In attack on Sen. Doherty, Mandelblatt ignores class
/It is becoming clearer by the day, that the anti-Trump backlash led by the Women's March organization, is an inverted revolution -- a revolt of the One-Percent against what they see as a threat to the imposition of their world view on the rest of us. Make no mistake. Their economic well-being is not threatened. They will continue to privately smile when they cash checks from their unearned income, while demonstrating to the world that they are outraged at their "privilege".
Once upon a time, the behavior of the One-Percent was constrained by a moral code that was broadly democratic -- in that it applied to everyone. Even the very rich were advised "not to frighten the horses." That however is no longer the case, and it will be some future historian who will draw the exact line when we, as a culture, slipped from being a vaguely Christian one to something decidedly Post-Christian, even Anti-Christian. Like when the Emperor Constantine decidedly to make his subjects put aside their old gods for the new, we are... quite suddenly... somewhere else.
This dislocation has affected people -- ordinary people -- as much as has the imposition of a global economy on what had, until recently, been a Main Street one. We are not a nation of immigrants, so much as refugees. We are lost, cut-off from our past, unable to return to it or even, to find it. A character in a novel by Evelyn Waugh once mused on the nature of memory... "These memories, which are my life -- for we possess nothing certainly except the past."
Enter Senator Mike Doherty, an honest man living in dishonest times. The Senator expresses himself... honestly. We say we value honesty when we do not. What we value is the show of "virtue" above all else. Like Pharisees, we wear our virtue so that the world can know our goodness and can reflect back that goodness . Of course, we are not good. We are simply blind to ourselves. We fear speaking honestly, exchange honesty for a script of virtuous catch-phrases, homilies, and sentiments. We say we hate "hate" while engaging in an endless pursuit of hate objects. We exchange new hates for old hates -- and call it virtue.
Mike Doherty is a convenient hate object. He expresses the dislocation that so many feel. He does so in an honest, almost bewildered fashion. He is concerned for his working class neighbors, concerned for the guy who maybe lacked the money or luck to get into college -- and who must now live by his muscle and grit. Or the lady who ended up a victim of the sexual revolution, whose husband ran off with a younger gal at work, and who must now make ends meet and chart a way for her children.
The One-Percent don't care about them. They call Doherty a "nativist" and a "racist" because he worries about how that man will compete in a market glutted with "illegal" labor. Cheap labor. The One-Percent love it. There's nothing like having servants to puff up the ego. Cheap labor was behind the murder of Julius Caesar. With slaves pouring into the Republic, he wanted a law that ensured the future employment of Roman Citizens -- but the Patricians weren't having it, so out came the knives. Oh, and the greedy pricks tried to justify it by saying they were striking down a tyrant. Same as today.
When you look at who owns newspapers like the Star-Ledger, with their record of anti-worker, anti-union, greedy behavior -- you can trace back every one of their editorial page screeds to corporate self-interest. George Carlin was right... "They want more for themselves and less for everyone else... rich c*cksuckers who don't give a f*ck about you."
Ever wonder why the only people that these pricks pay well are the columnists? All the hard news reporters have been reduced to the level of piece-work stringers, but the owners maintain a stable of well-fed, well cared-for columnists who can largely be relied upon to advance their agenda. They don't pay for facts. For hard news. They pay for hit jobs. For opinion pieces to push their self-interest.
Hell, the Gannett organization was sued by its own employees for maintaining a regime of systemic corporate racism... and then they have the balls to employ opinion writers to call other people "racist"? Look at me, don't look over there, look at the pretty opinion writer balloon, don't focus on the bucket load of shit that we're standing in.
Enter Lisa Mandelblatt, Democrat candidate for Congress. Such a pretty lady with a winning personality... it almost hurts to have to criticize her. And she sure looks cute, marching against The Donald in that pink pussy cat hat with all those other rich suburban ladies. But really? She is going to make pronouncements about the working class... from Westfield???
Westfield is bubbleland! It is practically the center of the bubble universe. They have neighborhoods with names like Country Club Estates, The Gardens, Manor Park, Indian Forest, and Stonehenge... WTF! They say they love people here illegally who can't speak English when what they really love are people here illegally who will work for nothing and who can't backtalk them.
And working class people? They have a name for them too. If you said it about anyone else they would call it "hate speech" but hell, blue collar folk are this season's fashionable hate object. They call them "trailer park trash."
So perky Ms. Mandelblatt took a shot at Senator Doherty today, calling him out for what she alleged are his "anti-immigrant and nativist statements." Come again? This guy was in the Army... who do you think he lived with, worked with, and would have died to protect? His three sons all signed up. Who do they live with?
And there sits Ms. Mandelblatt, sitting pretty in Westfield. You could have chosen to live anywhere... why Westfield? Isn't that kind of anti-immigrant and nativist of you?
