"Recruiting Trench Liberals and Leftnecks' hot off of JoeBageant.com

[Wiley50]

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2007/06/recruiting-tren.html

Despite what Internet liberals may think, most real working class Americans, and I mean the people who tune up your Prius or press your dry cleaning, haven't given a flying fock about the Iraq war for the last couple of years now. Not until recently, when it became pretty clear we are losing it -- losing being the worst possible thing in a society force fed on sports and the winner-loser mentality which created the uniquely American contemptuous epithet, "a loser." But now as my friend Buddy, who at middle age has been reduced to bagging groceries and "shagging carts" in the parking lot at one of the local Food Lion supermarkets says, "If we ain't losing, we seem to been over there entirely too long to be winnin'. That's for shore."

Buddy the bagboy hasn't the slightest notion of how national politics in any way affects his life. And so when the "Unfair Practices in Credit Cards Act" passes the Senate he will not know that the raising of his minimum payment had nothing to do with some well meaning but totally out of touch Democrats, who've never lived on $8.50 an hour. The paternalistic attempt of the bill's sponsors surely would protect future credit card racket victims. But Buddy and millions like him will be screwed the day it goes into effect by the new higher minimum payments, and he starts getting calls from people with an Indian accent regarding all three of his plastic cards. Sometimes Democrats can be as thankful as any Republican that most working folks don't examine politics too closely.

snip

But that still leaves a lot of pissed off ordinary and uninformed Americans to placate on the wreckage of our domestic front. So the party of Roosevelt begins to dimly understand that now is the opportunity to re-associate itself with populism. The problem is that Democratic Party "leadership" has no notion of what populism means. First they ignored real working class people, then they forgot they existed.

snip

Buddy voted twice for the president that has perhaps crippled America permanently. Yet it is not a case of working folks' like Buddy crippling America, but the American system crippling working people through neglect. The working class of so-called Heartland America -- which is all that stuff between the big cities -- gets a very poor education. They operate with a sixth grade grasp of history and politics and zero understanding of the economy. They have been told all their lives that America is absolutely the only free and prosperous place to live and that it is the product of divine providence. This is not the exclusive view of rural and small-town America. Much of the new suburban America also believes the same.
Like it or not, the Democratic Party needs Buddy. Standing together, with a percentage point or two from guys like him, we cannot be beaten at all, assuming an honest election. But first we must to learn to care about the guy with the plumber's butt rotating our tires and the single mom driving the forklift on the night shift at the big box store warehouse. Once we do that, we will come to understand that most red state voters are not our unchangeable adversaries, but merely among the millions of Americans coarsened over the last couple of generations by toil, ignorance and debt and misled by the worst elements in American politics.

The time is waaaaay overdue to create a force of "trench liberals," or in the case of my own people, "leftnecks" -- gun owning progressives who change their motor own oil -- persuasive populist grassroots organizers. It'll be hard and they won't be pretty people. Real trench liberals and leftnecks must come from the working neighborhoods and be folks who already know the people they attempt to persuade -- they are the most apt to be populists. Such people do exist; I've got hundreds of their emails to prove it. Meanwhile for liberalism, political ignorance, like virgin soil, may be the best ground to till. I made a special trip to the Food Lion today to get a few more opinions from Buddy to close this story (good old elliptical story shape, right?) Sure enough, there he was shagging carts. After a couple of minutes of small talk, I edged over to the topic of where to start fixing America's broken political system.

[Matsubara]

1. I kinda like this post...

...although I'm a little annoyed at the implication that most working-class people "haven't the slightest notion of how national politics in any way affects their lives", I'll set that aside.

I think in the long run the "Unfair Practices in Credit Cards Act" will be a good thing, but not for the reason the corporate-owned dems who sponsored it did.

People who own their homes and are racking up debt are going to be in big trouble in the near future, but people who are renting are actually in a very special position where it comes to unsecured credit.

It is my hope that people get fed up with the snowballing fees and minimum payments until death, and simply default and/or declare bankruptcy. The debt is unsecured and they have no home to be taken away.

It is so much better to live out from under the yoke of plastic. I'm hoping the effect of this law will be to push millions of renters into bankruptcy, thus depriving the card companies of their blood money, and freeing working people from the shackles of debt.

