Bitter Popcorn, or My Friend Joe

My friend Joe (not his real name) looked up from my Barcalounger, which he's been hogging all week. One tentacle held the remote, the other an empty bag of Smartfood.

"I have two questions for you," he said. "The briefing papers I read on the way here gave the impression that your planet was in deep - what do you say?"

"Doo-doo."

"Yes. Melting icecaps, rising sea levels, rampant extinctions, hurricanes, draught. War, terror, genocide, government-sanctioned torture. People losing their homes. Food riots. Financial collapse."

"Sounds about right."

"But on this screen of yours all anyone talks about is some guy who ordered orange juice instead of coffee, and was bad at knocking things over with a heavy ball, and said something about people in small towns being bitter."

"That's what he said."

"How many of them has he tasted?"

"In this context, 'bitter' means angry and disillusioned. He said some small-town people are bitter because their jobs have been shipped overseas, their communities have been gutted, and politicians keep making promises to them and then screwing them."

"You mean..."

"No. Cheating them, exploiting them. After a while, he said, people stop believing that their votes can improve their lives, so instead they vote to protect the things they have left, like their guns and their faith. That's how the party of the rich stays in power."

"Is that true?"

"Yes."

"Then why did he get in trouble for saying it?"

"Because it makes him sound like an elitist."

"Is he an elitist?"

"Of course not. He was raised by a single mother who had to rely on foodstamps, and by grandparents who just barely managed to stay middle class. He worked as an organizer in communities devastated by the shuttering of steel plants. He and his wife only recently finished paying off their college loans."

"So who is calling him an elitist?"

"A man who's been living off his wife's $100 million fortune for the past quarter-century while supporting policies that have made the rich richer, the poor poorer, and the middle class poor. Who has eight homes, and thinks that when people lose their homes it's their own fault."

"Who else?"

"A woman who grew up in an upper-middle-class family, has lived in mansions all her adult life, and had an income of $109 million over the past eight years. And who worked hard to pass the trade agreement that helped these small-town people lose their jobs."

"So I guess this man and this woman belong to the same party - the party of the rich?"

"Well, no."

Joe eyed me keenly as only a creature with three eyes can.

"On second thought," I said, "maybe they do."

"Why does anyone believe them?"

"No one does, really."

"So why do the people on the screen keep repeating their words?"

"Because the people on the screen are rich, too, and spend their lives being driven in big cars from big houses to fancy restaurants to TV studios, and don't have the vaguest idea what ordinary people think."

"Then why do ordinary people bother watching the screen at all?"

"I don't know, really. I guess it's addictive. What was your second question?"

Joe smiled. With his left tentacle - its indigo sheen now smudged with whitish grease - he held up the empty bag of Smartfood.

Comments

[GuyInNC]

Why didn't you explain to your friend Joe that elitism is about more than having money. And that you don't even need to have money to be elitist. You should have explained to Joe that elitism has to do with attitude as much as, if not more than with having money.

Did you leave Joe thinking that JFK and FDR were elitists because they had money?

Joe might want to start asking his questions to someone who is willing to give him the whole answer instead the biased version.

[ljsfolly]

Liked the story and even if "Joe" asked the right questions and got the right answers he will still go into the voting booth after hearing dozens of negative ads with very little truth in them and vote. What will he base his vote on? The multiple negative ads paid for by a group "not attached to Hillary" or by the conversation he had with you? Whether or not he cares to admit it the negative ads will remain in his thoughts/brain and will somehow influence him all the way into the voting booth. Those who are in the undecided or the not sure of Barack are still waiting for the reason to vote or not vote for him. I think for all of the reasons a sane, clear thinking person to not vote for Hillary to still question Barack and his motives is astounding. My story would be watching Hillary walk out of jail smiling and raising her hands like she does at her "performances" and knowing she was guilty of all charges and still having questions about her opponent who has never gone to jail but has faced minor law infractions for associations he had in the past. The opponent of Hillary was a naive person when he interacted with those people who might not have been of high charactor when he dealt with them but no longer has such associations because he is much wiser now. Hillary was never naive.

[GuyInNC]

After a while, he said, people stop believing that their votes can improve their lives, so instead they vote to protect the things they have left, like their guns and their faith. That's how the party of the rich stays in power
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you make the same mistake Obama does. How does this explain the rest of his comment the antipathy for people not like them? Does this mean they ar protecting their family tradition of BIGOTRY? He answer goes explain the guns and religion. But, he keeps inoring the bigotry he accused these people of. Unless he honestly believes that bigotry is a finae family tradition in small town PA.

After all, he was answering a questio about white working class people were voting for Hillary instead of him. And he basically said the white working class wouldn't vote for a black man. In his comments in San Francisco he also said these voters were skeptical when hearing the message coming from a black man, and his audienced LAUGHED. Has anyone bothered to exoplain the laughter yet?

[creo13]

Couple of things. As he said in the Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board meeting, he actually mangled and mixed two different issues.
1. The bitter part is explained above fairly well.
2. The antipathy part he explained, politicians use wedge issues to divide people (i.e. "those foreigners are taking your jobs. I will stop them." Or "He believes that there should be a ban on guns. Vote for me. I will not let that happen" as Bill Clinton explained here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/13/bill-clinton-flashback-al_n_96433.html
This is how the right trys to divide people. What Obama calls "distractions".

Hope this helps.

[MadamBlu]

Joe sounds like a pretty cool guy to hang out with - as long as you don't run out of Smartfood.

Loved this!

[southsideirish]

Clever. I think, though, if anyone out there is watching the big screen, they're sitting back and laughing manically, preparing for an easy invasion and overthrow. It reminds me of that episode of the Twilight Zone, "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street." The only difference is they don't even have to turn off the power to get us to start acting like buffoons, rambling incoherently about who's got what sinister plans, and killing each other. Just let us be, we'll do fine on our own.

[ObserverinVancouver]

Thank you for the laughs. This is the first thing I've read of yours and I'm going to look for more.

[LordGrowing]

There are worse things that draughts.

[Hullaballoo]

Your friend Joe sounds like a pretty smart, um, being. We could use a few more of those around here.

[yomikey]

This should be Obama's opening statement tonight.