said "we." That's how you can tell a house Negro.

If the master's house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro would say, "What's the matter, boss, we sick?" We sick! He identified himself with his master, more than his master identified with himself. And if you came to the house Negro and said, "Let's run away, let's escape, let's separate," the house Negro would look at you and say, "Man, you crazy. What you mean, separate? Where is there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food than this?" That was that house Negro. In those days he was called a "house nigger." And that's what we call them today, because we've still got some house niggers running around here.

Time to whip old Malcolm out. And all I can say to anyone taking offense, regardless of race, is welcome to the back of the bus.

[MrMickeysMom]

7. That's right, Catherina... Malcolm was talking about the same thing...

I wondered if some could take offense, but how could they not see the message?

God, WHEN will we get enough people to see the message?

[Catherina]

12. I think only when people try to cash in their pre-purchased tickets for the front of the bus

and realize they can't even get on it, not even for a single block.

So was Martin Luther King, the real one, not the Disney version.

You keep trying, I'll keep supporting you as long as I have breath in my body. Solidarity.

[MrMickeysMom]

17. ....

:-)


Kicked again, too.

[brewens]

5. I like to call it "house nigger syndrome". Most of us are being

screwed but some not as much as others. Many of those that are middle class or better live in terror of being dragged down, much like a slave allowed to work at the masters house, may have feared being put back in the fields. They will do anything, including screwing people that should be on their side, to save their own asses.
When the shit really hits the fan, I suppose we should resist the urge to treat them like Nazi collaborators, even though they have it coming to them.

[Mnemosyne]

6. K&R for more visibility. n/t

[WillyT]

9. HUGE K & R !!!

:kick:

[Frustratedlady]

10. Tht Archie Bunker mentality is alive and well.

It is probably more rampant now than when the series ran.

[Doctor_J]

13. Most DUers have read What The Matter With Kansas. What few will confront

is that we are not going to get out of this mess until we do whatever has to be done to get Fox News and hate radio off the air, or at least out of control of the country. In fact it is probably too late already, but I guarantee you that no amount of picketing, petition-signing, or contributing to TruthOut is going to do a single goddamn thing as long as Limpballs is on AFN, Fox News is allowed to lie without any repercussions, and hate radio broadcasts from 1200 radio stations 24/7. I guess that the demonstrations make the participants feel good, and I must admit that joining the anti-war rallies 10 years ago was invigorating, but in fact it accomplishes nothing. We need to rethink what might actually make a difference, and then do it.

[Luminous Animal]

14. Kick.

[Luminous Animal]

16. This really deserves another kick.