Obama on Small-Town Pennsylvania...

[angus]

"You go into 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," Obama said.

"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."
Thoughts?

I'd say it's a fairly prescient observation.  "Peasants with pitchforks" was Buchanan's more succinct appraisal, but Obama isn't known for being succinct.

The problem with Obama and his ilk is that he thinks that the government should have a solution for that problem.  I say that it should not.  That it isn't a legitimate function of governmnent, and that government should be limited to defense, education, and some public works and welfare projects.  Some would argue for even more limitations, but you get the point.  It's fine to campaign on a moral high-ground and morally support the rebuilding the communities, but hopefully we don't sink too many federal dollars into rebuilding them.  Let the free market decide which communities are worth saving.  And then let the free market rebuild them.

Still, I like Obama.  And I think he's sufficiently docile that he can appeasing to a repbulican-controlled congress.  And I'm still rooting for him.  And I'm still rooting for a republican-controlled congress.  Democrat president and republican congress seems to be a combination that brings about the best balance between government control and government release, judging by recent history.

Note that in your bolded paragraph he points out that kneejerk anti-corporate, anti-globalization hysteria isn't necessarily the solution to the nation's economic problems.  Okay, I'm paraphrasing, but he does seem to be making the tacit assertion that although the anti-business sentiment isn't surprising, it shouldn't be allowed to set policy.  That's my kind of Democrat.

[angus]

Watch all 3 CNN commentators cut right through the McCain/Clinton crap on Obama's comments:

We might have watched the same analysis.  I'm too lazy to click on your link, but I caught Ed Rendell last night on CNN talking about this.  At first, I was a bit put off, because I found nothing offensive about the comment, and thought about the abject sensationalism of taking a quote out of context and having fun with it in order to assure viewership, and therefore job security, for talking heads and journalists.  But after watching Rendell's comments, I guess I have a better understanding of the reason some might want to talk about the comment so much.

First, he pointed out that Obama misspoke about the plight of pennsylvanians.   He quoted some statistics and compared places like York and Wilkes-Barre to the way they were ten years ago and convinced me that Pennsylvania isn't reeling in an economic crisis.  Obama might have studied a little harder.  That's oversimplifying but it cut to the heart of the matter, and it was kind of important because you want your president to be somewhat knowledgeable.  After 8 years of Bush you can no longer claim that lack of general knowledge isn't potentially harmful. 

He went on to point out that folks liked guns way back when Pennsylvania was the epicenter of the Industrial Revolution in the US and everyone who likes to hunt generally likes to hunt whether their stocks are up or down.  I thought that a good point as well, but it does sort of take Obama out of context.  And he said some things about observant monotheists who practice religion out of a genuine spirituality which hasn't much to do with economics either.  I also thought that took Obama out of context as well.  But at least it helped the ignorant among us understand why the statement might be offensive.  But the first point that he made, the one about Obama's general ignorance of Pennsylvania's current state of economics, was the most prescient I think.

That said, we always are reading in TIME magazine and the Wall Street Journal and the talking heads are always saying that it's easy to recruit terrorists in places like Sudan because of their poverty.  They're always going on some touch-feely argument about how we ought to try to alleviate poverty in Africa and Asia as a means to ensuring good will toward the US and as a means to defeat the cause of such resentment that folks turn to guns and allah.  Now, how can we claim that every one else is like that but not us?  Either we buy into the argument that economics is a tremendous motivator, and makes folks get a little preachy and a little violent when they're poor, or we don't buy into it.  And if we do buy into that, then it's reasonable to, perhaps, talk about sinking money into the plight of impoverished, starving Africans and south Asians.  But, to be fair, then we shouldn't think ourselves in our own rich nation above such human frailties.  If we don't buy into the argument, then that's fine too.  But then we'll have to stop claiming that poverty is a major reason that it's easy for terrorist organizations to recruit suicide bombers.

