Bittersweet Symphony

Well, it's that time again. Time to regale you with more of my ill-informed and hastily drawn conclusions.

The news story this week, as I heard it:

"Barack Obama, Illinois' elitist and condescending junior senator, has spewed utter hatred towards Pennsylvanians by calling them gun-toting, simple-minded people who are nothing but bitter. He will surely never live down this egregious statement and will be mocked for centuries to come."

Am I exaggerating? Maybe just a tad, but the point is, can we really blow up two badly worded sentences THIS MUCH and still hold peoples' attentions? I think Obama put it best when he said that we're getting into "silly season" of this election.

I mean, really, can we stop taking portions of quotes from the original context and repeating one word over and over?

I don't think that anyone would argue with MY version of the statement:

When people are completely frustrated with their inability to lead successful lives because of complicit governments, they often find comforts in the rights that they still have.

There. I said the exact same thing.

"But Mr. Garment, you didn't call them bitter, and you didn't say scary words like 'cling,' how do you explain that?"

Clearly I need to clarify:

Let's look at the original text of the quote.

"You go into some of 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. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Ok, I'm willing to admit that the wording is a little awkward. The word "cling" is really what made the whole statement sound judgmental. But, look at the actual substance, and try to put yourself in the frame of mind of someone who lives in a small town that's on the verge of insolvency.

It's pretty obvious to me that when peoples' morale is in the dumps, they try to find joy in the simple things that they can still appreciate. When candidates are running for office and people feel like no previous candidate has helped them at all, they focus on the remaining issues that they want to protect. To summarize, if you think that no candidate can save the economy, you might as well start focusing more and more on the other issues that are important to you.

Senator Obama was only trying to make the point to his donors that people who have lost their jobs and livelihoods due to poor management of the economy are jaded by the system of American government. Of course if you lose your manufacturing job in the northeast, you're going to blame NAFTA or illegal aliens, it only makes sense.

If I was an avid gun-owner and I believed that my government had forgotten about me, and that neither candidate could really improve my economic situation, I would probably take what I believed to be the lesser of two evils and vote republican, as they have traditionally supported gun-rights more than the democrats.

Again, if I was a deeply religious man, and thought that the government would be completely ineffective in doing anything to help my town, I would vote for the party that has been more traditionally conservative.

Let us now look at the intention of the quote:

What Obama was trying to say was that the real challenge is to convince people that, while Obama may have a few conflicting ideas, he is the only candidate who promises to try and improve their lot in life. Would you still hate the idea of free-trade agreements if they helped you and your community? Of course not. Would you vote against a candidate who could help stimulate the economy simply because he opposes assault weapons? I would hope not. (Do we really need assault weapons anyway? But I digress...)

It's ridiculous that we should pick apart and repeat the word "bitter" over and over like it's some curse word. If you lived in a town that had been literally almost bankrupted because of multiple free-trade at any cost administrations, bitter would be the gentlest way of putting it. There are far more offensive words that I would use to explain my disenchantment with my government.

Hillary has really latched on to this one word. She's passing out bumper stickers that say "I'm not bitter." Guess what Hillary, a lot of America IS bitter. We're bitter because your husband's administration rushed NAFTA through without making any provisions to keep it fair. We're bitter because the Bush administration has wasted money that could have been used to stimulate our economy on a stupid war with no point, and no end in sight. We're bitter because people like you have changed politics from government for the people, by the people, to government to the richest and most elite. When you make $109 million in 7 years, you have no right to call ANYONE elitist.

End of rant.