Sen. Obama, Meet The Establishment

Barack Obama has been getting ripped the last couple of days for some comments he made about "small towns." Here's what he said: "You go into 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 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."

Well, of course, McClain and Clinton jumped on their out of touch with reality but sure as hell online in Washington high horses and immediately condemned the comments. They called them "demeaning," and "elitist." All, of course, for a lack of any real ammunition to use against Obama.

The problem is they ignore the truth at the core of his statements in favor of simplistic attacks. They feed right into the Government machine.

Of course, all the uproar is unfounded. I can clearly see what he meant. Perhaps it is Clinton and McCain who are being demeaning by believing that people can't understand the deeper meaning of what he was saying. A negligent parent (our government) leads to resentment and anger which leads to other outlets. The government does everything it can to get rid of American jobs by giving incentives to businesses to outsource, etc. So, of course, the problem must be with immigrants taking our jobs. Anger. Misplaced anger. And don't think the government doesn't do its part to encourage this mindset. Why won't they do anything about illegal immigration? Because it's a great scapegoat. If the people can't blame the poor brown people they might start looking at the Government! Heaven forbid!

When people are struggling, either personally, emotionally, or financially, they historically--and throughout the world--find deeper bonds with religion, mythology, and other "philosophies" that lead them to believe it will all get better if I simply pray and believe harder and go to church/mosque/synagogue/sweat lodge, whatever, more often. The Government loves this, too, because the problems aren't with the Government they are with the moral shortcomings of the
people. It's our own fault we don't have food and jobs because we just don't believe in God enough. So what if this world is a mess? We'll put our trust in the next one. Who cares if we're destroying the planet? Heaven will be waiting. In fact, the more I suffer in this life the greater my reward in the afterlife. This mindset works really well for the Government's use.

This is the type of sentiment that Obama was referring to. It's just a shame that the small minded and ignorant will continue to cast blame in the wrong direction instead of seeing the real problem and doing something, anything, to help solve the problem. It's so much better to blame the voices who are trying to reveal the real source of the troubles people seek comfort from. It's so much easier than actually trying to fix something.