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Mocked and forgotten: who will speak for the American white working class? (GOPe wants them dead)
theguardian.com ^ | Thursday 24 March 2016 10.00 EDT | Chris Arnade

Posted on 05/15/2016 10:57:29 PM PDT by Trumpinator

The National Review, a conservative magazine for the Republican elite, recently unleashed an attack on the “white working class”, who they see as the core of Trump’s support.

The first essay, Father Führer, was written by the National Review’s Kevin Williamson, who used his past reporting from places such as Appalachia and the Rust Belt to dissect what he calls “downscale communities”.

He describes them as filled with welfare dependency, drug and alcohol addiction, and family anarchy – and then proclaims:

“Nothing happened to them. There wasn’t some awful disaster, There wasn’t a war or a famine or a plague or a foreign occupation. ... The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles.”

A few days later, another columnist, David French, added:

“Simply put, [white working class] Americans are killing themselves and destroying their families at an alarming rate. No one is making them do it. The economy isn’t putting a bottle in their hand. Immigrants aren’t making them cheat on their wives or snort OxyContin.”

.....

Downscale communities are everywhere in America, not just limited to Appalachia and the Rust Belt – it’s where I have spent much of the past five years documenting poverty and addiction.

To say that “nothing happened to them” is stunningly wrong. Over the past 35 years the working class has been devalued, the result of an economic version of the Hunger Games.....The working class only had their hands. They lost and have been left to deal on their own.

(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: trump
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To: Trumpinator

I didn’t say that playing video games causes delinquency. The passion for video games doesn’t seem to connect with his goal of being a preacher.

Re filled bowling allies: We were absolutely not permitted to go bowling when I was growing up because there was beer inside. We couldn’t go skating at a rink because of the music and it “could lead to dancing”. (Sidewalk skating was OK.) Parents have different opinions and values.


61 posted on 05/16/2016 7:00:17 AM PDT by MayflowerMadam (Trump loves America and will protect the people who live here first, last and always. - Coulter)
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To: Trumpinator
"Nothing happened to them."

Oh, my word. First, the Civil War happened to them, especially the independent-minded and agrarian Scots-Irish, who having migrated later were already under the thumb of descendents of the colonial English plantation elites. Scots-Irish have traditionally made up a large percentage of the U.S. military until the present, and have sacrificed their young men for this country at a higher rate than many other ethnic groups.

Regardless of what side anyone sympathized with in the Civil War, the North oppressed the South economically for 100 years after the conflict, making sure the South would not "rise again" against the Union. Lower economic sector whites lived with poor schools and economic exploitation, working in coal mines in Appalachia, the Northern-owned textile and lumber-related industries elsewhere in the South, or fisheries and tourism along the coast.

There was a brief period of rising fortunes from the 1970s to 2008, but at the same time, NAFTA and offshoring started destroying the textile and furniture industries beginning in the early 90s .

During the Obama administration, our president purposefully announced that he would break the coal industry, manipulated the BP oil spill, paralyzing fisheries and tourism in the Gulf states, and has made Southern history and culture a particular target. In particular, white Christian Southerners who "cling to their Bibles" have been targeted for punishment or separation in the military, where open expressions of Christian belief are now regarded as destructive to unit cohesion and morale.

62 posted on 05/16/2016 7:01:58 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. --George Orwell)
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To: Albion Wilde

The whites covered in the story are also in the north.


63 posted on 05/16/2016 7:03:25 AM PDT by Trumpinator ("Are you Batman?" the boy asked. "I am Batman," Trump said. youtube.com/watch?v=HZA9k7WAuiY)
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To: Psalm 73

See post 62.


64 posted on 05/16/2016 7:06:28 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. --George Orwell)
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To: Apple Pan Dowdy; bert
I do admit that many women today do not understand this either. In their warped view they see women somehow elevated above men and call themselves "feminists" when they aren't "feminine" at all. They don't want to play on the team either.

That is my impression of what Bert was trying to convey by saying women's "place in society." You leapt to a negative conclusion unnecessarily, imho.

Take a look here, and see if at least part of it doesn't ring true (by the way, I am a woman):

Why Women Destroy Nations*/Civilizations - Uncomfortable Truths (video)

65 posted on 05/16/2016 7:22:19 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. --George Orwell)
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To: bert
"Quite a rant..."