I know there may be some people who disagree with me on this, but after 4 or 5 years of paying minimums on CC debt, you've pactically paid the amount of your principle, especially if you've had a couple of late payments.

I hope more and more people will reject the plastic prison and build up a cashless, semi-underground economy.


Another poster has already mentioned it, but "Maxed Out" is a great movie on this subject.

http://www.maxedoutmovie.com/clips/trailer.html

[hfojvt]

8. I think higher minimum payments are better for the consumer

It means the card is paid off sooner, and thus reduces the total interest charges. My plastic generally makes me money, because I do not accumulate debt on it, except sometimes for short-term low rates.

[Matsubara]

9. I think you're right.

For middle-class people, it will be a way for them to be forced to pay it off sooner and save money.

For working and poor people, it will probably push them into default, but, that may be a long-term good thing because they can declare bankruptcy and free themselves.

Problem is, it is hard to live without credit in the US...

[benEzra]

21. Except the repubs and DLC'ers already changed the law to make it VERY difficult

For working and poor people, it will probably push them into default, but, that may be a long-term good thing because they can declare bankruptcy and free themselves.

Except the repubs and DLC'ers already changed the law to make it VERY difficult for most working-class people to declare bankruptcy...

[EstimatedProphet]

24. Have you ever tried to rent an apartment after declaring bankruptcy?

It is a major weight to carry around, and you carry it for 7 years. Landlords have been known to evict people based on bankruptcies, and it's damned difficult to get someone to rent to you afterwards. It's a little much for me to wish on people so easily, just to frustrate the credit card companies.

[me b zola]

2. Bageant nails it

This is exactly what needs to be done to save not only the party but the nation.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Wiley50]

12. Yep

most working poor would resonate to our message
if we didn't turn them off with the gun issue
and generally taking a condescending attitude towards them

try really talking to the ones you meet
You both may learn something

[bleever]

3. Call me "Leftneck".

The guy is really on to something here, concerning the way national conversations shift from the ground up, or maybe even starting underground.

:thumbsup:

[Wiley50]

4. I wish we could get our Beltway consultants to understand this concept

But, I'm afraid that most, if not all of them have joined the dark side (the corporatist side)

[Edweird]

5. Call me leftneck, too. Gun ownin' truck drivin' construction workin' lefty.

[Wiley50]

6. I'm a Gun- owning crippled by 30 years humping and bumping carpet Leftneck myself

wish I still could afford to own a truck though

[autorank]

7. Working people, who dat? This was Webb's theme, too complex to grasp by the PTB.

Webb said that there has to be a reconciliation between working class black and white Americans. His point is directed at the road to power every election for the Republicans; supported by people who see no benefit from voting for Republicans but who do it in large numbers when the race card is played. Look at the numbers, the Democrats don't win a majority of white voters very often. It's Latino and black Americans, Asians too, who provide the tipping point.

I agree with Bageant 100% on this but the old crap about splitting the white working class vote must become a thing of the past. How on earth could white union voters give Reagan the large numbers they did without a very special motive.

Bageant is also right about the crappy education but it's not just in the "heartland," it's in the best school systems. I'm in "the best." My daughter asked me about "The Compromise of 1876." explained that it was a disgrace, the Republicans got the presidency by agreeing to abandon reconstruction in the former Confederacy, thus ending biracial government and beginning highly restrictive voting legislation designed to restore the ideals of racism. She wrote it up and got an "F" from the teacher who said compromise was always a good thing. The teacher and I had a few words but the point is, the stupidity and ignorance in education is universal.

One thing to remind everyone about is Bacon's Rebellion, a biracial rebellion in Virginia where whites and blacks fought alongside of one another and took over the Virginia colony (1670's). The British regained power after two years. They realized that they needed some way to seriously divide black and white Virginians and the result has been with us ever since.

[symbolman]

10. Here's the best way to draw them out, and identify leaders

and I've said this for years. We need the Democratic Equivalent of the NRA..

Gun owning (but not nutso about it - childproof locks need to be LAW, period), democrats need to band together, form unions, the leaders will rise to the surface, then you can RUN THOSE PEOPLE for Office.

