Why Obama is right, a DK diary perspective reprise.

I haven't spent much time in Ohio, even less in Pennsylvania.  But I can't imagine things there are all that much different than places where I have spent quite a bit of time, Fort Wayne and Lake County Indiana, Kenosha/Racine, Wisconsin, and most recently, Rockford, Illinois.

I really can't imagine that Rockford is all that much different than Uniontown or Erie or Williamsport or Allentown.  So I can't imagine diarist nuggatron was all that off when s/he wrote a diary, about her/his town, which received far too little attention by my estimation.

From this perspective, I think we can see that people are bitter, people do feel ignored, people have been paid lip service for too long, and people have become insular and turned against each other because of it.  And what I see in Hillary's comments smacks of Pollyannaland Reaganism, pull yourself up by your bootstraps nonsense.  Of course these people are proud and resilient, that doesn't change the fact that they are pissed off, but convinced that those to blame are those that 'want to take away their guns' or 'took my job because of affirmative action' or 'are waging war on Christmas.'

It simply blows my mind that Hillary doesn't see the attitude expressed by nuggetron as she travels through PA, and I implore those who were offended by what Obama said to listen closely to his words, even his initial comments, and ask yourself this:

Why is Obama wrong about it now, when you know Billy Joel was right about it  25 years ago....

Well, we're living here in Allentown
And they're closing all the factories down
Out in Bethlehem they're killing time
Filling out forms
Standing in line

Well, our fathers fought the second World War
Spent their weekends on the Jersey shore
Met our mothers in the USO
Asked them to dance
Danced with them slow

And we're living here in Allentown
But the restlessness was handed down
And it's getting very hard to stay

Well we're waiting here in Allentown
For the Pennsylvania we never found
For the promises our teachers gave
If we worked hard
If we behaved

So the graduations hang on the wall
But they never really helped us at all
No they never taught us what was real
Iron and coke
Chromium Steel

And we're waiting here in Allentown
But they've taken all the coal from the ground
And the union people crawled away

Every child had a pretty good shot
To get at least as far as their old man got
But something happened on the way to that place
They threw an American flag in our face

Well, I'm living here in Allentown
And it's hard to keep a good man down
But I won't be getting up today

And it's getting very hard to stay
And we're living here in Allentown

....and little has changed since that time?

Please edit if this causes a problem.