You Wanted Dead White Males, You Got 'Em
--And away they go
(Jackie Gleason as Ralph Cramden)
(Jackie Gleason as Ralph Cramden)
A dirty white boy
I've been in trouble since I don't know when
I'm in trouble now and I know somehow
I'll find trouble again
--Dirty White Boy,
Foreigner
Twenty five years ago they spoke out and they broke out
Of recession and oppression and together they toked
And they folked out with guitars around a bonfire
Just singin' and clappin' man what the hell happened
--Walking on the Sun,
Smash Mouth
The only thing that's left to fear is too late to ever start again
They rape us over and over and over and over
But I'm still alive, but I'm still alive in this dead space
--Dead Space, Sick Puppies
_________________________
The academie has been calling for their heads for decades. De-center the white male -- eject his works from the canon! And while it is true that society has historically failed to recognize and include females and minorities, the white male artist should not be the whipping boy for society's failures.
Especially white males of the lower and middle strata today, who largely have no power to oppress anyone in society. Yet among the liberal crowd, it is with glee and snarkiness that they -- largely young to middle-aged white males -- express their schadenfreude against the meth-heads and Oxy fiends in Kentucky, largely young to middle-aged white males.
Scapegoats needed, and the bedraggled Khalid Sheikh Mohammed-looking guy in Appalachia in the wife-beater, gaze affixed to the rabbit-eared t.v. will do nicely, thanks.
Well, we now have the result of this denigration and disdain: the white male young to middle-aged cohort is the only demographic losing in the longevity race in the United States. In addition to alcohol, drug abuse and liver cirrhosis is cited depression, as though the latter were a discrete phenomenon from the former.
After the previous gains had plateaued for several years, they have now begun to dip. Every other cohort continues to gain annually.
This trend should be very concerning to anyone who cares about a well populace. One group need not lose in order for others to gain. There is no penance that need be paid. This is not the bible, and offspring do not pay for the sins of the fathers.
But these dead and dying they are no one's pet project, they are simply lost like so much detritus along the highway that used to be paved with hope. Their jobs have been outsourced and off-shored, their towns, dying due to the outflux of industry. Good union jobs are scarce, once the route into the middle class for the vocational track student. There are few apprentices or journeymen anymore.
Clothes and socks and appliances are bought cheaply from abroad, and disposed of as befits their value. Human's valuation and a sense of pride also landed on that trash heap. These are the designated losers in the sweepstakes of modernity, not educated enough to innovate or escape the dead ends into which they were born, not qualifying for any particular charitable cause.
The last time an administration took note of their plight was back in the 1930's when FDR's administration began improvements like the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the Works Project Administration (WPA). President Obama's Promise Zones plans to bring federal dollars to regions with persistent poverty, like those in Kentucky (the first rural pilot), but it will probably be as successful as Johnson’s War on Poverty and Clinton’s Empowerment Zones. Not.
The causes du jour, gay marriage and LGBTQ rights, have no space for the floundering straight white male. As in The Dark Tower, time has moved on. The People Who Mean Well will bring places like rural Kentucky online, but sans leadership, they will play video games and grow more unfit to do anything but get to the end of the driveway for their monthly check to keep the Mountain Dew flowing.
The too-young dying white males should be seen as a bellwether for the future of any hopeless cohort in our country. Simply as a matter of expediency, we should be utilizing all of our manpower into building a more robust society; forget morals and ethics.
We amuse ourselves with programs like "Justified and "The Walking Dead", but the reality which props up the artifice is anything but amusing. Witnessing large swathes of desolation throughout the land which used to be centers of production -- now become rat holes -- we should all be concerned if for naught else than the corrosive effect upon on our own piece of the puzzle. The contagion spreads from the epicenters of the disease.
Epitaph of the dead white male: I can't go on, I'll go on.
Labels: Dead White Male, reduced longevity in white females, reduced longevity in white males, social causes du jour, whites
posted by Lisa at 10:05 AM
26 Comments:
Watch me blame the victim.
Motivated by elaborate propaganda, white males of the lower and middle strata have largely put their votes into republican politicians. These politicians don't care about their voters, but pander to the oligarchs who pay for the fancy propaganda. As the white males situation declined, they voted ever more ardently for the propaganda and did not consider changing their voting patterns to make their votes "up for grabs". This can't (and won't) go on indefinitely.
