Surely the whole discussion on “elitism” finally jumped the shark this weekend: Economists unanimously judged Hillary's Clinton's gas tax holiday a dog-ass dumb idea — a consensus Clinton dismissed as “elite”. We can hope that the justifiable mockery Clinton is enduring clarifies a difference between actual “anti-elitist” sentiment from “celebrating ignorance.”
But I've been thinking … who are the “elite?” Are they (we) the well-educated with cultivated (even bizarre) tastes and habits — the latte-sipping, sushi-eating liberals in Berkeley and Cambridge? Are you one such? Do you feel “elite”? Or are the “elite” the hedge-fund managers, the Fortune 500 CEOs; in other words those that control vast wealth, who buy and enjoy access to the powerful? Which of these groups has more in common with “the common man” — if such a creature exists?
So to state the obvious, we need to separate out two different concepts: The educational/cultural elite and the money/power elite. When members of the overwhelmingly liberal cultural elite think of those who hold power, they clearly mean the money/power elite.
Many people I know fall pretty neatly into the former group. Many of us have advanced degrees. Many have disposable income. But many of us are lucky if we make the area's median income, and struggle with the cost of housing and health care. There are any number of lavishly-educated folks in the fields of education, the arts, government, publishing, non-profits, or who are entrepreneurs — who cannot possibly be thought of as “elite” in money/power terms. We may patronize Starbucks. (Starbucks is vast enough that surely it must serve some “non-elites”.) We may well read the New York Times — even while being revolted by that paper's slavish devotion to the concerns and obsessions of a tiny elite that can afford them. (Hello Style or Eating Out sections.)
But among this group is a sense of powerlessness over the course of government action at both the local and national levels. We certainly don't feel that government is working on our behalf when it gives enormous tax breaks to oil companies, or bails out sub-prime lenders, or maintains Verizon's massive tax loophole, doles out expensive contracts to the well-connected at the expense of Katrina victims. We don't support John McCain's mortgaging of our future to maintain tax breaks for the wealthiest. How are these things not elitist? The word can't possibly bear any meaning if the nakedly anti-democratic (small d) thrust of these actions is not called elitist.
Now, Barack Obama got into some trouble with his remarks that people cling to guns and religion in the absence of a government responsive to their needs. The trouble arose from his conflation of the streams of culture- and money/power-elitism. Culture is culture; money is money; power is power. It is indeed reductionist and clumsy (yeah, even quasi-Marxist) to just shake them up in a bag and say that downward mobility has a clear and predictable cultural impact. For Obama to be successful in the general, he would do well to keep his critique of money/power elitism relatively free from cultural static.
When Hillary Clinton calls the consensus of economists “elite opinion”, she's right, of course, but it's a red herring; she's talking about the wrong elite. Expert opinion is by definition “elite.”
So there's nothing wrong with the word “elitist”, or even that it's being thrown around with such zest. In fact, it needs to be reclaimed. McCain's tax cuts for the rich? Elitist! A health care system that leaves 47 million uninsured? Elitist! An economy where inequality grows and median income drops? Elitist! The press is picking up on the word, like dogs picking up the scent of steak. Hell, give 'em what they want! Let's just define our terms clearly and well.
I’ve been simmering ever since Hillary played the San Francisco card on Obama in reference to the notorious remarks she denounced as elitist. Now Carl Sciorino’s opponent is labeling him an elitist, obvious nonsense which Bay Windows Editor Laura Kiritsy just convincingly exposed. http://www.baywindows.com/inde…
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p>Neo-conservatives like Gertrude Himmelfarb have used the notion of “cultural elites” to discredit progressive thinking about homosexuality as the province of well-educated and snooty types who hold traditional religious values in contempt. It’s also a brilliant adversarial tactic that drives a wedge into the heart of the Democratic electorate, and turns the fact there are more intellectuals on the left than the right against our side. It’s classic and brilliant false consiciousness, sprung from the bile and bitterness of neo-conservative anti-intellectualism.
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p>I can come to terms with Gertrude Himmelfarb’s motives for contriving the fiction of cultural elites whose power has been portrayed as more pervasive than that of money elites. She’s Bill Kristol’s mother. I cannot accept Hillary Clinton’s taking up the “elitism” argument that is too often used as a bludgeon to divide Democrats.
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p>This line of attack against Obama is already being burnished by the right-wing for the fall. We have to be able to counter the notion that Obama or a state rep like Carl is somehow an “elitist.” Being smart but underpaid does not elevate you to the ranks of the elite in terms of disproportionate, undue power. I hope Charley’s thoughtful essay and his useful dichotomy provoke a lot of discussion because this subject is very important this year.
Elitists are simply those folks who know what is best for everyone else. They are the folks who may or may not have a degree, that what little or vast lnowledge they may possess, makes them automatically expert on how everyone else must conduct their lives for their own good, and for the good of everyone on the planet.
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p>Elitists do not subscribe to their own advise. Their rules of conduct and deportment are not applicable to them. They are a single source of the font of knowledge and thereby renders their own conduct of no consequence. It is the graeat masses of the unwashed who must compromise their behavior.
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p>Most elistists are annointed with elitist thoughts by Ivy league colleges and universities, California Universities, Univ. of Michigan and other bastions of learning that the gods of omnicience have touched their wand of knwledge on. The Professors so honored, pass on the god given gift to to their supplicants, who then go forth and proselityze, usually during the times of presidential elections.
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p>Elitists don’t live and work in blue class neighborhoods. Elitists live in Communities like San Francisco, Brookline, Cambridge etc. Many Elitists have trust funds or they have come by a significant source of income through marriage. The day to day annoyance of employment is foreign to them and if they are so encumbered, that have the ability to resign immediately without adverse financial consequence.
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p>Elitists have an entitlement. They deserve by birthright and intellect and good intentions to be heard, go to the head of the line, to be immune from day to day annoyance, have the best physicians, priority lanes when commuting, first class in airliners, 1st class lounges in airports, the finest hotel rooms. It’s an entitlement .
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p>It’s also remarkably that most elitists couldn’t find their own ass with both hands and if society ground to a standtill, they would be the first to collapse in a quivering mass of protoplasm.
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p>Because they have never done anything physically constructive in their entire live—That goes for the left and the right, however 85% of most elitists are on the left.
Your comments hardly fit someone like Carl
Sciortino, yet the imprecation is being hurled at him. There’s a subtext of contrivance and caricature you’re not picking up on in the right-wing notion of the liberal cultural elite, which Charley exposed.
It’s also remarkably that most elitists couldn’t find their own ass with both hands and if society ground to a standtill, they would be the first to collapse in a quivering mass of protoplasm.
