Heather Mallick's Column

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Originally posted by HeatherM:
[b]Ever wonder why the left never succeeds in Canada?
While you are all debating small delicate things about whether I am a nasty piece of work and should I receive your guarded approval or limited hatred, here's what I'm up against, out of hundreds of racist, women-hating, sick emails I received today on my website, admittedly almost entirely from Americans. . .[/b]

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You must forgive them, Heather. Remind yourself that these people, and they are people, have been bred and led to think in the narrowest of terms possible. Republican policies have dumbed-down those living in the deep south and old Republican strongholds(at one time, ultra-conservative Democrat strongholds). Former William F. Buckley protege, Michael Lind(Texas), said that intellectual conservatives realized that the right in the U.S. were only united as long as there existed a common foe, namely the New Deal socialism in their country since the collapse of laissez-failure capitalism, and the red menace. Other than surrounding the wagons for those two causes, the right is basically a group of disunited and fractious religious extremists and rich people who don't want to pay their taxes while actually enjoying the protections, private property laws, and freedoms provided them by the state.

For lack of a proper instruction manual on political conservatism, right-rightist intellectuals like Buckley wrote odes to political conservatism essentially resembling Marx's manifesto in concept and rough outline except aiming in the other direction. Lind said U.S. conservatism was born of the deep south, and it was originally based on religious revivalism and racism. And it still is.

I think "white trash" was a low blow, but it certainly would have been taken within context by those people you've been squabbling with, imo. [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]

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It does make sense but not by calling people stupid useless, ignorant schmucks in the process. For one it doesn't work. I means I know that whenever someone tries to explain my wrongness of thinking by referring to me as a elitist, commie pinko, over-educated asswipe doesn't exactly make me to open to what they're saying.
Plus it totally CONFIRMS the narrative thats been cleverly set up between the 'elites and everyone else'.

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Heather did not call people "stupid, useless..."

She did say that Palin and her base are

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is rural, loud, proudly unlettered (like Bush himself), suspicious of the urban, frankly disbelieving of the foreign, and a fan of the American clichй of authenticity.

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Frankly I think she's being gracious in her description. The point I'm making is your unlikely to win over her base but by exposing them for who they are you would encourage others not to be associated with them. Of course the true corporate elite probably have even more contempt for this group but will always depend on their support.

Heather actually had the courage to expose Palin and her ilk for what they are and she is now suffering the consequences in the form of death threats. You might think she would deserve some credit and support for that.

Suspicion about 'getting it': Could it be that we of the intellectual, educated, relatively well-off Left are starting to "lose it" at seeing the Republicans and the Conservatives with good chances of being relelected despite some of the most reactionary, destructive politics ever? Are we turning against the people that our narative says we are supposed to be helping because it doesn't seem to work, i.e. the moderate Right not regularly replacing the not so moderate one? Do we merely see the problem as their resisting our perspective, enlightened as it is supposed to be? What else could we understand about the situation and are *we* resisting?

[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
[b]Suspicion about 'getting it': Could it be that we of the intellectual, educated, relatively well-off Left are starting to "lose it" at seeing the Republicans and the Conservatives with good chances of being relelected despite some of the most reactionary, destructive politics ever? Are we turning against the people that our narative says we are supposed to be helping because it doesn't seem to work, i.e. the moderate Right not regularly replacing the not so moderate one? Do we merely see the problem as their resisting our perspective, enlightened as it is supposed to be? What else could we understand about the situation and are *we* resisting?

[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ][/b]

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For cryin' out loud, man. Read this post over again a few times, then smack yourself in the head. 'Round these parts, you are "Exhibit A" in the problem you have identified..

Long thread.