| Those damned elitists |
[Jun. 26th, 2008|08:38 am] |
One of the favorite attacks by the Republicans is to slam an opponent as "elitist" or "arrogant." This would be hysterically funny if it didn't actually seem to work.
Barack Obama is the latest candidate to have the label pasted on him (which is a dead giveaway: A real elitist would have had it embroidered). Yup. A black man, the son of an African immigrant and a middle-class midwesterner, who got into Harvard on a scholarship and excelled there. He had it all handed to him.
Only effete snobs go to Harvard. Real Men like Our Only President tough it out and get their education from the School of Hard Knocks, or as the locals like to quaintly call it, "Yale." No man who was sheltered in the salons of Cambridge can understand the reality on the mean streets of New Haven. That's why so many of our hip-hop, blues and country & western greats hail from there.
The Republicans, of course, have a candidate who's a real man of the people. Born the son and grandson of four-star admirals, he nonetheless managed somehow to gain admission to the U.S. Naval Academy. Once there, the plucky little underdog fought against overwhelming odds to graduate in the top 99.4% of his class. (Seriously. 894 out of 899. I actually did the math.)
If you are a poor minority who gets into an elite college, that's affirmative action, and that's bad. If you're from the right (white) family and you get into an elite college, you're a legacy, and that's good. See? It's very simple, really.
Let's call a spade a spade this campaign tactic what it is: code for "uppity." Barack Obama is "arrogant" because he doesn't know his place. He's gotten too big for his britches. While the Republican sons of bitches wealth and privilege are "just folks" because they've perfected aw-shucks stagecraft and they own ranches instead of vacation homes.
While I'm on the subject, I have to call out the producers of the presidential reality show for the use of thinly-veiled stereotypes. If you believe the previews, the final two are an uppity nigger and a hot-headed mick. The man-hating bitch, the horndog wop, the slickly bilingual spic, the smooth-drawling cracker lawyers (both of them), the clean-cut but vaguely creepy Mormon, the revival-tent Southern preacher, the wackaloon from Alaska and the nutjob from Texas were voted off the island earlier in the season.
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| Comments: |
I hate that you're right and it works.
I remember in 2004 hearing some famous NASCAR driver being interviewed and saying that he could never vote for Kerry because Kerry lives in a mansion and Bush lives on a ranch. A ranch? Give me a fucking break. It's a rural mansion.
*headdesk*
I'm calling bullshit here. He may not be correctly elitist according to some republican people's stances, but from where I stand as middle class, its not his background that's elitist. It is his own acts and statements and history in Chicago/Illinois politics that's elitist.
He's just as elitist as the gun control fruitcake that I spoke to at a Million Mom March that was using inner city kids to defend her stance. She lived in Va-Hi. When I asked her about how the kid's she was using as pawns expected to get good police response given where their parents lived, she said that was beside the point. She lived in a good neighborhood and she was known by the cops. It didn't bother her.
Obama more or less advocates the same kind of self defense posture (witness his stance on gun control, really and Heller vs DC in particular). If you're rich, you can hire licensed security. You sometimes have state provided security. If you're poor you're shit outta luck. If you're not politically connected forget about access to reasonable self defense measures. The entire chicago political machine is structured around that setup.
And I have to point out that McCain paid for his Father's rank more than Obama paid for his under 'privileged' status. McCain was singled out in the Hanoi Hilton BECAUSE he was an Admiral's son. Though, from what I've seen of the military, being the son of a General or an Admiral can be a very heavy curse.
It's a bit of a stretch to extrapolate Obama's motives from his policy position. Is supporting gun control a sign of elitist disregard for the inner city, or a concern for the folks living where most of the shootings occur? I know you think it's ill-advised, but elitist?
McCain served his country honorably and through a great deal of personal sacrifice, and there is nothing to fault in his conduct as an aviator or POW. But if young Johnny McCain had been the son of two Tupelo truck drivers, he would never been in that cockpit. Finishing in the bottom half a percent of one's Academy class, with poor grades in math (i couldn't find anything on his science and engineering grades), isn't a way to get on the fast track to flying combat jets.
John Paul Getty III, grandson of the richest man in America at the time, was kidnapped for ransom. The kidnappers lopped off half his ear to prove they were serious. He suffered because of his family, and benefitted greatly from it -- the two are not mutually exclusive.
Oops. Make that the son and grandson of two Tupelo truck drivers.
Prima Fascia, the standard policies of gun control in the Northern State's cities is elietist. Their whole structure of licensing is arranged around being connected. If you are not connected, you are sol. Obama advocates JUST that scheme. He worked under just that scheme. He helped perpetuated it as a city councilman, as a state legislator and as a senator and presidential candidate stated that he thought that the DC scheme was just fine constitutionally.
The schemes that most of those cities have require you to own a business OR to get some sort of nod from a person in a position of power. If you're well off, you're good. Usually you can hire security. You're not forced by your lack of income to live in the poorer areas and when you do go there you can bring along armed escorts. Very well connected have agents of the state along for the ride.
If we had a candidate that stated that he thought banning an entire class of media to protect the under privileged was just fine on a local level, people would be screaming bloody murder. The ALA would be going batshit, the major publishers and news media would be running hit ads and the ACLU would be crawling up the guy's backside in a court of law (grounds for a suit or otherwise).
When you isolate poor people from any legal means of effective self defense and call yourself their champion you are an elitist.
To my knowledge those who fly are those who have the knowledge and the skills. My Grandfather was the son of a steam shovel operator in illinois. He had enough math and skills that he was made an instrument flight instructor at Blackland Army Airfield. I'm pretty darn sure it's more than just admiral's sons who get to fly NAval Aviation, even today. | |
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