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p>Maybe that’d happen to me, maybe not. But I sure sense condescension from working-class elitists that someone like me couldn’t find my own ass. I think people that smirk at me when I don’t know which tool I need at Home Depot are more elitist than I am. I’m not there for a photo op, though, like Kerry (not) catching a football, I’m there trying to fix my bathroom tiles that are falling out. I suppose they want me to call in a licensed professional with a 6 Liter pickup truck and stick to programming, which is fair, but I wouldn’t smirk at them if they wanted to learn C.
No successful businesses? – check
Doesn’t follow own advice? – check
Ivy League colleges and following obscure academic theories as foreign policy? – check
Kennebunkport/Connecticut trust fund kid? -check
Entitlement through birth and family? – check
Lack of practical knowledge? – check
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p>I dunno if Dubya is considered part of the left-wing establishment now, but I think the current disenchantment with the Republican party is that they fit these stereotypes in practice better than the Democrats even if the Dems are given these labels more often.
The difficult thing is that the press is elite and doesn’t like the “class warfare” thing. Witness: John Edwards.
and who likes a snob?
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p>the money elites look down their noses at a broad swath of america as wage lemmings who don’t have it in them to consider anything beyond their most primal needs.
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p>the culture elites look down their noses at a broad swath of america as warm beer swilling rubes who don’t have it in them to consider anything beyond their most primal desires.
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p>both are a looking down the nose. and most of us can feel it when someone is doing it to us. that feeling that the other party just knoowws that they’re more on top of it all than lowly you. that feeling of condescension.
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p>the reason that democrats/liberals take a disproportionate hit on this, is that most people feel that money/labor tension and it’s dynamics are a normal function of a capitalistic society. whereas, treating someone like they are a dumbass because they have never heard of ‘this american life’ serves no obvious useful function.
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p>thus;
bush is an oilman, hey that’s business.
kerry thinks you’re a dumbass rube because you hunt rabbits.
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p>
I would add that liberals also get hit on this because they are far more offended at economic/income inequality than the rest of the electorate. Thus, they respond to the reaction among the rest of the electorate in such a way as to exacerbate the problem. In other words, they just don’t “get it.”
::points at chili:: “What's that?”
or Barack Obama bowling a 37.
or John Edwards getting his hair…brushed? I don't even know what to call that…for like 3 minutes.
Being a snob or an elitist is a matter of public perception and isn't rooted in any actual facts, which is why I think charley's plan to make tax cuts elitist will fail. People aren't going to go fact-finding when deciding who acts like they are better than you. It's all superficial. I think two pictures can effectively sum up this entire Discussion.
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p>George Bush not an elitist? Hilarious.
Barack as an elite skateboarding nunchucking bad-ass. Let’s see John McCain plant a sweet ollie in between the collision of a helicopter and a flying police cruiser! I bet Moqtada al Sadar was in the helicopter and Opec was driving the cop car.
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p>
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p>Originally seen at XKCD. See others here.
New LL Bean Field jacket, and the same “good lord, if I close my eyes, maybe I won’t get hurt” look is exactly the snappy comeback you think it is. It’s a football, for pete’s sake, why do you wince with your eyes shut to make the catch?
and I even read it out loud to make sure I wasn’t just reading it wrong in my head.
that the Senator looks like a boob in both photographs.
See, he’s not thinking about poor people at all. To be an elitist, you have to think about the poor poor people that need your help. Bush actually thinks he’s normal, having fun playing football or cheerleading, he doesn’t even get how privileged he is. Kerry gets that he is no football player, he’s privileged, and that’s what makes him condescending.
that his family sets him up to fight in Vietnam from Alabama and then he goes AWOL since he was getting stoned. Then you have the other guy …. the elitist who fights for his country.
that’s why his war record wound up being used against him. He should have tried to get out of it like any normal person would have done.
is different from the sense used by the electorate.
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p>He’s rich, we get it. BFD. It s is a cultural thing, NOT an income thing.
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p>But on “weekends” (such as they are when one is POTUS) he works in the yard, and watches football. And wouldn’t be out of place watching the Daytona 500.
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p>Compare Kerry, skiing in Gstaad, and who seemed like a boob when he donned the hunting gear.
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p>You desparately want to make “elitism” about who is rich and who is not rich, which misses the point. It is, rather, about a palpable disdain for mainstream American culture.
And disdaining it doesn’t make one elitist either (I’m desperately trying to avoid being tagged elitist, let’s see if I can pull it off).
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p>I think as long as I don’t pretend to like the Daytona 500, or condescend to people who do, then it’s not elitist if I don’t. I can disdain it without being condescending to the people that like it. Even if I say something like “autoracing is not a sport and wastes gasoline and should be banned” it isn’t elitist because I’m not condescending to NASCAR fans about it, trying to sociologize the issue, I’m just laying it out there and letting people tell me how they feel about it. I don’t think “they’re only clinging to NASCAR because they were brought up in that culture” or something (I mean, of course I recognize that everyone is what they are because of their culture they were brought up in, but that goes without saying). I just think what I think and push for my ideas respectfullly (even if often frustratedly).
Elitist: NASCAR is a sport for rednecks who like to watch car crashes.
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p>Not Elitist: NASCAR is a sport for pussies. Real men don’t have a giant machine protecting them from the competition. Give me Ultimate Fighting any day.
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p>Hope this helped.
That may be true. I agree that there is a condecending air that is the root of the problem. Maybe instead of advocating banning NASCAR, one could simply state that it really isn’t your thing. Then one could make an attempt to enjoy oneself at an event without the need to pretend one is a fan.
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p>The worst possible approach is to pretend to be something you are clearly, demonstrably not. John Kerry on “Manny Ortez” or hunting. These attempts always make the candidate look like a boob.
is the incessant use of the pronoun “one”. ;D
But then again, I’m not running for office.
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p>Though I appreciate the snark, I wonder if it is again the product of an entirely different concept of “elite.”
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p>I suspect that many liberals and progressives, when they hear the word “elite,” immediately think of the Power Elite which, when one attaempts a Marxist critique of American society, is deployed as evidence of the upper class closing ranks in opposition to the working class, etc.
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p>In reality though, I suspect that most Americans are perfectly comfortable with the fact that America has an upper class, and that this upper class is differently educated and has different tastes and habits. Certainly it appears that this fact is more readily accepted among the general population than it is among, um, academic liberals, who find income and wealth inequality to be an issue.
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p>When a person whose tastes run toward that more common among the wealthy, regardless of whether that person is wealthy, appears to disdain, dismiss, or disparage those of the less well-off, resentment results.
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p>So, wealthy, connected, old-money Mr. Bush is not elitist in any way that is meaningful in mainstream American politics, but a politician who is dismissive of the church-going, the shooting sports enthusiasts, or NASCAR fans is, even if that politician is notably not a part of the sociologists’ “Power Elite.”
the definition changes to suit ones need to screed.