That is, we can't have it both ways.  And that's exactly what some of these talking heads are doing.  The claim is valid enough when they're talking about brown people half a world away.  But when they talk about the poor white hillfolk in the Keystone State, it's suddenly too offensive a thing to say.  Then again, let's be honest:  Hillary's down just now, at least in terms of delegates, so it makes sense if you're a journalist to put Obama down.  If Obama's down, then you want to put Hillary down.  This will ensure viewership.  Why does this thread go on for 26 pages?  Because it's good for business.  Play something over and over on CNN and folks will begin to think it's important.  And therefore you'll be important for breaking the story.  Once again, economics provides the answer.   Insensitive though he may be, and perhaps he missed a few key details, but Obama is definitely on to something.

[angus]

I don't agree, largely because, I've never bought the "They hate America because they hate freedom" argument.  (I would say that the want the power America has.)

The problem is that Obama's argument is a gigantic non sequitur, the "the economy has been for decades [a false premise in itself], so the locals cling to guns and religion."

you caught me a little off guard.  I don't buy into the "they hate freedom" argument either, but I can't see how that precludes the possibility that poverty, or at least lack of economic mobility, might be the source of the frustration which is exploited by terrorist recruiters.

Other than that I'll just admit that I'm apparently out of touch, like Obama.  I didn't initially find the statement Sam posted to be strange or offensive.  It wasn't till the next night when I saw CNN making a whole one-hour program about his statement that I even gave it a second thought.  Now that I do think about it, I understand Rendell's point.  But that doesn't mean the connection Obama was trying to make wasn't logical.  Taken in context, it says to me that lack of economic mobility is a major source of frustration, and folks like to project.  In this case, Obama merely notes that immigrants and liberal trade policies are easy targets for projections of fear, and spirituality is something many find appealing to when the chips are down.  The fact that he may have underestimated Pennsylvania's current economic condition needn't distract from the validity of the analysis.

Think they're still playing this?  I didn't watch any TV yesterday, nor this morning.  But it wouldn't surprise me if the talking heads are still trying to get some mileage out of this.

[angus]

This is amazing!  Thirty-eight pages!  I didn't even catch the sound-bite on the news till after Sam posted the topic, and even then I didn't think it was worth a thread.  Am I out of touch or what?

Sam, you ought to be giving stock-market advice.  By the way, you got any?  I'm tanking over here.  Not bad enough to take up hunting or attending mass, but it's been a rough quarter. 

[angus]

This is amazing!  Thirty-eight pages!  I didn't even catch the sound-bite on the news till after Sam posted the topic, and even then I didn't think it was worth a thread.  Am I out of touch or what?

Sam, you ought to be giving stock-market advice.  By the way, you got any?  I'm tanking over here.  Not bad enough to take up hunting or attending mass, but it's been a rough quarter. 

I bought Citi near the start of January... someone told me that, it had gone down so much it couldn't possibly go down any further.

So yesterday I'm in the Hy-Vee supermarket and I see this chick come in with a red shirt that says I PUT OUT on the front.  Red T-shirt with white lettering.  Nothing else on the shirt.  I'm wondering if that means the same thing today as it did in the mid-eighties when I was her age.  I suppose it does, but I'm probably out of touch.  She was chunky and had a really big nose.  And her arms were much more hairy than I usually appreciate in a woman.  But I have to say that the shirt did it for me.  I actually found her attractive, whereas I wouldn't otherwise.  Maybe that's why she wore the shirt.  I suppose the kids do that sort of thing all the time, nowadays.  Or maybe "putting out" means something different now.  Why knows?  What I do now is that I, like Obama, must be somewhat out of touch.

Incidentally, about ten minutes later I'm at the rear of the store, in the butcher's section trying to pick out the evening's entree, when this really old guy with thick glasses comes sauntering up to the butcher trying to pick out a ribeye.  That one.  This one, sir?  No, that one!  O you mean this one, sir?  And he's becoming a bit cranky by now.  Look, I mean that one, without so much fat.  Not as much fat as the one I had yesterday.  The one I had yesterday had too much fat.  I'm on cholesterol medication, you know, and I need to watch out.

