The Obama p0litical machine has made an interesting choice in the run-up to the 2012 national election, according to Thomas Edsel in – wait for it – the NY Times:
For decades, Democrats have suffered continuous and increasingly severe losses among white voters. But preparations by Democratic operatives for the 2012 election make it clear for the first time that the party will explicitly abandon the white working class.
All pretense of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned in favor of cementing a center-left coalition made up, on the one hand, of voters who have gotten ahead on the basis of educational attainment — professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists — and a second, substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic.
You don’t see any doctors in there. No engineers or scientists. And you certainly don’t see the “middle America” that each party pretends to represent. Probably because they persist in bitterly clinging to their guns and their God.
It’s a coalition that combines the mostly useless and the mostly helpless, and it’s designed to drive a stake right in the heart of the notion that ours actually is a classless society wherein anyone with talent and drive can reach success. It kills the dream that we could eventually be a colorless one as well, a nation in which – as Martin Luther King, Jr once dreamt – each person could be judged alone by the content of his character.
Farewell to all that. And who knows, it might even work.
Which is the whole point, isn’t it? Win at any cost.
They have to destroy America to save it.
Obama’s buddy Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick won re-election in Massachusetts along this same strategy. He won the cities where welfare & food stamps are rampant ( Springfield, Holyoke, Brockton, New Bedford, Fall River, etc.). He added in the lefty Cambridge Loons and some other pockets of the LIBS and managed to get enough votes to knock off Charlie Baker who got all the Suburban voters ( where most EARN a weekly paycheck )
To listen to the Vacationer-in-Chief lie like a rug for three years + and think he would do anything different is folly. All we can ever expect from him is Lies, lies and more damned Lies.
Time to go Barry and take your idiot wife with you….Chi-Town needs it’s Village Idiot back.
The Coalition of the Useless.
I like it.
It makes me terribly sorry to say that I told my boys 20 years ago that they WILL NEVER win an argument against a black female.
Two white boys… that is just the way it is now.
My son suffered 18 months under a weaps that was completely incompetent until she finally wasn’t able to make her rate. It was a nightmare on wheels! She even subjected him to her born again Christian site!
Thank God (and I mean that truly) she was finally ordered off the ship. Double minortity or not, she couldn’t do her job.
Am I bitter about it? Yup.
I was reading on the Web recently, I forgot where, where somebody quoted a semi-famous investment adviser, answering a question like “Where should I put my money? Stocks, bonds, hedge funds, or what?”
The answer was, “canned goods, ammo, and bottled water.”
Don’t forget light bulbs. Get’em before the nannies do.
A similar question is what sort of education should you pursue. When you ponder that your college major is really just a bet upon which industry or activity will be hot over the next 20 years, it’s starting to look like being a competent plumber, electrician, midwife, nurse, paramedic or welder is going to be preferable to having an MBA or that degree in social work.
– Max
No military on that left list either.
Question is, are there more of them, or more of us? November 2012 will tell the tale.
Look around. America is being destroyed already, well before the next presidential campaign. Please don’t place the blame for our decline or eventual demise because of someone’s editorial opinion on a future campaign strategy.
Sadly America is no longer the same place where anyone with talent and drive can reach success. Yes, some still can and indeed will. Hooray for them! However, the opportunity to do so is far less than it was 50 years ago. The odds are stacked against, and getting worse. If we keep on the road we are on, there will be even far less upward mobility in the future, because of our own stupid undoing.
Why should doctors, engineers, and scientists despise the unions that originally built the middle class? Or should they despise unions because many think unions are a political conspiracy to elect Democrats? Who do they normally vote for? Are they fertile territory to spend campaign funds?
The white middle class (and others?) is being screwed by both parties! The GOP capitalizes on the understandable white working class anger and resentment, and builds upon it with lies and fear. But it has nothing to offer. Meanwhile the Democrats offer false promises for votes. But not much to offer, either. So the middle class declines; a middle class that once was the impetus and indeed the foundation for our world leading GDP. When the middle class disappears, so does our world leading economy.
