Wow.

Thanks for sharing this, Bil. I think many people can relate to your story. I know I can.

I completely agree that Obama has been attacked for simply dropping the spin and telling the truth. Americans ARE bitter and have good reason to be.

I wish our country was capable of having honest discussion about our flaws and faults...

'No matter how hard its adversary-falsehood-may try to overwhelm it, truth refuses to yield'

Nelson Mandela

Damn, Bil. You said a mouthful! Way to drop some truth yourself. Perhaps YOU could be Obama's running mate!

42% unemployment rate? That's nucking futs!

As for bitterness, I can totally relate to what you're saying. I, too, have spent the last 10 years homeless, on the brink of homelessness, and worrying about how to pay rent when I wasn't homeless. I grew up on welfare and worried that if I ate too much my parents would get upset because of how much money food cost.

My family is from a small town in northern AZ that has about 300 inhabitants (if you count the cows). The main source of employment is the coal-fired power plant that supplies electricity for the bulk of the state. The town has an unbelievably high rate of cancer as a result. Most people live paycheck to paycheck and grow their own food or hunt to feed their families. I'd say that 99% of them are Republicans, and 99.9% of them are Mormon.

I think that "people are looking for change," (to quote Obama), but no one (not even Obama) has articulated what that change will look like. I tend to take everything Obama says with a grain of salt, because I have a hard time believing that any politician is going to "make a change." They have too much invested in the Status Quo, as you so rightly point out, to really change anything that much.

That being said, I agree with you that people are taking Obama's comments way out of context. And I distrust McCain (and even Hillary these days) even more than I distrust Obama.

I said back in December that I'm sitting this one out, but Hillary's been, as Terrance put it last week, trying my patience.

This is a great post, Bil. Thanks for adding some more context to Obama's comments. When we have an establishment that'll lash out at anyone who dares to talk about class, we have to at least be willing to defend the ideas themselves even if the politician who articulates them isn't perfect himself.

Great post, Bil!!

This recent attack on Obama is just spin--otherwise known as propaganda--of the sort Republicans have used so successfully for the past 25+ years.

They paint Democrats and "Liberals" as elites, in opposition to "down-earth Conservatives," yet truthfully, me and my liberal friends--living on the coasts--are mostly working-class. Likewise, one would be hard-pressed to find a person more elite than GW Bush--son of a president, grandson of a senator, alumnus of Yale, member of Yale's elite Skull and Bones society, draft-dodger via fast-tracking with the Texas National Guard,and so on.

In a con as old as time, Republicans preoccupy socially conservative voters with a false dichotomy, get them riled up with emotion over, "God, guns and gays," then rob them blind.

The dance is beginning to lose its appeal, however. Obama's words were right on. That's exactly why the Republicans are going after him.

Ya know when I heard that it was like daa he realy gets it.Then Billary and gang jumped on him daa.They must not have ever lived in a one industry town and when its gone so goes the jobs.My dad was a Doctor more than once he was paid in veggies from a garden or in services done in kind.Doc ill paint your house if you count it on my bill etc yes Senator Obama got it right.Also there are many who think gee why vote as mine wont count because fill in the blank those folks are out there like it or not.

Very eye-opening post. Way to speak your truth, Bil.

You said more articulately what I attempted to say in a comment on a previous thread discussing this same quote: The wording doesn't sound nearly as bad as it is made to be when read in complete context. I do wish Obama might have said, instead of simply the word "religion", that he had said "their particular take on religion" ... I think that's what he meant, and that phrase would have explained, and thus isolated and protected him, that much more ... but the truth is that he said what he said.

I am not only cynical about government, I have, in just the last few weeks, become cynical about the media, too. The fact that a candidate can attempt to engage meaningfully, and inevitably get re-spun and attacked because of it, means that until the public wises up to this syndrome, the chances of a meaningful dialogue about race and class is virtually nonexistent. Even MLK had this problem 40 years ago --- yet Reagan was dubbed both "The Great Communicator" as well as "The Teflon President" because he was able to discuss difficult issues, the issues he wanted to discuss, and somehow deflect this type of damaging media spin. And to this day, I'm not sure how he did that --- except that the right-wing press, which usually sought to protect him, is much, much, much more powerful than they make themselves out to be.

