I don't like it when people blame the poor for Bush.

[Cobalt Violet]

If it were not for middle class GREED and middle class willingness to sell out their elders and their children's future for a measly tax break so that they can buy SUVs and HDTVs there would not be one party rule and the rise of Bush.

[Patchuli]

1. I HEAR THAT!

The poor had what motive to vote for the Chimp?! It was like some of the a-holes we all unfortunately know. With big houses and big cars, and Botox and much to gain from Bush.

[Cats Against Frist]

33. Oh, you mean MY TV? MY Ranch House? MY Ikea Table?

This is always one of my favorite topics on here -- and I thank the OP for instigating the ensuing onslaught of guilt-ridden middle classers who refuse to recognize that pretty much everything they do, unless they live in the fucking Alaskan wilderness, just keeps the military-industrial complex humming like hooker at a Promise Keepers convention.

Of course, everyone cannot be perfect -- but there is definitely a link between both middle class complacency and consumption with the horrid state of the world, no matter who you fucking vote for.

YET, YET -- at the same time, from several years working in social services, most of the poor are just slightly dingier versions of the middle classers. The poor are consumers, the poor are materialistic, the poor are fucking clueless, as well.

HOWEVER -- if you think, in terms of the aggregate theory -- there are fewer poor people -- and fewer ultrawealthy people -- than the gimungous middle class -- which, has both the power, and the numbers, and most importantly the resources to change everything. But they don't want to. Including liberals. Including conservatives.

I would say the blame falls on everyone -- but, in terms of sheer number -- I think the middle classes carry a lot of the blame.

BTW -- I'm not excluding myself in this critique.

[Lone Pawn]

2. Here, let's try this:

If it were not for blonde-haired GREED and blonde-haired willingness to sell out their elders and their children's future for a measly tax break so that they can buy SUVs and HDTVs there would not be one party rule and the rise of Bush.

Or this!

If it were not for female GREED and female willingness to sell out their elders and their children's future for a measly tax break so that they can buy SUVs and HDTVs there would not be one party rule and the rise of Bush.

Don't worry, ladies, I'm not done yet!

If it were not for male GREED and male willingness to sell out their elders and their children's future for a measly tax break so that they can buy SUVs and HDTVs there would not be one party rule and the rise of Bush.

Hotcha! Random blaming with no statistics to back me up is AWESOME!

If it were not for Tibetan GREED and Tibetan willingness to sell out their elders and their children's future for a measly tax break so that they can buy SUVs and HDTVs there would not be one party rule and the rise of Bush.

How ridiculous can we get?

If it were not for Linux-user GREED and Linux-user willingness to sell out their elders and their children's future for a measly tax break so that they can buy SUVs and HDTVs there would not be one party rule and the rise of Bush.

------------------

If you claim that someone's sweeping general claim is false, please don't make another just-as-unsupported sweeping claim. At least post an exit poll, for Christ's sakes. I mean, blaming the poor is stupid; 63% of those with sub-15k annual income voted for Kerry, and 57% of those making 15k-30k were in our camp. But even in the 75k-100k bracket, we had 45% of the vote. That's not small enough to declare the entire middle class greedy and corrupt.

[Cobalt Violet]

5. So are you saying that 55% 75k-100k voted for Bush?

That to me is what is ridiculous.

[Poppyseedman]

7. There ought to be a forum section for random thoughts that pop

into members heads.

No article, no source, no link, no process other than posting the words of the bubble floating above your head.

Sorry to rant, but I can't agree with you more.

[Cobalt Violet]

8. Excuse the $%@!#$ out of me .

I THOUGHT this was a General Discussion forum.

[Cobalt Violet]

9. Do you post this to all the other threads in GD?

Or did you just single mine out.

[QC]

11. Have you considered decaf? n/t

[Clark2008]

3. The poor didn't vote for Bush, en masse.

Lower middle class folks, did, though, unfortunately - those that are but a paycheck away from poor.
I'm lower middle class and, fortunately, had the good sense - and access to Internet news - to NEVER vote for the idiot.

[Straight Shooter]

4. Someone on DU made an excellent argument against blaming the poor.

The DU member had statistics to back up that it wasn't, in fact, the poor who voted for bush overwhelmingly; it was actually the well-to-do, and they tipped the scale.

(May I add they tipped the scale enough that America basically overlooked rove's manipulative finger on the scale to tip it even further for bush.)

[Lone Pawn]

6. Here's the best argument one can make.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

[nonconformist]

10. The middle class reaps few rewards from those tax breaks

And certainly not enough to buy SUV's and HDTV's with it. Maybe enough to make a single car payment. But their increase in state tax liability and growing gas prices offset all rewards.

It's the rich that actually benefit. The poor and middle class that voted for him were simply pawns. Their motivation came more in the form of religious zealotry or neocon PNAC-type views... unless they fell for the smoke and mirror routine that THEY benefit from these tax breaks. In reality of course, they don't.

I blame a LOT of people for Bush. I blame people that voted for him, I blame the apathetic who didn't bother to vote, and I blame the Democrats for managing to lose what was only OURS TO LOSE.

But more than anything, I blame the media.

[gumby]

12. Excuse me while I scream....

IT WAS FRAUD -- BOTH TIMES -- THAT PUT BUSH IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!!!

While it is indeed sad that the shrinking middle class votes against their best (tangible) interests, the majority of citizens in this country voted AGAINST Bush BOTH times.

[Cobalt Violet]

13. But didn't one party rule give them more power to pull off the fraud?

[gumby]

20. Of course this horrid situation is symbiotic.

But... ALL "explanations" of who is to blame or reward ("values voters") are irrelevant. Bush is a FRAUDULENT resident of the White House because he got there through theft of the popular vote. Twice.