Voters are sheep and mostly ignorant. Both parties – the GOP more so than Dems, but both – are aiding and abetting large corporations, sending jobs overseas, bailing out banks on taxpayer’s money, feeding the military-industrial-complex, protecting Wall Street, while our education suffers, screwing veterans with no jobs and benefit cuts after they have served, neglecting infrastructure, etc, etc.
Playing partisan politics when both are hugely liable is foolishly fighting over those who are the worst, rather than seeking and championing the better…. if “the better” would or could ever appear in this money for politics ‘democracy’. Those who are not bought out by lobbyists and corporations are as scarce as hen’s teeth on both sides. It takes (dirty?) money to stay in office, ethics be damned.
In a “classless, colorless” society, I wonder how many would have a problem with that type of electorate? Personally, I don’t know, and could not care.
However minorities – classified as those of any race other than non-Hispanic, single-race whites – currently constitute about a third of the U.S. population, according to Census figures. But by 2042, they are projected to become the majority, making up more than half the population. Do you applaud, fear, or do not care about that? Should we restrict their votes, as is being done in some states? Why?
So it is the proffered idea of the next election suddenly killing the dream of a “classless society” or a “colorless society” in the next election campaign? I have words…. but better not printed.
Finally since I am likely part of that stated and alleged “coalition” that combines the “mostly useless and the mostly helpless,” I will bite my tongue and withhold further comment.
Uselessly and helplessly submitted,
Your humble, pesky scribe,
Fliterman
Flit, a few questions if you please?
Did the unions build the middle class? Or was it a case of labor and more specifically skilled labor being more valuable at that point in time? Differentiate organization with actual value in the marketplace. Compare and contrast to the value of their votes as their population dwindles in comparison to other groups.
If voters are sheep and mostly ignorant, how can we rectify this problem with the electorate without placing restrictions upon the right to vote? We’ve tried throwing money at education and making it easier for more people to vote, but that has not even slowed the problem. Compare and contrast against laws that allow only landed gentry the right to vote and those that allow everyone.
How does government send jobs overseas directly? If business owners do so, are they not obligated to the shareholders or owners or board of directors to justify that decision? If assembling wiring looms for the Prius costs $7 here and $3 in Bangladesh, and making the batteries in China costs less than making them in Cupertino, how would you propose equalizing that worker in Cupertino with somebody in China who earns a tenth of the income?
On the money question in politics, how can a politician be bought out by lobbyists and corporations? As I see it, either paid-for advertisements work so much better than shaking hands and letters in mailboxes that a candidate cannot win without major media purchases, or the electorate is so stupid they can’t decide how to vote until told how by a catchy commercial. Would not banning all coverage of elections by the press not solve this problem? Compare and contrast against other fundamental rights that can be abused and must be restricted for our own good. Include cases where billionaires spent millions to get a job for 2 years that pays just over six figures and had no other motive than altruism.
Just kidding! I just wanted to make you sweat a little.
Fact is, so long as we’re a republic, we get the government we deserve good and hard. Anything we do to manipulate that towards the government we want is going to restrict participation. Once we do that we’re not really a republic, we’re an aristocracy.
– Max
Let’s not forget the people in unions comprise 7% of the workforce…but then again, here in AmeriKa, it’s all about any one little group being allowed to shape the “world” for everyone else, just so it’s fair…even at the expense of any other minority group who doesn’t have the large little voice to get their way.
Politics of raw selfishness. It’s the AmeriKan WAY!
MaxD – Good questions. Here’s a cuppala answers:
1. It was unions that ended the age of robber barons and sweatshops. Over the course of the last century, even non-union properties tracked the pay and benefit gains of unions, albeit at a reduced pace. Thus the extraordinary wealth created by cheap labor was shared with the workers. This in turn built a large base of middle class consumers that further propelled our nations economy to the best in the world.
2. Voting is protected by the Constitution. Placing restrictions on the right to vote is unconstitutional. Voter education is the only solution.
