I met a "moderate conservative" at my mechanic's the other day
Last edited Sat Jan 4, 2014, 01:38 PM - Edit history (1)
One thing I love about Maine is that this time of year, everybody pretty much looks alike. Rich or poor, your car looks like you just drove in a mud race. Rich or poor, if you venture outside at minus degrees at the onset of a minor blizzard, you'll be wearing thermal boots with thick, cleated soles, baggy pants with multiple pants layers underneath, a baggy parka with multiple sweaters underneath, ear muffs, collar pulled up and knitted hat pulled down so only your eyes and nose peak out.
So I had no idea of this guy's wealth, nor had he any idea of my poverty, until after we got talking. I'm not sure what started the conversation; probably the weather.
Early on, I learned that he has a dog and it's his dog's house too, so is allowed on all the furniture. It's Maine, very much a dog state, so I guess he's learned that's the best way to introduce yourself around here if you plan to try to convert people to your way of thinking. He talked about his many health problems; how he'd been very healthy until he wasn't. And when he had a stroke and took a face plant into a side walk, half his face was broken apart with his eyeball hanging out, how fortunate he was to get to my hospital. And how his golden, Dakota, ignored his wife and jumped out of the car, ran into the ED straight to his room and jumped up on the bed with him. And we talked about animal communication.
With 5 properties, and a newly built house near or on the water, 2 cars for his wife and a jeep for him, he considers himself upper middle class. His new home is downsized to 1,600 square feet...from 22,000 square feet 
(yes, 22,000. not 2,200. twenty two thousand.) So I consider him wealthy.
And early on he made a point of telling me that he was shocked when he learned that if minimum wage from 1969 was adjusted for inflation, today it would be at $13.50/hour and he clearly was all in favor of raising minimum wage. 
He made a point of telling me he voted for President Obama in '08, because while he respected McCain's military service, he is clueless and Palin is...
But after Benghazi he felt he and Clinton should be in jail. When I responded that every thing I've read about Benghazi made it clear it was no different than any other embassy attack that we've had -- and that we've had many over the years -- he gave up on that topic. He looked a little startled by my response.
Then I told him that I felt the greatest betrayal by President Obama is on TPP, that it is to be followed by a similar agreement with Europe, and that I'm horrified that his is giving up our sovereignty to corporate rule. On that he agreed.
And then I went on to discuss what that would mean to Maine, what with Nestle having sued small village and small village trying to take our water in exchange for a few low-pay jobs.
And then he went into CEO/salesleaze mode and started talking about how water flows everywhere, and when it rains it goes into the rivers and then out to sea, and blah, blah, blah. Well, I've heard more than one salesleaze pitch in my day, and in fact I've heard about one too many sales sleaze pitches. So I interrupted him to add, "And into our aquifer," which startled him, but he had to agree, so he went back to his little sales pitch and made a point of adding "our aquifer" to where the water flows. Somewhere in there, I started talking about how our agriculture depend on that water, and our ecosystem. And then he started talking about how it would not create just "a few" jobs, but "a thousand or more jobs" and they were "well-paying jobs at $13.00 - $14.00/hour."
Well, when people are in salesleaze mode, they make a habit of occasionally glancing at their target's face to see how their pitch is going. So he checked my face at this point -- which was increasingly sour -- and then hastily added that "I realize that's not a lot of money, but around here that's good pay" and started going on about how we need to create jobs.
I interrupted him again and said, "We need good jobs that add value. Third world countries sell off their natural resources!." I was getting pretty testy at that point.
He started back and looked at me like he'd been kicked in the gut. I was soooooo ready for this discussion. I was ready to remind him that just a few minutes earlier he'd said minimum wage really should be $13.50/hour, which would make those jobs minimum wage. I was also ready to remind him that he was ready to sell off the water that a million plus people, not to mention our ecosystem, depend on in exchange for minimum wage jobs for 1/10th of a percent (who would then have to pay exorbitant prices for that same water now packaged in a plastic bottle -- another ecological disaster), large profits for the 1/10th of a percent at the top, and another huge boondoggle for Nestle. And that third world countries are third world countries for doing exactly that sort of thing, and end up more impoverished than before as a result of losing one precious resource and desecrating the rest of the environment.
He took one look at my face and decided not to go there. I do think that I gave him some serious food for thought, though. 
= new reply since forum marked as read
That is wonderful. I hope you made him think.
And boy are you right on about Nestle. I loathe those people. They are one of the scummiest corporations ever.
My hat's off to you!
one can't have discussions with ideologues, only shouting matches from what I've seen!
I kid. Ya done good!