General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThis is what we are dealing with ...
My boss is a teapartying, 46 year old, white, female with 2 adult children (19 and 21). She has been employed by the state courts for all her working life ...
She is for smaller government.
When her children were 5 and 7, her husband left her because she wanted to pursue the Bachelors Degree that was required for her job. (Her, now, ex-husband told her "Don't let our marriage get in the way of you getting a degree." For the next 7 years, she received some form of public assistance, e.g., food stamps and educational grants) to make ends meet ...
She is anti-entitlement.
Her older son works as a minimum wage security guard. He is trying to get on with the state Department of Corrections as a Corrections Officer or the Sheriff's Department as a Jailer, but he has a learning disability (dyslexic) and can't pass the test. Although he answers the questions that he answers correctly, he falls short of the passing score because he runs out of time ...
She has convinced her son that he should not ask for an accommodation for his disability, e.g., having the questions and answer choices read to him or being allowed more time for the test, because it would give him "special treatment." ("Special treatment", mind you, after 10 years of schooling in "Special Ed" classes.
Her youngest son is enrolled in an Union sponsored electrician's apprenticeship program that pays him $30.00/hr (with benefits and a 401K) and he is (pretty much guaranteed) a union job upon completion of the program. She told me her son told her that he was glad that he was in the apprenticeship program because on some of his jobs, he works right next to non-union electricians (with 10+ years in) that are paid less than half what he makes and are provided no benefits or retirement.
She is anti-union.
She re-married about 4 years ago, after living with her (now) husband, for 5 years.
She is a "deeply religious" Catholic that condemns "living in sin" and single parenthood.
Despite her youngest son having healthcare through his apprenticeship, in 2010, she placed him and his brother on her insurance, along with her husband who suffered a heart-attack followed by a mild stroke back (I think one was in November, 2008, and the other in January 2009) ...
She is Anti-(President) Obama and anti-ObamaCare.
She, now, lives in a up-scale community on 5+ acres of land. Because she works 50+ hours/week and has a 45 minute commute and her husband works 60+ hours/week (from home ... I don't know what he does, but he is "self-employed" , they don't have time to maintain their pool and grounds ... so they contract out the work to "a guy" that charges them $35/day (cash).
She is virulently anti-illegal immigration.
This is the type of working class person that will vote for romney.
maryellen99
(3,789 posts)Race might play a factor as well
gateley
(62,683 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)She insists!
gateley
(62,683 posts)arbusto_baboso
(7,162 posts)A cousin of mine worked a very high paying union job his entire working life for a power company. He's got a very nice pension, but speaks constantly now about how "wages need to stabilize" (i.e., drop drastically) if the U.S. economy ever has hopes of improving.
I asked him point blank, "So, you deserved high wages and a good pension, but following generations don't? How are you not completely full of shit?"
He could only sputter in response, yet he insists he is still right.
Response to arbusto_baboso (Reply #4)
freshwest This message was self-deleted by its author.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)We have allowed stupid to become a plague in this country, and this is the price we pay.
This is also why I have no real hope of righting this ship in my lifetime. When so many people know so little about so much, the only recourse is to let them have their way and hope they will learn the lesson.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)If I didn't/wouldn't have to suffer through the lesson right along side of them.
I learned in pre-school that when you make it your goal to get and keep all the toys for yourself; you end up with all the toys, but no play-mates ... and no one to come to your aid with the bigger kid comes and takes the toys from you, for themselves.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)lesson. How many idiots saw the 80's poster about dying with the most toys and didn't see the point it was making?
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)they need to be identified as group with a common disability - in case case terminal ignorance.
Tumbulu
(6,292 posts)malaise
(269,157 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)When people don't have a legit reason to be against Obama I decide that they are racist.
BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)and debunked right in their faces, what's left is racism. Period.
nanabugg
(2,198 posts)I agree with them!!!
Aerows
(39,961 posts)But I know these same exact people. They are terrified of admitting they have been anywhere near public assistance, because the people that employ them frown on that harshly, and they want to get ahead. It's the people at the very top that are the problem, and those that make using any sort of aid a sin.
She's probably miserable, but I really can't say anything about her, because she is probably willing to cut the throat of anyone in her way. There are many like her.
It's very, very sad that people are so selfish and vicious once they actually emerge on the other side of a tough situation.
nc4bo
(17,651 posts)Crazy isn't it?
Since these people are stupid enough to bite the hand that feeds them and theirs for reasons they aren't even aware of, the very best you can do with those **who don't bite your face off when you talk politics with them**, is to move them to the center by whatever means necessary.