3. It is understandable “why” corporations send jobs overseas. But that doesn’t solve our problem. Boards of directors are not as accountable today as they used to be, and as they should be. Most shareholders today are traders or mutual funds and rarely vote on corporate matters. They buy and sell and have little interest or action in corporate governance, as was the case 50 years ago. Most of today’s boards are interlocking – “sit on my board and I’ll sit on yours.” The old boy network prevails over the stockholders. Look at the massive multi-million golden parachutes given to CEOs who are ‘fired’ for failing and wrecking their companies.
4. Politicians today spend more time trying to get reelected than they do legislating. Campaigning is expensive and our campaign financing is spiraling way out of control, especially with Citizens United. When one is the recipient of outrageous amounts of money, they are somewhat beholden – if not bought and paid-for corrupt – to their financiers. Lobbyists only continue to corrupt, along with writing the best special interest legislation that their financiers – and not the voters – can provide.
5. We may indeed be a republic, and we will never become an aristocracy. However we are fast becoming a Plutocracy and a Corporatocracy. Our representative democracy is broken.
No one is trying to restrict anyone who has the right to vote from doing so. Have a close look at these laws. Anyone can walk into a polling place and vote. If they cannot meet the entirely reasonable burden of proving they have the right to vote, their ballot will be accepted anyway and sequestered, and the person who cast it will have every opportunity to provide proof.
It is not unreasonable to ask people to prove that they have a right to vote. It is not burdensome. It is often cited that students and poor people don’t have the ID needed to vote more often than others. As far as students go, they generally DO have ID – but that ID shows they have the right to vote at their parents’ precinct, not the one they reside in during the school year. So that’s actually a lie. Let them vote where they legally can. As far as poor people go – don’t you have to have an ID to get payments from the government? If not, how do I know that my money isn’t being wasted? The bug there is not that they need an ID they don’t have to vote, the bug is that they don’t need an ID for anything else.
Not that I think you are a lying sack of bull excrement or anything, flit, but I’m dying to find out just which states are restricting the right to vote for any citizen that can show some form of identification to avoid fraud. Care to enlighten us? Or will this be another patented troll and run by our resident comrade?
You see, I take the right to vote seriously. I, personally, feel I am disenfranchised every time a dead person votes. I feel cheated every time a felon who has not regained their franchise is allowed to vote. Every time a college student or snowbird votes twice, my vote is cancelled. And every time union goons strongarm their members to submit absentee ballots pre-filled by the Democrat thugs, we are all cheated. And let’s be honest here: there is only one party that systemically, repeatedly, and regularly encourages, underwrites, and profits from widespread voter fraud. There’s only one party that opposes such commen sense measures as requiring ID to vote and uses the courts regularly to overturn the clear will of the people as expressed at the ballot box. There’s only one party that takes pride in instructing their operatives how to disqualify ballots submitted by service men and women serving outside of CONUS. There’s only one party that condones direct physical threats and intimidation at polling places by their official poll watchers. And it sure isn’t the GOP.
As I look at the democrats it is too easy to reach the conclusion that they are all evil clueless mofos. Pelosi and the whole insider trading along with Rangel and the misery created with the housing loan scams. That movie, Caligula, rings a bell of democratic ill purpose. It described them very well.
Why should doctors, engineers, and scientists despise the unions that originally built the middle class?
Because unions stopped working for the middle class and started working for their own hierarchy.
I doubt that the Democrats have any desire to “save” the country, they want to destroy any part of it that does not reflect thier utopian vision of their being in control, and the masses happily following thier wise laedership.
And down that road you will meet Stalin or Mao. It didn’t work out very well for either Russia or China, and the idealists that got those things going ended up in front of a wall, or in the basement of the Lubyanka.
And I just recently met a lady from Cambodia, who lived through the unpleasantness brought to that part of the world by the “peace loving” Doves of the Dem party and the College campuses, not to mention the actress who needed 15 more minutes of fame. She knows she is exceptionally lucky to be alive. There’s a possible book in that woman.
