Brilliant! And not at all intrusive, I’d say even the most casual Sadlies handle poopoo now and again, even if it’s just to verify the link on a Krauthammer post.

…It was a thoughtful article, Shulman’s was….

I feel funny saying “context is everything” but…but…but…butt…butt…

Is there some other kind of Reagan?

Reagan Prime?

And here we are.

Brad, if you’re worried that a complete tanking of the economy will help the righties in ’12, I wouldn’t be so sure. Americans may have a stupid streak, but we know who has been robbing us blind. It takes some serious overstepping of the line by the privileged to put us into torches and pitchforks mode, but it is possible. The “social conservatives” will be the last to join the mob. They, even more than most, are virtually unable to admit, accept and correct the fact that they have been wrong. It’s part of why they are “social conservatives”. The banksters and their buddies are pushing pretty hard, though.

If the shit really, really hits the fan, we could yet see some major realignments. I’ve been saying for years that it was going to need to get much worse before folks would make it get better. It’s definitely moving down the road, though it ain’t there yet. I shudder to think the world that would need to be to do the job.

…there is the slim possibility of pushback. Even that doesn’t happen much.

Strong pushbacks haven’t happened much anywhere in the US. It has happened in the South, probably stronger and of longer duration than you realize, though it was a looooong time ago. You might want to check this out (by ‘southwest’ he means Oklahoma, east Texas, and west Louisiana). And note that the rednecks involved weren’t trying to get “into the club” – they were trying to get rid of the club.

If you’re saying that modern-day rednecks are almost certain to remain overwhelmingly hostile to the left for many years to come, yeah, you’re very probably right. But never say never.

Of course, it ain’t never gonna happen.

Different “it”, I do believe. My implication was that the oligarchs are never going to let the crackers into the club. Even though they always say “It’s a maybe, as long as you’re white, we might pick ya. Then you’ll be set.” It ain’t never gonna happen.

Occasionally the rubes shrug off the blinders. Sure. When it becomes more than simply undeniable just how hard they’re getting fucked over, there is the slim possibility of pushback. Even that doesn’t happen much. Twice or thrice, and of unfortunately short duration, I’ll give you. Then, as you said, it gets broken up.

Of course, it ain’t never gonna happen.

As I mentioned earlier, it already has – two or three times.

Thank goodness.

I’m beginning to appreciate the pants-a-poopin’ posts; they’re a feature of S, N! sort of like the posts at Balloon Juice where John Cole says “Conservative Icon X has just died. Don’t say anything mean about him.” Then the commenters say “That supply-sider, death-squad-supporting goon? Where’s his grave so I can whizz on it (as soon as I’m done eating all this asparagus)?” and Cole gets all mad.

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The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge said,

May 31, 2009 at 22:09

These people were around in 1865, and even more unfortunately, 1861. The Southern Poor White Trash that are the Republican Base now went to war and fought and died in order to preserve a labor system that made the only thing they had to sell in order to survive, their labor, worthless on the open market.

Cutting off your nose to spite your face, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature!

Never thought about it exactly like that, but yeah, exceptional way to put it.

Poor Southern Whites have usually fought for the wrong side, but I don’t think that they’re necessarily destined to do so for all eternity.

Well, normally, they are continually conned by the Rich Southern Whites whose boots are on their necks that “if they just get with the program, those boots’ll come up real soon and y’all can be just like us, plantation and all.” So they get with the program, hating anyone else at their economic level because soon, oh soon, they will get to be all high and mighty too. God forbid anyone dusky actually succeeds in a meritocracy, it’d just be “affirmative action”, and thats just keeping the good White Folks down that much longer.

Of course, it ain’t never gonna happen. It’s Lucy with the goddamn football, generation after generation, and, like Charlie Brown, said PSWs are too fucking stupid to just take the last step a bit to one side and kick the motherfuckers in the head. Instead, they are doomed to lay on their collective back crying “Auuughhhh! Niggers!” for all eternity, a sad, but reliable electoral bloc.

Do you do anything else?

And frankly, your worries have a very poor history of coming true.

If people are still really suffering and unemployment is in double digits anything can happen.

Well, the usual Republican tactic here is to blame black and brown people for taking the jobs that “belong” to “real Americans” who deserve them (see Helms, Jesse).

Not sure if that would work here, since it’s the Republican governors who are making a big deal out of refusing Obama’s offer of money to extend unemployment benefits.

Oh very good. Now Thatcherise him. I dare you.

Having grown up in their homeland, Western Washington, I’m ashamed of not thinking of the Wobblies. Yeah, you’re right, anything can happen when people suddenly see how they’ve been hoodwinked. It might not be pretty.

FYWP. Also.

The Southern Poor White Trash that are the Republican Base now went to war and fought and died in order to preserve a labor system that made the only thing they had to sell in order to survive, their labor, worthless on the open market.

There have been times when poor Southern Whites realized that they were being screwed and did something about it. There were some political alliances between poor Whites and newly freed Blacks during Reconstruction and there were IWW-inspired labor alliances in Louisiana in the early years of the 20th century. I don’t know much about the late-19th century populists, but I believe there were Black-White alliances in the early years of that movement, too.

All of these attempts at sanity were crushed by the local power structures.

Poor Southern Whites have usually fought for the wrong side, but I don’t think that they’re necessarily destined to do so for all eternity.