Oh my, for someone who thinks himself quite the philosopher, you resort to calling a discussion, a "rant" when you have no real argument to contribute to the discussion. If I didn't know better, I would tend to think you take lessons from the liberals.

Why do you feel it necessary or truth to make the liberal feminist women seem to be the dominate or majority of women in America? The feminist movement would have us all to believe that to be the case. The reality is that they are just the loudest, the most in-you-face, and have the media backing. Rest assured that the media is lying to you.

You are telling us that "Women are in fact to blame", as if all our national woes would disappear if only these arrogant women would be put in their place (where ever in your clouded mind that might be). Must all women be mothers and wives? Granted, that is God's plan for us and is a good thing, and I would not trade my being a mother and wife for any thing in the world, but forcing deluded feminist into being mothers and wives is counter productive and your God-given status as a man does not include mandating such a dictate on all women. Dare I even suggest that men making statements such as you have made today, sadly only gives the leftest feminist more fuel for their hate.

I will tell you this and hope you are listening..... as I graduated from college in 1969, I toyed with the ideas of feminism, thinking them grand and thinking that they would elevate me to .... well I don't rightly know to what, just elevate me somehow. A year later I married a wonderful man who patiently taught me many things, among them ... (1) beekeeping, tossing this one in because your profile indicates you will appreciate that, and (2)a real understanding of what God meant when His scriptures said in marriage the two will become one. I am willing to let my husband take the undisputed leadership in our family because he has earned it everyday in all he does and says and as God promised, he is very good at it. And my husband, on the other hand puts me on a pedestal right beside him, treats me as an equal..... actually as an extension of himself since we are "one" and has NEVER told me it is my fault when something goes wrong. Instead he says let's fix it, together.

I wonder sometimes if many of the liberal feminist have just never met a man like my husband who they can trust and respect enough.

66 posted on 05/16/2016 7:24:28 AM PDT by Apple Pan Dowdy (... as American as Apple Pie)
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To: Trumpinator
When globalization happened in the 90s the rich invested their tax savings overseas in China and deposited the profits in overseas banks.

Only Trump, among all the candidates, has introduced and then pounded on this point. (May God bless him.)

67 posted on 05/16/2016 7:26:48 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. --George Orwell)
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To: Apple Pan Dowdy

Like it or not, deny it or not, but the women that have been freed from the pains and responsibilities of marriage and child birth have exerted adequate influence to bring irreversible and harmful change to America.

It is irrefutable truth


68 posted on 05/16/2016 7:27:57 AM PDT by bert ((K.E.; N.P.; GOPc;+12, 73, ....Opabinia can teach us a lot)
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To: Trumpinator
The whites covered in the story are also in the north.

The process of disenfranchising laborers started in the South and has now moved to all the other formerly industrialized areas of the country as power is now polarized not as North v. South, but digitized Government v. Everyone Else.

69 posted on 05/16/2016 7:33:16 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. --George Orwell)
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To: Trumpinator

National Review: playbook for out of touch OLD GOPe jerks...may they rot in hell...


70 posted on 05/16/2016 7:34:14 AM PDT by GOPJ (Trump wants to increase the size of the pie. Ryan wants everyone eat less.)
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To: bert

Um...you’re not advocating for the banning of the epidural during childbirth, are you? Or must childbirth be as painful as possible in order for a woman to cease being ‘to blame’?


71 posted on 05/16/2016 7:41:38 AM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard the Third: With my own people alone I should like to drive away the Turks (Muslims))
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To: Albion Wilde
Mostly agree - the Gub'mint had to put more effort into destroying the social fabric of the modern South due to its strong martial and Biblical heritage.

I think the North was "ripe for the picking" - just look, for instance at the ease oppressive gun-control laws are enacted in the North.
And lots of empty (and emptying) churches up here, not so much down South.

72 posted on 05/16/2016 7:50:09 AM PDT by Psalm 73 ("Gentlemen, you can't fight in here - this is the War Room".)
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To: HLPhat
"Why was the demoralization of American culture a strategic Soviet objective?"

It's sad how many conservatives don't get the connection between the break-up of the family and its accompanying social ills and our wretched economic performance.
(Included in this is the removal of Biblical principles from the corporate board rooms).

73 posted on 05/16/2016 7:54:18 AM PDT by Psalm 73 ("Gentlemen, you can't fight in here - this is the War Room".)
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To: Albion Wilde; bert
"That is my impression of what Bert was trying to convey by saying women's "place in society." You leapt to a negative conclusion unnecessarily, imho. Take a look here, and see if at least part of it doesn't ring true...."

