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<div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 5:46 PM, C. G. Estabrook <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu">galliher@illinois.edu</a>></span> wrote:</div>
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<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff">[No one in the political class (20% of the pop.) has used the term "ruling class" without irony since the last SDSer gave up and took a teaching job. </div></blockquote>
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<div>Au contraire. I have. (At least you always tell me I'm in the 'political class'.) And you have, haven't you, Carl?</div>
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<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff">Something may be happening here ... but do we know what it is?]</div></blockquote>
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<div>Sure.</div>
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<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff"> Christine O’Donnell Slams The ‘Anti-Americanism’ Of The ‘Ruling Class’<br> September 17, 2010 4:55 PM<br><br>ABC’s Michael Falcone reports:<br><br>Speaking to an adoring crowd at the Values Voters Summit in Washington on Friday, Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell cast herself as an enemy of the “ruling class” and took aim at the “anti-Americanism” that she said taints the establishment.<br>
<br>“The small elite don’t get us. They call us wacky, they call us wing nuts,” she said, “we call us ‘we the people.’”<br><br>O’Donnell who has been the focus of attention for her surprising defeat of Rep. Mike Castle in the GOP Senate primary in Delaware earlier this week as well as her outspoken views on abstinence, condom use and masturbation, among other issues, called herself a member of the “values movement” and a defender of the Constitution (from which she quoted during her remarks).<br>
<br>“Americans want our leaders to defend our values, our culture our legacy of liberty and our way of life, not apologize and tear her down,” O’Donnell said. “In the diners and at the pig roasts, in the town halls and the church halls I hear people embrace for the first time a vibrant conversation about American values. They reject the narrative that’s been imposed on them from the DC cocktail crowd.”<br>
<br>O’Donnell, who began her speech with a indictment of the Obama administration -- a reoccurring theme at the event, organized by the conservative Family Research Council -- said that the “incremental assault on our freedoms, our values, our free enterprise, our property rights our economic stability” had gone on too long.<br>
<br>“We’ve watched the tentacles of big government weasel their way into every part of our lives,” she said. “Bureaucrats and politicians in Washington think they should decide what kind of light bulb we use, what kind of toilets we flush, what kind of car we drive.”<br>
<br>She added: “They’ll buy your teenage daughter an abortion but they won’t let her buy a sugary soda in a school’s vending machine.”<br><br>The Delaware Senate hopeful recalled events that shaped her own political views, such as the fall of the Berlin wall, and celebrated the spread of free enterprise, including the rise of businesses like Walmart and Home Depot.<br>
<br>“Only in America could that happen,” O’Donnell said, adding: “We saw what freedom can do. We saw what happens when people have control over their own money, their property, their labor, their ideas, their risk and their reward.”<br>
<br>O’Donnell also wove religious themes into her speech, referring to “the shining city on the hill” and “constitutional repentance.” Family Research Council official Gil Merz who took the podium after O’Donnell finished speaking implored the audience to pray for her: “This woman of faith is going to be under severe attack.”<br>
<br>O’Donnell, who was played in and out of her speech to the tune of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin,’” still has a tough road ahead in her quest to capture the Senate seat. A recent Public Policy Polling survey showed O'Donnell trailing her Democrat opponent, Chris Coons, by 14 percentage points.<br>
<br><a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2010/09/odonnell-slams-the-anti-americanism-of-the-ruling-class.html" target="_blank">http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2010/09/odonnell-slams-the-anti-americanism-of-the-ruling-class.html</a> </div>
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