Donald Trump speaks to this demographic. We'll see what President Trump actually does for them.
There's no point voting Democrat because the progressives hate straight white males, and the hate intensifies for those living rural and, especially, near or below the Mason Dixon. The progressive revolution is deploying a purge machine more subtle than the guillotine, but more effective. For the revolution, there are two kinds of good white males 1. totally cuckolded 2. dead
avedis
Forgot to include my "For example". So here's one - according to Obama and the progressives, if you don't believe that it's a constitutional right for [allegedly] gender confused men to use the women's head or locker room, then you're a bigoted monster. And we can't suffer bigoted monsters to live.
Is it really an option to vote democrat if you have any (traditional)moral values?
avedis
Yes, Ael, they are the victims and tools, both of elaborate propaganda and inadequate education and opportunity. Who speaks for them? What is there for them?
Politicians do not speak for the common man and woman (though you will see people like Hillary holding her nose while throwing down the chow of the common folk at the local Midwest voting rallies.)
We're out of touch and out of time, to paraphrase the blue eyed soul boys.
If you never change your vote, it has little power to gain political attention towards your plight. If the traditional morals issue is a determinative issue for your vote, then you are likely stuck with a valueless vote. (republicans will pocket your vote with some platitudes and democrats will ignore you as they mouth opposite platitudes to pocket other votes). Neither group will listen to anything else you have to say and neither will do anything to alleviate your troubles.
Hence, to paraphrase Lisa: inadequate education and opportunity are what they are served.
I am suspicious that Mr. Trump will do anything for this segment. I don't think he has much of a track record of empathy for others, particularly those less fortunate.
Canada's parliament, has a ruling party with a majority of 189 seats (of 338). This is up from 36! seats in the previous parliament. Admittedly, having 3 main parties does destabilize things. But still, with so many seats "in play" means that parties have to work towards the solid central mass of the citizenship. You rarely get situations where you get ideological faction fights in the nomination producing candidates who have strong support in the party, but are unpopular with the populace. Most ridings concentrate on getting the most electable candidate for their riding. This invariably pulls everything towards the middle.
It's not a zero-sum game but working class white think it is. And let's blame the Democratic Party for it, because if Democrats are not fellating white men and stroking their egos constantly well then they don't care about white power... Err... White issues.
One of the problems is other people have made gains and the Plutocracy will not allow gains to come at their expense. So, the rich made the decision to get their lap dogs the Republicans transfer the cost of government onto the backs of the working and middle class. Since that was mainly comprised of white for the past 50 years it seems like the government has it out for them.
As always it's the Rich.
AEL, Good point - you're right, but how/why switch a vote to those who express hostility towards you? So screwed either way.
We Trumpists are just hoping that he rocks the system enough that next election cycle the powers that be are forced to re-assess and offer something better for once. We're happy that he's at least giving the finger to the man for us in a way the man can't ignore.
avedis
My question is, how many Democrats are actually hostile to working white males? Yes, I know the Faux News propaganda always says that Democrats are hostile to working white males, but give me one example of a prominent Democratic politician who is actively hostile to working white males. One. Example. I mean *prominent*, as in, leadership position. I'm sure you can find some moron college professor or some self-proclaimed "black leader" who claims to be a Democrat who is actively hostile to white males, but those are idiots and nobody listens to them except Faux News (which loves to trot these idiots out and claim they represent all Democrats, despite the fact that these idiots have no power in the Democratic Party and are actively despised by the party leadership).
Wanting equal rights for all Americans does *not* mean that Democrats think white males should have fewer rights. It means simply that Democrats want equal rights for all Americans, regardless of race, gender, creed, or whatever weird fetishes they have. And "all Americans" by definition includes white males. What we need is a major jobs and education program to bring jobs back to America, and an end to policies that enrich the rich while driving the middle class into poverty and the impoverished into despair. I dislike some of Donald Trump's authoritarian tendencies but the fact that he recognizes this is why he's leading the Republican race though it appears the Republican leadership will use chicanery to strip him of the nomination at the convention. And both of the Democratic nominees have also proposed major jobs and education programs that would serve white males as well as people of other races and genders. Whose policies would work best to bring jobs back to America and improve the pay for those jobs we already have here so that people can afford to live a decent life? Why aren't we talking about that?