Time to give up on this and do some work, lest I become even less elite than I already am.
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p>I have simply offered a theory as to why an elitism charge hurled at Kerry, Gore, and Obama seem to stick, while the photo of Yalie Bush is a dud of a riposte.
I do not think this is the case. The messages that are thrown around society are that the lower your class, the more faults you must have. Lower class people are too lazy to work hard enough to prosper. They are too stupid to keep themselves out of debt. They are a bane on the society that provides social programs to help them when they hit bottom. The only good thing about the lower class, these messages assert, is that they can in turn look down upon and scoff at the class that is even lower on the food chain: Illegal immigrants.
These messages are charged with class elitism, they are ubiquitous throughout the working class, and are repeated ad nauseum.
come from the left.
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p>The right thinks that people are smart enough to understand what a mortgage means when they sign it. That they know how to get an ID before voting. That they are capable of making ends meet without AFDC. That they can deal with the repurcussions of using a credit card. That they can go to a casino without impoverishing their family. That they can possess and operate firearms responsibly. That the single policy that might be adopted that would help them the most would be if there are far, far fewer illegal immigrants undercutting their ability to earn decent wages.
Hardly a message advanced by the left.
However, did I just hear you say that it is a matter of smarts as to whether people can make ends meet without ADFC?
Did you then further assert, albeit indirectly, that anyone that has credit problems must be naturally too stupid to avoid them?
Are you not repeating these messages that the lower your class, the more faulty you are?
Is that not clear evidence of class elitism, and that working class people are not only keenly aware of it, but driven in part by the anxiety induced from it?
The right is of the opinion that people are smart enough to understand the consequences of their decisions and live with those consequences. That many liberal attempts to “protect” these people implicitly or explicitly assume that they unable to comprehend the simplist of things.
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p>Proptecting people from themselves is a liberal notion.
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p>Note the Voter ID discussion, in which the left takes the position that many poor people won’t understand that they need an ID or how to get one, and the right that says they can figure it out.
Pardon my own use of logic here, but if “the right is of the opinion that people are smart enough to understand the consequences of their decisions and live with those consequences”, then the right must further assert that if you are SUFFERING from such consequences and literally unable to live with them (starvation, homelessness, etc.) you must be an idiot.
Noting the topic of voter id, the right takes the opinion that this is a necessary law to prevent illegal voter impersonation fraud, despite the fact that this type of crime is literally unheard of.
I was not aware that passing laws that address non-existent problems is the “small-government” right's method of helping poor people figure out how to get ID's. Perhaps they could offer free classes instead.
They think that the person suffering will smarten up and make better decisions next time.
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p>I’m not that much of a fan of the voter ID law, for th reason you cite. Nevertheless, I am struck by the potential for fraud every time I vote.
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p>I just note that the principle argument against is that people are too dumb to fill out a one-page form.
Unless, of course, the right observes a correlation between poverty, lack of intelligence, and a general lack of virtue.
This is what I've been saying, and you have confirmed it for me not once, but twice.
But the principle argument against voter Id is that it costs money.
la-la-la-la-la
Just making an honest observation.
If I have assaulted your delicate sensibilities, I apologize.
However, it is not me that is evading reality. I'm not the one who is in denial about the messaging that is proffered regarding social classes and their percieved relative worth.
with the nanny state assuming you can’t smarten up, why bother. Nanny is there to clean up the mess and protect us from ever making that or any other mistake again. Just as I tell my wife regarding our children… “the longer you isolate them from the consequences of their actions, the longer it will take them to learn from their mistakes”.
While you attempt to change the frame, the picture is the same. Class elitism is alive and well and your “nanny state” protestations present further proof that the right's subscription to “Social Darwinism Today” continues.
is it elitist to have a preference? I like watching football, basketball and baseball. I don’t like watching NASCAR. Why should we care if Kerry likes skiing as opposed to hunting? I get that there are class barriers here. I really liked Borisevicius617’s comment down below. It seems that it really is about attitude and culture more than anything else. But what I don’t get is how one’s preference of sport reflects an attitude.
It is the condescending attitute.
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p>It isn’t that the elitist liberal doesn’t like to hunt, which is no big deal. It is that the elitist liberal doesn’t like hunters, which is a different matter. And voters can discern the difference.
… I’d argue that Kerry windsurfing is demonstrative of a preference, not an ‘attitude’. When people saw ‘attitude’ in his wind surfing, it is necessarily reading into it beyond what is evident from the act itself. There is simply nothing elitist about prefering to wind surf any more than its elitist to prefer college basketball to the NBA. Absent a condescending remark, the ‘attitude’ isn’t evident and must be read into (or fed by media commentary).
at least with respect to that specific image.
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p>But Kerry practcally drips with the attitude that I am attempting to describe. The lockjaw accent (and the skiing is Gstaad, and the windsurfing) only bear fruit because they land on already-fertile ground.
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p>Maybe we remember the windsurfing so well because it was used to such great effect in that ad.
… to believe criticisms of elitism if they were only backed up by examples that truly demonstrate elitism and not just accents, coffee brands, and sports preferences. Call me old fashioned, but I’d rather criticisms be based on actual observable and relevant criteria rather than media or opposition generated irrelevancies.
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p>Bowling??? I mean bowling??!!!!. Gimme a break.
Choosing to be a windsurfer is like wearing Birkenstocks, as opposed to Converse All-Stars (people who wear All Stars only go to the beach once a year, never bring toys, and always forget sunscreen*). Our preferences say something. If preferences were random, then you’d be right, but they aren’t, they totally come from our background and reflect our attitudes and values. That’s why there are clusters of shared cultural values.
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p>*true fact
Dubya was a cheerleader, excuse me, head cheerleader at Andover. By the way, Andover Academy definitely not elitist.
…dude spent most of his time in wood shop with the rest of the tools.
Well, whateves. Maybe there’s not much of a distinction anyway.
An elitist is someone who in fact has several degrees from prestigious institutions ( it doesn’t mean that a have a grey cell in their head) Like the Scarecrow–just a degree)
An elitist has a few bucks (unearned income) An elitist has many “important” opinions that should be recognized by other elitists and the great unwashed. An elitist is entitled. An elistist may expound on whatever they deem relevant without contradiction, because obviously: their opinion is correct and valid. An elitist has never served in the armed forces. An elitist sends young men and women to war—they don’t go themselves ( which negates the Brits as being elitist, because they send everyone to war)
It Britain they call it DUTY. Americans no longer recognize the word DUTY. It has been stricken from our language.
The British Army is the same as our Army: a professional paid service.
Thank you for this post. Of course some will say there’s nothing more elite than deconstructing what it means to be elite but so be it.
