God, Guns, Marx and Dieter

This is one reason why the Southern Agrarians are still worth reading. They were saying all these things in 1930(!) but were largely ignored. As Andrew Lytle said, they tried to raise the alarm but couldn't do it loud or long enough.

In any case, people didn't listen then, and I doubt they'll listen now. "Yeah, well, my family traditions are gone, I've no longer got anyy religion, my relatives are spread all over the known universe, and I have absolutely no sense of community in my life. But look at all this STUFF!"

I'm still willing to argue that Obama's remarks have been taken to mean more than he intended. However, Patrick's extension of his retort creates some good food for thought. I would like to believe that, while certainly both Latrobe and San Francisco are equally caught up in a "progress" mirage (otherwise, why would the "bitterness" comment have had so much traction in the first place?), the former has resources that the latter does not. The average resident of Latrobe, much more than the average resident of San Francisco, can plausibly see around themselves (if they've not blinded themselves to it) reasons and the opportunity to dissent from this presumption of constant material expansion and change: they can see the land which grows food, for one thing; they can see the factories that once offered stability to families without requiring them to dislodge themselves from their local world, for another. So the resentment that many small-town Pennsylvanians feel perhaps has a special poignancy: not just because, by light of the cosmopolitans of California, they are "losers" (though according to those standards they surely are), but because on some level, they (or their parents or grandparents) can see that the whole thing is fraudulent--they can touch the crunchy-con monkey, in other words. We can hope, anyway.

Incidentally, check out Ross Douthat's take on the bitterness affair. I don't entirely agree with him, but he has some good things to add.

When is the last time you visited western Penn small towns? Do you really think Bill Kristol has spent a lengthy time there? Do you know if the people there are bitter-or not? You sit in a big city in TX and assume you know the zeitgeist of small Penn towns, and pontificate on it like you are now the expert! Sio does Kristol! I live in rural Appalachia! Coal mining country. The county next to mine has over 30% unemployment, and one of the worse literacy rates in the USA. Most of these people are bitter! Life circumstances for them are much different than Kristol's life. They do find solace, in religion, guns, and something Obama missed, 4 wheeling! Come spend a month here, and you willchange your ignorance to somehting with experience and facts. But you likely will continue to pontificate as an expert from a city far removed in Texas, just so you maybe can be quoted by someone else, in an attack on Obama. On some things you have exhibited wisdom. On this, sheer ignorance!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would also add that in this subject- you have exhibited a much more elitist than Obama. Obama was very close to being accurate in his assessment. Your quoting and agreeing with Kristol, who if anything, acts as the most elite man in the USA, and adding statements based in ignorance, is a classic elite attitude. Elite= a "journalist" in Texas assuming he is an expert on the true attitudes of people in western Penn towns, and someone who has visited the towns even more than he has, and talked with the people there, cannot know more than he! Elite to the core!

During my morning drive, Linda Wurtheimer (sp?) was interviewing some local middle class women about the Dems, and one woman put it rather precisely (paraphrasing): Obama told the truth, and the spinmeisters will pounce on him until he eats that truth and is forced to recant. Her worry is that the candidate she wants to vote for will lose enough votes to the spin that he will help elect McCain.

Now, please tell me: why are we so averse to the truth?

We no longer have candidates for whom we vote. We have candidates who are electable. I no longer give a rat's ass for the hypocrisy of candidates. The hypocrisy of the electorate far overshadows it, defines it, and makes it normal.

A thought experiment for you: if the boy who pointed out that the emperor is naked was, instead of opening the eyes of the rest, taken out back and thrashed to within an inch of his life, what would be your take on the moral of the story?

Tuesday will certainly be interesting. RealClearPolitics averages show Obama has "slipped" from an April 1 Pennsylvania high of 42.3 to a 41.3 today. At the same time Clinton has "surged" from a 48.3 to a 49.7. Either Obama's remarks have resonance only outside the Keystone State or the Bradley/Warner/Ford effect makes polling irrelevant this year.

"Tuesday will certainly be interesting."

Indeed it will, considering that there has been a moderately strong 'movement' among certain registered Republicans to switch their party affiliation so they can vote for Hilary in the primary, believing that the Dem race alive as long as possible will help the GOP in November.

Lookye, looky! Obama is now wearing a flag lapel pin!

latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/04/obamaflagpinlap.html

(no "www" needed to go to the URL)

He is a real piece of work, as they say.

So ... will he be wearing it during tonight's debate?

