This week the latest blunder of someone hailed "Rock Star" and one of the greatest speakers since John F. Kennedy hit hard. Obama's latest statement in conjunction with everything else we know about him makes him less of someone who is about Hope and Change and more of the same typical under handed slimy politicians we are used to.
This week Barack Obama attempted to address California Businessmen, sun baked brains and all, of what working class Pennsylvanians are like. Let us review:
"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
Today he tried to CYA by attempting to dazzle people in Indiana with an explanation. He claimed he was not as eloquent as he could have been. The coward did not even have the integrity to address the people of Pennsylvania face to face. I have news for him, it was not a lack of ability to express himself, but in reality it is an inability to grasp what the lives of working class Americans are like.
Barack's childhood began in Hawaii, a place many of us dream of being. I am sure there are plenty of people who will say that despite the luxury of the Island built on tourism, he was not privileged. People will say that because he lived and went to school for 4 years in Indonesia he was not privileged. I highly disagree. He was not only able to travel and become acquainted with the world, but he also went to a private college prep school from the time he was in fifth grade till the time he graduated. Somehow, in a school of mostly Asian-Americans who are themselves a minority he became "acquainted with racism and what it meant to be an African-American." With all due respect, and that is very little, a boy who was raised by white grandparents, was afforded all the privilege ( at least that is what I am told) given to a white child, in a school of other minorities to claim he knew what it was like to be an African-American in the terms of how we think of African-Americans today is just completely ignorant. He is about as African-American as Charlize Theron. Unless he was born and raised in a family whose ancestors were from the time uneducated slaves were freed, who were degraded by Jim Crow laws, who were thrust into a world unprepared and whose generations are still trying to come out of poverty, then there is no way he can "connect" with the black Americans of today.
Maybe his lack of experience in what it truly means to be poor, black, and underprivileged lead him to follow pastors like Rev. Jeremiah Wright just so he can understand the anger.
Much like he cannot possibly connect with black Americas, he cannot equally connect with working class white Americans. Working class white Americans for the most part did not get a chance to be educated in other countries or in private schools, they weren't able to go to Harvard. These are people he seems to have compassion for, but talks about them like white historians talked about black slaves, in a patronizing way saved for those lesser than you who are nothing more than children that need a pat on the head.
Let us forget for a moment that he, despite his claims, embraced the anger of black Americans born in a humiliating time. Let us forget for a moment that he will speak out of both sides of his mouth. Let us just focus on his latest "misstatement" in an open letter to Barack Obama.
Senator Obama,
I would like to address your latest blunder point by point from the perspective of a Midwesterner, an Ohioan, and a person who lives on the border of Pennsylvania and has family there.
"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them."
So far so good, nothing wrong there, it has taken 25 years from the Mid West downfall in the 80's to get to where we are now.
"And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.
Not that it has much to do with the Clinton or Bush administration, but yes our states have failed miserably to promote economic growth. This is a state issue more than a federal issue.
And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
Oh really now? Allow me to educate you son, from a girl still working hard for her associates to a graduate of Harvard.
People in Pennsylvania, and even across the border in Ohio, do not "cling to guns," in the negative way you suggest. Perhaps you are not completely aware of the cost of meat, but it is quite high. One of the way these poor rural working class folk keep food on the table is hunting. Deer meat is excellent, I suggest you try it. The other reason guns are important is because when Deer season in particular has started the hunting is not for sport, as people in California might not understand, it is for population control so herds of Deer do not eat our crops. The last reason for gun ownership is protection, which is needed in places where poverty is on the rise.
As far as your religion comment, as a man who stayed in one Church for 20 years and constantly sought spiritual advice from ministers, that statement doesn't even deserve a response. However I will give one that is short and sweet. We do not practice our religion in some fake fanatical, swinging from the chandeliers, rolling on the floors, snake handling, institutionalized way. For the most part our religion is more like a relationship with God that gives us hope and connects us as communities. You of all people should understand this.
Now let us further educate you about why there is such antipathy when politicians roll into town in their fancy vehicles. The reason, and it is great, is that working class voters can smell bullshit from a mile away. Mr. Obama, you may have answered your own question about why they could care less about your empty promises, they have been hearing it for 25 years probably longer when they first noticed the economy slipping. So they have learned to rely on themselves, and do not particularly trust the government to do more than fix the roads, and they cannot even do that right. This isn't bitterness, it is reality, they have embraced it. Of course we do not have sun baked brains in Pennsylvania and Ohio, because we have some of the highest cloud cover in the nation. Trying to explain Pennsylvanians to Californians is like trying to explain tree throwing Scotsman to the Romans, lost in translation.
The people who are not like us working class Americans, are not the working class immigrants who roll up their sleeves and work next to us, it is people like you who do not connect. Anti-immigration is not a problem we have in the Mid West, you are missing one key word, ILLEGAL. These "simple" folk may not have a Harvard education, but many people know where the jobs are, who is getting them, and how much it is costing them. Many of the "simple" folk of the Mid West are educated enough to know where to look for hard numbers to back up what they are observing. You have succeeded in perpetrating the myth that all Midwesterners are racist, bigoted, troglodytes because they do not embrace
illegal immigration. California businessmen will have a knee jerk reaction when hearing this. Here in the Mid West we see these California businessmen, especially ones in San Francisco and Los Angeles profiting off of illegal immigration. We are not so "simple" to understand that in an attempt to come against the opponents of illegal immigration that these powerful men will attempt to degrade our character and accuse us of atrocities we do not commit.
As far as Anti-Trade goes, there is no way we can overlook that you said you were against NAFTA in one second, and in the next were telling Canada that you are for it. We do not like being coddled, and no we are not bitter from "not being paid attention to," we are tired of being looked down on. Our jobs were moved partly because of NAFTA and the fact that there were no safety nets put in place to protect workers from companies cutting jobs and running, and partly because of cost of living, taxes and other issues. We know this. We would like the Federal government to address what hand they had in it.
So, Mr. Obama as you can see, you really did not speak artfully about this situation, but it isn't because you lacked the words, you were just ignorant of the facts.
Samantha A. Torrence
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