Real Murkins don’t hate the Occupy hippies (via):
In the National Journal poll, 56 percent of non-college-educated whites back the demonstrators, though the right-wing media continually depict them trust fund babies gone wild.
In the strange case of Occupy Wall Street, none of the usual cultural signifiers by which we’ve been conditioned to hate one another seems to be working. Where have you gone, Archie Bunker? What gives?
Would Archie even qualify as a Real Murkin now? He probably had a lot of friends in unions, he lived in a fairly densely-populated area, so he didn’t drive that much or shop exclusively at big box stores. I’m not sure they had Applebees and Chilis in Queens back then (not many of them there now).
srv
Archie would be eating cat food.
We need a show like that again.
*Archie on Democats: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fqCS7Y_kME
Mark S.
Archie didn’t hate Muslims and Mexicans enough.
jl
“Despite the best efforts of trained pundits,”
That is the scariest line in the story. If our very serious, highly trained, pundits can’t handle this mob, we are doomed.
Edit: on other hand, St Reagan would imagine how it would turn out in a movie pic. I will relax, assured that a scientists in a white coat will run out of the lab at almost the last minute, with a new gizmo, and put in the hands of the trained pundits. The gizmo rays will knock down the DFHs. Whew. I was worried for a moment.
gbear
Everyone can agree that most rich white men suck.
schrodinger's cat
Quite a dilemma for Archie, since Veronica would be in the 1% and while Betty would the 99%.
MattF
Right-wing media have a tough sell here– real murricans have a long-standing suspicion of Wall Street. And of banker-banksters. And, um, regardless of what the WALL STREET Journal says, it’s pretty clear who the lucky duckies are.
jl
@schrodinger’s cat: Sounds like an opportunity for a Centrist to me.
Mouse Tolliver
Archie was pro-union. I made a mental note of that a few weeks ago while watching a rerun of All in the Family. Today’s Republicans are so extreme Archie Bunker would’ve been cast out of their ranks.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Mouse Tolliver:
But they’d have cast Reagan out under the actual policies followed, so this is not exactly news.
arguingwithsignposts
One wonders how many times Rasmussen has had to scrap and reword poll questions about OWS after getting the ‘wrong’ results?
Bill E Pilgrim
Yeah it’s interesting. Especially tho two opposite effects: The tea party really was almost entirely extreme right wing Republicans while the news media kept insisting it was a sampling across the board.
This does seem to have quite a range, and they’re insisting that it’s all just one narrow type. I don’t know about you but I’ve seen a bunch of union people involved and not one of them was carrying a “bongo drum”.
Though you may never know where the truth sits precisely, one thing you can be sure of is that the US corporate media will be somewhere else.
In other news: “Gee our old La Salle ran great”, it took me I think two years of seeing that show before I knew what those lyrics were. And only because someone told me.
joes527
So the thing that #OWS seems to have changed is that the R’s have been backed into directly defending the richest of the rich.
Oh don’t get me wrong. That’s always been what they were about, but they have been able to hide behind props like Joe the plumber. Somehow #OWS seems to have cut through the Joe the Plumber bullshit.
They are finding that openly defending the richest of the rich at the cost of everyone else doesn’t go over so well.
MCA
Not for lack of trying on the delegitimization front, though. Just this week I’ve spotted a number of different cards in the “OWS attenders are not credible” series, among them the Aesop fable of the ant and the grasshopper (Randified 2008 version), the “47% of Americans don’t pay taxes” ploy, the “they’re just a disorganized mass that don’t even have a coherent message” gambit, the charge of “anarchists,” and the “why don’t these people spend their days learning a marketable, high-paying skill?” defense.
The underlying thread in all of them is “those people are just lazy whiners looking for a handout.” Not working this time. Especially when people see all the people in suits and notice how unlike a Phish show at Red Rocks the whole scene turns out to be. Everyone knows in their gut that we’re a nation of the overlabored.
Loneoak
@Mouse Tolliver:
There’s something weird about this frame of “so and so wouldn’t be allowed as a Republican today because they are now so extreme.” Where exactly did these extreme wingers come from? It’s not like they were parachuted in. Of course Ronald Ray-gun and Archie Bunker would be Republicans now—they would have been the target of a concerted effort to make them into extreme wingers because it benefits the .1%, just like all the loons who currently populate the GOP.
Bill E Pilgrim
@schrodinger’s cat: Jughead, Meathead, what’s the difference?
BGinCHI
Gee, our old LaSalle ran great.
WereBear
They were always there… they were Birchers & LaRouchies and hide-in-the-woods-with-a-chemical-toilet types. Buckley had them cast out.
