I worked with a republibot last night

[Horse with no Name]

that fully buys into wedge issues. The reason politics came up at all was because I was reading "The Assault on Reason". I spent a couple of hours explaining to her what wedge issues were and she really acted as if she didn't know their function in the political sphere.
So we get to talking about political candidates and she is under the impression that every single Democratic voter CANNOT wait to vote for Hillary.
I explained to her that it was simply not so.:rofl:
Anyway...we started pulling up the platforms of some of the Democratic candidates...and guess who she liked? She even said she felt pretty comfortable voting for him but was going to read some more. If nothing else, he piqued her interest.
Dennis Kucinich.
She came from a very poor family. A lot of her hatred towards Democrats is derived from the Cadillac Queen of the Reagan era.
She previously was a single mother and for some reason didn't qualify for any assistance and blamed it on the Cadillac Queen.
We had a pretty good conversation about the role that the Cadillac Queen played.
Incense the people that we are supporting those that do not deserve welfare...then while everyone is in a frenzy about it, cut federal aid. I explained to her that SHE was the victim of the Cadillac Queen but not in the way she originally thought.
I don't think I completely converted her, she has a long way to go and a lot of stereotypes to overcome, but I think, if NOTHING else, she listened to reason and perhaps some of it might stick.

[MissWaverly]

1. what about corporate welfare for the elite

they suck up by the boatful, what about our most profitable corporations that pay no income tax due to offshore tax shelters.

[Warpy]

2. She was ready to listen and you were ready to teach

so you probably had more of an effect than you think you did. Now don't bring it all up again until she does.

When people are ready to listen, they can be taught. When their minds are closed, forget it.

Sometimes it all comes together. You showed her she agreed most with a candidate that Hillary and her bunch are trying to portray as loony left. If the subject comes up again, introduce her to Edwards's "two Americas" rhetoric and Obama's record. Shoot, even show her that Richardson ended the tax on food (the tax on the poorest) in his home state.

There are a lot of religious conservatives out there who really don't know they're Democrats since their preachers, cashing in on faith based tax dollars, won't tell them the truth. We have to, but we have to wait until they're ready and we have to do it gently.

Your approach was superb.

[drm604]

3. K&R

This is a very good example of what we need to do. This woman's apparently a progressive at heart (she likes Kucinich!) but has been purposely misled with tales of welfare cheats and Cadillac queens.

[Madspirit]

4. k&r and...

This is the kind of conservative we can change. My dad was this way. When he was young he was a civil rights activist. ...but life never got much better for him. My family was poor and so he bought the whole "blame the minorities" crap and became the precinct delegate for George Wallace in our district and then later in life, reconsidered, reduced some of his bitterness, got his brain back and stopped buying the lie of the ruling class...that white folks are poor because of..black folks or Cadillac Queens, etc...and the years before he died, he voted for Clinton twice and for Ann Richards.
The ruling class loves divide and conquer and it works so well on poor whites. ...but unless they are just TOO angry, they can usually be shown the falseness of that tactic.
Lee

[lonestarnot]

5. Sorry but who in the hell is the Cadillac Queen?

[Horse with no Name]

6. It was the black lady who was on welfare

who used food stamps to buy steaks and left the store and put them in her cadillac.
It was a very effective tool that Reagan used to inflame the country so that they could cut welfare benefits.

[Madspirit]

7. ...and yet

Clinton screwed food stamps and AFDC...badly. I will NEVER forgive him for that.
Lee

[Horse with no Name]

9. While I say that I enjoyed prosperity under Clinton

I also say that many of his policies were very Republican. Which is why I do NOT want more of the same with Hillary.

[lonestarnot]

8. Oh her! Well that lazy slob should have stopped having those babies and got a job!

:sarcasm:

[Madspirit]

10. ..another term is just "welfare Cadillac"...n/t

[kath]

27. or "welfare queen"

Google Reagan welfare queen and lots of stuff comes up...

[TankLV]

11. AND - SHE NEVER EXISTED! Don't miss THAT point! It was all a repuke LIE...

from the get go...

[Horse with no Name]

12. It was the same divisive policies that are used today

Divide and Conquer. She became the scapegoat for the cuts in welfare.

[Rosemary2205]

13. Oh "she" existed.

Except that the one's I knew were driving the caddies were the "baby daddy" of the "welfare queen's" kids. I personally knew those people - but quite frankly they were few and far between and could not possibly have made a dent in the US treasury. Part of the reason this disgusting tactic worked was because so many struggling white people had seen this once or twice in a lifetime and it was easier to convince them this problem was widespread. That's how propaganda works, take a small truth and mix it with a big lie.

[lonestarnot]

19. Oh that's how it works is it? How bout the BIG lie mixed in with the BIG lie?

WMD, Terry Shivo could do calculus on one hand as presumed by her video diagnosis, and Gonzales has brain damage and therefore cannot remember shit.

[dysfunctional press]

25. no, she didn't.

nobody used welfare money to afford a cadillac.

[lonestarnot]

18. I never miss a point!

Ouch!

[truebrit71]

16. Ummm....I saw one once...

No joking you....paid for all of her stuff with Food stamps and then got in a new Caddy and drove off...I was open-mouth stunned I tell you..