With all of Hillary’s use of the word “elite” as a bad thing, a put down to make a distiction between “normal” folks and over-educated (as if there is such a thing) people, I can’t help but think of a speach I once I heard given by a Rhodes Scholar with a doctorate in law from one of the top ivy league school law schools in the world. It was Bill Clinton who was speaking to a group of graduating seniors at Harvard University and imploring them to focus on the 99.9% of similarities that are contained in our DNA to bring each other up and not on the .1% of differences in order to tear each other down. It was a brilliant speech, really, and even brought a few people to tears. It’s too bad that Hillary didn’t hear it (or heed it).
So, whether the are using elite total mean the Wealthy elite or the educational elite matters somewhat less than why they are using it. They are using it divide the country into us vs. them. It’s purely political and positively insulting. And the hypocrisy is palpable and shameful.
… he played Rock and Jazz, not Classical.
There’s the rural-urban (or midwest-coastal) tension in the US, that the Republicans have been playing on for years. Charley’s right, elite seems to be code for something that we’re certainly not (money/power elite).
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p>To be honest, I really want to see that divisive trick die: the whole red-state blue-state, coastal-midwest, (Red Sox-Indians?) thing. Obama is inspiring because there might be a way out of that to a large extent, and Hillary is to my great frustration perpetuating it. We’re done with Bush and the majority (70% now) disapprove of him. Yet Clinton is dragging us back into divisive politics that we don’t need anymore.
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p>I guess the “elite” economists of the US are ready to revolt after “Hillary throws [them] off the bus”
(and here).
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p>Great idea. Call a spade a spade.
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p>And why is windsurfing elite anyway (Kerry)? You can buy a used board and sail for $300. Its way cheaper than motorboating. I digress.
that does not require neon-spandex, or shopping at REI.
is elite because it is smarter than motorboating, its cheaper, better for the environment, athletic, more exciting…it shows superior genius and disdain for tooling around in an expensive motorboat drinking a beer.
🙂
🙂
like i could find it in massachusetts.
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p>So is PBR elite now or not? It got trendy a few years back, in a trucker cap kind of way.
They sell it out here in the boonies.
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p>But, no dice. Slumming with trendy or cheap beer fondly remembered from school days doesn’t count.
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p>No, it has to be a product that is (i) like making love in a canoe; and (ii) made by Anheuser Busch, the Miller Brewing Company, or Coors.
Sorry, or congratulations, Dad, if that’s what you’re drinking. Bet you’re wearing jams down to your mid-calf with an $80 messenger bag over one shoulder a two days growth on your face and thick rimmed black plastic glasses, too. Cool.
I prefer the microbrews myself, and could not credibly claim working class taste (at least when it comes to beer) and have even less claim to anything resembling “hipness” (for beer or anything else). I don’t think I have ever had any claim to the latter, alas.
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p>I go for Long Trail.
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p>Not as good as a good single-malt scotch, though.
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p>Great image though, Bob. I picture the food guy from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy but on a bike.
it’s the can. drinking directly from aluminum is the antithesis of elite.
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p>what is the opposite of elite, anyway? delete?
ouch, that could really hurt. Someone should pass a law against that. Let’s start a letter campaign.
It could be the first of many new safety-oriented anti-elitist laws.
nerd
Those people look at folks from the north east and CA as freaks.
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p>BTW: People from Red state America would give you the shirt off their back. People in blue states would not.
lived in the midwest. My colleagues/friends at work in rural Ohio used to say I was their conservative normal friend, despite my graduating from the nearby liberal college (and despite my long hair at the time). We didn’t talk too much politics at work, although we pretty much agreed on stuff. Then they’d all go back to listening to Rush Limbaugh during lunch hour. They would say, Rush is great! Not so good on the environmental stuff, but Rush is great! (We worked in a county environmental health department).
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p>I came away from that experience realizing that the now-called Red/Blue division (then Reagan democrats) is not real, but a creation of different communities of people just not knowing enough about each other. Politicians like to use this to their political advantage, which is frankly really obnoxious.
i split my time between 2 towns that both voted 86% for one candidate in the last presidential election.
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p>my massachusetts town – 86% kerry
my texas town – 86% bush
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p>and i get along swimmingly with people in both places. because we all know and like each other personally first. if our politics differ, well, that is secondary to the fact that we know and respect one another as people.
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p>the big problem is that you become friends only after you know someone. and so many of us don’t know one another. thus we can’t become friends. and thus we can’t extend the benefit of the doubt and empathy and respect to people, as we would if they were our friends.
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p>when you know what a dear person someone is, it matters less that they may believe that abortion is a sin, or that they think socialized medicine sounds like a pretty good idea.
… and was shocked when I moved MA and strangers said hi as I walked by. Although I have to say that the nicest people (collectively) I’ve ever seen are in Wisconsin.
Most economists also roundly endorse the outsourcing of American jobs overseas…
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p>doesn’t mean its good policy and it sure isn’t good politics
often comes across as a synonym for:
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p>”Someone with lots of money who tells you that your suffering is for everyone’s benefit.”
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p>For example, the six-figure economists arguing against cutting people a break at the pump. What do they care about the price?
Hillary and you are using it wrong. Its someone who thinks dumb people are dumb and smart people are smart. Its not the smart people, or the rich people, but someone who thinks there is a difference.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, DEMANDING that not only Congressman and Senators in leadership positions are entitled to fly in VIP USAF jets, but their families as well. Nency Pelosi demanding that she have a USAF jet at her disposal to jet off to the left coast for weekends.
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p>PLEASE! Talk about elitists—and abuse of power.
… it wasn’t a demand, it was SOP. Second, I assume you’ll concede then that it was just as ‘elitist’ for Speaker Hastert?
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p>http://thinkprogress.org/2007/…
he’s accused of being elitist. It’s an attitude, not a demographic group. All of the sociological analysis doenn’t change that. There’s college professors making $45,000 a year who are elitists, and millionaires who aren’t. And I think people intrinsically understand that.
is that if making $45,000, teaching postmodern literary theory and espousing a Chomskyist critique of America makes one more elitist than making millions and telling folks without health care to go blow … then I’m not sure the word “elitist” is very meaningful. Not in a way that affects flesh and blood.
I’ve never heard Chomsky say that most Americans are dumb and cling to religion. Maybe he has, I don’t know, but I’m more familiar with him saying that multi-national corporations are evil and screwing over people.
This is precisely why the thrust of this particular charge against Obama passes over your head.
I find your comment tautological.
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p>me: “I don’t get the elitism thing.”
you: “That’s why you don’t get the elitism thing.”
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p>Precisely. I lose.
Why not you.
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p>I have spent way too much time today trying to explain why wealth and privelege are beside the point.
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p>You: B-b-but Bush is rich! And priveleged!