But they’re baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack.
schrodinger's cat
I think it is the media is the biggest FAIL here I think. I mean the Republicans are the opposition party they are supposed to be against the Democrats, while I agree that they have taken this pathological extremes, that is their job. What excuse does the media have?
schrodinger's cat
@WereBear: How is your kittehs? Tristan must have become a big kitteh by now!
Lihtox
@joes527: Even better, now we’ve got them advocating for tax *increases*! (Just for poor people, though.) I thought Republicans were against taxes; shouldn’t having 47% of the population “not paying taxes” be considered “a good start”? :P
scav
OMG, people don’t behave invariably and automatically in conformity to theoretical models developed using past data?! Can it be that they learn and/or that context matters? Can this possibly share some vague resemblance to economic models of the housing and stock market? Never! Preconceptions are destiny!
Bill E Pilgrim
@schrodinger’s cat:
“Just doin muh job, m’aam.”
It’s a cliche now but the question assumes that they’re hired to do anything but exactly what they’re doing, and they’re really not.
Lihtox
@Loneoak: Good point, although not all of the Republicans stuck around for the ride. My dad campaigned for Nixon when he was in college, but now he’s a Democrat.
Downpuppy
There was an episode where Archie met some sisters from Dallas who told him their father would think Archie was a Communist because he was from New York City.
The crazies were always in the car. Now they’re driving it.
soonergrunt
@Loneoak: This.
This idea that Reagan or Archie Bunker or whomever wouldn’t be republicans today because the republican party today is too extreme even for them discounts the probablility that they were capable of thinking in terms of what was right for them and where their personal moral event horizons were in the first place.
The vast majority people who are or were republicans don’t posses such psychological clarity. If they did, they wouldn’t have been republicans in the first place.
John Cole and Charles Johnson are amazing precisely because they are so rare.
Zifnab
Right-wing media doesn’t know what to call the protesters. They’re trust fund kids. They’re impoverished vagrants. They’re too lazy to be employed. They’re employed so they have nothing to complain about. They have too much student loan debt because they are too stupid to know how to get by without it. They’re ivory tower elitists who are too smart for their own good. They should go home and stop protesting entirely. They should protest the Democrats, like their Republican colleagues are.
It’s all an incoherent mess, with wingers falling all over themselves to claim everything a protester does is wrong. :-p Sounds a lot like how the level criticism at Obama.
schrodinger's cat
@Bill E Pilgrim: Maybe I am naive, I thought their job was to inform not obfuscate.
Culture of Truth
You’re comparing Applebees and oranges. Archie belonged to a specific time and if he were around would not live in that house in Queens or work on a loading dock. The Archie in the show is gone but his type is member of the Tea Party. In my opinion.
Linda Featheringill
Occupy seems to be winning over the blue collar white guys. That reminds of an article written by Trotsky. [No, I’m not a follower of Trotsky but he did live through a revolution and might have something of benefit to say.]
http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2011/02/14/trotsky-what-revolutionary-situation
Chat Noir
@srv:
The first five seasons, for me, were the best. I watched them recently on DVD and it’s amazing how relevant the topics are 40 years later. The writing and acting on that show were top notch. I also love the fact that Carroll O’Connor, an educated liberal, played a close-minded, bigoted, working class conservative.
WereBear
Thank you for asking!
I have a bleg going:
Tristan is over ten pounds as seen here. He was rescued as a 3 week old last year.
The friend who found him started feeding a stray cat with an uncanny resemblance to my little kitten boy… and there are three kittens, too! She and her kittens got trapped this weekend, now at a vet who was flooded out during Hurricane Irene… but is valiantly battling on.
We wouldn’t have troubled her, except the shelters were overwhelmed. So if you ever said to yourself, Oh, if only I had a kitten like the lovebug, Tristan… here you go.
Already placed one, three to go. Momma cat is a real cuddler, the vet reports, and the kittens are taming up beautifully.
Save Tristan’s Relatives!
I WILL DELIVER YOUR KITTY to the NYC Metro Area or New England, as the case may be.
Zifnab
@soonergrunt: If you want to know what a modern day Ronald Reagan would look like, look at Mitt Romney.
Governor of a blue state running for the red party. Flexible on any issue that will get him elected. Independently wealthy, but seeking to appear middle class. Generally soft spoken. Large internal party support. Plasticy charm.
Romney is as Reagan as an candidate is likely to get.
