Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to Counterpoint.

I know some of the people you describe too.
Mary Anne — (archived)

My point is, Obama presumed to explain to people in a room full of money why he's having rough going in rural PA by characterizing those who live there as bewildered, angry people who have been let down by the federal government, and who need a "message of hope" from the federal government to recover.

We have the bewildered but placid. We have the angry but aware. We have the content and hopeful. We have the resigned in despair.

We have those who believe the government has let them down. We have those who believe we have gotten the government we deserve because we voted for them, because we as a nation all together voted for them, or because those people across the street voted for them.

We have one-issue voters. We have racists. We have religious bigots. Of several kinds.

We have homeless and luckless. We have homeless and mentally ill, who practically live in the library.

We have impoverished families whose poverty extends to emotional, intellectual and social resources that the parents don't possess to pass on to their children.

And all that in this little town. We're like a lot of little towns.

Yet, yes, this is the place I described. Not so idyllic, not intended to be described as idyllic, but far more complex than the mass psychological analysis Mr. Obama picked up from the back of his cereal box.

Recently, we have suffered under a federal government whose leadership has attempted, and in some part succeeded, in destroying public works through cultivation of incompetence and in undermining the Bill of Rights through cultivation of fear. That leadership needs to be replaced. But it is not responsible for all the ills in the world, nor is it even responsible for all the ingrained social behaviors in small-town Pennsylvania. A change in leadership in the Land of Oz will not fix most of the problems we have here. Only we can do that. And as Jesus said, the poor will be with us always. For the perpetual poor, at least, it doesn't matter who the Caesar of the moment is.

Mr. Obama seeks to be an inspirational leader. He can't inspire people whom he doesn't respect once they know he doesn't respect them. "Oh, the poor things, they can't help it" might inspire rich San Franciscans to open their wallets, but it's no kind of message of hope for us poor things.

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