Rednecks vs. the Powerful Elite: Who's To Blame???

In the "Define A 'Typical' Republican" thread, there seems to be two main responses: 1) Ignorant Fundie Redneck, and 2) Capitalist Suit with lots of money and no compassion. We've all seen many examples of both of these kinds of Republicans in the past few years. The question is: which of these two types is more to blame for the downfall of America? Who is worse, Bush and all of his elitist cronies, or the millions of ignoramuses who voted for him and continue to support him? If you had to pick just one group of people who should shoulder the blame for all of the bad decisions America has made since the year 2000, who would you choose? Discuss...

use the ignorance of the Fundie Redneck to their own means.....

There aren't enough Elites to manage it.

have all the money......those supporting them are the sheeple....

enabled the powerful elite to dumb down Middle America, because the powerful elite and the corpwhorate owned MSM have the same goals. It is easier to control the masses if they are ignorant and the corpwhorate owned commercialized MSM is geared toward that purpose. This is why they have brainwashed Middle America in to believing that you save money by spending it.

Re-districting
Illegal vote counting
Laundered money for the most campaign name recognition

How far will they have to go to keep their power?

A "Typical Republican" is blindly obedient, incapable of having the ability to think for themselve or know right from wrong, therefore they need and trust Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh to guide them and tell them what they should or shouldn't do, also what to believe in and to tell them that things are going great in Iraq even though they look bad, etc.

It's concentration of wealth and power that props up these disgusting, corrupt rulers. Vote for the Pukes, vote for supercorruption and corpo-fascism. Vote for Dems for a kinder, gentler corporate rule. Those who are supposedly against it feed the beast with their consumer impulse, anyway. The Republicans just shovel the ideology. It takes a village to hand the village over to corop-fascists.

different degrees of acceleration and speed

the U.S. equivalent of Mussolini's fascisti or Franco's Falange; the people you describe as "Ignorant Fundie Rednecks" are the corporate/Republican version of Hitler's storm troopers.

Just as we have seen in the aftermath of Katrina, peeling away the velvet slipper of "compassionate conservatism" reveals the fascist jackboot beneath. The Bush Administration is already unabashedly fascist; the only real question is whether the administration will go all the way to genuine Nazism (unleashing the JesuNazi stormtroopers in the process) -- a real danger if it begins to look as if a progressive majority may win next year and in 2008.

It's the business, stupid.

It was a hard choice, but it made a little more sense because although the cap. suits set up the whole situation, because they control the business world which is responsible for the FR's not being able to get anywhere, the FR's actually commit the compound error of loving their abuser. They vote with the cap. suits on issues of belief, and then lose out when their jobs go elsewhere. It's stupid. It's like shooting yourself in the foot. If the FR's would see where the problem really is, things could change for the better. But they won't.

That doesn't forgive what the suits have done, because for the most part they're a bunch of nasty, thieving, self-centered, heartless criminals, but a change would take the wind out of the corporate sails, and as long as the FR's continue to vote against their own best interests, they make it tougher for everyone.

counted on doing what is in their own best interest, so if the regulatory system is changed to make it more profitable to obey the law, they will obey the law.


OTOH, the fundie nut-jobs will consistantly work against their own best interests in pursuing ideological purity, and take the rest of us down with them. That makes them far more dangerous.

The fundies are simply the voting muscle, but the elite capitalists are the ones who rule the party with an iron fist. Nearly everything that has transpired in the past five years has been to their benefit. The religious wrong has gotten very little out of Bush and his cronies.

but the problem is, that the fundie idiots believe that Shrub and the Repukes are going to bring on ARMAGEDDON for them, so that they can all go join Jaysus in the sky. And they don't give a damn how much the rest of humanity has to suffer to achieve this fantasy.

In general, they don't delve into factual politics and believe what they are spoonfed (or force fed) by the MSM or church.

religion. The Elite are well educated(current pResident excluded) and either know or have available the results of their policies. With the use of their ultimate weapon, television, they play the ignorant and not so ignorant masses like a fine instrument.