John, I'm aware of Rod's biases... I welcome his biases, I applaud them (well, some of them), and if he wasn't a foil to my opinions I wouldn't be here. Bias is not the same as spin... I wonder Machiavelli would say about it.

Rob, the scuttlebutt I'm hearing is that many are switching to vote for Obama, seeing him as less electable vs. McCain. Just a few weeks ago, they were saying that about Clinton. I wish they'd make up their minds. ;-\

I hope and pray Obama is our next President. Eight years of somebody pretending to be "a regular guy" while shredding the Constitution, driving the economy into the ditch, dragging America's honor through the mud and snickering how, when he leaves office, it will be time to "replenish the old coffers" (his own), is quite enough for me. You two-time Bush voters need to wear sackcloth and ashes.

During my morning drive, Linda Wurtheimer (sp?) was interviewing some local middle class women about the Dems, and one woman put it rather precisely (paraphrasing): Obama told the truth, and the spinmeisters will pounce on him until he eats that truth and is forced to recant.

Franklin, the only spinmeisters at work here are with the Obama Campaign. They have Obama forcefully fighting back against critics who supposedly took him to task for for saying that working class people are bitter about the economy.

Of course, that isn't what Obama said, and that isn't what his critics are taking him to task for. Classic spin, and pure dishonesty.

You're betting that it's still 2004. Andrew bets otherwise.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/04/the-acid-test.html

I'll side with the hope for a new politics that does not thrive on the elevation of the trivial to the pre-eminent. There's no guarantee that we'll get there in any perfect sense.

What's clear from a number of recents posts here, Rod is searching for a way forward but -- as his reaction to Wright and the California comments demonstrate -- he is conditioned to react in the mode of the politics many of us would like to leave behind. Old habits, learned in the conservative politics of the 90's, are hard to break.

As has been pointed out at other sites, the biggest problem with Obama's sneer is that it imputes a false faith to whites (ie, they have other motivations than the ones claimed), yet, as far as Obama's concerned, the people at his church listening to wackadoo sermons from the "Reverend Dr." Jeremiah C. Wright are straight up authentic voices, speaking truth to power, can I get an AMEN!?

Obama in his own way, told the unpleasant truth about alledgedly class free America. And yes the feeling of much of rural and working class America is one of resentment, legitimate resentment I may add.I speak from being part of that America.Frankly , this country doesn't work for people who aren't lucky to be rich. To me Mc Cain's comments that the people aren't resentful, but good patriotic Americans who love their country is far more offensive. So is being a good American equated with sticking to the narrative that America is this holy city on a hill , despite all the evidence to the contrary? Frankly Republican patriotism, and all the America is so good and great crap is far more offensive than Obama's accurate,if unpleasant observation about American life,because it (Repub.rhetoric) is all cynical b.s. Mc Cain and Hillary are no friends of average Americans and frankly the spin and faux outrage should be dismissed for the sanctimoniuos, cynical garbage that it is.

Further more Evangelical Christianity with its endtimes,rapture escapism and the propserity teaching of the Charismatic and Pentacostal wings is a quietest faith, that is a opiate of the masses. The religious right,and its leaders do collude with or have colluded with the ruling Bush junta, to subvert and use the religious sensibilities and fears of many American Christians to stay in power. You know , they promise to keep dem queers outta marriage and say mighty fine words about Mista Jesus,then when the Republicans are elected they seem to forget all about dem queers and Jesus until the next election. And then when you notice such things and are feed up with it, Republican apologist like Hugh Hewitt get on the radio and tell you , that you got to vote for lesser evil like John Mc Cain, lest a Godless commie like Hillary or Obama wins.And the cycle repeats itself.The almost Gnostic , sensability of Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism is the greatest gift a corrupt oligarchy like the present leadership could have. Obama's mistake was getting off the America is number one, Jesus is Lord narrative and telling the truth. Frankly, I hate all the God drivel in American politics and would gladly vote for an honest athiest or agnostic, then another born-again Jesus freak. This is written by an ex-Republican and ex-Evangelical, from a working class,midwestern, background.

yelladawgNC: Do any of us really think that the Constitution is going to become magically "un-shredded" after this election? What is in place now is exactly what the political elite on both sides of the aisle have always wanted. And isn't it what Nixon got kicked out of office for? What happened between then and now that makes wire-tapping, etc., okay? Maybe just that technology has made it easier?