That is what we should be talking about -- how to put America and Americans back to work again and make the nation work for all Americans *including white males* rather than just for a few on Wall Street who now own more of America than the bottom 50% of Americans combined. Instead, we get nonsense about birth certificates and genital exams before allowing people to use the restroom of their proclaimed gender. What a crock. What a distraction from the real issues. Let people who look like guys use the guy's room and people who look like gals use the gals room and whatever equipment they got inside those pants or that dress ain't none of my business, we got more important fish to fry, right? But that's what politics has devolved to in this nation. Genital exams. Jeez.
BadTux, You might have heard of this democrat named Barak Obama. He attended a church in Chicago for many years headed up by Jeremiah Wright. The Black Liberation Theology of Obama’s own former church in Chicago is a cult doctrine which is not only racist, but actually advocates white genocide, destruction of American democracy and destruction of the traditional Christian church. The doctrine states that all whites are collectively guilty, white oppressors must “cease to be” and equates white society to the Antichrist, calling whites the “symbol of depravity” and the “enemy of mankind.”
Sure, this Barak guy might have denounced his pastor and church once he was applying for a big job and the church's philosophy was uncovered, but he was quite the loyal member of the flock prior to that.
So there's one....
avedis
Hey Jim -- My computer crashed and I lost all my e-mail contacts....tried calling you but just got ringing....was wondering if you'd like to get lunch this Monday? GSJ
So, Avedis, I asked you to find me one prominent Democratic politician who is actively hostile to working white males, and instead you talk some bizarre conspiracy theory about some preacher where Obama attended church while looking for votes in that preacher's congregation. See, that is *exactly* what I'm talking about. Faux News and their cronies at World Nut Daily and Hate Radio have spread all these bizarre conspiracy theories around about our President, who has *NEVER* expressed *ANY* hostility towards white people (I mean, he was *RAISED* by white people for crying out loud), while covering up the fact that these same people spreading the conspiracy theories about our President are also KILLING white people by shipping their jobs overseas, making sure that wages for white people go down and down and down by importing Mexicans and Indians to take their jobs (Intel imported 14,000 Indians over the past few years, now is laying off 12,000 people -- MOSTLY WHITE PEOPLE -- yay!), and so on and so forth.
It's a lie that our ruling oligarchs are using against Democrats, especially those Democrats who *aren't* part of the corporate oligarchy that largely rules us, and it's a lie that poor whites eat up like white gravy and biscuits. Why is that? I don't know, but I do know what 35 years of Reaganism have brought to our country, and that's a collapse of the working class, a collapse of access to higher education (look, I *WAS* a poor white before Reagan, I got my college education thanks to Jimmy Carter's expansion of the Pell Grant program that paid for all of my books and tuition, REAGAN GUTTED THAT PROGRAM and most other programs that benefitted poor whites as well as doubled payroll taxes on working people while slashing corporate taxes via gaping tax loopholes to the point where they were only 1/3rd of what they were under Ike!), and now, a collapse of lifespans for poor whites. That's what Republican policies have gotten us. Y'know, the first rule of holes is, stop digging, 'cause more of the same is just gonna get you in deeper. But apparently we have some damn good propagandists in this country, 'cause people find themselves in a hole, and just keep digging it in deeper and voting for the same people who put them in that hole. Every single state where Republicans dominate politics is a cesspool of poverty and misery for working-class white people, yet DEMOCRATS are what are causing this?
Yet we talk about bathrooms. Something that's been a non-problem for the entirety of Western civilization, but suddenly it's the biggest problem on the planet.
Gah!
BT, Well, this is a problem. You ask, I answer, and, no matter what I say, you call it conspiracy theory if it doesn't fit your biases. BTW, Clinton and her hundreds of $millions isn't part of the oligarchy? That's - pardon the pun - rich.
Obama attended the church for years - some say 20 years - and the church's philosophy is as I stated. What if a Republican candidate just kind of attended a KKK group for several years because he was, you know, just looking for votes? Would it be reasonable to assume that the candidate is at least a little bit ok with the KKK's philosophy? Double standard much?