The Mandella quote that Monica supplied above is apt, and there is a similar quote by MLK which says that the arc of history always bends towards Truth. A moment like this is when some of us on the progressive side, in order to avoid the cancer of bitterness, may need to tap into our take on "religion" or faith: Obama was doing his best to forge a path toward the Truth, and for that I commend him. Obama may not prevail, but eventually Truth will prevail.

Obama opened up the scab over the abscess called "class" - the thing that isn't supposed to exist in America, according to the mythology taught in school and church-based home schooling and in the media. (White) People are more willing to believe that they are "like everyone else" than to admit that other people have had advantages and that no matter how hard they work, they will still be behind. The proletarian pride of the early 20th century has dissipated and been replaced by the Horatio Alger fantasy.

I do wish Dems would stop allowing themselves to be painted as "anti-gun". They'd do far better to promote themselves as "pro-gun-safety", "pro-responsible-hunter" types. Rural pro-gun people are mostly non-loons, they are hobbyists or kill for meat. It's the suburban power-fantasy, never-hunted-for-dinner, non-professional-gun-users (ie, not career military or urban police) that tend toward looniness - they want a penis enhancer.

Thank you so much for a quite moving, personal story.

Frankly, when Hillary claims that Americans in small towns are optimistic, resilient & enthusiastic I really question whether she has visited one. If she doesn't understand that so many voters are discontented, angry, frustrated & bitter over their powerlessness in a country where the politicians do not respond to our needs but are concerned only with preserving their own power and catering to their wealthy cronies, then clearly it is Hillary who is out of touch.

In many small rural towns where meaningful economic opportunities are non-existent the social problems are significant: just ask the local sheriff in many such places about the problem of crystal meth addiction -- perhaps replacing in part the bars about which you write -- that is destroying so many families and lives.

I support Obama, and no he is not my "ideal" candidate (I am way too far to the left for my ideals ever to be actualized) but I fundamentally believe that he has a good heart, wants to help the least fortunate among us, and restore accountability to the government as an institution that should listen to and serve the people.

And the Clintons? I never thought they cared about anyone but themselves.

Bil, about the time you left Winchester I visited it for the one and only time. Remember the glass museum there? It was somehow connected to something that had been an anchor factory. I could feel the fear of the people who worked there that it would close. There was no business reason for me to return as there was no money for people to buy anything I sold, so I did not go back.

That museum was a monument to pride of manufacturing that our country has chosen to export. We are changing from a country that could say: "Look what we can make!" to one that must now look at it's rusted factories and lament what it used to be able to make. When I began in the luxury gift sales trade it was easy for an independent to represent 50% American made products. (1976 was a hot year for American Made)
Now a similar sales agent would be lucky to carry any American made merchandise whatsoever. I am bitter about that too.

I am particularly bitter about politicians and AJ's media commentators who glibly fan the fires of hatred, class and gun owners for audience share.

You observations about Obama are perfectly on the mark, and he may well shortly have the nomination. My concern is execution of a populist agenda at which I believe Hillary would be superior. Finding the progressive center is not a vice. The status quo is bankrupt and pulling out the "class" card is just a sign of their present fear."

Thank you for this post

Thanks everyone for the kind words.

@Robert: The factory was Anchor Glass Company. That's where the anchor comes in. :) The museum is closed now - it shuttered for no attendance. Even the county historical museum closed down.

Wow, Bil, smokin' post. Thanks.
I, too, grew up in a small town, but one with a bit more economic diversity than Winchester. Still, every time the largest plant in town went through a slow period, the lives of neighbors and friends splintered into a thousand little pieces. Obama got it right and so did you. Generations of frustration, privation and fear cause us to be bitter and bitterness causes us to self-destruct and to blame. Would that our children's children be able to survive and thrive under a very different economic system, one that actually values workers first and profits much later.