And can somebody please tell me which candidate it was whose aide was busy reassuring Canada that the NAFTA status quo would not change whilst the candidate was speaking out against NAFTA. Sometimes I read it was Hilary, sometimes Obama. There again it really doesn't matter much. It won't change because the polititians and most other elites are all for it because they are making money off it. I was just curious and the MSM can't even seem to reach a consensus.

Simon, I'm glad you posted that rebuttal, because I can agree with you and take you to task at the same time. ;-)

...the only spinmeisters at work here are with the Obama Campaign.

No, sir. Spin is being used on all sides, for the same reasons and to achieve the same results. Though I was silent about it so far, I hold the Obama propaganda to the same standard and find some of it falling just as short.

Let us not get bogged down in comparing anecdotes. Instead, let us do the mature thing (not implying anything personal about you) and hear or see the words the candidates use and find the truth in them, and face that truth.

Gov. Rendell a few months ago offered a blunt truth: there are broad swaths of PA that are not ready to vote for a black presidential candidate. He was criticized for it, not because it's untrue, but because it was not stated in approved, politically correct language... which, just as Obama's remarks, is a catch-22 because it is the sort of unpleasant truth that people do not want to face, and thus the truth itself becomes politically incorrect. I don't know about you (though I suspect you agree), but that is not a climate for discussion that I want to live with.

Interestingly, based on my personal experience and view, the same places to which Rendell referred are pretty much the same communities about which Obama adressed his remarks. Rendell has endorsed Clinton. A spinmeister on any side could have a field day with that.

Republicans complaining that Democrats are elitist. Wow.

>>>Posted by: Anglican | April 16, 2008 10:53 AM

Applause

After this absurd nomination/convention season is concluded, I'm going to watch FIGHT CLUB for therapy and to regain some sense of balance.

However, I may not be able to wait that long.

Reaganite in NYC:

Wow. I didn't know I meant/implied all of that. Thanks for the heads-up! :}

Reaganite, I submit that the point being missed is this (following your phrasing, no mockery intended): I grew up in a small town, and Obama's comments do not apply to me or my experience.

Move on to the next issue. Resentment is not, respectfully, an appropriate response to your being outside the target set of the general statement. In my experience, for those to whom "bitter" is an accurate assessment, you'd lose that bet, and your resentment only serves to generate resentment in turn from those who are squarely in the target set.

Addendum to my thought experiment: the boy is kidnapped and by agents of the fully-clothed emperor in a neighboring empire and taken to a secret prison because, by Jove, the boy lied about him!

One more thing:

We're not statistics or objects in an anthropological study.

Really? What would you call the daily polls conducted by and reported on by every institute and media outlet? You've missed your opportunity for a boatload of resentment.

The closing 'graph of Deneen's Brownson essay excerpt here
http://patrickdeneen.blogspot.com/2008/04/brownsons-democratic-realism.html
captures Rod's kettle-calling-pot-"black" (please, oh, please, forgive the pun) concundrum:

Brownson thus rejected that humanity would cease to be alienated from God and one another by means of a progress toward a form of “species-being.” He rejected the possibility of an ideal realization of democracy at the “end of history,” instead insisting that humanity in its current and created form was our earthly fate and destiny. In defense of “democratic realism,” he wrote that

“man may advance by the aid of their Maker, but it is not and cannot be inherently progressive. It will not, then, answer to contend that possible man is greater than actual man, humanity in the abstract superior to humanity concreted in individuals.” Democracy, he concluded, is not what we might achieve when humanity is perfected; it is rather what is required precisely because we are not perfect."

Thus the modern American project of "modelling" our hegemony of a global economy on an inherent(*) authority of our FIAT currency (in collusion with Wall Street's preponderence of computing power needed to manipulate the vast data sets used to keep ahead of human liberty) is doomed to fail. It is an exercise in the coercive dictat of state power: an ethic of "might makes right" collective force over personal virtue. This is deeply antithetical to all that our founding fathers embraced in their flight to "freedom made ever new" (Pope Benedict XVI this morning) by proclaiming their self-evident human right of individual self-determination at each and every moment of their own lives.

>>>
(*) "inherent" authority of the governing powers to mint currency is not in our Constitution or Declaration, rather it comes from the pen of a Supreme Court Chief Justice's decision to arrogate the property rights the people under the state's interests.
Posted by: Clare Krishan | April 16, 2008 12:21 PM
>>>

I think you are mistaken

US Constitution - Article I Section 8:

The Congress shall have Power To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

During my morning drive, Linda Wurtheimer (sp?) was interviewing some local middle class women about the Dems, and one woman put it rather precisely (paraphrasing): Obama told the truth, and the spinmeisters will pounce on him until he eats that truth and is forced to recant. Her worry is that the candidate she wants to vote for will lose enough votes to the spin that he will help elect McCain.

