S Carolina: "Fired up! Ready to go!" Lady, others struggle

[Undercurrent]

This is a good article with photo album.

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A Hundred Anxious Days

In a South Carolina Town Where the Downturn Has Deepened Since the Inauguration, Two Obama Supporters Have Struggled, Going From 'Fired Up' to Tired Out

...Across the dark living room, one of Childs's favorite pictures is displayed on a worn coffee table. It shows Childs with her arms wrapped around Barack Obama, his hand on her back, her eyes glowing. They met at a rally attended by 37 supporters on a rainy day in 2007, when Childs responded to Obama's sluggishness on stage with an impromptu chant: "Fired up! Ready to go!" She repeated it, shouting louder each time, until Obama laughed and dipped his shoulders to the rhythm. The chant caught on. "Fired up!" people began saying at rallies. "Ready to go," Obama chanted back. He told audiences about Childs, "a spirited little lady," and invited her onstage at campaign appearances. By the day of his inauguration, when Childs led a busload of strangers bound for the Mall in her now-iconic chant, her transformation was complete. She was Edith Childs, fired up and ready to go.

But now, as Obama nears the 100-day milestone of his presidency, Childs suffers from constant exhaustion. In a conservative Southern state that bolstered Obama's candidacy by supporting him early in the Democratic primaries, she awakens at 2:30 a.m. with stress headaches and remains awake mulling all that's befallen Greenwood since Obama's swearing-in.

On Day 4 of his presidency, the Solutia textile plant laid off 101 workers. On Day 23, the food bank set a record for meals served. On Day 50, the hospital fired 200 employees and warned of further job cuts. On Day 71, the school superintendent called a staff meeting and told his principals: "We're losing 10 percent of our budget. That means some of us won't have jobs next year, and the rest should expect job changes and pay cuts." On Day 78, the town's newly elected Democratic mayor, whose campaign was inspired partly by his admiration for Obama, summarized Greenwood's accelerating fragility. "This is crippling us, and there's no sign of it turning around," Welborn Adams said.

On Day 88, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that South Carolina had set a record for its highest unemployment rate in state history, at 11.4 percent. Greenwood's unemployment is 13 percent -- more than twice what it was when Childs first started chanting...

more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/25/AR2009042501870.html?hpid=topnews

[FrenchieCat]

1. A 5 page article saying that this woman's plight is Barack Obama's fault!

How fucked up is that?

Life is hard, and Barack Obama never said it would all be solved in 100 days.
But I guess the Washington Post writer doesn't know this.

I wrote the author a letter-

Life is hard, but President Barack Obama never said it would all be solved in 100 days (re-listen to his Grant Park Speech and/or his Inauguration speech). But I guess you aren't willing to truly put all of that in perspective, and would rather give the impression to readers that the predicament of each American, in particular those who are hanging by a thin thread, is due to Barack Obama's priorities. Perhaps you could have focused on what Governor Mark Sanford is doing for the people of South Carolina. Perhaps that would have been more productive to Ms. Childs and others who are currently suffering there.

I tend to believe that if the media wasn't so busy covering lightly attended Tea Parties (heck, you even covered in this article!), handshakes, and worrying about whether Obama is being bi-partisan enough (like it only takes one) and concentrated more on letting folks know that affordable health care, education and clean energy, is worth a temporary deficit, there wouldn't be such resistence to gettin done what needs to be done to better the lives of those standing on the edge.

When Barack Obama has to deal with a media that attempts to make it appear that there are two sides to everything, when in reality, one side is wrong, wrong, wrong, don't scratch your head and try to figure out why Change is coming slower than it might otherwise.

I'm sure that Ms. Child's realizes that unfortunately, Pres. Obama is not a Messiah, and that he has a lot of forces that he has to reckon with, nothwithstanding one of those being the media, who knows all, but not really.

Respectfully,

[Undercurrent]

2. Interesting, Frenchie.

I went back and re read the article. I didn't pick this up the first time around. Maybe my brain was busing with other matters at the time, but I what I got was a sense of the real desperation, bordering on panic these people are feeling (and by extension hundreds of thousands of others), and how they are in serious need of immediate help. I came away blaming the state government, specifically that rat bastard, idiot boy Sanford, for the lack of a life line to these folks.

Childs, and the rest of the folks on the front lines are trying their hardest to take care of each other, with little, or no help from their state. I see this in my own state, but thankfully our state government, with help from the stimulus package, is helping people on the local level. Things are grim in my state, and there are pockets with a good percentage of people were already living in poverty when the economy tanked. These folks, some of them my family and neighbors, are struggling like these folks in the poor areas of South Carolina.

Thanks for reading the entire article, and for your feedback to the author.

[flpoljunkie]

3. Moving, very well written. Is Sanford still refusing money for unemployment benefits?

Mrs. Childs is an extraordinary human being. And, what a rotten bastard for a governor the people of South Carolina are saddled with in this extraordinary difficult time!

[Undercurrent]

4. She is indeed.

A real inspiration for all of us including our President! :-)

Hope you checked the photos too.

People like Sanford are the scum of of the earth. Selfish, bigoted and downright mean.