Lydgate
Coincidentally, I recently read Jefferson Cowie’s Stayin Alive: The 1970’s and the Last days of the Working Class and 56% was the number for blue collar workers who did not support the Vietnam war. The figure for college students? 35%.
So much for our Mr. Brooks’ cliches about the silent majority.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@soonergrunt:
What makes you think John Cole is the only Republican who stopped acting like an idiot?
Dougerhead
@Culture of Truth:
My uncle is a dead-ringer for him and he votes Democrat now.
Culture of Truth
@Dougerhead: May I ask why? Did he change, and if so was it something specific?
Lydgate
@Chat Noir: I love the fact that carroll O’Connor refused to cross the picket line on the set.
jayjaybear
@WereBear: There’s a Cthulhuean horror movie in there somewhere.
(Voiceover) In 1965, William F. Buckley cast out the ultra-rightwing lunatics of the Republican Party once and for all.
Or so he believed.
(Quick cut of blurred motion and mindless moaning)
(Young Lead) Buckley screwed up!
(Young Supporting Character) What do you mean?!
(Quick cut, motion/moaning)
(Young Lead) He centered the banishment on himself…when he died…
(YSC) …they came back!
(Voice Over) Coming Soon to a theater near you!
WINGNUTS: The Revenge!
Mouse Tolliver
@schrodinger’s cat:
I like this guy’s explanation. Wall Street’s running a Three Card Monty table, and the media are the ringers. The media’s job is to pretend they’re outside observers, but really they’re part of the game, actively trying to convince the rest of us it isn’t a scam. (See Burnett, Erin.)
WereBear
Actually, I was just saying to Mr WereBear this morning that the dedication, organization, and solidarity of the Occupy Wall Street protesters indicates they would have made great employees…
IF THERE WERE ANY JOBS.
schrodinger's cat
@WereBear: I wish they find good homes. They has a pretty and a cute! I already has 2 kittehs and that is my landlord’s limit. Good luck!
Dougerhead
@Culture of Truth:
He thought Bush was an idiot and he is scared more about his economic future than about strapping young bucks getting stuff.
Loneoak
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Wait, when did Cole stop acting like an idiot?!
@Linda Featheringill:
That’s why I think Occupy has a chance of sticking. Teabaggery is ultimately unsatisfying for actual blue collar workers—it doesn’t speak to their experiences beyond a general sense of feeling put upon by much of society. Occupy makes it specific in a way that rings true: your boss controls everything, and he’s an asshole who doesn’t want you to have healthcare and a decent retirement, nor for your kids to be able to go to college. The more Occupiers can speak to this and disabuse the (entirely false) trustafarian vibe, the more they will have a real movement.
schrodinger's cat
@efgoldman: Yes she was the blonde but had middle class parents and it is Veronica whose dad is Mr. Moneybags, I think it is Mr Lodge.
Bill E Pilgrim
@schrodinger’s cat: Well I won’t call you naive. Plus to some degree you must realize that the job of a great deal of them is to uphold the corporate/right wing status quo. That’s one of the elements that a lot of the OWS protesters are objecting to. It’s rigged, and these people serve as the propaganda bureau. And if anyone thinks “No that’s just FOX News” I would ask if anyone has seen CNN lately…. yikes!
It’s not necessarily entirely done with mercenaries, I mean I think Erin so and so is probably genuinely right wing and pro-Wall Street in her heart of hearts. But that’s also why she has a job there.
WereBear
@jayjaybear: Yog SoBuckley! The goat with a thousand grievances!
D. Mason
@Mouse Tolliver: This is quite a remarkable summary.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Culture of Truth: I think so too. Archie the character, magically implanted unchanged into 2011, would seem moderate, actually would seem like a Democrat. The real guy the Archie character was meant to portray, with the passage of time, that guy would be in the Tea Party now. He would have “realized” how evil unions were and had been all along, and you know all the other things that Glenn Beck told him to realize.
WereBear
@schrodinger’s cat: Thanks for the luck! I totally understand constrained circumstances; three was our prior limit until the “little morsel of catness” turned up last year, desperately needing a foster home.
If you could Facebook the post or otherwise spread the word, it would be very much appreciated.
One of the tenets of the No Kill Shelter Movement is that there are homes for every animal who needs one; there just need to be better mechanisms to get these two groups together. My group of friends is calling on the power of Social Media to try and make that happen.
piratedan
come on now, you guys are doing a disservice to the greed factor. There’s lots of small business owners that want to grow into being BIG business owners and as such, want their place at the feeding trough. Money is a big motivating factor for quite a few of the R’s supporters. Folks that have built something with their own hands and will be damned to see anyone get in their way from realizing their dreams of success. They’re of the “who cares” faction about all of the other craziness that the R’s espouse, it doesn’t affect them because they have “their” life in order.
schrodinger's cat
@WereBear: I don’t do Facebook, but I will spread the word on ICHC where there are many kitteh lovers.