Now, please tell me: why are we so averse to the truth?

Just maybe because it's not true? Just maybe because gun ownership and faith are not the behavioral equivalent of xenophobia? Just maybe because economic materialism doesn't explain all behaviors?

Just maybe because Obama is willing to engage in special pleading for his own church while he offloads cant on rural whites?

The most depressing thing about this entire blow-up has been the dogmatic reaction of heretofore sensible people who treat the SF speech like Obama was coming down Sinai with the uncontrovertable truth.

Let me add my own anecdote--I was born and raised in a small rural town in central lower Michigan that started taking it in the shorts in the 80s. I don't recognize the lazy caricature of my family, friends, schoolmates and co-workers in either Obama's comments or the amens from those who laud them. I am appalled by it.

Not that it matters, of course. Just chalk it up to the idiocy of rural life and inauthentic resentment.

I honestly haven't gotten the impression that this is harming or will harm Obama much. Every last person I've seen freaking out over it is someone who would never have voted for him anyway. I think Democrats and Obama supporters have discussed and settled this for themselves--for one thing they have actually taken note of his additional explanations and comments on the topic!

Don: "At least he [Obama] is trying to bridge the divide" with his comments in San Francisco.

No! Obama was making sport of the problems faced by small-town folks at a secret/closed fundraiser of wealthy donors in a big city. The whole crowd was having a big belly laugh at the expense of the "hicks."

This guy will go bowling with the object of his derision one week. Then, the next week, WHEN HE THINKS NO ONE IS WATCHING ... he will ridicule their beliefs and habits to a group of the very wealthy.

Obamaniacs, be put on notice: your guy is a phony! What do you suppose he says about you behind your back?

I live in a small PA town with little industry and, I gotta tell ya'll, my neighbors are a bunch of bitter, cranky folks. They are all older than we (50's, 60's, 70's) and there are no other children on the block. My opinion is that the bitterness is the result of a collision between that socialist/union mentality of "someone will make it all OK because I've paid my dues/taxes and they owe me" and the rise in materialism and constant marketing. The big bucks jobs are gone at a time when people have allowed themselves to be marketed into thinking there is no difference between necessity and luxury.

There are optimistic, thinking, and very crunchy folks around but they are almost all under 50. We moved here because of those people and a great church with a fantastic priest. Sure, we're clinging to our guns and religion too while we down our pastured chicken and organic veggies but not because we're bitter that the government isn't taking care of us. We'd just like the government to get out of our way and stop regulating us out of the ability to find new ways to make a decent living.

Reaganite, thanks for that.

I won't dispute your opinion, both because it is yours and deserving of a respectful hearing, and because I hold a similar opinion of Clinton (both of them), McCain, Huckabee, Bush (both), Reagan, Carter... indeed, it would be easier to try to list those of whom I don't hold that opinion... well... ;-)

In the end, though, what (I ask in general) is more important to the issues: the statements about the issues, or the person making the statements? One the one hand there's you and Dale, OTOH there's Steph above and others. Whose anecdotal experience gets to validate or invalidate the statements? Why are we stuck on validation at all?

I confess I don't know, myself. I can see my own attempts at validation above, and regret not being more clear about it all. I return to my thought experiment: what should we do with the little boy who sees a naked emperor?

Dale, I see we just cross-posted. I extend my thanks to you as well. If my rejection of your assertions implied disrespect for your feelings, I apologize.

Franklin--no harm, no foul.

If the emperor's naked, we should listen to the kid. If the emperor is wearing a bodysuit that matches his skin tone, we should take note of that.

That, and everyone remember that the plural of anecdote is not data. Even my anecdotes, surprising as that seems.

The word that caused the problem for Obama was not "bitter", it was "cling". Bitterness could be debated or excused as word-choice, but saying people cling to their faith and their xenophobia because of the economic downturn is just plain offensive.

The word that caused the problem for Obama was not "bitter", it was "cling"....but saying people cling to their faith and their xenophobia because of the economic downturn is just plain offensive.

I'm reminded of the refrain from The Old Rugged Cross, possibly the best-known hymn in all of Christendom:

"So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it some day for a crown."

Just a thought to add. Small towns in the rust belt are a bit different than small towns out west and in the sunbelt. Small towns in places like Pennsylvania, and Ill include places like Allentown and Bethlehem, were once very prosperous with all those great manufacturing jobs. Over the relatively short period of about 40 years the way of life has changed dramatically. Small town life may be different now in other parts of the country but the rustbelt has had the most dramatic drop off.