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p>It is a serious weakness of your candidate. If you want to pretend it doesn’t exist, I suggest the fingers-in-ears-sing-la-la-la-la method, which worked so well for the Bushies over the years.
He drinks PBR. He’s just teasing you, Charley. 😉
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p>OK, sorry CMD, I’m actually teasing you.
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p>In any event, Charley, the way he’s using it “elitist” means “snob.” Snobs can be rich or poor. The point is that they are posers.
QED.
Here I am. My bike and courier bag are stashed behind the pickup.
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p>Note my slummin bowling shirt.
Elite has gone the way of “lobbyist.” The word lobbyist conjurs up images of fat middle-aged white men smoking cigars and drinking scotch while robbing voters to get personal projects done that will only fill the pockets of the rich. If one stops to think about it lobbyists obviously include people hired from organizations such as: environmentalists, civil liberty groups, social change organizations, yadayadayada.
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p>The damage is done and while we may make small changes in people’s minds about what a “lobbyist” really is people’s visceral reaction to it will not change any time soon.
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p>”Elite” is the same thing now. People, the rich but especially middle America, southern states, rust belt and the poor nationwide have a visceral reaction to “elite” in a negative way. We aren’t going to change that any time soon regardless how many times you’ve read Lakoff’s books.
http://www.amazon.com/Supercla…
I don’t hate the Starbucks Democrats, but being a working class guy who more or less worked 3 jobs to go to a SUNY school for my BA and Masters, I have issues with their attitude. From my experience, the Starbucks (sushi, whatever you want to call them) seem very pretentious. Its not that were not on the same page as it is their smug attitude. I used to live in Somerville and was kind of turned off by the way people living this fake Bohemian fantasy acted like they grew up the same way I did and somehow knew more then me because they read a book.
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p>Another thing is the fact that they more or less started gentrification. I know, I know, the developers and yuppies did it, but the elite types moved into our neighborhoods and served as a catalyst for the developers. I will use a perfect example, Brooklyn NY. About 10 years ago, hipsters who tend to be labeled Starbucks Democrats started moving in hordes to Williamsburg. Most of them were willing to pay insane prices just to live in this area. They pushed out long time residents (just like Somerville and Cambridge) and then had the nerve to act like it was their destiny to solve the rent problem. After the turned diners into trendy watering holes, the yuppies came and now working class Joe is commuting from Troy to his construction job in Manhattan. I swear to you, I know plenty of cops, fireman and other working class stiffs who now have to commute two hours plus to work.
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p>Being working class, they don’t understand our mentality when it comes to things. Most us are second and third generation Americans who take great pride in our hard work ethic and the neighborhoods our parents killed themselves to build. Overnight, its all gone, were replaced and then we have the people who caused the problem holding parties and benefits after the fact. They also move from other areas to be community organizers which is funny considering I thought one needed to be from the community to organize it. My issue with these people is the fact that they spend most of their time helping token trendy causes as apposed to the people who were pushed from their homes. They even have the nerve to say they made things better and call us closed minded because we were pushed from our homes.
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p>I also hate the way they claim to be experts on cultures. I will use my friend as an example. He is a Dominican from Harlem who like me, was forced to leave his home when the starbucks liberals wanted a piece of Spanish Culture. He used to tell me stories about him and his friends chilling on the corner minding their own buisness when some guy would come over and start talking about how politics in a place they never even lived assuming they care. Don’t get me started about the way they have to tell you they are changing things by working a nonprofit job. I would love to work a nonprofit to, but due to the cost of living, I can’t. I don’t know what their doing, but its amazing how they can afford $2000 in rent on a $30,000 a year salary.
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p>At the end of the day its a clash of cultures. We may believe in the same things like labor rights, affordable housing, better schools etc. Difference is my people are actually effected by them and feel that the elite types are using our causes for their own benefit. This may not be the case but imagine one day your forced out of your neighborhood and then see the people who caused it acting like they are holier then you. I think you would be angry to and be inclined to support the other guy even though he is against what you believe in. Most people I know do that out of anger, anger makes them irrational, but how can you blame them when their lives were more or less destroyed.
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p>If we really want to unite those of us on the left, we need to find common ground. Maybe if the starbucks crowd were a bit more humble and less “I am better then you, I have this degree, and that degree, wa wa wa” maybe we would be united. I though see this being a big issue come November where as allot of my people will vote Mc Cain out of animosity towards the way things have been for them. You can disagree with me, but this is how I see it being a working class guy.
but that’s important stuff to hear. thanks for sharing that.
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p>as a hopeful sort, it sounds to me more like an invitation to dialogue than anything.
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p>it seems that if the yuppie scum and the townie meatheads would just cool out and listen (LISTEN!) to each others stories and where they’re each coming from, that everyone would be surprised how much potential common ground there is. yuppie scum and townie meatheads are people too, y’know. (wetbacks, too.)
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p>
One by one, the three deckers were picked off by Clark University, founded as a school for the working class and now an elite instutition charging $50k per year. When they had acquired a couple of city blocks, they evicted all the renters and tore down the buildings to make dorms. Then, with all the families gone, the neighborhood schools were closed, and the remaining kids got to take the bus – they even managed to buy one school building and turn it into headquarters for their janatorial staff. The other school was made into lofts for professors.
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p>Once the working stiffs were eliminated, the ten-to-a-bedroom crown moved into the remaining three deckers, and the neighborhood has been on the skids for 20 years. Then, last year, they announce the THEY have had a vision, and announced a project to save three deckers from demolition, and preserve the quint shingles and wood inlays.
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p>Having destroyed the neighborhood, they now seek to hold up the remaining fragments to the light, and oooh and aahh at the pretty colors and quaint customs. SO twentieth century!
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p>My brother lives in the last house on our block that Clark hasn’t bought.
… I though we were all supposed to worship at the alter of the free market.
I don’t think I saw Porcupine advocating for a new statute and book of regulations designed to protect working class neighborhoods from university expansion.
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p>Probably because any such attempt would (i) not work, (ii) screw everyone except (iii) the government employees charged with administering the program.
They announce a program to save what they had destroyed.
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p>They no longer bother with the working class kids they were founded to serve – that’s WHY they were built in the interior of a neighborhood, instead of on the edge of town like Holy Cross or Assumption.
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p>It’s the elitist hyprocicy, stupid!
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p>(I don’t think yuou’re stupid, I jsut want to be able to say that line…:~) )
… and it looked like a great example of a free market at work. If you like the free market, but don’t like the results, what would you do?
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p>And what do you mean by ‘attitude’? I though universities were supposed to play in a free market as well. They were able to increase their revenue by building on their reputation and selling a higher end product. Are they supposed to ignore their self-interest in favor of your assigned mission for them?
