Obama: Small Town Folk Get Bitter, They Cling to Guns, Religion, Anti-Immigrant Sentiment or Anti-Trade Sentiment to Explain their Frustrations

Kiser:

Nothing condescending about saying to these redneck communities, that they were suckers for following the Fuehrer, er I meant Commander in Chief, and that their parochial, backward outlook, has made them victims of their own ignorance. Many of these people are fundamental Christians, who yahooed their way into Iraq, who probably could not even find the country they were bombing on a map, but were willing to pick up a gun, instead of a newspaper, alternative press, or talk to anti war protestors, who they now agree in their majority, 80 percent who feel we are on the wrong course.

Of course, they thought because Bush talked like an idiot, pretended to be lower class redneck, when in fact he had a silver spoon in his mouth, voted for the idiot, thinking he was one of them. It took 6 years to get the flags down, the redneck parochial know nothings to realize they were suckered into endless stop gap military drafts over seas, for the imperial thugs, war criminals. I just posted a way for Obama to link to these victimized parochials, who are victims of also Corporate fascism,

Nafta and our Empire support for fascist regimes, that embrace this corporate fascism, like Columbia's fasicst regime, death squads, and Hillary's Penn, who promote Nafta, death squads, fascism, criminal propaganda, that keep these redencks uninformed, misinformed. Obama needs to link an anti corporate fasicst agenda with an anti corporate imperial link to miliary fascism, to show the link between their mindless yahoo cheerleading, and the policies that screw them over royallly. Here it is:

http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff04112008.htmlhttp:

Obama failed to mention small town satanic cults, Stepfordwifeism, rural serial killing, and other little town phenomenon. He was just being kind in his description. {yeah I'm just kidding}

And........"we all know" how those guys are {as Eric pointed out}.

Is what he said condescending?

I live in the South and what he said would be true in the small towns here as well. In some ways the truth of the statement would apply to the crumbling inner cities which have been promised re vitalization as well--

The statements of Rev. Wright which caused such controversy seems to point to the fact that the inner cities hav been promised change for decades and yet remain neglected so they cling to racial identity, division and religion--in the south it is much the same.

Promised change has become the quadrennial promise of candidates used to garner votes and support and yet is fleeting and ephemeral before the end of January following inaguration.

Yet wecontinue to stick with a system that fails us over and over again sending the same lot back to congress and the White house. We vilify the opponents of OUR party because they want to take our guns, destroy our families with pronography, abort every fetus, or they dont care about health care or the middle class and are only for the rich, want to own the middle east etc. . . .

Whether in small town PA or GA or in Chicago or South East LA we have become a society of small issues, or single issues which we support. We do not demand change from Washington. We are too busy with our DVD's and Video games to actually make well researched and reasoned decisions. The average voter turn out is around 50% in the past several elections for what is arguably the most powerful executive position in the entire world.

Corporate gluttony provides great returns for the 401 k's and investment portfolios while we overwhelm credit markets with consumer debt--and then when our greed leads us to take out second mortgages for vacations and college educations which we have not saved for we insist the government save us.

Our focus is about our individual issues which are fed to us by a controlled media and we lap it up as if it makes us better people, of more superior to the other side---

Patriotism has become a political football for both sides and nothing gets accomplished because we are pushed to extrermes. If I disagree that Nationalized health care is a good thing---then I'm accused of "not caring that poor people are dying" If I want hand guns taken off the streets--then Im pissing on the constitution. If I think that pornography dosent belong in prime time television then I'm a prudish censor. . . .

I guess I am saying that Im not sure that what Sen. Obama is saying is not accurate.

Even if it is what we dont want to hear.

Obama should go back to South Chicago, attend Trinity Church and have dinners in his Reverends new $2M dollar home and stop talking about the people of this nation he has no idea about.

I have no doubt that there are anxieties among rural people in regards to free trade agreements, threats to gun ownership, and prayer or worship in schools or public places. This is the message that for years has trickled out of rural America, whether it is accurate or not, and there is a pride in that message, from country music, to gospel, to the conversations at the local diners, to small talk over a football game.