Ok. Let's try again with something more concrete. NAFTA. Bill Clinton (D) was all for it and it destroyed the job base for working class whites. Here's another, Affirmative Action, a Dem cornerstone program, that is perceived as taking white working class jobs and transferring them to minorities whether or not the minorities are qualified. You can't even start to criticize AA without being called a "racist" by Dem.s. Which brings me to that increasingly restricted right, free speech. It is the progressive hordes that shout down, demonize and socially ostracize anyone (to include loss of employment) not agreeing with their outlook. This doesn't go unnoticed, you know. After crapping on the 1st amendment Dem.s move right onto the second. ....these are issues that are important to working class whites.
The bathroom thing - yes. It matters. It is further evidence to many working class whites that the left is batshit crazy and that if given an inch, they'll take a mile. Who - other than people who had their minds warped in some liberal arts social science program - wants to support men in women's restrooms and locker rooms? Come one. This is another bellwether for where the progressives want to take us.
Look, no matter what I say, you're going to tell me that reality isn't like that at all and it's all a right wing information op.s. Fine. Believe that people can't see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears.
I'm signing off this convo. I've got the day off work and I'm going down to the college to swim some laps. Since I'm feeling very yin today, I think I'll use the women's locker room. Looking forward to the long shower with all my nubile sisters.
avedis
Yeah, I'd point out that NAFTA was negotiated by President George H.W. Bush, not Clinton, and the majority of votes to implement it in the House and Senate were Republican votes, not Democratic votes, Clinton signed it but he had nothing to do with negotiating it or writing it, but hey, those are facts, and your mind is made up so facts don't matter.
Regarding bathrooms, common sense says if someone looks like a woman, they use the women's room, if someone looks like a man, they use the men's room. No genital exams or presentations of birth certificates denoting birth sex needed. This worked for over 150 years after the concept of men's rooms and women's rooms was invented by the Victorians in the mid 1800's (before then there was no concept of a men's room and women's room), but apparently now we need Big Government laws to intrude and dictate genital exams to make sure people have the right junk before allowing someone to use a restroom. WTF? Who looks at other people's junk in the restroom? I have no doubt that, living where I'm living, I've probably taken a dump or taken a leak next to a stall that had someone in it who didn't have the same equipment as me. I mean, we got some pretty effeminate-lookin' guys and butch-lookin' gals around here, I'm pretty sure some of them got junk from the other side of the street, if ya know what I mean. But nobody's in a bathroom looking at people's junk, they're there to take a leak or take a dump, and nobody really gives a shit or needs to make a law about it. It's a made up thing to distract people from the real issues that are driving down life expectancy in this country, especially life expectancy for poor whites.
And people actually pay attention to made up bullshit like that. Ridiculous. But as we see in this own thread, true.
"..not Democratic votes, Clinton signed it but he had nothing to do with negotiating it or writing it, but hey.."
Yeah but hey, the republicans screwed 'em too. Great answer! I guess you agree then, that economically speaking, the Dems are screwing them just as good as the Rep.s. I'm supposed to be convinced by your answer? Lose/lose. Thx.
So given the lose/lose what's left? Social issues and morality. Well you totally dance past the issues. It's not just bathrooms and pissing and farting as you want to hand wave it away as being. It's locker rooms and showers too, today, god knows what tomorrow. You want the women in your life - assuming there are any - to have to deal with men in their shower because some small handful of freaks that the dems pander to makes an issue of it? I don't. Neither do the women in my life.
Gosh, your dismissal of how a woman might feel about all that sounds like a symptom of the "war on women". You lefties are schizophrenic as all hell get out. What consoles me is that you'll self destruct, as schizophrenic must, in a few short years.
avedis
Sounds like you got a pretty poor opinion of your womenfolk. I hate to tell ya this, but your womenfolk probably already shared a locker room somewhere with someone who had a joystick instead of a hoohaw hidden behind that towel and guess what, they survived it, 'cause women ain't the faintin' violets that you seem to think. It ain't as if trans-women go out advertising that they were born men, after all, and women don't go flappin' their hoohas out in the breeze in locker rooms for all the world to see (at least, that's what my womenfolk tell me, they pretty much keep things turned away or hidden behind towels as much as possible), yer thinkin' about a football lockerroom or a gay bathhouse maybe...