They are *all* not hopeless even though it sure seems that way.
Keep talking, posting, blogging, mailing, calling, hell lead by example if you can stand it.
Then cross you fingers that some brain cells begin to put it together.
gtar100
(4,192 posts)Besides this being an identity issue with them, they are also operating on a whole different set of facts than we do. This is the great poison that Fox "News" and conservative media has unleashed on people. They talk with conviction and feel they have the backing to believe utter nonsense because their "news" sources back it all up. They don't realize the tin can echo chamber they've fallen into because it strokes their ego by making them feel superior to "freeloaders" and "libruls".
This is also what makes them dangerous to all of us. They are being pumped full of hatred and anger every day. What can we do to break this cycle? They are coming to no good end by the way they are acting.
Tumbulu
(6,292 posts)and of course frustrates me to NO END and sad to say, I know that they are a dime a dozen.
But, I do think that they are a breed that is dying out. AT LEAST THIS IS MY SINCERE HOPE!!!!!!!!
Sorry that you have to work for the racist fool.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)I do not believe she is a racist ... and I am pretty attuned to such things.
She has just bought into the gop "rugged individualist/man on a island/god's blessing" mythos.
Tumbulu
(6,292 posts)what do you think of the up and coming generation- do you think that they are buying into this myth as much?
TBF
(32,090 posts)I see it with my young, dumb, working for minimum wage at best family members and children of old friends. Church, military, country music, etc ... I don't think they have any idea how big the gap is between them and the top 1/10th of the top 1% that own everything. Not a fucking clue. They think there are a few sports or music stars that have mansions and then most other people are "middle class". Meanwhile the bottom dropped out of that middle when Bush and his Hedge Fund friends stole the treasury - but they are clueless on that as well.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)They think they are going to get rich by being famous for being famous ala Jersey Shore.
TBF
(32,090 posts)ProfessionalLeftist
(4,982 posts)aka "Teabagger"
rwsanders
(2,606 posts)Another characteristic of this same thinking are the ones that get interviewed on virtually any environmental documentary or article you read (my most recent was "Coal Country" .
The ones who say "I used to think environmentalists were whackos" or "I'm not an environmentalist I'm an activist", etc.
So many republicans are republicans until the bad stuff happens to them. Then they don't understand it. But for most, they are still only interested in fixing the problem for them.
So ultimately it is a problem that has been documented, a pathological lack of empathy.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)They want all that sweet, sweet "socialism" all for themselves.
madinmaryland
(64,933 posts)HIlton Brackett
(26 posts)"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)The American Dream Myth!
Tikki
(14,559 posts)And as long as churches don't corner it as a real sin and until it becomes talked about in hushed tones nothing will change.
Until people are thoroughly mortified by their hypocrisy...nothing.
Tikki
Jack Sprat
(2,500 posts)are prevalent among most of the fundie rightists that we meet through daily contacts with them. I can tell some personal stories that would blow your mind. So many of them are a collection of embittered people who want the world for themselves and are jealous over anyone else having anything at all. They share a selfish nature. Even the ones, who really aren't close to being wealthy, are determined to have a sub-class beneath them to prove their self-worth. It's their only real ambition. It serves two purposes for them. It makes them feel better about themselves and provides within them a need to hold others in judgment and contempt. Really it's some hateful stuff if you can envision it.
DrewFlorida
(1,096 posts)Unfortunately stories like that abound within the republican/Teaparty morons. I have a boss who has similar situations, it's a good thing he is ignorant to his hypocrisy, I'm not sure he could handle the reality of his ass-holiness.
muntrv
(14,505 posts)tjwash
(8,219 posts)Worked for the county water district...hates government.
Retired at 55 with a generous pension and full bennies for life care of his union...hates unions
Married to a public school teacher...hates public schools
Loves to say how living off of the taxpayer dole is different with him because he actually earned everything, unlike those lazy UAW workers (he has a particularly strange hate-fixation on the UAW).
I call it the "I got mine fuck everyone else" syndrome. Seems to be pretty common with ex-soldiers, ex-cops and, well, just a lot of ex-government employees that I know personally.
Va Lefty
(6,252 posts)Some people just don't get it. I have coworkers, people I would otherwise characterize as rational human beings, who are convinced that Obama is going to confiscate their guns if reelected. You can't argue with these people, facts are irrelevant. They KNOW the truth.
RagAss
(13,832 posts)bhikkhu
(10,724 posts)or something on that order. You can gain a lot of insight about a person's weaknesses by listening to them when they tell you what they hate.