I get the emails from my more conservative friends, military and otherwise, about how illegal immigrants are going to outnumber natural born immigrants soon, how Columbine wouldn't have happened if there had been prayer in schools, how guns prevent crime. This is pretty much the message I get daily in my inbox, I never get anything about the meth problem in their communities, or how fuel costs are killing their bottom line on produce, (except those damn liberals are driving up the cost of diesel) or at Lowes maybe the fact that more people are trying to grow their own produce on less land, because now the land their father's owned is a gated community that gets better services than they do.

Rural people don't complain much, they don't voice their concerns about the future as much as city people do, and there's good reasons for that, smaller communities don't need much change, don't have as many issues, and aren't as complex. But encroaching modernity and technological or social change from the outside creates anxiety. It creates anxiety where there are static social structures. The more rigid a community, the greater the anxiety.

If you are a rural person you are more likely to turn inward toward those resources you depend on. Your family, your church, your gun for security. What needs to be addressed is that anxiety about free trade agreements like the one with Columbia. (We don't grow coffee here, so no competition with that or other products that do not directly compete) That the gun issues facing our country have very little to do with responsible rural people, and most strict guns laws are local ordinances where their are more renters, and take place in cities where law enforcement officials (hardly liberal) have supported such initiatives.

So you have some people who create panic over certain issues, as if someone's going to arrest their kids in school for praying in class, illegal immigrants are coming to steal their jobs and marry their daughters. As if the liberals have any power to take anyone's guns away. Ah those damn hippies and their organic twigs, but then what happens when we can't eat the food China sends us? Those crunchy hippies are creating a demand for sustainable, USA grown agricultural products, that are locally grown. They are the best hope for an agricultural revival in rural areas. One hand washes the other, and most people are starting to see that.

Rural people have many issues, but certain spokespeople who dominate their voice place the stereotypes front and center as if these are the only issues confronting the rural population. It just might be that the message getting out to the rest of the country is that rural whites are not interested in much else. If the messengers want other issues to take precendent of those listed, it would probably be a good idea to be more vocal about them. There is nothing condescending about bringing up the very items listed on many conservative rural organizations and many rural citizens organizations; right to own guns, prayer in schools, and immigration.

It's a diservice to rural people to claim those issues as mantra, rather than rural education and opportunities, communications infrastructure, agricultural practices and concerns, efficiencies in farming (for example composting for energy), while the small family farm disappears, it's difficult to attract higher quality teachers in rural districts, without addressing rural areas experiencing chronic poverty and unemployment, criminal justice issues, such as the meth epidemic among rural whites, and dwindling natural resources, such as water supplies in drought-stricken areas.

The best information on rural issues are through Cooperative Extensions, usually run through state university systems.

I notice you never hear about illegal or unconstitutional takings anymore, because it's okay to take property for development, rather than an environmental purpose. Why not just fess up, the rural folks are getting screwed just like everyone else, and micro-scrutinizing every word Obama says won't prop up McCain or Clinton on any of these issues, because they owe the real powerbrokers too much.

Barack Obama's plan's for addressing rural issues:

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/rural/

John McCain on the issues:

http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/

What I always find interesting is that for almost every aspect of life, there is a negative and there is a positive and the democrats always see the negative which is depressing and most of the time irritating as hell to me.

On topic: Why does Obama go to church? Is he "clinging" to religion like most of the world that he belittles?

what he said is true at least for me and my husband and three children my husband lost his job along with about 200 other people at the place he was working
you damn straight i am bitter..mad....pissed off and more he was right when he said that
big companies dont care about the people that work for them we may not be able to keep our home not because of adjustable mortgage rates but because of big companies taking all the jobs out....... it makes me mad that people took what that man said and made it into something else........ he was right when he said that
when is this country going to look out for the american people and stop doing for every tom dick and harry country that so called needs aid or help........ their are people jumping the border every day of the week but the people in wash..... want to sit own their asses wanting more money not doing what they people put them in office to do......