Now, frankly, I look at my fellow Americans and I see Americans, I don't see freaks or faggots or kikes or wops or honkys or niggers or whatever fake made-up bullshit our leaders have made up to divide us Americans from each other and put ourselves at each others' throats rather than keeping our eyes on the ball, which is that our leaders have managed to drive down the wages of working men to lower than it was in 1973 in real dollars, while things like housing have just taken off in price. Nobody ever died from having someone born with the wrong junk come into their bathroom, but people are dyin' cause they're literally gettin' worked down to the bone until there's nothin' left and then they die young of basically failure of hope, yet instead we're talkin' about hoohahs and joysticks that ain't ever caused a problem in the history of this nation? Does that make sense to you? Well, apparently so, but it don't make sense to me. And I guess that's the difference between us, I care about my fellow Americans, all of'em, white men included. And you care only about folks who are not one of "them", the folks you've been told you're supposed to hate, like those "freaks". Even when the "them" is a fellow American.
So anyhow, seems like you're changing the topic again. We were talking about how lifespans for poor white people was declining, and btw the lifespan of poor white women is declining even faster than that for poor white men. That's all about money, in the end. People aren't getting enough of it to survive, and eventually the hardship of working their hands to the bone for not enough to make it is killing them, whether directly or through loss of hope that leads to drugs and alcohol. And if you look at money, white male Americans who aren't rich and aren't managers are making less money today than they were in 1973, and white women in the same class aren't even making as much as the white men. But you look at the graph, something becomes clear. Under the Republican presidents, things get worse. WIth Democratic Presidents with Democratic Congresses, things get better. With Democratic Presidents with Republican Congresses, things don't change (pretty much what you'd expect, since Presidents aren't dictators and can't order Congress to do things that'll help working people).
The numbers are the numbers. Look at them yourself.
The Numbers
The average male US hourly worker earned less in 2014 than in 1973.
In the end, it all boils down to the fact that starting in the 1980's with the advent of Reaganism, people started working harder for less money. That could not go on forever. And isn't, because it's breaking people, and they're dying.
Yet instead we're worrying about whether someone in a bathroom has a hoohah or a joystick behind that towel.
Yeah, that's gonna help.
-BT
BT, So you're going to tell me how my women folk think. Well I have one right here next to me and she says she definitely doesn't want men in the locker room with her; especially someone who's crazy enough to not know what gender he is and is, furthermore, worried about any run of the mill perv using the "right" to be there to be pervy. Another of my women folk - my daughter - tells me how in the Navy she and blanket partied a lesbian who was coming onto female personnel in the shower. For some women, it seems, the bathroom/locker room is a private place where they want to feel secure from pervs. Just because you're ok with it doesn't mean others are. And what about the rights of others more conservative than you? That's my point. Conservative rights don't count. Working class whites are generally conservative. You want to sacrifice their rights for the glorious revolution in which every freak is exalted as a poor victim in need of saving by the righteous progressives. Don't you see? This is a simple equation. You asked who is out to get the white working class - and the answer is "you are". Since you seem to me to be a classic democrat voting progressive, is it such a leap to conclude that the Dems are not the friends of conservative working class whites?
avedis
BT, It's not just moral values where the Dems are the enemy of working class whites. You bring up lower wages (working for less). Let's see....Dems want to import and legalize all kinds of aliens. Labor supply and demand is a simple function to understand. More unskilled labor in the country leads to lower wages for the working class. So Dems = enemy.
Dem.s want all kinds of gov't regulation of private industry, environmental protection, etc. which leads to job losses for working class whites. Dems = enemy.
Affirmative Action. Dems want to give white jobs to minorities. Dems = enemy
Welfare. Dems love them some welfare. Working class whites are taxed and the money is given to people perceived to be welfare slackers. Dems = enemy.
Dems have fully supported free/open trade which sent white working class jobs out of the country. Dems = enemy.
Dems bailed out the big Wall St banks and have done nothing to improve things for working class whites. Dems are pro Wall St. and big business. Dems = enemy.
Is there any need to continue? The benefits for white working class Americans voting Dem just aren't there. The regular Rep.s haven't done anything for them either economically, but at least they speak the same language morally.
Enter Trump. Trump is actually speaking to what's on white working class minds. Get the cheap labor competition out of the country. Bring jobs back from overseas. Get rid of all the social justice warrior PC crap. This sounds promising! But the progressive crowd shouts that Trump is a hater. Again, Dems = enemy.