I watched the video that you linked to. I somewhat disagree on it's premise that women by their very nature are destructive to nations. I think that rather it is the very nature of unGodly people in general who are destructive to nations and to civilizations whether they be men or women. The feminist movement is anti Judeo/Christian values, so are the wimpy men who perpetrate that movement.

74 posted on 05/16/2016 8:05:01 AM PDT by Apple Pan Dowdy (... as American as Apple Pie)
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To: miss marmelstein

Like most here, you confuse what you think I believe with what I and others observe and report. Then to compound that error you overlay what you believe with what you think I believe and reach a false conclusion.

With regard to women in general, I am happily married to a woman that has achieved more than most can even hope for. She would be, must be, considered to be a “strong” woman that has forged a path that has earned her all sorts of kudos. She continues to do so, post retirement, as a volunteer, sought after by many to contribute her time and talents.


75 posted on 05/16/2016 8:13:38 AM PDT by bert ((K.E.; N.P.; GOPc;+12, 73, ....Opabinia can teach us a lot)
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To: bert
"Like it or not, deny it or not, but the women that have been freed from the pains and responsibilities of marriage and child birth have exerted adequate influence to bring irreversible and harmful change to America. It is irrefutable truth.

Of course it is true that these ungodly women have done much harm. But so have men who's greed and love of money and power brought just as much harm. By your reasoning you would blame women for both evils. Why do you not blame men as well. As I have already said..... it is not the fact that some women chose to not marry and bear children that is alone destroying our nation. It is the ungodly beliefs of these women who cause the hatred of "family" along with the evils of ungodly men who put their power and wealth above "family" who are the problem. You just will not find a true Christian woman who is anti-family because the Holy Scriptures who true Christians profess to follow, does not allow it.

76 posted on 05/16/2016 8:18:50 AM PDT by Apple Pan Dowdy (... as American as Apple Pie)
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To: Jim Noble
Same thing here 3,000 miles away. In our case in the Pacific NW, Oregon specifically, it was the federal government and the environmentalists that took out our middle class families with their save the spotted owl meme.

Mills closed down, forests burning up due to poor mgmt, not thinning, not harvesting, not replanting when they do burn. Insane forest mgmt policies, now the owls are getting killed in the environmentalists and democrats windmills. And the mill workers are being killed by heroin.

77 posted on 05/16/2016 8:21:48 AM PDT by thirst4truth (America, What difference does it make?)
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To: Apple Pan Dowdy

there are more women than men


78 posted on 05/16/2016 8:22:41 AM PDT by bert ((K.E.; N.P.; GOPc;+12, 73, ....Opabinia can teach us a lot)
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To: Psalm 73
>>It’s sad how many conservatives don’t get the connection between the break-up of the family and its accompanying social ills and our wretched economic performance.

Yep.

>>(Included in this is the removal of Biblical principles from the corporate board rooms).

Removed and replaced with the worship of the corporate-collective culture’s created things. It's the same behavior that is observable in the symptomatic cycle described in Romans chapter 1 - where the culture defied this commandment:

Exodus 20:3

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

The punitive natural response is as predictable as when the law of gravity is ignored whilst stepping off a cliff.

79 posted on 05/16/2016 8:30:05 AM PDT by HLPhat (It takes a Republic TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS - not a populist Tyranny of the Majority)
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To: Albion Wilde

You must remember that after Reconstruction failed, the Northern business elite formed a partnership with the Southern commercial interests, with the antebellum elite becoming junior partners in the commercial development of the South. From Richmond to New Orleans, whether we are talking about tobacco, cotton, lumber, coal, manufacture of textiles, cigarettes, and furniture, or tourism, the old families retained control of the South, sharing it with ambitious newcomers, including former members of the lower classes, Jews, and transplanted Northerners. These elites kept unions out of the South and used the color line to divide the workers to focus their hatred on the opposite race rather than the wealthy classes. Yankee capitalists could not have accomplished this without the assistance of their Southern junior partners. In their own home turf of what we now call the Rust Belt, they were unable to play ethnic groups against each other as successfully as the race card was played by the Southern elite. More importantly, the Northern industrialists did not keep unions out.


80 posted on 05/16/2016 8:38:45 AM PDT by Wallace T.
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