WereBear
@schrodinger’s cat: WOW! That would be awesome, thanks!
Yes, it’s one of my favorite hangouts :) even though I rarely post there.
Gud idear tho.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Dougerhead: Interesting. Well, so they go both directions. My sibling’s father in law was a dead ringer also, and he’s insanely right wing now in his old age. Far more than before.
D. Mason
@Bill E Pilgrim: A lot of people have the mistaken impression (through the media duh) that news outlets are ran by editors and reporters looking for the biggest scoop. They’re ran by corporate lap dogs who do their hiring and firing based on who tows the line and who looks good against their chosen backdrop. They exist to enrich their corporate parents. Whether this means pimping sensationalized and slanted versions of the news to sell ads or protecting existing wealth by demonizing the people asking for a fair shake — they don’t care.
Surabaya Stew
No, they didn’t.
Bill E Pilgrim
@D. Mason: A friend of mine who’s a pretty well-known criminology professor and while sort of an old lefty, now seems fairly reactionary sometimes (we tease him about it… actually he teases himself “Good god listen to me, did I just say that?”) and definitely very supportive of police and knows a lot of them and so on, admitted to me over dinner that essentially, police forces are hired by rich people to protect them. Any other benefit is really sort of collateral, if any happens fine, fine.
Not that different with “news” media. “Never pick a fight with someone whose corporation can afford shitloads more ink than you can individually” might be the updated version of the old saying.
Then the Internet and social media was invented. I really think that’s a big part of why things are (maybe) changing right now.
Brachiator
@MCA:
Every time somebody comes up with this “47% don’t pay” shit, this should be the automatic response:
Lancelot Link
Actually, my parents are both ex-Republicans. They’re conservative, but not right-wing, and I think it’s the anti-science nonsense that did it.
They still don’t like hippies much.
soonergrunt
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I didn’t say they were the only ones. I said that they were “so rare.”
As far as whether he stopped acting like an idiot…well…
It’s a beautiful day today.
soonergrunt
@efgoldman: Veronica was the spoiled rich girl, and Betty is the middle class nice girl ™.
Brachiator
@piratedan:
What does this, in and of itself, have to do with greed?
Small business owners are supposed to want to stay small and humble forever, or at most dream of becoming a charitable foundation or non-profit?
Culture of Truth
@Dougerhead: Thanks. I wonder how he’ll vote in 2012 if we’re still mired in a NotRecession?
andrea
Lancelot, I think we’re related. For my mom, it was a combination of Schiavo, non-response to Katrina and anti-science.
Rome Again
Interesting. I was supposed to be a Trust Fund Baby (my parents brought me up as one, explaining that I was supposed to inherit on an almost daily basis) and yet, my mother pissed away the millions that my father left behind and I never saw a dime of it that wasn’t loaned to me at 10% interest (yes my mother charged her children interest, like a bank) and I don’t have a college degree. Somehow I think they are wrong!
piratedan
@Brachiator: it means that there are more than a few folks that have no issues whatsoever shelving their ethics and morals in pursuit of the almighty dollar.
schrodinger's cat
@WereBear: What is the best way to contact you? Is it the contact form on your blog?
rikryah
I’ve said it before;
usually, the GOP can call protestors like these ‘ the other’, to the folks who thought the GOP was talking about ERRRRBODY BUT THEM.
But, see, in 2010, they finally realized, once the GOP got hold of those state houses..
yes, you stupid mofos, the GOP WAS TALKING ABOUT YOU TOO.
and now, that they realize that the GOP was talking about them, and they voted for a bunch of mofos who never gave a rat’s ass about them and their welfare..
well, who is there to try and convince about the OWS folks?
Rafer Janders
Would Archie even qualify as a Real Murkin now? He probably had a lot of friends in unions,
Um, Archie Bunker WAS in a union, if I recall.
psycholinguist
This song seems to go so well with this thread:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si0WTCMrksw
Edit to add: The title of the song is
“Conservative, Christian, Right-Wing Republican, Straight, White, American Males”
Jack the Second
I went to a Sizzler in Queens once.
According to Google Maps, there are 4 Applebee’s in Queens, and of the 3 Chili’s, 2 of them in airports. 4 Applebee’s for 2.2 million people is almost certainly below the national per capita Applebee’s.