I'm sure I'm wasting my time trying to bring clarity to the topic for true believers in the progressive cause.
avedis
My final words on this are that the left is killing working class white males because they hate them and their way of life and one of the methods of extermination is similar to what was done to the Native Americans. Once the culture is gone, the man is gone. NAs - and I've spent time on Rezs - had their culture ripped from them. In many ways, materially, they may be better off than they were 400 years ago. They have govt checks coming in steadily. They have permanent shelter, there's no warfare between tribes, they no longer have to depend on herd migrations for food and are not at the mercy of the weather. But they drink and drug themselves to death. No culture = no meaning. And there's always a sense that they "lost" and are now outsiders. That takes its toll. That situation is analogous to what working class whites are experiencing. They're fighting back with Trump. Sadly, it's probably as desperate a fight as Geronimo or Crazy Horse. Working class whites are the "savages" of our era and Progressives are the cultural imperialists.
avedis
Seems like lies and hate are all ya got. Well, good luck with that. I posted the numbers on who has been best for working men for the past forty years, if you want to continue believing lies and slanders, I can't help that, people believe lots of bullshit for lots of bullshit reasons and it never works out for them but then they wonder why the fuck their life is getting harder and never seem to put the two together.
And please do keep worshipping your Saint Ronald Reagan, who gave amnesty to 3 million Mexicans and brought 6 million more illegals in during his Presidency while driving down wages for his entire presidency, and keep spitting on Obama, who reduced illegal immigration from Mexico to a net *ZERO* (yes, he's deporting as many Mexicans as come in). All I can do is shake my head. The numbers are the numbers, but people just refuse to believe facts and go back to believing whatever bullshit lies and slanders that agree with their prejudices. And you wonder why our country is fucked up, when half the country believes batshit crazy made up shit that spews out of Hate Radio and Faux News all day long? Ain't no wonderin' on my part.
-BT
BT,
I agree that Reagan ushered in some very bad things, among these, the emptying of housing facilities for mental cases and the ushering in of the chimerical "compassionate conservatism" to somehow fill in the void of axed social services.
A black social policy teacher of mine said of the gun issue in the U.S.: "People must be absolutely crazy to indict the NRA every time there is a mass shooting in the country. The core issue is unaddressed mental health issues, and how we've let that ball drop." Legal gun owners are not the threat.
So it is with your focus on the LGBTQ issue. It is off-topic, and ISTM has no place in this discussion. Though there are a lot of white LGBTQ's, the issue of being able to procure the stuff that imbues a will to live is the rock bottom of any other lovely liberal cause.
What we need to practice is Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
--Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
--Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
--Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Hi Lisa, I didn't bring the focus on bathrooms, someone else did. All I mentioned, after it was brought up by someone else, was that it was as an example of a made up bullshit distraction to get people's eyes off the ball, which is *what is going to help the working man, and who can we elect who will best do that.* And the #1 thing there is *money* so that people aren't working themselves to death and dying of lack of hope.
RIght now we have two Presidential candidates who propose raising wages for our lowest-paid workers (which in turn will push up the wages of the tier of workers above that), and three Presidential candidates who do not. Yet somehow we got off on that non-topic of genital exams before allowing people to use the potty. It's BS, it's irrelevant as you say, and it's got nothing to do with what we ought to be doing, which is figuring out what's going to help working Americans get ahead instead of falling behind and falling dead.
-BT
Lisa, I love you guys and, with respect, I think you really missing the boat on this one.
Sure, economic woes are contributing to the death trend of working class white males. This was done to them by Rs and Ds equally and they know it. I recall Bill Clinton, on getting NAFTA teed up, saying that manufacturing jobs would leave the country, but all those displaced workers were going to get re-trained to work in the high tech sector. It was anew world and a new economy. I thought at the time that was a ridiculous pitch. Really? Assembly line guys and coal workers were going to switch to high tech? I couldn't see it (Neither could Ross Perot).It made no sense from an economic perspective. At any rate, of course it didn't happen.
All the education in the world isn't going to make the majority of working class people into high tech wizards. It isn't in their nature and the economy doesn't need that many high tech workers. Where the economy does need high tech, the economy imports them from India and Pakistan.
