"Who the fuck cares?"- Joe Bageant

Obama, Bitterness, Fundamentalists and Guns

Media Shit Storms and Heartland Reality

By JOE BAGEANT

There seems to be no end to the media mediocrity we must suffer in this country. Now we have the Obama Guns, God and Bitterness shit storm, with the shit pouring forth from the same media scuppers (scuppers are outlet sewage blowholes on the sides of ships) as usual: The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, CNN.com, the Associated Press, Fox News, Reuters, Politico, the Lou Dobbs Show, Hardball, Olbermann's Countdown, The Atlantic.com, The DailyKos, TalkingPointsMemo

And all because Obama mentioned something we've known for at least a couple of decades now: That the government has been fucking over the nation's heartland towns and the "little guy" Americans inhabiting them.

To quote Obama:

"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. ... 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."

So what the hell else is new?

...

Yet he had no sooner closed his mouth than this media manufactured hell broke loose. "Oh my gawd," they screamed. This guy has the unmitigated gall to suggest that their might be some bitterness out here in the lily white realms of Grant Wood, grange halls and Methodist church suppers! Right here in River City!" where the combination of God rhetoric and Chamber of Commerce boosterism have managed to ban the word from public discourse. Even the mention of it can be explosive, simply because there is so much if it stuffed inside working folks, inside the lockbox of denial that comes with being the citizen of a culture in collapse.

...

In any case, Obama has proven you cannot even use the innocuous word bitterness in conjunction with the national lie of white American culture. In the officially sanctioned media lexicon, Blacks can be angry, disillusioned and even bitter enough to burn down Watts. But the white race, being blessed by a Christian god and divine providence, never harbor bitterness in their hearts. The reason the word bitterness has caused such horror is because what is really going on out there is the sprouting seeds of class animosity. And no candidate or pontificating media mugwump dares touch that one because they are in the class that benefits from our classist society.

...

One of these days, when it comes to the thundering non-controversy of Obama's remarks, the blogosphere and the media may start asking the right kinds of questions. The kind Smokey asked me after I explained the Obama controversy to him:

"Who the fuck cares?"

http://www.counterpunch.org/bageant04152008.html

bitterness"

n/t

The consensus is "Yeah, we're bitter!"

Heaven help the pol who suggests things aren't peachy keen among the peons. You can abuse the powerless as much as you want if you just never, ever talk about it.

We both grew up in the hills, most everyone around us was conservative and religious, we both joined the military and worked on aircraft, and after that we realized our friends and family back in the Appalachians were for the most part living in a world totally divorced from reality.

My oldest brother thinks torturing rag heads is what god wants. My conservative mom knows nothing about history but she knows you can't trust liberal politicians, and will tell you that on her way to the bank to cash her SS check. Amazingly her rich friends have taken her to Belize on their private jet several times, but I bet they never visited the part of town Joe moved into. Its not totally her fault, she grew up on a farm working her ass off and never wanted to question anything that took her away from that.

Hell, I climbed the rafters hanging tobacco in great granddad's barn when I was 5. I miss those times.

Watch and See: The best bullshitter and best liked will win this election.



"...Otherwise we just stand before the incompressible system that fucks us blind. And in that there is certain bitterness.

Let's get to the nub of this thing here: Obama, Hillary and McCain are farting through silk while playing out their roles in our theatrical state's false drama called presidential elections, while smug and media sanctioned pundits snark from the edge of the proscenium arc of politics, each hoping to draw enough attention to have his or her own proscenium in that national cathedral of the American consciousness -- television." -Joe Bageant

that people are sick of being manipulated by the media. Obama made a little gaffe and they can see how the media is turning it into a circus, creating a category 5 tempest in a teapot. That pisses folks off. They're also pissed because what Obama did was speak a little truth about how bitter people are they identify with that, but it's like in speaking the truth he broke some kind of politicians'/media hacks' code and so he's being crucified for it.

At least, that's the consensus among the people I talk to.