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p>I really don’t see anything here that isn’t a result of rational decision making in a free market on the part of buyers, sellers, and the university.
PP is correct that Clark is making a project of “saving” the working class culture of that neighborhood.
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p>People object, not without justification, when someone else regards them as a specimen.
Unfortunatly the only way to break this cycle is through major disaster. It is going to be a clash of classes when it does comes down, er , well maybe not as people with my worldview are next to zero.
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p>Basically we now have a superclass of sushi and their attitudes globally are geared toward buisness growth increases, making more stuff, developing more land, eating up time effort and resources at exponentially higher rates.
Things can’t be left alone if there are profit margins to be made and yes suburbia is going to get forced out of suburbia. The very though of living like the Japanese do, packing into mega-cities having only a man made plastic world to live in. Just shoot me in the head.
I find Japan to be a relaxing place to live. If you want the mega city Tokyo is there (just like NY and LA here). But the rest of the country, while dense is pretty good living. There’s still traditional baths, attention to comfort and design, and needless to say the very yummy and healthy food.
Yeah, that sounds right. As one of the psuedo-bohemians who moved to Somerville in the 90’s, I certainly picked up on the resentment, but where else was I supposed to go? I couldn’t stay in Newton. But at least I didn’t try to piss off the locals, like Carl Sciortino (is this really him? It doesn’t look like him to me) did here:
Now that, my friends, is elitism!
This is Sciortino:
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p>
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p>Neither of those guys looks anything like him. The hairlines alone prove it. Furthermore, the image looks suspiciously photoshopped to me.
But I’d like to hear a denial or confirmation from him, or one of the QueerToday posters here (Milo?). If Article8 had this story wrong and it isn’t Carl, I apologize for digging it up, but I think this story might turn out to be true, and he just had short hair back then. It’s funny I can’t find where Sciortino grew up anywhere either. Is he from Medford?
Well, according to the QueerToday blog he joined the protest (before becoming a Rep), so that is probably him on the left.
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p>
…but you seem to have a huge chip on your shoulder. While I have no doubt that you sincerely have concerns about class in our culture you paint the “starbucks” or the “sushis” with the same broad, dismissive brush you feel they paint working class people with.
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p>Gentrification is not a new concept and it is not an American concept. But here in the USA, particularly in east coast urban areas, the working class neighborhoods that you describe as being taken over and out of the hands of those who built them have changed hands time and time again. The North End here in Boston is a good example. Lots of people today complain that it is losing it’s Italian American roots and that the yuppies are pushing out the families that built the neighborhood. But before it was an Italian neighborhood it was a Jewish one, and before that a community of free black people and before that a home to wealthy Bostonians. So who built that neighborhood? Is it the people who lived there when the buildings went up? Is it the people who technically were there the longest? Is it the people who invested the most money? Or is it everyone who has ever lived there and cared about it?
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p>Class and culture in America is a very muddy, difficult issue that we avoid talking about at almost all cost and when we do it invariably is an us vs. them discussion and it seems to me that what you have written is another example of us vs. them.
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p>I notice you put all of the blame for the class divide on the “starbucks” and leave it to them to solve the problem by stopping what it is you think they are doing wrong. Sorry, but there is plenty that people from all classes can do to find cultural middle ground. Putting the blame on one set of people will hardly solve our problems. In fact, if you ask me, it just contributes to it.
of the fundamental fault line in the Democratic party.
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p>It sure seems like this nomination process has the so-called elitist liberals swinging mostly for Obama and the so-called working class Dems swinging for Hillary.
I don’t suppose that it’s RAW FISH (!?!) has anything to do with it? As for the substantiative part of this debate, I laugh at it! It’s 95% media driven and for the 5% of people who think it’s real, there’s no convincing them that an African American who wasn’t exactly born into wealth and privilege and just recently finished paying his college loans isn’t elitist. They think he is because people tell them to, there’s no point in convincing them otherwise (plenty other votes to snag in the fishing well).
By calling him African American. You should have called him black, because it would have been accurate. By calling him African American you ignored a full half of his heritage and by omitting it I’m assuming you don’t think it’s important. If you called him black, you’d just be making an observation of his skin color. You’re killin’ me, smalls!
father – african
mother – american
hahah even I’ll 6 that.
You can’t convince them that Obama is not elitist because Obama was not born into wealth and privelege because how Obama has aboslutely nothing whatsoever to do with the notion of elitism, except in the comfy confines of the Obama cocoon. You might as well argue that Obama is not elitist because I had sugar in my coffee this morning.
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p>The notion of the elitist liberal has bupkus to do with wealth and privilege. It has everything to do with disdain for middle American culture– which Obama transmitted as clearly as can be done at that San FRancisco event.
“disdain for middle American culture” is a strawman that is applied to describe imaginary people with an imaginary outlook. In fact, I'll bet you would have a very difficult time describing exactly HOW the words of Obama in SF demonstrate that he harbors a genuine disdain for middle American culture without claiming that you can read his mind. It assigns an emotional point of view to your target with no proof beyond a flimsy “gotcha” quote used to play the game of politics.
Perhaps this is where the idea of “cultural elitism” really has it's sting. While I have never heard of a real person that harbors genuine disdain for middle American culture, I know of a few that are intolerant of (read “condescending to”) the type of ignorance that makes people susceptible to that type of manipulation.
It's like some wiseguy in a bar making trouble for his colleague by telling the bouncer “that guy said you are a wussy”. Whether trouble ensues depends on the intelligence and demeanor of the bouncer. So it is with the American public and “cultural elitism”.
And he is damn good at it.
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p>I don’t think the choice of the word “cling” was an accident.
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p>Do I think that this would make him a bad president? No, but I recognize that it harms him as a candidate.
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p>As far as not knowing anyone who is condescending on this point, I refer you to the book, What’s Wrong with Kansas?, to any BMG thread in which hunting, religion, or church attendence is discussed, to advocates of banning horse racing, and, to an extent, casino opponents.
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p>Methinks you are in the cocoon.
But that does not mean he never screws up.
I don't see evidence because I'm in “the cocoon”? What a condescending gesture.
It seems as if, right before our eyes, this is becoming a generic term to mean “someone who disagrees with you”.
By “living in the cocoon” I mean the dogged ability to cling to a position, when contrary evidence in the form of daily newspaper coverage is basing the clinger in the face on a daily basis.
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p>I rank “The charge of elitism against Obama is baseless and has no legs” right up there with “Stay the course.”
is evidence that Dewey won?
That seems to be what you are saying about Obama, elitism, and my (and many others) failure to see it in concrete form.
Obama is getting killed on this point. It has been in the news since before the PA primary. Stewart and Leno are making jokes about it. Hillary is making hay with it. It is likely going to have legs for McCain come November.