Dreams of utopia are just that….what happens in your imagination while you sleep….and then you have to wake up and deal with human nature as it is, not how you wish it to be…
The problem with the demographic change is that many of these minorities are poor and are net users of government services. They will reflexively vote their pocketbooks and get all of the taxpayer-funded lollipops (like the “crazy checks” my mother, a retired school teacher, told me about) until the system collapses upon itself. Either way, it’s armageddon.
No, alas, it will not end well. China isn’t going to have to worry about us, we’re in the process of taking ourselves out as a world player.
I don’t like Ron Paul’s foreign policy proposals, but frankly what we’re going to get is worse than anything he proposes as we won’t have the money to do anything anyway, much less protect anyone else.
Interesting coalition. I’m a photographer, which I guess means I fit in the “artists” category, yet I’m self taught, so that should count me out as I had no need for college, loans, etc. IMNSHO, when it comes to photography you’re better off taking a few courses in school, plus workshops, plus business courses, than trying to do 4 years of school with the attendant useless courses that are a distraction from what you really want to do. YMMV.
[...] often read the jobs welfare program for hack journalists that is The New York Times, but a post by Neptunus Lex drew my [...]
xformd – Yes, you are correct. Unions now compose only a mere 7%. And that is a large part of our problem. But why are you now upset about a small and insignificant 7% of workers?
Without the counterbalance of workers united together in unions, the middle class withers because the economy and politics tend to be dominated by the rich and powerful, which in turn leads to an even greater flow of money in our economy to the top of income scale. Former checks and balances are gone!
The percentage of unionized workers tracks very closely with the share of the nation’s income going to the middle class—those in the middle three-fifths of income earners.
Read it and weep for our nation:
A graph of shame and a nation’s decline. This ain’t spin. This is real. It will doom us in the long run, if the middle class disappears.
Flit,
The unions are the public sector. Why am I forced to pay the retired San Diego County Librarian $239,000/year? WTF is that?!!!
An army general after 30 years of service gets 75% of base pay in retirement. As do all in the military at that point. How in the hell did we reach the point that we pay union thugs vast sums over and above their salary after they retire?
I don’t worry about workers in private unions. They have to compete in the marketplace for their money. The problem is workers in the public unions. They don’t have to compete. And they get to decide who their bosses are by taking members’ dues and donating them to politicians and by campaigning for them, using union resources to hire buses and picking up voters in areas where their preferred candidates have support and taking them to the polls, etc.
If an auto worker strikes and drives wages up to where the car they make is too expensive I can go buy someone else’s car. So there’s a check on the auto worker. Another one is that the auto worker’s management will be financially hurt if they give the auto worker too much money. Another check on the system.
If the teachers strike there isn’t enough room in private schools to take the kids. Plus, the schools already have and will continue to get the money that I pay for school taxes – so, unlike the car where I haven’t spent the money yet I have to pay for both the striking workers AND the private school. So there’s no real alternative. Plus, the people who decide whether or not to give in to the teachers aren’t spending their own money – the politicians also get paid regardless of whether they give the teachers what they want. There’s no check or balance. They only benefit from giving the public workers what they want, there are no negative consequences. If they don’t give the public workers what they want there are no positive consequences, only negative ones. This is why public workers shouldn’t be allowed to unionize.
But haven’t doctors and engineers, etc., gotten ahead on their educational achievements? So why aren’t they included?
Because they actually have to do something.
Look at those folks again and you’ll see that most of them can be put into one classification; tax consumers. There’s two kinds. Those that exist on public support without having to do anything for it (people on welfare, etc.) and those that do something for a living but are paid by tax money for it (public school teachers and professors, librarians, social workers, etc.) and thus consume more taxes than they pay. These people benefit from expanded government and will reliably vote their personal interest. Lawyers don’t get paid by the government but use it’s products and it’s mechanisms for their livelihood – and are also experts in manipulating it.
The other kind, mostly excluded from that list, are tax producers – people who work in private industry. In states such as California and Illinois the tax producers are outnumbered by the tax consumers and are thus outvoted by them. It’s easy to determine which states those are – they are the ones running deficits.