What's wrong with this picture?  I'm stunned on at least four levels.  But I'm still out of touch, I know.

I bought a bunch of GE stock at 38 a share after it had gone down from about fifty in a month.  Same thought:  it can't get much worse.  Now it's at 32 or thereabouts.  Hey, at least it's one stock that pays dividends.  And my ORP lost about 2400 dollars between December 31 and March 31.  No sheet.  2400 in a quarter.  I'm not sure I have ever had such a bad quarter since I have been a grown-up. 

I think Obama is a smart enough guy to read stats.  He probably reads his own investment analysis sheet.  Why not?  Of course, he's a tad older than I and therefore probably invests a little more conservatively.  But he's also probably a tad wealthier than I and therefore probably invests a little more money than I.  Either way, I have to imagine he's sensitive to these sorts of things.  Like every candidate, he probably knows that the unemployment rate is a mere 2.5 percent in Cedar Falls.  Seems like every candidate--even back when there were nine in each party--knew more about the economic condition of the Hawkeye State than I did.  But times have changed.  And they all knew Iowa was doing pretty well.  There were all of 36 foreclosures in Black Hawk County last year.  This, in a county with about 200 thousand people.  So don't count on getting a really good deal if you're looking to buy a home.  Maybe it's a buyer's market in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, but it's still a slow, stable, steady increase in Black Hawk County, Iowa. 

The point is, it's hard to keep up with what's going on in every county in every state.  But it's probably a reasonable assumption that recessionary economics hits many, especially those living paycheck to paycheck.  There are probably more sensitive ways to say so, but I don't begrudge a man a little political incorrectness once in a while.  In fact, I think it's refreshing to see a candidate willing to say something plainly without parsing.  In an age when you can be sued for asking children to remove themselves from trees, I think the candor is refreshing and bold.

Many of us are hurting just a little, economically, and during those times we become reflective.  For me, I get off on cycling, scuba-diving, and trying to make this suitcase-sized scanning-tunneling micrograph that a colleague gave me work.  For others, it's hunting, spousal abuse, and impugning immigrants.  But really, it's the same thing.  Get your mind off the stock market for a while.  Obama's comments may have underestimated certain areas of growth in the Keystone State, but his analysis seems reasonable to me, even if a little hardspoken.

[angus]

I don't know, JJ.  I freely admit that I'm out of touch.  I cannot be more honest than to say that it didn't catch me at all in the wrong way when I read the original comment.  In this thread.  Which, by that time, was about six pages long.  And I honestly was taken by surprise at the amount of time the talking heads were devoting to the seemingly innocuous comment on Saturday.  By now, I guess we're all getting pretty desensitized to it.  In that sense, it's not unlike the replaying and replaying of the video in which "motorist Rodney King" was repeatedly and violently pummeled by california policemen.  The ultimate analysis of that trial was that the leniency shown to the officers was the result of a clever campaign of desensitization of imagery.  Maybe, when it's all said and done--and it will be all said and all done at some future juncture--Obama will be thankful for the overplay which will result in desensitization. 

All I know is that at my core I think the statement seems like a reasonable analysis by a man who got a few of the supporting facts wrong.  Imperfect though it is, it is not the sort of statement that I would have predicted to be worth a thirty-eight page thread.

But then what do I know?  I bought GE stock in January, didn't I?

[angus]

Most people wouldn't really see a difference between "do you personally find the comments offensive" and "were you personally offended".

True -- I was going to add that but I can't remember the word for "the skill of differentiating between trivialities" this morning. 

You meant minutiae, not trivialities.  Minutiae are fine details.  Trivialities are little-known facts.

[angus]

Most people wouldn't really see a difference between "do you personally find the comments offensive" and "were you personally offended".

True -- I was going to add that but I can't remember the word for "the skill of differentiating between trivialities" this morning. 

You meant minutiae, not trivialities.  Minutiae are fine details.  Trivialities are little-known facts.

