People are bitter.

I live in Pennsylvania and I will put in my two cents to say that Barack Obama's recent remarks on small-town Pennsylvanians' bitterness is real and accurate. It might have been stated more clearly and gently, but it's right on.

People all around me are bitter about their jobs leaving and their pensions drying up. I work for a small monthly paper, Voices, and we have a labor column that runs every month. Guess what? They are angry and bitter. Many of the average Joes and Janes aren't turning to Washington, D.C. for help because Washington grinds these people into millet to feed to huge multinational conglomerate corporate greed catered to by the U.S. Treasury and the WTO.

Yeah. They're bitter. Go to Clearfield. Go to Hazleton. Bethlehem. Bellefonte. Indiana. Johnstown. Altoona. Tyrone. Scranton. Easton. Nolo. Luciusboro. Ligonier. Bedford. Everett. Bradford. Go on.

Go talk to the guys at the rail yard in Altoona and see what they think is going on. Where do they find solace?

What about the men who worked at Corning-Asahi outside of State College? Where'd those jobs go? You think they're happy?

What about the steel workers in Pittsburgh who have to fight to get American steel to stay competitive with Polish steel? Do you think that pride and tradition just evaporates and goes away and that the employees say, "Aw shucks. It's alright that we might lose our jobs because the government won't subsidize us as much as they do corn. Really. This is the best of all possible worlds!" Of course not.

People are bitter and they turn to what is stable and controllable. Guns and hunting and their faiths within their small-town communities. Anyone saying that he meant that they were somehow stupid or ignorant for doing these things would be reading something into it.*

Obama made an astute if blunt observation. To deny this as McCain and Clinton have, is to put on blinders and really put a Panglossian spin on the United States in general and Pennsylvania in particular. They're wrong. While we might have hope in the United States, a lot of us are bitter. Don't pretend otherwise. It makes you look stupid while you try to win political points.


Watch a more full response below.


[This writer thinks that the turn toward faith is not so great, but that's another matter.]