[NAO]

14. I like it when people blame Bush for the poor

because HE IS to blame. His policies have seen more people drop out of the middle class and into poverty than any president since Hoover.

It may be worse than Hoover, because in the 1920's there was not as much of a middle class to despoil.

[Cobalt Violet]

15. The bankruptcy bill is going to really accelerate the plunge ...

of the middle class into poverty. And that hasn't even happened yet.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. Yup, in MInnesota, it's the exurbanites who vote most heavily

Republican, the people who build trophy houses in former cornfields just off the Interstate and about thirty or forty miles out and then have the gall to complain about the traffic caused by thousands of them trying to take the same exits in Minneapolis and St. Paul all at the same time.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

17. Hmmm. I seem to recall that only the top 1% got a tax break....

...when did the middle class become part of that top 1%?

Try another line of reasoning...your last one is lying in the ditch.

[Cobalt Violet]

18. Hmmmmmmmmm. Do you remember the middle class being promised...

Tax cuts. Before the 2000 election? Do you remember any republican ever running on tax cuts?

Maybe your memory is what is lying in the ditch.

[journalist3072]

19. My take....

Well, you did have a lot of middle class Americans voting against their own best interests last November.

They drank the kool-aid that Bush was the only one that could keep them safe. They allowed his dumb a$s to play to their fears, not their hopes.

[Lorien]

21. Poor, or undereducated?

I blame the uninformed and the bed wetters for *-and that demographic crosses all socio-economic lines. Sure, many undereducated people end up poor; but if that person is poor and WHITE, especially a poor white person living in a rural area, they are a "God fearing, hard working American", while if that person is poor and BLACK, or Hispanic, and they live in an urban environment, then they are '"lazy criminals and welfare queens", at least according to the GOP and their media talking heads.

[ComerPerro]

22. With all due respect: What the hell are you talking about?

Did I miss something? Who is blaming the poor?

How about we blame the people who voted for the asshole.

[Cleita]

24. I think she's talking about those who voted for Bush against

their own best interests. There were many who were one paycheck away from homelessness who thought the $300 tax refund they got was a big deal back in 2001. I agree they shouldn't be blamed because it's the evil GOPers who took advantage of their naivete to get them to vote for Bush with empty promises. I know none of them have seen a tax cut since, but they are seeing cuts in the social progams like Medicaid that they had depended on.

[ComerPerro]

25. Yeah, but I blame them for being stupid enough to fall for it

They voted for him. Therefore, they are a big part of why he is in power now.

[Cleita]

28. Yes, but I blame our Democrats for being out of touch with

this demographic to counteract to what was happening. Instead of going on about the issues meant to wedge and distract us from those people like guns, abortion and SS lock boxes, Gore should have cut through them by promising them a bigger tax cut that was permanent.

He could have too if he had only taken in consideration the ignorance of this demographic. There was the budget surplus at the time to do it but it should have gone to the 30% of the poorest, not the 5% of the richest. I think our leadership is just as much out of touch. I think as long as we have millionaire elites running for President they wont know how to reach out to the common person.

I don't know why the GOPirates figured this out as they are millionaire elitists too, but they did and we have to redefine their marketing tools and use them ourselves.

[QC]

31. Exactly. The only party that demographic has heard from for 30 years

is the GOP. They have made an all-out effort to propagandize the working class while we have, well, um, I'm not sure, really, but I know we must have been doing something all these years but it sure wasn't trying to reaching working-class voters.

[SemperEadem]

34. If you listen to the rhetoric the RW is saying behind this bankruptcy bill

it's the poor and middle class's fault that they are living beyond their means--having a 'lust of the eye', as it were--covetting their neighbor's goods. In other words, trying to live like a republican. They need to learn some fiscal responsibility and not sink themselves in credit card debt trying to buy what they can't afford, according to the RW.

Nowhere was it mentioned by them that perhaps the banking lobby's successful intervention in the political process has tilted the scale so far to the right that being a predator lender is almost a badge of honor, among these thieves, at least.

See: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/view/

[enid602]

23. bush

By the end of Bush's 2nd administration, most of the people who voted for him MAY WELL be poor!

[solinvictus]

26. I think..

she's talking about all the malignment that went on here after the election; you know, "stupid Red staters", "we should secede from the Union", "Southern Bush-loving hicks". That sort of thing.

[libertypirate]

27. Excuse me...

Let's get real...

Who benefits from a split between the poor and the middle class?

Neither of them do... The rich do...

Don't you all see that no matter what, the point is to drive wedges that keep our own groups apart? I try and pass these threads up but I really think the whole argument or most divisive arguments are just ploys. They take the focus away from where it should be. Put it on some thing productive not an argument that is un-winnable.

[lonestarnot]

29. I LOL Loud enough for SUVrs to hear every time I drive by one these days

[cidliz2004]

30. Speak for yourself

It is not that simple even though you seem to like it that way. You have to look at regions to.

[LdyGuique]

32. Well, except for this argument being generally fallacious,

it's been proven to many people's satisfaction that the election was rigged. However, by far, the biggest issue that faces the electorate annually from local up through federal elections, is which soundbite to believe? Those who post in here think they are well-informed on voter issues -- I suspect that most have no clue as to the backgrounds and real beliefs of 90% of their local officials on school boards, city government, or county government. What about all of those people voted into State office, besides the Governor? Or the judges? How many of us know the entire judicial and legal backgrounds of the judges on the ballots?

Ignorance is not only selective, it permeates the entire election process.