Yeah, that would be one instance of this word I can't remember.

actually, that would be one facet of the word you can't remember, or perhaps one aspect of the word you can't remember.  An instance is one situation in a series of events, or one stage in a process.

[angus]

Most people wouldn't really see a difference between "do you personally find the comments offensive" and "were you personally offended".

True -- I was going to add that but I can't remember the word for "the skill of differentiating between trivialities" this morning. 

You meant minutiae, not trivialities.  Minutiae are fine details.  Trivialities are little-known facts.

Yeah, that would be one instance of this word I can't remember.

actually, that would be one facet of the word you can't remember, or perhaps one aspect of the word you can't remember.  An instance is one situation in a series of events, or one stage in a process.

No, your pointing out a trivial grammatical distinction would be one instance of the concept represented by the word.

Touché! 

I'm just looking to extend the life of this magnificent forty-page thread.  Or "bump" as the kids say nowadays.  Have you thought of your word yet?

[angus]

But they have.  And so have democrats.

Well, not exactly, but many have commented on how the hamito-semitic peoples of the levant and north africa and the arabian penninsula have, out of a distinct lack of economic opportunity, turned to religious tantrums and even terrorism.  And nobody questions that.  No one ever even created a thread about it, much less a fourty-one page diatribe.  I have commented about this before and you wasted no time shooting it down.  But don't you see it's the same phenomenon to which Obama refers?  Admittedly a little less acute, and if Rendell is to be believed, a little less accurate.  But my guess is that you bought into the idea when it was rag-heads and camel jockeys that they were talking about.  But try to say the same thing about philly folks, whether white or black, and you're up in arms.  So to speak.

[angus]

But they have.  And so have democrats.

Well, not exactly, but many have commented on how the hamito-semitic peoples of the levant and north africa and the arabian penninsula have, out of a distinct lack of economic opportunity, turned to religious tantrums and even terrorism.  And nobody questions that.  No one ever even created a thread about it, much less a fourty-one page diatribe.  I have commented about this before and you wasted no time shooting it down.  But don't you see it's the same phenomenon to which Obama refers?  Admittedly a little less acute, and if Rendell is to be believed, a little less accurate.  But my guess is that you bought into the idea when it was rag-heads and camel jockeys that they were talking about.  But try to say the same thing about philly folks, whether white or black, and you're up in arms.  So to speak.

Angus, first who has said that?  Second, who has said, "Therefor, we need economic development in Arabian Penninsula?"  The only think I've heard is that some people are rewarded financially because they engage in terrorist acts.  They are not being paid, however, to have a religious belief.

I've heard people saying, "[Some] Arabs/Muslims hate freedom," but not economic development.  And, as I've indicated, I have not bought into the "hate freedom," argument.

consternation.

why have you twice referred to the "freedom-hating" diabtribe of the Bushies, when it is clear that we both think it's a load of horseshït? It is a very distracting thing to do, and has nothing to do with the arguments either of us are trying to make, and we both disagree with it, and neither of us have ever given credence to the idea.  You're either trying to yank my chain, or you're confused.  I'll assume the latter, since you generally don't go out of your way to constern.  But that's a difficult assumption as well, since you're also generally well-informed.

To answer your question, the BBC world report often comments on this phenomenon.  As does CNN's Christianne Amanpour.  Moreover, a number of respected writers including Samuel Huntington, Gary Becker, and Joe Klein of TIME have written that terrorism is often grievance driven, the grivance almost always being economic.  National Geographic, as well--and I know you're a subscriber--does several articles a year on the phenomenon.  Take the December 2007 issue on the "little town of Bethlehem" (now divided by a huge wall, the sort that some americans want to build along our southern border) in which Michael Finkel points out that the very wall built to protect west bank settlers has had the effect of stifling trade, which will no doubt lead to further acts of desperation.

Fair enough that you may or may not agree with such assertions, but it's amazing to hear you feign ignorance that such assertions are constantly being made.