He's on to something alright, and those few percentage points are what Rove has been skimming, along with his Defrauding of Voters.

Go baby, go!

[Odin2005]

11. Add me tom the "Leftneck" list.

:toast:

[Edweird]

13. A kick. For the leftnecks that aren't self actualized.

[alarimer]

14. He's right, up to a point

Some of these people (especially in the south, with the preponderance of right-to-work states) are very anti-union, even though unions are the only thing standing between working people and evil corporations. I think bringing back unions is the best way to help the working people. Well, in addition to universal health care.

I do agree that Democrats (like Republicans) have become too corporate, too much beholden to their donors. And a more populist message is definitely what we need.

But these voters need to educate themselves as well. Politics DOES matter. The things that politicians do affect real people's lives. They will not hear the real story by listening to Fox News (or CNN or any of the others). Democrats have been demonized by the other sid "Ooooh they'll take your guns! and gay people will ruin your marriage". None of that is true but a large portion of the country believes it. And those people we will never reach no matter what.

And then there's the problem of what we will have to give up to get these people to vote for us.

[conscious evolution]

15. "Ooooh they'll take your guns!

Every time I hear that line I respond with "Not anymore.We like the 2nd Amendment now.We liberals are arming up cause we know we may have to fight for our freedom again"
This tends to shut them up.

[Wiley50]

16. the thing to understand about the south (and about Joe, for that matter)

is we've been brainwashed about right-to-work (right to work for nuthin)
by our bosses
and all of that anti-abortion shit
by our preachers
for a whole lot longer than Faux Snooze has been doing it to all of us

it's all the educating that we've been allowed, for the most part.
They don't want working class southerners to get an education
"Hell, then our poor white trash would get as uppity as some of our niggers"
(just an accurate quote, don't get wound up because I used the N-word.)

Read some more of Joe's essays (on his website) He Preaches education big time

and what do you have to give up to get these folks to vote the right way?

Single Payer Healthcare and a Living minimum wage would knock their fucking dick in the dirt.
of course, you might need to canvass a little and explain what that means.

As Joe puts it talking about his character Dottie (based on a real person he knows) in "Deerhunting with Jesus":

"Although it might seem that my people use the voting booth as an instrument of self-flagelation, the truth is that Dottie would vote for any candidate- black, white, crippled, blind, or crazy- who she thought would actually help her. I know
because I have asked her if she would vote for a candidate who wanted a national health care program. "Vote for him? I'd go down on him!" Voter approval does not come much stronger than this."

[Tsiyu]

17. Joe's writing has really captivated me

I can so relate to being in the middle of the space between the fringes of two cultures.

He understands that "Pull yourself up by the bootstraps" is a bogus statement made not only by the capitalists but also by the educated, who often refuse to relate to the "lower classes."

:thumbsup:

[benEzra]

18. That's me...

gun owning progressives who change their motor own oil

That's me. I just put my car back together Sunday afternoon, after tearing down the entire dash assembly to troubleshoot an HVAC blend door actuator problem. Thank goodness for factory shop manuals...next on the list is replacing the rear brake pads (they're due) and troubleshooting a balky oil pressure sensor on my car, and changing the plugs on my wife's car.

The biggest car job I've ever done was replacing the transmission on the Plymouth Voyager my wife used to own, in our garage over the course of a couple weeks (nights/weekends). Don't particularly want to have to do that again, but it worked perfectly.

I also own guns (so does my wife)...

[yorgatron]

19. i am a leftneck and proud of it!

:kick:

[kineneb]

20. joining the leftnecks

armed rural California chick w/pink streaks in blond hair, plays Bach on organ, has pet chicken, granddaughter of union organizer.

[guitar man]

22. "leftneck"

hey, I like that, I think it describes me perfectly. I have a big 4x4 pickup truck that I pull my travel trailer and do various work and rough woods play with, a Harley Davidson, and I'm a gun owner to boot. Yep,I think "leftneck" suits me just fine...:)

<edited to add pic of my "second home" and truck.>

[guitar man]

23. Hey, we need to start a "You Might Be a Leftneck" list

like the Jeff Foxworthy "you might be a Redneck" thing. :shrug:

If you have a gun rack in your Prius. you might be a leftneck....