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p>And the response from our local Obama supporters is that there is no such issue. No different from the Bushies in 2004: “Things are improving in Iraq.”
Yup. Obama is getting hammered in the press for a number of things and it has had an effect on his campaign.
The media took down Howard Dean with isolated audio of a scream.
Did the public find the scream offensive, or was it the media spin that the scream somehow made Dean unelectable?
In the same vein, did Obama express genuine disdain for middle American culture or is that the media exploiting a poor choice of words to paint him as “elitist”?
I would say patronizing dismissal. And yeah, he did.
I have never heard of a politician who thought that he could get votes by being dismissively patronizing.
it was a fundraiser, in San Francisco. When in Rome, condescend about the rest of the country. He probably raised boatloads of cash by appealing to their snobbery.
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p>Are there other prominent examples of Obama being dismissive? Is the gas tax issue an example? No, I don’t think it is, if anything, it is anti-elitism, and it’s Hillary being elitist.
Since it was a fundraiser in SF, and EVERYONE knows that San Franciscans are all condescending snobs, then it was an appeal to that famous SF snobbery.
Hurray for common wisdom.
But WE'RE not snobs, and we're better than them for it, aren't we?
:^P
Maybe they’re not all snobs, but Obama clearly felt that the ones at that particular fundraiser needed to be stroked a little.
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p>What do you bet that if this elitism charge sticks around much longer, Obama will change his story to this, that he isn’t really an elitist, he was only pretending to be one to appeal to rich SF’cans.
So you are charging Obama with pandering.
Fine. All politicians pander.
But how does that translate into “elitist”?
That was my point, that’s why I titled that comment “In Obama’s defense”. I think he was only pretending to be elitist.
You choose to ignore it, or to pretend it means something else.
I just could not understand it. Otherwise, why would I have asked for an explanation?
C'mon, Let's try to keep the discourse substantive.
he clearly goofed on what he said, as ALL POLITICIANS DO, even the fantastic, if they get stalked by enough press. To say he’s elistist, though, would mean you don’t think what he was getting at has a point. That’s why you can’t be convinced, because you actually believe he’s wrong on that point, when it’s so easy to see that he’s right. Of course people are sick and frustrated by the way this country has been going in the past few decades, and of course that’s made them susceptable to smart political campaigning by Republicans over the years who continually get people to vote against their interests. “Clinging to their guns,” was a clear political goof, but the fact that the media blew it up beyond what it meant means its a media-driven story. The fact that Obama’s campaign isn’t any worse for it, though, shows that the majority of Americans who are voting in Democratic primaries (and that’s a helluva lot more than people voting in the Republican ones) obviously are intelligent enough to realize Obama had a point, even if he didn’t express it well.
Kerry, making his joke about soldiers being dumb and getting stuck in Iraq, made a goof. It was obvious to any reasonable person that he was intending to insult Bush, and garbled the delivery.
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p>With Obama, it wasn’t just the use of the word “cling” (though that was significant), it was the overall tone of what he said, which assumed the existence of usses and thems. And it came after the Philly speech on Wright, in which he was shading in the same direction (that is, certain issues are issues only because ignorant people don’t know what they really need).
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p>At best, Obama in San Francisco made a gaffe, meaning a true statement that ought not have been said.
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p>I am mostly concerned that the Democrats are about to nominate yet another candidate with a big, exposed flank. And so far, his responses when under attack have been uneven. Maybe it will be enough to rely on the lingering unpopularity of Bush to defeat McCain, but boy it would be nice to see the Dems nominate someone who can duck when the other guy swings for a change.
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p>I also suppose that it is fair to say that I am not especially enthused about Obama, because (i) the rhetoric is indeed “just words”; (ii)the seeming fuidity of his position on Israel; and (ii) the reality that by running as an outsider against all of Washington, he is setting himself up to be Carter II (i.e., ineffective).
when he made the bad joke about getting stuck in Iraq without good education.
It didn’t matter that he was talking about Bush and not the servicepeople.
So why should it matter that Barack was referring to how people vote and not their passtimes?
McCain ‘made hay’ with it, so does that excuse Hillary and McC now?
95% media driven. Notice how every time the media screams “elitism,” Obama wins another state, or does better than expected (ie Indiana). What’s that all mean? Sadly, you’re a part of the other 5%… the group of people who can’t be convinced this is media driven. As Obama keeps on trucking, and building on his delegate lead, I’m glad he’s getting the same advice I’ve already listed here… there’s plenty of other fish in the pond.
I find it’s the people who scream “he’s a condescending elitist” who are actually the most condescending and opposed to ideas that are to the benefit of us middle class types who actually support policies that benefit America, especially the middle class.
He was talking to people that he probably felt were a bunch of elitists. They were the elite of the elite, snobby San Franciscans, who all seem to believe that the rest of the country are hideous stinky fuckheads. So when Obama is speaking to them, he panders to their elitism, rather than offend them by suggesting that PA voters were way more real than you nambypambies could ever be, which is how they would have interpreted anything short of strong condescension.
The media surrounds him 24/7. The fact that he’s good at speaking and nuance doesn’t mean he’s perfect. Also, I’ve read What’s the Matter With Kansas; it doesn’t bolster your point at all, especially given the fact that I’d take a wager that Thomas Frank would actually be voting for Barack Obama. Frank made the point that Republicans are good at getting working class, poorer Americans to vote against their best economic interest. He wasn’t exactly advocating that Democrats were elitists… In fact, you’re argument is probably the antithesis of Frank’s work.
Seriously, you were offended by bitter? Really?
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p>Please show me where in all of Obama’s work he’s shown “disdain” for Middle America? Is it in his health care plan, which would provide health insurance for millions in Middle America who don’t have it? I’m really just not seeing it. If you want to see disdain for Middle America, you’re at the wrong Mass Group – try the Red one.
Whatlaw firm did he practice at?
What branch of the service did he serve in?
What organization did he serve overseas with (Peace Corps–Doctors w/o Borders)?
What comapny did he start?
What company did he own where he kept a few hundred Americans employed?
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p>Barack Obama has done NOTHING in his life. Being a legislator is what you do after you have accrued twenty and thirty years of experince at and become infused with wisdom and knowledge and have fallen a half dozen times and picked yourself up.
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p>Barack Obama is stuck at the chronological and emotional age of eighteen. Besides the fact that he needs to find a real job—not something handed him.
As you consider it?
Isn't your series of questions a declaration that you have criteria that everyone should apply because you know better than those unwashed masses who happen like the candidate and want to see him into office for their own various reasons?
I guess it all depends on who is pointing the finger. If it is elitist to find no enjoyment in NASCAR, is it not also elitist to consider a candidate unqualified for not being a CEO or active military in his past life?
