> CB: Pointing to working class bitterness over losing their jobs is
> left.
What do you mean by "bitterness"? (I won't ask what Obama meant by it, although in your next paragraph, you seemingly claim the ability to channel his thoughts.) But the word can hardly come across as anything but condescending and patronizing.
> No doubt you are purposely ignoring the guns and religion aspect of the
> comment ,which was what was emphasized in the media, not the anti-trade
> sentiment, which was just a misstatement by O.
Were you, by any chance, one of the legion who claimed to have intuited Kerry's secret anti-war intentions in 2004?
Interesting statistics here offer some - but certainly not all necessary - ammo for the religion claim:
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2007/11/religiosity_and.html
But the leap from "poorer people tend to be more religious" to "poorer people tend to be more religious BECAUSE THEY'RE BITTER" is, to say the least, a tenuous one.
I am unaware of any similar research on guns control opinions and income brackets, and would want to see so before accepting that claim on Marx's, Obama's, and your say-so.
> The reference to religion is almost straight Marx.
So what? Neoconservatism is arguable a perverse mutation of dialectical materialism, and certainly has more in common with Marxism than with any of the competing theories that preceded it. Karl is not a saint who consecrates everything he touches.
> The rightwingers can spot a left remark better than this "lleft" list
> can.
At the risk of sounding dismissive - which really isn't my intention - some of us just don't spend our lives looking for opportunities to slap on predefined labels.