Tuesday 15 April 2008

SENSE AND SENSITIVITY

Barack Obama from Sunday April 13, 2008...

"Here’s how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long. They feel so betrayed by government that when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn’t buy it ...

... But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations ..."

Why, imagine that.

By gum and Gomorrah, it does seem quite a far-fetchin’ stretch to assume that
some people may “explain their frustrations” by clinging to “religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them”.

What a nerve.

On Slate,
Melinda Henneberger and Mickey Kaus perform a syllable by syllable autopsy of the candidate’s remarks and reach some, er ... rather interesting, if not downright devious conclusions about what it all really means ...

Personally, I
blame it all on the 60’s.



From 1981, David Byrne & Brian Eno “America Is Waiting”

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