From: "kelley" <d-m-c at worldnet.att.net> Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 20:48:34 -0400
during the npr coverage of clinton's state of the union address last year, the program visited three different areas of the country to speak to 'ordinary' people. they visited a latino family in their living room an upper middle class black family in their living room and in their church, and then they visited an irish bar in working class neighborhood in Boston. The reporter couldn't figure out why they weren't listening to the address at the bar and, of course, the report made the white working class bostonians look like mindless idiots concerned more with sport.
surprise, surprise, surprise. sarge. and gohlley [ok, so i caught a rerun of gomer pyle the other night. heh]
At 03:57 PM 20/07/1999 -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
>So the American masses don't really revere the church, the army, and
>cops after all? Were they really disturbed that their military bombed
>the fuck out of some poor slobs in the Balkans, and just kept that
>concern under wraps? Ditto their great underappreciated concern that
>their government has starved and poisoned a million Iraqis? I'd love
>to believe that there were some great untapped reservoirs of
>solidarity and passion, but it's pretty damn hard to see any.
> Maybe
>I'm just in a bad mood this week.
mebbe.
i think it's a lot more complex than these polls capture. as for the war, i posted several times at bad about the guys at the elks club and at block parties here at the apt complex. i never once heard any unqualified support for the bombing. i did hear a lot of criticism of the media, an unwavering belief that we weren't getting the whole story and a lot of distrust of the gov't and military. [godamn fuckin gummint. damn politicians are ALL liars.]
the iraquis? does yer avg newspaper print such stories in any depth or detail?
i do hear quite a bit of bitching about gulf war syndrome from folks whose relatives and friends were stationed in the gulf and are now getting shat on by that gummint and military they supposedly admire so much.
jesus, doug, i know guys in the military who bitch about the military and how shitty the equipment is, etc.
the people around here are [sorry] a bit more concerned about it taking two weeks and tons of paperwork to get into a federally funded apt complex. the place is nice, beautiful but they want every godamn document you have in your possession and some you never thought of having. they also bitch about inspections every month looking for evidence of a 'man' in the house just in case you might be trying to cheat the ole gummint by sharing expenses but not reporting that man as a contributor to household income --as if you couldn't possibly be living with a woman. they told us ahead of time--the apt managers--because they don't give a crap as long as they're getting the rent every month. they bitch about a whole lot of things and good ole americans that they are they aren't too worried about iraquis. shitty wages, yes. asshole employers, yes. crumby roads, yes. crappy public transportation, yes. the cost of childcare, the state of the schools, traffic and idiotic highway systems - yes. about how hard it is to qualify for a house loan, even though the mortgage rep at the bank is gung ho. why they bitch in general about how fucking hard it is to find an affordable house in the first place. about the humiliation of trying to get food stamps or welfare, yes.
[as for 'the church': one thing you need to understand is that there is an extraordinarily high distrust for 'organized' religion in the first place. why the hell do you think there are a zillion and one babtist churches and an endless proliferation of other denominations, etc that have separated from other denominations? so, when people answer in the affirmative to such a poll question i suspect they're saying "i have faith in my particular church"]
there's a lot of disgruntlement to be found. i think if you look a little deeper you'll find that support for these institutions is a lot more complex. hell, if you want to take surveys seriously just look at the 'trust in institutions' survey that NORC runs every year. it's pretty low for all of them--comparatively. and, if there is any truth to the massive outpouring of grief over john john & company [and there is *very* little of that around here i haven't heard anyone speak of it--not at the pool, not at the workout room, not at the b-ball court, not at the elks club, nada.] then it is more than likely about some romanticized past when people actually believed in gov't. that is what the kennedy legacy might reprepresent to folks. i'm not sure, but if that is part of it call me a dim bulb, then, because that seems worth exploiting, for lack of a better phrase.
this is what i mean when i say that 'we' can find fissures in the hegemony of ideology that can be exploited to the advantage of the left. but altogether too often everyone just disparages 'the unwashed masses' first as if there's absolutely no hope because they aren't already radicalized. so, you've got to start right in their back yard and do the work of abstracting to bigger issues. it's quite possible and i've seen it happen with radioactive waste dumps, unionizing and plant closings--that is, initially their concern was about them and their community, but political practice, involvement, etc brought them to different understandings: radioactive waste shouldn't be produced in the first place and NO community should have to be a dumping ground; plant closings and the globalization of capital is a vicious cycle and capital actually exploits workers in other countries in a way that no one should tolerate; and a union drive might be about the apalling number of digits sliced off from machinery or about low wages in a nursing home but eventually it was about something else, something bigger. sure unions are apallingly conservative, but decrying that and not doing much about it isn't going to help either.
why this is so difficult for everyone to believe..... i know it's not easy
and i used to get just as discouraged as the next person. but wondering why and commenting on the supposed unwavering faith in these institutions hardly seems productive and, in fact, feeds right into the stereotypes avg joes and suzy's have about the left. counterproductive, if you ask me.
sure, alex, it's the teacher's lounge here, if you will. however, i think that self-criticism and a willingness to listen to and accept it is just as important among 'us' and probably more important than insisting that the unwashed masses listen to and understand the criticisms that the left lodges at them. so, you know, if you want to bitch and let off a little steam, kewl but i'd hope that you'd take criticism in an exemplary manner in case any of the unwashed masses that might be lurking on this list to learn a little are looking for an example of how to take it.