Next, despite Bad Tux's protestations to the contrary, the progressives do hate the working class whites and D leadership reflects that hatred. Witness Obama's "Bitter clingers" comments. They cling to guns and the Bible. Now I realize that to a progressive dropping religion is akin to changing one's shirt, but it really means something deep to the bitter clingers.
At the same time that the bitter clingers are being insulted to their core by senior D leadership and all the D minions for being religious, the Ds want to import a gazillion Muslims, who they seem to respect (religion of peace) more than Christians.
I think it is also worthy to note that the bitter clingers also happen to be the ones that serve in the military, especially the dangerous jobs. So the CinC thanks them for their service out of one side of his mouth and then calls them bitter clingers and haters out of the other. How do you think that feels?
Man does not live by bread alone. A functioning culture is even more important and the bitter clingers - the white working class - are told that their culture is abhorrent. The education you speak of sounds a lot like RE-EDUCATION (as on the people's potato farm until you speak the language of the revolution, comrade). What is wrong with being a simple blue collar worker? This is what is so fatal combined with a lack of jobs. It is a complete destruction of white working class culture. There is nothing left for them except, perhaps, for a few years as a soldier for the empire and then some oxy and alcohol.
And who's doing the destroying? A bunch of over sensitive ninnies with their gender confusion, trigger alerts and damage from micro-agressions, etc, etc. That's enough to make any red blooded American on the short end of the stick drink and oxy himself into an early grave. BTW, I don't expect any die hard progressive to understand that. I put it out there for posterity sake.
Finally, No, it isn't as if expanding freedoms means there's a net gain of freedom. Sooner or later freedoms start to conflict with each other - especially when one group seeking freedom is a collection of hedonistic pampered over-sensitive power seekers.
avedis
A,
You haven't really touched on religions role in all of this.
Religion has dumped the common man for right wing evangelical junk. What the churches want is prosperity chrisianity and again the white guys are left out.
Good call on the military and the clingons.
jim
avedis,
I agree: it is a lovely fallacy that we could all be President one day. The book"The Bell Curve" and countless studies have given lie to the idea that all brains are equally malleable lumps of flesh. I did not mean education would / could or should turn everyone into a Zuckerman (what kind of a world would THAT be, anyway???)
No, bring back the secretarial-vocational-college tracks to grades school, and have commensurate jobs awaiting. Easy to say, perhaps impossible to implement. We failed 60 years ago in our pretty-to-think-so educational world which eliminated those tracks, and our government policy world which threw the jobs of the non-academic tracks away.
Books like "The Creative Class" herald a bright world of nuevo crofters, but not everyone got the same message, nor do they benefit by living in the same privileged areas. Food desserts and generational poverty do not a creative class produce.
Jim and Lisa,
Yes to trade/vocational training in schools - with a college track available for those so inclined. Some of my happiest days were doing concrete and masonry work. Works the tension and pent up energy out of the body and keeps the mind free. I know electricians that make six figures. I guess I did miss your inclusion of that possibility under "education"
I think the holy roller religious types have always been largely outside the norm and annoying, but some religious leanings was a bedrock of the country.
Drugs - bad news. Around here opiate abuse is surprisingly high. As are young single mothers on welfare nonetheless; all white, HS education at best. Lack of vision and opportunity is largely the cause of that as you say. Yet resentment of the progressives remains high. I workout 5 days a week with LE and former/reservist/NG military and I hear it all time. Being a college town the social justice warriors are seen, heard and not appreciated. The sentiment is reciprocal.
The times are changing indeed - for better? Obama's hope and change have past this rural community by.
avedis
I have taught college students attending for their parent's sake, who could not wait to go to the shop and weld or whatever, at night. It was sad, to me. They were not pursuing their dream, because they have been handed someone else's concept of what makes for fit work.
As you say, working the body and the spirit are integral parts of being a full human. Tis sad that humanism (or whatever "progressivism" is) is now construed as being some sort of disembodied white collar worker on a treadmill, at the exclusion and degradation of anyone or anything else. This has led to the dis-spirtedness and deracination of those who dare to strive for things more basic yet ineffable ... things not quantifiable, and therefore, de-legitimized.
There is a widening divide in our nation, and Lincoln had something to say about that.
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