Joe Takes On The Elite

The saga of the MSM and the Gang of Five Hundred versus Joe the Plumber is definitely the "man bites dog" story of the campaign to date. The Geek admits that despite his academic degrees and past employment, he is closer to Joe than he is to the elite represented by the MSM, most of the Gang of Five Hundred, virtually all members of the professorate and beaucoup supporters of Senator Obama.

The reason for this is simply that the elite and their champion, the Nice Young Man From Chicago, have a view of the United States and its place in the world which is antipodal to that held by the Geek. And is probably held in pertinent part by the Joes of this country (other than Joe Biden obviously.)

Admittedly the Geek found Joe the Plumber's position on the US invasion of Iraq both poorly based and almost pathetic in its earnest wrongness. On the other hand the Geek has to salute Joe's view of those who denigrate and blame the United States for all the ills of the world.

During his years in the academy the Geek grew to hate the never ending crescendo from his coworkers regarding just how evil the United States was in each and every portion of its foreign policy. He grew tired, physically ill actually, listening to distortions of history made to prove the correctness of the blame-America-first agenda of these coworkers in the field of history.

While it is evident from the content of many posts that the Geek is not a cheerleader for many US foreign and national security policies, particularly those of the neocon ninnies of the current administration, he is quite unpersuaded that the US is either an imperialistic menace or the handyman of the devil in its foreign dealings.

Blindly and willfully ignorant? Yes. Too willing to carry water for Israel? Absolutely.

But venal and malign? No. Absolutely not.

Over the years the Geek has also grown tired of the repetitious serenade sung by the chattering classes to the superiority of foreign ways. Twenty-five years ago there was nothing but hosannas sung to and about Japan. Japan was the model of cooperation. The acme of concern for the equality and dignity of the individual worker on the factory floor or in the cubicle. Japan was hope and progress and prosperity and on and on and on.

More recently the object of the elite's affections has shifted. Now the worshipful songs and adoring stares are bestowed upon the European Union.

The EU is the model of post-racial, post-ethnic, post-national ideals and practices. The EU is the archetype of multi-cultural sensitivity, the apogee of collaborative egalitarianism, the height of assuring that no person will somehow be left (in Senator Obama's words) "standing behind," the more successful, the richer, the politically potent, the socially dominant.

Seventy-five years ago the progressives argued that if only the US aped the ways of the Soviet Union, life would be so much better for the common man. Forty-five years ago members of the Geek's generation who should have known better took the position that if only the US became more like Cuba, or North Vietnam or even, (the Geek shakes his head) the Peoples Republic of China, prejudice would vanish, economic and social justice (whatever those might be) would triumph and all would be right in the land.

From the Soviet Union to assorted semi-communist dictatorships to Japan and now to the European Union the American elite of academics, occupational chatterers and progressive politicos have found much to love elsewhere while discovering even more to hate here at home.

Get a grip!

Joe the Plumber and others of the oft times despised and usually patronised hoi polloi have a better handle on what is right here and not-right overseas. The Geek talks with Joe's peers out here in the wilderness. None of them think that life is perfect in the US. None think that improvements in the equity of economic and political life can not and should not be made.

But, none are of the view that the government is better suited than the individual to make decisions. None believe that the advantages of Ivy League education or possession of either a law degree or a journalist's notepad confer a unique ability to perceive what is best for the individual American, the American nation as a whole or the role of the US in the world.

The Geek has yet to hear a member of the hoi polloi express a longing sigh and wish he lived under the tender eye of the EU and its bureaucracy. The Geek has yet to read a single word written by a certified member of the hoi polloi averring to the belief that "experts" in government or academia or even the health care industry are better equipped by education and disinterested perspective to make decisions on behalf of the individual.

The concepts "individual" and "freedom" have long dominated the belief structure of Americans and continue to do so among the hoi polloi, among the Joe the Plumbers. It is only the elite, those who claim membership in the self-defined group of those-who-know-best, who find both the individual and his freedom somehow reprehensible, in some way atavistic.

The US has no special wisdom, no fount of knowledge denied to others in the world. Neither did the Soviet Union. Neither does Japan or the European Union.

Joe the Plumber may not have a plumber's license, he may owe back taxes but he is smarter than the elite represented by their anointed savior, Barack Obama, the Nice Young Man From Chicago. Joe knows something that escapes the elite.

He knows that the US, its success and its future, has been the work of Americans not Western Europeans. He knows that we are the product of a unique history and that we reject the legacy of that history only at great peril.

This is an insight that eludes Senator Obama and his cheering section in the MSM.