[Clark2008]

20. Ahhh.. I see. I was about to ask the same question.

I always thought the mythical "she" was referred to as the Welfare Queen.

Interesting story. Here's a :kick: for you.

[orleans]

14. i believe her name was jane doe--a nonexistent person reagan

devised to play into the stereotype of the paranoid and bigoted white middle class and lower class and to divide us even more by class and race. did america buy it? fuck yes. it confirmed to all the small minds what they already presupposed about women/welfare/blacks.

if i remember correctly, that very same woman was also seen buying STEAK at the grocery store with her food stamps just before she was seen getting into her cadillac and driving away, laughing.

it was one of the most blatant pieces of racist propaganda bullshit created by the republican party and will live in infamy

on edit: i was just kidding about the name--she was nameless not because she got away with it but because she was an invention by reagan

[mitchtv]

17. Actually it was a white male with a 1500 acre farm

pointing the finger, voting republican, and collecting subsidies. who was the real welfare Queen

[orleans]

31. damn! i think you're RIGHT! (and he probably still is!) n/t

[hfojvt]

15. after all that

you still call her a republibot?

If your only news source is the M$M, then they are hitting some of those themes pretty hard - 'Hillary's the frontrunner', 'Hillary's still way ahead' they write or say every time they talk about P2008.

It's hard for me to believe a single mother did not qualify for any assistance, unless she was making pretty good money already. Although I have read a report that 800,000 New Yorkers qualified for food stamps but did not get them partly because their mayor, one Rudolph Giuliani, did not like the program and deliberately made the process difficult for those applying. So, a potential $8,000,000 a month in Federal Funds could come to his city at no cost to NYC taxpayers and Rudy says 'no thanks'.

[Clark2008]

22. It's not hard for me to believe she didn't quailfy.

I was a single Mom for five years and made about $21,000. I was not qualified to receive a DIME. My kid wasn't allowed on TennCare and I ended up having to forego health insurance myself so I could buy into a student pool with BC/BS for him.

Can you imagine? $21,000 a year and I didn't qualify - not even to receive a $100 in stamps a month or health care for my kid. But, it's true.

Luckily, now, those days are past.

[eShirl]

23. Your income was too high to qualify, then.

I think 21,000 might still be too high for a family of 2 to qualify for food stamps.

[hfojvt]

30. $21,000 sounds like a fair amount to me

especially for the late 1980s. Although today, such a person would qualify for $1,500 in Earned Income Credit.

[Nikki Stone1]

21. The OP gives another great reason about why the Dems should NOT go centrist in this election

Kucinich, who is seen on the extreme, actually has a message more in touch with the average voter than Hillary or Obama do.

[DemReadingDU]

26. Kucinich is spot on...

1. Get out of Iraq, now. no more funding. Bring the troops home.

2. Universal Health Care.

3. Withdraw from Nafta.




edit to add link
http://maineindymedia.org/newswire/display/4701/index.php

[kath]

28. VERY, very good point. This "we need to move to the center" crap is

fokking bullshit.

[Nikki Stone1]

32. Agreed!

Kucinich gets my vote in the primary

[alfredo]

24. During the oil crisis in the late 70's and early 80's a lot of

people dumped their gas guzzlers for more fuel efficient cars. The used car lots were crowded with Buicks, Chryslers, and Caddies. To sell them, the lots were virtually giving them away. If you wanted a car with good gas mileage, you had to pay top dollar. The big, gas guzzlers were left for the poor.

[bvar22]

29. I'm not surprised.

The majority of Americans (Democrat & Republican) agree with Kucinich on the issues.
If Presidential elections in the US were about ISSUES, Kucinich would WIN walking away.
Unfortunately, this is the USA, and powers behind the two Parties with lots of $MONEY$ select TWO, and we must pick between them. :shrug:

Here is what the MAJORITY of Americans (Democrats AND Republicans) want from OUR government!
(the following is almost two years old. Today's percentages are even MORE in favor of Kucinich's platform.

In recent polls by the Pew Research Group, the Opinion Research Corporation, the Wall Street Journal, and CBS News, the American majority has made clear how it feels. Look at how the majority feels about some of the issues that you'd think would be gospel to a real Democratic Party:

1. 65 percent (of ALL Americans, Democrats AND Republicans) say the government should guarantee health insurance for everyone -- even if it means raising taxes.

2. 86 percent favor raising the minimum wage (including 79 percent of selfdescribed "social conservatives").

3. 60 percent favor repealing either all of Bush's tax cuts or at least those cuts that went to the rich.

4. 66 percent would reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

5. 77 percent believe the country should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment.

6. 87 percent think big oil corporations are gouging consumers, and 80 percent (including 76 percent of Republicans) would support a windfall profits tax on the oil giants if the revenues went for more research on alternative fuels.

7. 69 percent agree that corporate offshoring of jobs is bad for the U.S. economy (78 percent of "disaffected" voters think this), and only 22% believe offshoring is good because "it keeps costs down."


http://alternet.org/wiretap/29788/

8. Over 63% oppose the War on the Iraqi People.

9. 92% of ALL Americans support TRANSPARENT, VERIFIABLE elections!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x446445

While all of the Democratic candidates agree with some of the above, Dennis Kucinich is the ONLY candidate that scores 100%.