[Peace-discuss] Jonesing

[David Green]

If one knows a little about Delaware (I lived there for 5 years), one 
understands this as a significant event in populist (anti-establishment) terms. 
Castle, the defeated, has been Governor or Congressman, back and forth, for 
decades without serous challenge, just as Biden and William Roth were, gaining 
power with seniority as if they were senators from the old segregationist South. 
The state is the epitome of bipartisan blandness, and it's assumed that 
electoral politics is above any populist passion. But as Cockburn points out 
today, it's a very corrupt state due to the credit card banks, and to a certain 
extent DuPont. The population is supposed to feel grateful to have two (usually 
powerful) Senators for a small population, and to have no sales tax to attract 
consumers from adjacent states (MD, PA, NJ, anyone going down I-95 between Maine 
and Florida.) That Senate seat was supposed to rightfully belong to 
Castle--explaining the reaction.

DG




________________________________
From: C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
To: Peace-discuss List <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Fri, September 17, 2010 5:46:16 PM
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Jonesing

[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.  

Something may be happening here ... but do we know what it is?]

     Christine O’Donnell Slams The ‘Anti-Americanism’ Of The ‘Ruling Class’
     September 17, 2010 4:55 PM

ABC’s Michael Falcone reports:

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.

“The small elite don’t get us. They call us wacky, they call us wing nuts,” she 
said, “we call us ‘we the people.’”

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).

“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.”

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.

“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.”

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.”

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.

“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.”

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.”

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.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2010/09/odonnell-slams-the-anti-americanism-of-the-ruling-class.html


      
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