Politics sure does make strange bedfellows. Republicans are up in arms about this because a black guy killed two cops, as we've learned, because NY's democrat mayor pretty much told him to. Interesting bed partner choice here is that, you may think you know that republicans dislike blacks but you know for sure that they don't like unions especially government ones. Under the right circumstances- like, if a white "patriot" had killed the cops- the dialogue might have been about two lazy, union thugs getting what they deserved for sloughing off in their taxpayer paid for patrol car. They really could look at it that way. They do hate unions with their expensive wages and benefits. It's a fine, very thin, blue line. On the one hand the police target minorities and keep the prisons full. But on the other, they have those pesky wages and benefits. Don't believe me? Look at the death of Eric Garner. According to Sean Hannity and Fox *news* Garner was killed by government tax collectors because of his selling of un-taxed cigarettes. They do have a way of looking at things, don't they? They can turn on a dime. And, give you change.
But ya know, that's politics. The whole idea is to separate you from your money and make it seem like it's your idea. People voting against their own interests is nothing knew. There surely are tens of thousands of cops who are staunch republicans, perhaps because of the party's mask of conservative ethics, and are willing to overlook the whole anti-union thing because they favor law and order in society. The best explanation of cops I ever heard came from a cop on the show "COPS". He said that people needed to understand that cops come out of the same general population we all do. They're not super beings. Just people. Like doctors and lawyers. Half of them graduated in the bottom half of their class so, half are better or worse than the other half. Just like some lawyers become patent or tax attorneys, some cops are better suited to safe suburban departments or blending into the background of a huge department like the NYPD. Think about people that you work with. Not everyone gets it. Not everyone is smart. A lot of people just show up.
Same with politics. Republicans are outraged that black people are being given all this money and special rights by the gubmint- just for being black- and now they are acting up and killing cops, because democrats told them to!
That's essentially what it boils down to. Never mind that by sheer volume of population, far more white people are "on welfare" than blacks, the perception is that of blacks in ghettos being supported by white taxpayers, not whites in Kentucky being supported by taxes. It doesn't take much Googling to discover that the republican base includes a lot red states that receive more gubmint assistance than blue states. This means that hillbillies may well vote against welfare that they are receiving, because they think it will stop blacks from getting it. Priorities.
The reality is that the middle class makes too much money. Their pensions and Social Security are a heavy burden too. Well, for someone. Wall Street maybe? They sure want their hands on everyone's pensions and SS and lot's of politicians are willing to help them get it. And poor people are a burden on the middle class because middle class taxpayers are the ones that pay for their welfare. It will all end when welfare handouts and demands for increases in the minimum wage ends. That's pretty much the way the media presents it to us. Everyone will be better off once democrats quit punishing the wealthy for being successful. You'll appreciate that too because, one day you will live the American dream of being rich and successful too and you won't want to be punished either. That's the way it works, the logic of the American mind. Unions are blamed for high prices. Your neighbor who is in a union "makes too much money." Who are you to say anyone makes too much money? Can't people all over the internet decide you make too much money?
If you are a struggling single mother of three who desperately needs a job, a conservative might tell you to get a job at McDonald's. But, conservatives also believe those McDonald's jobs are designed for teenagers not adults looking to support a family. So...go to college! Make something of yourself! It's still pretty much true that college is a path to higher earning potential but, how many single mom's can afford the $100k or so it takes to get that degree. Feeding and housing the kids takes precedent. Well, no one told you to have those kids...
The world does need ditch diggers and always will even though in our modern times that means the guy who operates the Ditch Witch- something you can't do, by the way. You can be trained, but do you want to? You can cook a hamburger, likely better than McDonald's but, don't you just love the convenience that Mickey D's offers? If you recognize that people need these jobs to better serve you, why can't you grasp that these people need to be compensated for their labors? We should all be ashamed that, in the "Greatest Country In The World" millions of our fellow citizens can work a 40 hour week and still barely scrape by. It's really obscene. Forty years ago that job at McDonalds actually would get a person through college. Now it barely affords a singe person a place to live unless he or she has roommates. It's kinda like college, I guess, without the classes and the parties.
Forty years. The price of everything goes up and wages go down. And politically minded conservatives believe that wages- for some- have not gone down enough! And instead of welcoming more fellow Americans into the middle class, let's shut the door! And nail it closed! Anyone know how to operate a hammer? The conservatives know they can get illegals to do it. Their fans out there in the general population tacitly approved that. Now that illegals have helped lower wages, it's time to rid the country of the foreign menace.
It makes a lot of sense if you don't think about it. Most Americans did not think about it. The politicians and the corporations did. Strange bedfellows indeed. Only the people got fucked though. Some are still fucking themselves and others in a desperate attempt to keep the residue of the American dream as portrayed on television in the 1960's, alive. That is the gift of hopelessness that politicians have left some of us, the hatred and contempt for the other Americans we are told are really the ones stealing our dreams. It couldn't be the powerful ones doing it! It's got to the poor, those greedy bastards! Who else could it be?
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