Of the two concepts of “elite” and “elitism”, the class distinction makes sense to me and the cultural distinction does not. The “cultural elitist” brand can be applied to just about anyone expressing just about any opinion as we have just demonstrrated here.
MCRD is that fine blend, the “bitter-elitist”. It’s not about being privileged or even feeling entitled, having gone to all the finest schools alright, and only getting juiced in it, it’s more about sneering “how does it feel?” to those people, when they realize the mystery tramp isn’t selling any alibis and they have to live out on the street and they’re gonna have to get used to it, etc…
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p>
I'm still trying to get my head around this “sneering” part though. I hear accusations, but I never really see much sneering at all.
Dylan sneered his lyrics out, bitterly at fools, and I say he was (is?) an elitist, even though he purported to be critiquing the privileged lifestyle from a folk standpoint.
he is sneering too, that “privileged elites couldn’t find their own ass, and will become a blob of protoplasm if they had to live out on their own away from their luxuries” or something like that. Isn’t that sneering?
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p>I wonder where Dylan blogs? MyDD?
It's tough to tell if you are employing dry humor here.
Maybe another example is warranted. How about:
“Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues”
Was that sneering?
This song is all about how dumb people are, and the bohemian hippies in the coffeeshops sneer and laugh at them. (yeah, it’s supposedly about how dumb Birchers are, but the point is that only us cool people listening in the coffee shop realize that most people are fascists.)
Someone better tell Ernie that satire is elitist. Maybe he'll redouble his efforts.
Saying we’re smart and other people are dumb is elitist, whether it is done using satire or not.
if that is not what you are really saying, but that is what you are criticized for?
Would you call Jesus elitist for his “holier than thou” attitude?
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p>Dear Mr. President,
I want you to know,
I am deeper than you,
Listen and learn,
My heart is a chapel,
My head is a steeple,
My arms are the people,
And the people now yearn….
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p>I love how the banner behind him says “US out of Vietnam in three to five years!”
Being elected one of 100 sitting US Senators isn’t an accomplishment at all. Having the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention is like giving a speech to the monthly local chamber of commerce. All of his non profits and both of his books are completely meaningless…
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p>
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p>Oh, that’s right. It’s not as if Barack Obama wasn’t a legislator or anything. And his current job of being a US Senator was definitely handed to him – he must have been appointed to the position, or something. /snark off
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p>Seriously, do you even know what Obama looks like? Because it’s quite clear you know about as much about his personal life as you do mine.
Or, optimistically, ‘old politics’?
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p>1. Negatively caricature your opponent’s personality.
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p>2. Sow and encourage division among the populace. (But not against yourself; for example target the liberal elite instead of the wealthy elite).
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p>3. Denigrate knowledge.
oh, woops, sorry, didn’t see the title line.
It’s exactly that kneejerk know-better and unsympathetic attitude in your OP that “elitist” is the codeword for.
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p>And all over Obamaland, people are- just as their leader did until the last moment- missing the forest for the trees on what the proposed ‘tax holiday’ is all about. It’s not about the economic merits of it. It’s about a gesture of sympathy. It’s Clinton showing she’s willing to side with average people on principle of sympathy, even though the particular ideas may be moderately bad. In fact, the idea being known to be bad might even work in her favor. She’s willing to get painted as stupid to make a point. If she wins big today she’s smarter than her critics.
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p>Without getting into details, a good amount of my professional life is about dealing with relatively intelligent people who have gotten stuck on stupid but attractive ideas. And they invariably keep on fudging them and re-rationalizing so that the conflict with reality is minimized to the extent possible- but it’s never fixed.
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p>The really intelligent people let go of attractive ideas in which they’ve detected indications of failure to measure to the reality that matters. Better to step back to a cruder set of ideas in which no particular serious error has engrained itself and vanity isn’t a factor.
“really intelligent people let go of attractive ideas in which they’ve detected indications of failure to measure to the reality that matters”
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p>Which idea should Obama (?) let go of? Isn’t Hillary stuck on the bad idea? (the ire of 230 economists, including many former Clinton economists – I bet she’s pissed at the advisor that suggested this idea). I’m not sure what the counter-idea is.
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p>And “really intelligent people…” isn’t that elitist?
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p>The logic here is: It’s good to get painted as stupid to show you can relate to the common folk. Whoa, if that’s not elitist, I don’t know what is.
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p>Also this: “She’s willing to get painted as stupid to make a point.” is kind of parallel to the familiar ‘its cool to not do your homework’. That doesn’t really help us compete in the world economy.
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p>”Vanity”. I’ll pass on that point and the Clintons.
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p>I forgot to add “Never admit a mistake.” to the above playbook.
Depress expectations. Bush is another one who never did anything in his miserable life. I’m not saying he is a bad person or has evil intent—I’m just saying he is a dope.
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p>I think Hillary Clinton is a dope–she is also very clever and a schemer as is her husband. They both know how to manipulate people.
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p>Then we have many of the neo-cons who are draft dodging spinal pukes. Intelligent—but cowards nonetheless. Course now that they are in their fifties and sixties, they realize what spineless, cowards they were.
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p>In 28 years of military service I have only met a handfull of liberal/progressives. 90% of the folks I knew were just run of the mill average Joe’s (what I would call mid-west conservatives) . Only ten percent were what you could refer to as rabid right wingers. Most of the smartest people I have ever known were folks I met in service. They could take an abstract idea and transform it into a tangible reality in short order. That is something that academia cannot do.
That seems pretty tangible, and was built by academics in just a few years.
You’re illustrating my point perfectly.
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p>Do I have to be so crude as to point out explicitly which of the two groups’ behavior goes along with being a generic Obama supporter?
In fact, the idea being known to be bad might even work in her favor. She’s willing to get painted as stupid to make a point.
Is that sometimes when you get painted as stupid, you’re just being stupid, and that fact doesn’t escape people’s notice.
“cultural elite” was first coined by Dan Quayle in '92 as derision toward urbanites, I really can give no credence to the concept as anything other than a deliberate effort to compartmentalize cross sections of the American demographic to create tension where there was little or none previously.
With it's recent re-emergence in political discourse, it looks like the original connotation of the term has changed very little.
Now, “elite” used in a context of class is a completely different story. This is a concept that is painfully real and I suspect that much effort to publicize the idea of “cultural elitism” is really a spirited attempt to distract from actual class elitism.
“Divide and Conquer”.
Chili. 4000 soldiers dead, the economy in the tank, a whole host of serious problems facing our country, and our presidential candidates are getting drunk, like losers drowning their sorrows in a country song. Or like somebody celebrating hedonism, irresponibility, and self-destructiveness. Either way, it’s pretty awesome. Whiskey shots! Kegstands! What a party! For some serious street cred, the candidates should all smoke a little crack, or maybe some crystal meth.
Best comment of the thread, in MHO.