Just How Dumb Are White Males?
Let me now defend white males. We can't possibly be as dumb as the polls showing we are John McCain's most reliable voting base would indicate. Do we white men believe for an instant that a vote for McCain would not represent more of President Bush's failed economic policies at home and costly military adventures abroad? If we don't hold such a belief, why are a majority of us expected to vote against the positive change that Barack Obama so clearly represents?
Most of us know how to read, and can even Google, so why would we think that GOP candidate McCain, who has supported Bush on every one of his economic initiatives, is now the anti-Bush? What exactly did McCain mean when he said, referring to his Democratic opponent during a campaign speech in Ohio on Monday, "We both disagree with President Bush on economic policy"?
Is McCain unaware that he consistently voted for the red ink run up by the Bush administration, or was he having a senior moment when he said that same day, "We cannot spend the next four years as we spent much of the last eight: spending ourselves into a ditch, and hoping that the consequences don't come"?
The only time McCain took issue with Bush's economic policy was in his short-lived criticism of the tax cut for the rich--a strategy he now defends. But if McCain doesn't increase taxes for someone, just how does he plan to pay for the enormous Iraq war debt, now vastly compounded by the banking bailout? On Monday McCain gave his answer: "I will freeze government spending on all but the most important programs, like defense, veterans' care, Social Security and health care, until we scrub every single government program and get rid of the ones that aren't working for the American people."
Is he kidding? If he doesn't curtail those programs, which make up almost the entire federal budget, then he's talking about chump change in possible cuts. There just isn't enough money in those earmarks that McCain goes on about to make a dent in the massive national debt.
President Bush's treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, left our collective credit card on Wall Street, where the bankers are once again to be trusted to regulate themselves. Are there any white males out there still so in the dark that they don't know that the radical banking deregulation legislation that McCain pushed so aggressively is what legally enabled those he condemned on Monday as "the Wall Street bankers and brokers who got us into this mess"? Have they never heard of Phil Gramm, the man McCain picked to co-chair his presidential campaign, who sponsored the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act--both of which made legal, for the first time since the Great Depression, the credit swaps and hybrid instruments at the heart of the Wall Street scams?
Call me naive, but I think white males, startled by job cuts and the devastation wreaked upon their retirement savings, are finally getting the point: Someone's got to pay for this mess, and better those who got rich off the stock market theft than the rest of us.
Can you imagine the uproar now if the McCain-Bush plan to privatize Social Security by linking it to stock purchases had become law? And have you noticed that the Wall Street crooks are not using the bailout money to ease credit but rather to line their golden parachutes? They know how to take care of their retirement.
I don't think McCain gets that the rest of us could use a bit more lift from the government safety net. That's the same federal support that GM CEO Rick Wagoner asked about when he went, hat in hand, to Washington on Monday to lobby for a $10-billion gift to keep his company out of bankruptcy. Or is the CEO of GM just another tax-and-spend socialist?
Robert Scheer is author of a new book, "The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America."
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Check out:
"Why It’s Still a Race"
Howard Fineman
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/racetothefinish/archive/2008/10/29/why-it-s-still-a-race.aspx
"Why hasn’t Obama run away with this?
Because the country remains culturally divided. Because the more it looks like Democrats will score huge gains in Congress, the more worried “soft Republican” voters get. Because McCain has succeeded, in the minds of some of those voters, in raising the hoary specter of “tax-and-spend” liberals. Because Obama hails from a place (South Side Chicago) and background (the son of professional academics) more reminiscent of Democratic losers like Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry than winners like LBJ, Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton. Because some voters remember the hate-filled sound bites of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
And, to a degree we cannot measure and may never fully know, because Obama is an African-American---and one with a Swahili name at that."
What "hate-filled sound bites of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright"? There is nothing hateful about the truth. We saw everything Rev. Wright said on the display for the whole world to see during this election cycle. So, I agree with Rev. Wright 100%, without any apologies!
Maybe white men are less tolerant of other races than white women?
And white women are less tolerant of other races of women than white men.
There is the rogue male component.I hve met many single guys{r}or{I}who resent having to pay for taxes that pay for OTHER PEOPLES KIDS to go to school{really]
,even though they went to public school.They resent s.s. snd s.s.i.Basically they resent the social contract and see themselves as victims having to pay for things that {as they see it }dont benifit them.They tend to be single[no wonder]with no kids{thank god.}but there are alot of them.
I see, in addition to all that you mentioned, as a group of men who've figured out that their gender and caucasian skin no longer insure them a free ticket to the American dream as it has for so many years.
Angry, white males: welcome to the reality that women and those of other ethnicities have known for years. You're going to actually have to compete on a more level playing field than in years past!
Is that with or without affirmative action?
Men are more likely to be jingoists (like McCain) than are women.
