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["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

So maybe that is where the disconnect comes from, Gene.  I've BTDT and have 
lived a good part of my life in just such a community.  Plus have relatives 
that have always lived on the edge of disaster as the government plays games 
with water and rivers and fish and timber.  AND, I live in that community 
right now.

He has NOT described anyone I know or have lived around.  Thus, I find his 
generalization to be objectionable.

Of course, some of it could be that I hate labels and find them to be a poor 
substitute for reality.  AND, dangerous!

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gene GeRue" <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
> For those following this discussion, here is a transcript of Obama's
> full remarks, with all the uhs and ums included. Looks like a true
> transcript:
> http://thepage.time.com/transcript-of-obamas-remarks-at-san-francisco-fundraiser-sunday/
> > Let me recap before I go on.   Yes, there are people as he describes
> > who put
> > confidence in guns and religion, do not put confidence in
> > government, and are
> > politically discontent.   But the conclusion that the one is BECAUSE
> > of the
> > other is his bias and mindset.  And it is deeply offensive.
>
> Only if YOU have THAT bias, that take on meaning. How is it deeply
> offensive to you--he did not refer to someone in your circumstances at
> all.
>
> I do not have a bias except for truth and I find his remarks
> discerning and far from offensive. Perhaps it is because I have no way
> except imagination to closely relate to the people about whom he
> referred. Perhaps you do. I read it as him saying that people feel
> they have been lied to about jobs by their government for twenty-five
> years and they are beyond frustration and so they cling to the
> positive things that sustain them. Sounds right to me. Sounds to me
> like he is sensitive to their feelings.
> > Years ago, many years ago, I decided that it was better to BE more
> > than to
> > HAVE more and set out to develop skills and abilities I needed for
> > homesteading
> > rather than buying them.  This meant learning to do things by hand
> > and with
> > hands tools.  In the case of cutting wood, it meant getting some
> > crosscut and
> > frame saws, some files and guides, and learning how to sharpen and
> > set the saws.
> > It also meant avoiding becoming a middle-aged blob of breathless lard,
> > developing a tai-chi like movement that would allow chopping and
> > sawing for an
> > extended time without exhaustion due to inefficient movement.  It
> > meant studying
> > trees, studying stoves.  Much more than any of those things it meant
> > creating
> > an atmosphere so that my sons and daughters developed dense bones,
> > strong
> > frames, and a poise and orientation to pleasureable work.  I have
> > time, sweat,
> > blood, and a very great deal of effort invested in this turn.
> > Compared to when I
> > started this venture (wood cutting being only one example of it)  I
> > can report
> > honestly that I indeed HAVE less.  Whether I AM more will be for
> > time to
> > determine, but I am not dispeased.
> >
> > So in the last gig in the industrial world I held, I was talking
> > with a man
> > exactly my age and grotesquely overweight and out of shape.  He was
> > commenting,
> > as so many do, that it is insane to not use a chainsaw.  In fact, he
> > proclaimed, it was obvious that the ONLY reason I used an axe and
> > framesaw was because
> > I'd had some bad luck with a chainsaw at some point in my past and was
> > sulking over it.
> >
> > A whole well thought out change in lifestyle dismissed as
> > insignificant and
> > only steming from a fit of  frustration over some imagined problem
> > with a
> > chainsaw.  It didn't bother me.  I wonder if it bothered him that I
> > pointed out
> > that we two, the same age to a week, each had a waist line that was
> > more than ten
> > inches different from our chest.
> >
> > LIke that almost every fundamentalist friend and relative I have are
> > sure
> > that we don't attend a church ONLY because someone hurt our feelings
> > and ruffled
> > our feathers at some point in the past.
> >
> > (Lynda will have heard this one) Like that, we can show that
> > homeschooled and
> > unschooled children have a tremendous advantage over their government
> > schooled counter parts.  We can recite the history of government
> > education in this
> > country, its effects, and why children in those schools are being
> > prepared for a
> > world that hardly exists any more.  It is a very deeply held
> > conviction in
> > which we have invested a great deal of our lives.  And yet it is
> > routinely
> > dismissed with, "Oh, you only homeschool because you had some bad
> > episode or the
> > other with a teacher, that's all."
> >
> > Like the people in rural Pennsylvania, I put more confidence in my
> > guns to
> > protect my family than put in the government.  I did so before Obama
> > was born.
> > I will do so long after he's a footnote in history.  Likewise my
> > religious
> > beliefs are a better guide to a decent life than all the government
> > leadership
> > that ever existed.  It was before Obama was born and will be long
> > after his
> > influence passes away.
> >
> > Yet Obama has look at those things and said "you only CLING to those
> > things
> > becaue you are politcally frustrated".
>
> No, he did not say that. Please show me where he said that.
>
> >   His offensiveness is exceeded only by his offensiveness.
>
> Well, now I see your sensitivity to some of the issues involved.
> James, I happen to admire your chosen lifestyle. I think you and
> Denise are doing a great job of showing your children a good way to
> live. But I am sure you know that many if not most people have not a
> clue to your logic for living as you do. And surely you have an
> understanding that your lifestyle biases how you see the far different
> choice made by the rest of the population.
> > That's what Obama means by "change".  Glad to finally have it in the
> > open.
> > He means that self reliance, our trust in our own courage and
> > ability and
> > beliefs, is to be replaced by a reliance on HIS form of government.
>
> I fail to find him saying or intimating that any place. I find a great
> many places where he has said much the opposite, encouraging people to
> take charge of their lives.
>
> >  We will, in his estimation, give up our clinging to guns and
> > religion just as soon as he
> > gives us some relief from our frustration.
>
> James, that is a helluva stretch. You are now reading volumes into one
> or two sentences. Gonna have to start calling you Freud.
>
> >  After all those are not values that
> > have been thought out and tested and refined though generations of
> > free
> > Americans, we only hold those because we are frightened rural half-
> > wits.
>
> Hey, when you get on a roll you can extrapolate with the best of them.
>
> > Unsuitable for president.
>
> Well, we get to vote for any reason we choose. From pure instinctive
> gut feelings to vast research.
>
> Is this a great country or what?
>
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