Posted on 07/10/2011 1:47:12 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Why populist anger over the poor economy is leaning right, rather than left, this time around is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps it is because Democrats, traditional friends of labor, control the White House and the Senate.
Word came Friday from the Labor Department that, despite all the optimistic talk of an economic recovery, unemployment is going up, not down. The jobless rate rose to 9.2 percent in June.
What gives? And where, if anywhere, is the outrage?
…unless you’re one of those unhappy 14 million, you might not even notice the problem.
No wonder policy makers don’t fear unemployed Americans. The jobless are, politically speaking, more or less invisible.
….studies have shown that unemployment leads to feelings of shame and...loss of self-worth. And that is not particularly conducive to political organizing….bluntly: “Nobody wants to join the Lame Club.”
That’s not to say that disillusionment about the economy will just fade away. But unless something changes, the unemployed seem unlikely to gain real political potency soon.
..It’s not clear why this is the case, when social networks have been so essential to organizing economic protests in places like Britain and Greece, not to mention...the Middle East.
It wasn’t always so. During the Great Depression, riots erupted on the bread lines. Even in the 1980s and 1990s, angry workers descended on Washington by the busload.
…As Langston Hughes wrote in a 1934 poem, “The Ballad of Roosevelt”:
The pot was empty
The cupboard was bare.
I said, Papa,
What’s the matter here?
I’m waitin’ on Roosevelt, son,
Roosevelt, Roosevelt,
Waitin’ on Roosevelt, son.
For the moment, jobless Americans are waiting on President Obama. If unemployment stays as high as many expect, and millions exhaust their benefits, they may just find their voice in 2012.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
But after giving that assessment, elites are left scratching their heads and wondering out loud:
Why populist anger over the poor economy is leaning right, rather than left, this time around is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps it is because Democrats, traditional friends of labor, control the White House and the Senate.
To the elite, if you're unemployed but physically not standing in a soup line, the Left can't radicalize you for their own purposes - thus you are only useful to them as the "poor." That way you aren't unemployed, you are victims that the Tea Party won't help and potential 2012 Democratic Party votes.
The Left caused your unemployment, yet now they want you to vote for them so you can stay "poor" and on benefits paid by those evil, uncaring Tea Party activists. In other words, the high number of unemployed must be torqued to "work" for the Left's benefit against conservatives in 2012.
The writer suggests that the unemployed are "waiting on Obama" and the Democratic Party to make the Tea Party pay their fair share and support them. Nice how the Left creates victims, then capitalizes on them by telling them it's someone else's fault.
The MSM -- working hard to spread the Leftist lie.
news flash, democrats/left have never been friend of labor. How could you be for labor if you’re punishing those who create the jobs
......and bleeding them dry to fund their re-elections...
I feel like I just dipped my brain in a pile of excrement.
“To the extent that frustrations are being channeled at all, they are being channeled largely through the Tea Party. But the Tea Party is mostly against devoting government resources to helping the unemployed. “
I consider myself Tea Party but much of this is economic & political and not the workers fault. Painting us as heartless bastards.
And more than likely, racist too.
Two OpEd pieces on the front page of the Washington Post this morning:
If Caylee Anthony had been black, would you know her name? ...."The easy answer is that the disparity in coverage is about race and class. Media critics argue that if Caylee had been black, her disappearance and death would never have received as much attention. There were indeed sharp contrasts: Caylee, white, from a middle-income home in suburban Orlando, in the shadow of Disney World; the Jacks sisters, black, from a lower-income Southeast Washington neighborhood besieged by drugs and crime, just blocks from the Capitol."....
Do white people watch black movies?.....“Producers are hesitant to cast minorities in race-neutral romantic roles because of a fear that the White audience will perceive the films as ‘not for them,’ but White audiences perceive romantic films with minorities as ‘not for them’ because they seldom see minorities in race-neutral romantic roles.”....
The Left knows why public sentiment it’s leaning right, and they’re going to do everything to whip up hate against the GOP, Tea Party and conservatives.
TURN OUT will be key in 2012.
It would be unconstitutional to designate aid or jobs specifically for blacks, so the CBC is asking for at least 10 percent of various funds to be spent in areas where 20 percent of the population is below the poverty line.”….
The author has obviously not been to the movies, a mall, or a eatery like Chilis, TGI Friday, Ruby Tuesdays lately. They are all getting desperate for customers and make it clear they're grateful for your business to the point of coupons, no-charge for coffee, and advice like "if one of you gets the salad bar with the meal, you can share". A local Mall has lost about half its outlets and is like a ghost town.
Who are the ones creating the jobs...
Yes!
This article (not even listed as “analysis”) is telling struggling employers and their employees that soon they will be the “poor” — conservatives don’t want to raise their own taxes to help you or get off the pile of money they’re sitting on to spur growth that would help you. Oh, no! The “tea party activists” have you fooled.
While the Obama administration is squeezing the economy and killing jobs from the crushing weight of “health care” and their job killing EPA and burdensome laws are blocking growth, as their public sector union benefits and entitlement programs are set to “blow-up” in our faces, Democrats have the Obama 2012 re-election script in hand and are campaigning on class envy and race baiting — telling the unemployed or soon to be unemployed, that things will get better only when the rich are forced to pay their fair share, and that a flourishing “green” economy is set to take off, once the skeptics are silenced — that Americans must organize and fight back against business.
I think one of the factors in the supposed lack of anger is lack of reporting. The media make vague mentions of the unemployment rate and the unemployed, but none of them ever go and show the effects, such as the empty malls in certain areas.
This is probably at least in part because the biggies in the media are based in places that are not as affected by unemployment. Heck, employment and wages have actually risen enormously in DC. I don’t remember the percentage, but it was pretty staggering.
But I think it’s also because they don’t want to call attention to the destructive effect very obviously caused by their hero, Obama, and the policies of the Democratic Party. If there were Republicans in charge, we’ve have front page articles and interviews every day, showing depressed, miserable people at unemployment offices, looking for job announcements, shopping in half-empty malls, etc. And they’d create anger.
Instead, they’re doing everything not to let the anger get started, because they know what its target would be.
Good comments.
It’s a mixed bag of problems for the administration.
They know there’s a tidal wave of pent-up unrest set to be unleashed in the 2012 election.
They’ve placated a lot of people by getting them on 99 weeks of unemployment, the gate-way trap to a, “you too can live on welfare” life-style.
They’ve seen the public sector unions being pushed back in states where the GOP gained control — and a lot of public opinion has risen up to oppose shouldering those impossible union benefits. State houses are passing vote ID.
So they’re wishing and hoping and praying for the tipping point to arrive where the “poor” and the unions will join up with the elite and keep the White House — poking people into action often through their own words that give a nod to violence.
BTW — Haven’t heard much about the “homeless” in the last couple of years, either.
It's really very sad.
From the sounds of this article, they’re advocating riots...scums.
HA! Wasn't it some WH advisor David Plouffe this week that said “The average American does not view the economy through the prism of GDP or unemployment rates or even monthly jobs numbers,”? More evidence the NYT gets its talking points from the White House.
November 2012 is coming.
-——How could you be for labor if you’re punishing those who create the jobs-——
There is great satisfaction in meting out the punishment and relishing the fact the man was punished.
| Quintessentially Obama
The only thing transparent in this administration is that he hates this country. Barry the game's over! Don't you get it? We understand who you are, what you want to do and we're not buying it. Go find someone else to try your magic BS on. I will relish every minute of watching this Chicago thug get his fantasy world ripped apart by reality. Barry, you're done in 2012! |
Apparently, Catherine Rampell is a clueless, progressive, koolaid drinking idiot. =.=
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