My wife and I have always been registered Republican. We registered Democratic here (PA) so that we could vote against Hillary.

Frankiln- Said speech needs to emphasize the willingness of political operatives to identify themselves with the values of those suffering communities in an attempt to gain their allegiance while offering nothing in return.

Steve

“GOP support for such [social] values is akin to the Democratic Party’s professed devotion to the “working poor”: each is a ploy to get votes, trotted out seasonally, quickly forgotten once the polls close.” Republican expressions of devotion to “small town America” are doing the same kind of work. Also, it is throwing a bone to the people who keep voting for them (for some reason), as if to say, “See, we remember that you exist!”
This is the kind of hollow symbolism that is supposed to make social and cultural conservatives ignore the fact that these Republican elites (that word again!) do not take their issues seriously and have their own priorities. Meanwhile, most Republican talking heads will gasp in horror whenever anyone on the left dares speak against corporate elites, who are, of course, the “good” kind of elites, because they are the people with whom the GOP is frequently aligned. When corporate elites are mentioned, the liberal disdain for populist appeals against academia, the media or Hollywood and the like will suddenly be replaced by a ferocious anti-elitism. This typically entails giving more power to the state, which many on the left pretend is populism, just as many on the right pretend that empty symbolic gestures constitute cultural populism.

From Larison.

Rod, the Dieter reference is perfect. Kudos for having the self-awareness to see the elistism in your view.

For better AND for worse, our socially democratic, classical-liberal political culture (think how it looked to Tocqueville), reinforced by a market economy, means that everyone gets to decide what he wants, whether or not somebody smarter thinks that's what good for him. Going against that culture, from whatever point on the political/cultural spectrum, is spitting into the wind. On balance, I'm very happy that is so.

>>>>
The US no longer issues legal tender based on the gold standard, the federal note (official name for the greenback) no longer functions as a deposit slip representing "something else" of value. The dollar bill you have in your wallet is worth nothing more than a promise of the private bankers club at the Federal Reserve to exchange it for another Federal Bill. Sort of like a Chinese Yuan that a Chinese person carries around in his or her billfold.
Posted by: Clare Krishan | April 16, 2008 4:56 PM
>>>>

Shrug... gold-backed currency is advantageous not because gold is intrinsically valuable (leaving aside industrial uses), but because the limited supply of gold acts as a check against inflating the money supply beyond what is appropriate for the economy.

The downside to a strictly gold-backed currency is that the amount of gold acts as an upper limit to the amount of currency available. From the ever-useful Wikipedia, I find the following quote:

In 2001, it was estimated that all the gold ever mined totalled 145,000 tonnes. One metric tonne is equal to 1,000 kilograms (or 32,150 troy ounces), therefore one tonne of gold equated to a value of US$32.15 million in March 2008 ($1,000/troy ounces). So the total value of all gold ever mined would be worth US$4.66 trillion at today's prices.

Therefore, if the nations of the world adopted strictly gold-backed currency then either there would be inadequate currency to run the economy, or the price of gold would have to be re-valued to a price that would not correspond to its intrinsic value as an industrial commodity.

Value meant nominal value (number) that the species represented in exchange, measured as a correspondence in weight (units such as oz.) to something very rare and valuable - usually gold, but for smaller denominations silver, or an alloy with some fractional mixture of one or other with copper or tin.

It is arguable whether this was the original understanding of the Coinage clause. See here (400 KB pdf):

www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/documents/Papermoneyart.pdf

Which argues that the clause, as originally understood, permitted federal emission of paper money. "To coin" didn't necessarily imply metallic currency; while "regulate the value thereof" authorized seigniorage.

An interesting discussion can also be found here:

volokh.com/posts/1144812952.shtml

volokh.com/posts/1144812952.shtml#81168

volokh.com/posts/1144812952.shtml#81173

Query: was the penny - pure copper from 1793 to 1837 - constitutional? Even if its one-cent face value exceeded the market value of the coin's metallic content? If the answer to both questions is "yes", then even interpreting the phrase "to coin" as restricting currency to metallic objects would nevertheless allow debasement of the currency. Just keep adding zeros to the clad dollar coins....

"Yeah, this country would be better off if it took a "no-growth" stance, like Cuba."

I agree; and it would be even better off if it went on a weight-loss diet. Sometimes you need to prune back the fruit trees, thin the herd.