Elitism
If you study history - recent Iraqi history for example - bitterness - and extreme bitterness leading to violence - stems primarily from poor living conditions. Iraq has no power most of the time; no reliable law enforcement; and very little gainful employment. The result is bitterness, civil war between competing ethnic and religious groups, violent militias, etc.
The inner cities of many parts of the United States are already like this. Gangs and drug dealers are analogous to militias. It's now spreading to the suburbs and rural areas as a direct result of the war against the middle class - and if you don't get that it's a war, you're most certainly an elitist. This war, based on outsourcing, union busting and corporate deregulation, began in earnest under Reagan, only slowed down somewhat under Clinton and lurched into turbo-drive under Bush II.
If you don't get this, you are an elitist. Splash some cold water on your faces and snap out of it. When your own life is good enough that you can engage in philosophy and creature comforts, but you don't understand the extent to which others are suffering, you are an elitist. Marie Antoinette was the classic elitist. When told that the people had no bread, she said "let them eat cake."
Obama gets it, although in this case, he phrased it in a self-damaging way and is now suffering through another silly season attack of gotcha politics (the use of soundbytes and wedge issues to define candidates).
Losing on points, Hillary and her supporters here are desperate for a knockout blow - the "macaca moment" that sinks Obama. Time is running short, the brouhaha over Wright didn't fully pan out, and the "elitist" angle is currently the most promising so Hillary and everyone here are blasting away at it with both barrels.
Gotcha politics worked extremely well for the Republican in 00, 02, and 04, and - fighting the last war, as always - the democratic establishment has tried to learn to use it to win. One of the big appeals of Hillary was supposed to be that she had survived White Water, Limbaugh, Lewinsky etc. etc. etc. Hillary could take the gotcha politics attacks, and fight fire with fire.
That's right - she can - but this isn't 2000-2004 anymore, and things started going bad a long time before that in places like Pennsylvania. Now things are bad all over. This is the point where politics and American Idol part their ways. It's a different battlefield. People will only vote for wedge issues and against their own self-interest up to a certain point. It's getting serious now and it's time to realize that the winner of silly season may well not be the winner of the war.
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