Obama Should Not Ignore Genuine Misplaced White Men Economic Insecurity Directed at Liberals

Over the years I have altered my news briefs and opinions to more closely reflect my audience which has been mostly upper middleclass college educated professionals. My personal inclinations and belief more closely coincides with such websites as www.democracynow.org , www.truthdig.com , and http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/ which counters elitist thinking and comes closer to the ugly truth about America and its well-off professional upper middleclass.

Because of all of the Hitler diatribes, many tend to ignore our society's parallel to what happened in 1930s Germany which suffered both economic hardships and a complete degradation of their currency, a time ripe for a demagogue Adolf Hitler and his elite followers. We need not discuss what happened, but if our large working lower middleclass who first directed their anger toward secularism may now turn against our elitist upper middleclass more directly.

E. J. Dionne, a former religion columnist for the Washington Post is now free to express himself with greater clarity as did Chris Hedges formerly of the New York Times. See how our economic system really works in the film "Capitalism: A Love Story". I think most should see it twice because there is so much stuff to think about in the film. I will probably go for three times as I did SICKO about our sick Healthcare Capitalist System.

As Halderman, Nixon's top advisor explained to his boss, establishing an HMO healthcare system does not go against your capitalism uber alles priority. Nixon smiled when Halderman told him that by Denying Care, the HMOs can make lots of money. That is the basis of our healthcare system now. The news tells us about the "average" salaries of CEOs of our Health Insurance companies, but usually neglect to say that some of the top five so-called healthcare insurance companies make much more than the average. For example the second largest UnitedHealthcare CEO got the "adjusted" $5 billion profit and the CEO made $750,000,000 or $750 million or three-quarters of a Billion Dollars with a B.

Today I will give you a sampling of columns from http:///www.truthdig.com .

Jim Kawakami, Oct 12, 2009, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Obama Should Not Ignore Genuine Misplaced White Men Economic Insecurity Directed at Liberals Truthdig.com E.J. Dionne Wash Post Writers Group Oct 11, 2009 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091011_prizing_peace_on_the_home_front/ ... Obama can’t do much about those against him because of his race. Even a 1 percent unemployment rate wouldn’t change the minds most scarred by prejudice. But there is a second level of angry opposition to which Obama needs to pay more attention. It involves the genuine rage of those who felt displaced in our economy even before the great recession, and are now hurting even more.

These Americans are sometimes written off as “angry white men.” In analyzing anti-Obama feeling, commentators have taken to rummaging around the work of historian Richard Hofstadter during the 1950s and ’60s, focusing on his theory that “status anxiety” helps explain the rise of movements on the far right. The idea is that extremism takes hold in groups that feel their “status” is threatened by new groups on the rise in society.

The problem with the status anxiety theory is that it focuses on feelings and psychology, thus easily crossing into condescension. It implies that the victims of status anxiety should be doing a better job of accepting their new situations and downplays the idea that they might have something real to be angry about.

In fact, many who now feel rage have legitimate reasons for it, even if neither Obama nor big government is the real culprit. September’s unemployment numbers told the story in broad terms: Among men 20 and over, unemployment was 10.3 percent; among women, the rate was 7.8 percent.

Middle-income men, especially those who are not college graduates, have borne the brunt of economic change bred by both globalization and technological transformation. Even before the recession, the decline in the number of well-paying jobs in manufacturing hit the incomes of this group of Americans hard. The trouble in the construction industry since the downturn began has compounded the problem.

This is not a uniquely American problem. Last week, I caught up with Australia’s deputy prime minister, Julia Gillard, who was visiting Washington for a conference on education. Though Gillard diplomatically avoided direct comment on American politics, she said what’s happening here reminded her of the rise of Pauline Hanson, a politician who caused a sensation in Australian politics during the 1990s by creating One Nation, a xenophobic and protectionist political party tinged with racism.

Gillard, a leader of Australia’s center-left Labor Party, argues that high unemployment, particularly the displacement of men from previously well-paying jobs, helped unleash Hansonism and “the politics of the ordinary guy versus these elites, the opera-watching, latte-sipping elites.” ... http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091011_prizing_peace_on_the_home_front/