As to why working class folk, particularly southerners, vote against their best interest by voting rethug, I think we need to let those folks define their best interest and not impose our vision. What has the Democratic Party done for working class folks in recent decades that is identifiable and tangible in their daily lives? Democrats used to deliver: The New Deal, the TVA and so on. Our most recent Democratic president pushed and signed NAFTA which has cost brazillions of good paying jobs. Meanwhile the rethugs offer them the assurance of Righteousness with the help of some compliant, deranged preachers and at no cost to the rethugs themselves.

If the Democratic Party wishes to become relevant again to the working class it is going to have to offer something that the rethugs can't or won't. Something like good paying jobs and healthcare. Bread and butter wins elections but it will have to be real enough to overcome established prejudices and memes.

Plus the "terrorism" factor? People talk about how the lower class votes Republican because they think they might win the lottery someday and don't want to pay taxes on their money, but I really think it's more about homosexuality and fear of terrorists. All the good economic programs in the world can't compete with that.

Bread and butter always rules. It just hasn't been tried in recent decades. The Democratic Party just needs to channel the ghost of FDR. Just telling people that they're wrong won't work, particularly with southerners. Carrots not sticks.

I am the first person in my family other than one cousin who graduated from college; I have a masters degree.

I am the first person in my family to live outside the United States; I lived in the UK for four years.

I am the first person in my family to lose their religion; the rest are all United Methodists or Southern Baptists (and all very conservative, if not outright fundie, thank gods).

I am the first person in my family to embrace the term 'feminist'; the rest think women were better off before, shouldn't have sex before marriage, and should, to some degree at least, submit to their husbands.

If I can figure this out, other people can, too. They just prefer to live in their fantasy. But I don't think a lack of a college education (or even a high school education!) or poverty give someone a carte blanche to be a fundie redneck idiot. They are either stupid or crazy, IMHO.

That's my $0.02. Coming from East Texas.

it's a partnership

That's really what this discussion comes down to, isn't it? It's interesting to see many people believe that cynical con artists are less morally blameworthy than the people they con.

This shows how we're being gamed too.

While we sit around fretting over the backwoods fundamentalists, who are having fits over the secular humanist elitists, the people who really run the world are smiling, happy in the knowledge that their wealth and power is safe so long as the little people keep taking the bait and fighting one another.

The ignorant fundies are just pawns in their game.

...but who knows, I don't associate with either of those type of people, unless forced to.

Technically, I blame the elite. But I wanted to qualify... I would say I blame the ignorant people, for voting these ignoramuses and corporate whores into power - but we no longer live in a democracy. So while the ignorant redneck demographic are to blame for supporting the overlords, they are not actually responsible.

Welcome to the oligarchy!

They throw out their ridiculous moral issues for the idiots to get behind while using that cover to fuck those people (and everyone else) up the ass financially and otherwise. It's quite simple.

"With great power, comes great responsibility." Spider Man
They don't really have to be that selfish. They make the choice to behave as they do and they know it. They, as individuals, feel their power and use it.
As for the "rednecks", they don't know that they have power. They feel very powerless which is why they vote for "traditional family values" if they vote at all.

the powered elite can be in the churches as well as the courts, the rallies as well as the banks, the bullhorn as well as city hall. responsibility falls on the strong abusing the weak. who has the power? that is the strong. are they abusing it, even if that includes manipulation of the weak of mind as pawns? yes. there is your answer of where the blame lies.

just as the saying goes, "follow the money" so goes the corrolary, "follow the power."

powerful elite.

to blame the dumb ass rednecks, ultimately the blame falls on he $2,000 Gucci Suits. Only they have the power to steal / rig the elections. We had them beat, in 2000, 2004. All the rednecks in America couldn't have saved the Repukes in a fair election. And the scum sucking bastards knew that. Otherwise, they wouldn't have had to steal the vote.

So therefore my vote is for the corporate elite. They have the power to buy and control the media which highly influences the impressionable "redneck fundies." Propaganda is a very powerful tool, Goebbels, Hitler and the 3rd reich knew this and were masters of it. The corporate elite also knows this.

I'm gonna put my tin-foil hat on for this, but some think the corporate elite can also buy elections, assassinations, the legal system, congressmen and senators, etc.

Someone who has never had to deal with real hardship or even diversity or the nearness of cultural difference. Judges everyone by the compass of his own charmed life and is quick to condemn anyone less "perfect" than he believes himself to be. Never acknowledges his debt to others.

n/t