[BRIGADE] PJB: Angry White Men
Published: Tue, 08/11/09
by Patrick J. Buchanan
August 11, 2009
To hear the Obamaites, those raucous crowds pouring into town hall
meetings are "mobs" of "thugs" whose rage has been "manufactured"
by K Street lobbyists and right-wing Republican operatives.
Press secretary Robert Gibbs compares them to the Young Republicans
of the "Brooks Brothers riot" during the Florida recount.
But is it wise for the White House to denigrate and insult scores
of thousands with the fire and energy to come to town meetings in
August, and who appear to represent millions? Is this depiction
fair or accurate?
Most K Street lobbyists could not organize a two-car funeral. They
don't storm meetings. They buy friends with $1,000 checks. And if
GOP operatives are turning out these crowds, why could they not
turn them out for John McCain, unless Sister Sarah showed up?
The Obamaites had best wake up. Opposition to health-care reform is
surging, and Barack Obama's campaigning has gone hand-in-hand with
collapsing support, just as George W. Bush's barnstorming did for
Social Security reform.
There is an anger out there unseen since Ross Perot was leading
Bush I and Bill Clinton in the presidential trial heats in 1992.
Who are these folks? Why are they angry?
In his essay "Decline of the American Male" in USA Today, David
Zinczenko, editor of Men's Health, give us a clue. "Of the 5.2
million people who've lost their jobs since last summer, four out
of five were men. Some experts predict that this year, for the
first time, more American women will have jobs than men."
Ed Rubenstein, who has written for Forbes, National Review and the
Wall Street Journal, blogs on VDARE.com that if one uses the
household survey of job losses for June-July, Hispanics gained
150,000 positions, while non-Hispanics lost 679,000. Guess who got
the stimulus jobs.
Going back to the beginning of the Bush presidency, Rubenstein says
that "for every 100 Hispanics employed in January 2001, there are
now 122.5. ... (But) for every 100 non-Hispanics employed in
January 2001, there are now 98.9."
Since 2001, Hispanic employment has increased by 3,627,000
positions, while non-Hispanic positions have fallen by 1,362,000.
For black and white America, the Bush decade did not begin well or
end well, and it has gotten worse under Obama.
African-Americans remain loyal, but among white folks, where Obama
ran stronger than John Kerry or Al Gore, he is hemorrhaging.
According to the latest Quinnipiac poll, which showed him falling
to 50 percent approval, whites, by 54 percent to 27 percent, felt
Obama behaved "stupidly" in the Sgt. Crowley-professor Gates dustup.
Fifteen straight months of job losses by non-Hispanics explains the
anger, but columnist Lowell Ponte raises an issue that may explain
who is protesting health-care reform and why.
Under the civil rights legal doctrine of disparate impact, used in
the New Haven firefighters case, if tests for hirings and
promotions consistently produce results disadvantageous to
minorities, the tests are, de facto, suspect as inherently
discriminatory, and the results are tossed out. New Haven canceled
the promotions for firefighters when all but one of the firemen who
passed the test were white, and not a single African-American made
the cut.
The city argued that New Haven was acting true to the letter of the
Civil Rights Act, which says that tests that consistently produce a
disparate and unfavorable impact on African-Americans must go.
Ponte applies the disparate impact doctrine to the trillion-dollar
health-care reform.
Who are the principal beneficiaries? The 47 million uninsured who
will be covered. Who are the principal losers? The elderly sick
who, in the name of controlling costs, are going to lose benefits,
be denied care at the end of their lives and have their lives
shortened. For half of all health-care costs are in the last six
months of life, and cost control is priority No. 1.
Here is where the disparate impact hits. Among those who benefit
most -- the uninsured -- African-Americans, Hispanics and
immigrants are overrepresented. Among the biggest losers -- seniors
and the elderly sick -- well over 80 percent are white. Ponte
quotes Fox News' Dick Morris:
"The principal impact of the Obama health-care program will be to
reduce sharply the medical services the elderly can use. No longer
will their every medical need be met, their every medication
prescribed, their every need to improve their quality of life
answered."
Under Obamacare, adds Morris, "the elderly will go from being the
group with the most access to free medical care to the one with the
least access."
America is already divided ideologically and politically on
health-care reform. And with seniors having to sacrifice care,
while the young are all insured, a generational divide is opening.
Now Nobel prize-winner and New York Times pundit Paul Krugman
writes in his "The Town Hall Mobs" column that, as did Richard
Nixon's men, "cynical political operators are ... appealing to the
racial fears of working-class whites."
Pulitzer prize-winning black columnist Cynthia Tucker says 45
percent to 65 percent of all vocal opponents of Obamacare are
motivated by racial hostility to a black president.
We are headed for interesting times.
SOURCE: http://buchanan.org/blog/angry-white-men-1850