(I am a white man)
It's not simply a matter of dumb. It's also matter of information sources. If you rely on sources that continually feed you false information your ability to make competent decisions is severely impaired. I suppose a case could be made that relying on such sources is dumb but one of the truths about receiving nothing but falsehoods is that you have no idea that that is what you are getting.
The type of propaganda sources prevalent in the US today are relatively new and the citizens are still learning to recognize and cope with them. There is a tendency to stick with those that feed you information that is already in accordance with your beliefs, and thus a positive feedback cycle exists that tends to keep people from seeking new sources that might contradict what information they are receiving.
Fortunately such propaganda outlets have gotten so comfortable with what they do they have become more and more outlandish in the lies they spread. At some point the contradictions between the information that such sources provide and facts learned while trying to live one's life become too much and the cycle is broken.
Unfortunately the overall trend is to discount all information sources as lies rather than try to seek out ones that provide more accurate information.
I wasn't particularly a fan of Ronald Reagan but he spoke wise words when he said "Trust, but verify."
LOL
I don't know. My Dad has voted Republican for 35 years. He is voting for Obama this year.
So I guess there is hope for white males yet.
Observations of the white male from a white female who's lived with them for over 60 years....
All decisions are made from self interest.
Most decisions are made by the little head for the big head.
They are easily diverted by shiny objects shaped like tools.
They are easily diverted by any analogy based on a male-dominated sport.
They usually travel in groups of like-males - very seldom venturing from the party line du jour.
They gotta 'go along to git along'.
Basic white male 101
LMAO...I was going to point out the same things from the perspective of a 40's something female but you beat me to it.... BRAVA.....
And they die 5 years younger than white women but still collect social security at the same age as white women. Dumb!
Ouch. That hurts, but I would have to agree. White males tend to be more self-centered and make decisions based on their own self-interest. Ergo, their positions on taxes, guns, the military, etc. Women of any color tend to be more touchy-feely, which makes them open to other ideas and opinions (not necessarily smarter - had to get that in). The thing guys need to remember is the line from the Dirty Harry movie: "A man's gotta know his limitations."
I wouldn't say women tend to be "more touchy-feely". In this context "touchy-feely" is a bit trivializing; rather I'd say, women are more EMPATHETIC with the needs and welfare of their fellow humans than most males, IMO.
Nice stereotyping. I'm never surprised at the hypocrisy. As a white male who's lived with white females for 40 yrs, it would be too easy to generalize the all the stereotypical faults and shortcomings of the opposite gender or any other ethnicity. I wonder where all this self-gratifying, grand nobility comes from?
It could be that some white men just like McCain's policies. That's not really a comforting thought for me, but that doesn't make it untrue.
To realize how dumb white men are you need only to look back in history,every mistake they made they have repeated over and over again,they have taken this country to war with no real plan to win or no plan to end when all else fails,we have not Won a war since ww2 when the surender was signed by Japan. Sept.11 was the frist time a act of war was directed at our country and what did white men do but to go after the Wrong people who commited the act. I think Mr.Obama will bring not only leadership for the american people but also renew our respect around the world,and any man white,black ,green ,purple knows that is what is needed.
Excellent comment.
As a white male, I think a lot of progress has been made in the last 40 years. All those swinging dicks at the Palin rallies are there for one reason only. These same men would never pull a lever for a woman unless a free beer was also being dispensed. But they will vote for a "war hero". I am not going to talk about the race issue here, because I think that is equally distributed throughout the population.
i get it. you mean...that if blacks had enslaved whites for 500 years and then put them through 100 years of jimcrow..that whites would demand reparations too? if the situation between whites and blacks had been reversed..you can bet...bombs would go off every 30 minutes (vis a vie the IRA )until whites got their reparations checks and justice.furthermore,,blacks vote for self interest. we hate and despise the clarence thomases and ward connerlys and shelby steeles and condi rices of this world because they work against our interests.we would never vote for clarence thomas..the way white males vote for george bush..just becase he is white.every major plank of the republican party platform skins people like "joe the plumber " alive..but joe..he continually votes against his own self interests.
Have you seen Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Liberia, Sudan, etc., etc. How majorities treated the minorities in those nations. Especially Rwanda and Darfur in the 90's..........Chances are thats how America would have been if things were reversed. These examples speak CLEARLY for themselves.
Maybe when McCain said that he had disagreed with Bush on economic issues, he was remembering how he had been against the Bush tax cuts before he was for them.
Was this before or after that scary hug?
I almost feel sorry for McCain. Up until around 2004 he really was something of a maverick who called BS on Bush's policies. Of course, that was when Bush was popular, so he made enemies in the party. By 2004 McCain decided he had to embrace Bush (literally as you point out) and make nice with the far right of the party just as the rest of the country saw Bush and the Republicans as the failures they are. Talk about bad timing.
