Electricity Flickering

We seem to be getting the snow storm they say we were going to miss and I'm not confident the electricity won't go out.

A year or two ago someone angrily asked me if I was telling them they had to be polite to "stupid, fat, NASCAR fans",  the answer was that you had to if you wanted them to vote with you.   Which is, it would seem, a point too subtle for so many leftists with clean fingernails and a college degree to understand.

I'm afraid that increasingly, people on what gets called "the left" in the United States are the same kind of elite snobs who have disdain and a hatred of poor people which, at times, more than matches the right wing desire to exploit and use them.  One of the conclusions I've gotten from watching American politics, on the failure of the left to win over larger numbers of poor people, especially poor white people, that they have been successfully sold on the image of liberal elitism that looks down on poor people with "blue collar" lives.  I'm sorry to have to say that, especially since going online and reading the unedited thoughts of so many on "the left" it's not entirely untrue.  It's a disdain that is frequently expressed and those who express it clearly delight in the opportunity to declare their own superiority to poor people.  Poor white people, most often, but I really can't imagine them putting themselves out for the garbage collectors who Martin Luther King jr. died for.

In those comments from the "left" as it is manifested on so many leftish blogs, I see the same attitudes and ways of thinking that allowed the British elite to do the terrible things they did while feeling such a sense of personal virtue and rectitude.  It's a difference of accent, not of substance.

Here is a piece I wrote in my earlier, more innocent, days as a blogger, back when I believed so many of those I read wanted real progress more than to feel superior to the majority of people.  Note that I still used the term "working class",  I hadn't had my consciousness raised by reading Mother Country yet.


HOW DOES IT FEEL? CLASS AND THE LEFT

You've heard the question, why are working class people hostile to the left, the side who have brought them the five-day week and just about every economic benefits they have? Why do they think that we are elitist snobs? Well, some don't. Contrary to the Republican medias' line there are lots of working class people who do favor the left and are quite aware that we are the ones who support them. You might even want to prepare yourself to be stunned, there is no exclusionary principle that keeps working class people from being genuine, full-fledged, leftists. But we do have a problem with those who don't trust us. For starters, they are too often too many for us to win.

Like most everything favoring conservatives, a lot of working class hostility to the left is founded on a lie. As a life-long leftist from a left leaning, working class family I know that leftist snobbery is a lot less common than asserted. The policies are the best proof. Those are generally working class friendly, or used to be before the beltway triangulation fad took hold. But I'll tell you up front, there is way too much class snobbery on the left and unless it is dropped the charge will stick like 100% polyester on a humid day. The problem for the left is real, the political results are plain. It's not an easy issue to define so a complete analysis will take too long. We need to fix this quick.

Stop to consider how a remark or exclusion makes the recipient feel and if the perceived motivation for it requires the slight. Sometimes the slight is unintentional, sometimes given out of habit. I can guarantee you that things like correcting grammar or spelling, especially while ignoring the substance of what was being said, can buy you a life-long enemy, mocking religion even more so. I'm pretty thick skinned about my spelling, most people aren't. If there isn't any problem with the sub-standard usage or religious issue it's just not worth the price to point it out. To make it more complicated, sometimes it is worth it. I don't know when the cost of a grammar issue is a bargain but would fight for evolution to the end. One is formalism, the other is truth. I assume we can all agree that mocking taste in clothes and entertainment is clearly not worth the price.

Attacks from the likes of the blog trolls are the time to get the brass knuckles out. That's not a class issue. It's one of those brawls mentioned here a couple of weeks back and just about anything goes.

For some it's not as much a style issue as it is a problem of courtesy or respect for perceived inferiors. If that is true for someone it goes a lot farther down to the real commitment to the commonly held leftist agenda, I don't trust them. But if that isn't the case it's a matter of changing a bad habit. Getting it right without perceived condescension isn't always easy but, again, unless the necessary skills are mastered any slights will be taken as confirmation of the worst stereotypes. It paints us all. Common politeness, not dismissing the point that is being made, asking politely for clarification when needed and showing respect will get you a lot farther than the most brilliant and factual correction even when coolly delivered.

It's a question of what results you want. You want us with you or against you?