Bob..
You seem to be one of those apologists for your race and your gender. Must be a liberal.
How dumb are we? Apparently so dumb we voted a majority of democrats into Congress. Alot of good that did us. Pelosi voted for the bailout and marched lock step with Bush.
Now, Pelosi and Reid want to know just how dumb we are again. Now they want a supermajority. I guess that would allow them to be superincompetent instead of just incompetent.
Can't undo 6 years of stupidity in only 2 years eh?
and without of fillibuster or veto proof majority.
you voted for Bush twice --must be a kook
Thanks for trying to pin 25 years of trickle down on Pelosi and Reid. I love watching you guys tie yourselves in knots trying ot defend your failed conservative economic views. They don't work. FAIL -
Got suckered into voting for Bush twice, eh? Probably say you would do it again, even knowing what you know now. The title of this piece speaks for itself.
And their choices were???You think the republcans woulnt have gone along?/p.s. my democratic senator voted against it,i still dont know what the right thing would have been,but i hope they know better than i.
Most major cities are totally democratic party controlled (Detroit, Chicago, Philly, etc.) So tell me how is the govt. there? The education systems, the taxes, crime, etc., etc., etc.?............The example is right there to be seen
Why is it that there is such an abhorrent fear of the word taxes. The Republicans can tell everyone that they will give them a $500 year tax cut and the crowds will chear like mad.
However the cost of this will be paying $800 more per year on gas because we are not working toward energy independence. Your health care premiums will go up $1000 per year because we can't control health care costs. The cost of everything you buy is going to go up because we have to borrow from China and India and Saudi Arabia thereby lowering the value of the US Dollar.
As credit tightens and interest rates go up the cost of a new car or your mortgage skyrockets.
But what the heck. He is gonna cut my taxes by 500 hundred dollars so he has my vote.
"Why is it that there is such an abhorrent fear of the word taxes. "
About 40% of the american people don't have that fear...they don't pay income taxes. The fear of small business owners is that an increase in taxes cuts into your capital. Capital is used to buy goods to be sold and pay for benefits to employees and then take some profit.
Unless you work for a poor person, Obama will raise their taxes. They will not eat a tax increase. They will either raise prices [not smart] or cut expenses. One of the easiest expenses to cut is personnel.
Unless you are self employed, you are personnel.
Thats a very simplistic look at small business. My Dad is a small business owner. Setting the magic mark at 250k will just let him know how much money he needs to reinvest at the end of the year to bring his taxes down. That is what all small businesses (and many large) do.
When it gets to December and Dad has made $300k. He will go buy 50k worth of new supplies/equipment/repairs/. Makes it more likely to give the employees a Christmas bonus. Lets see I can pay taxes on this money or just give a bonus to my employees. If you get more stuff and hire more employees your taxable income is lowered.
Tax increases happen on NET earnings not GROSS.
Can somebody explain that to all of these Joe the Plumbers?
As opposed to McCains genius plan? Tax your health benefits, no tax cut to anyone making under 5 million, is that what you want? How's that plan of yours been doing the past 8 years? How those brilliant votes working out for ya?
This is as dumb as the employee who once told me he did not want to work overtime or get a raise because it would put him in a higher tax bracket.
Are you telling me that I will not invest in my business because I may have to pay more taxes if my profits go up? If my busines made a NET profit of $250,000 it might wind up paying $83,300 in taxes at a 33% rate. If my marginal tax rate went up to up to 40% on the amount over $250,000 and I made a profit of $300,000 I would pay an extra $20,000 in taxes but I would still pocket (or invest) the other $30,000. Are you telling me that a sane and rational businessman would not want that extra profit because he would wind up in a higher bracket?
So much more money into entitlements (benefits me personally, I'm retired) as promised, education, the $170 billion a year they estimate Obama's health program will cost, 2 more brigades in Afghanistan, more foreign aid as he's promised, now he says a contingent stays in Iraq, no exploring and drilling of energy sources, help pay people's foreclosures,etc., etc., etc., etc. and oh yeah 95% of us are getting a tax-break (LOL), and everything will be okie-dokie.....FUZZY MATH !
Just how dumb ARE white males? To quote poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning: "Let me count the ways..."
Wilbur
White males have been made to look stupid on television for years. The economic rug has been pulled out from under all of us by the republicans and democrats with trade agreements and not enforcing labor laws. The republicans use right wing talk radio and right wing religion to redirect the anger at the democrats . The republicans want us to blame each other so that we can't unite and solve our economic problems together. Divide and Conquer! The Nixon white house audio tapes discuss this in detail.
We are ALL made to look stupid on TV! I guess it's cause they think we're stupid.
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