Tube City Almanac

September 24, 2012

Hardscrabble Watch: Lehigh Valley Edition

Category: Commentary/Editorial, Hardscrabble Mon Valley Watch || By

Hardscrabble Mon Valley sightings are few and far between during this presidential election season.

It seems that Pennsylvania isn't a "battleground state" this year --- the Romney campaign appears to have written off our entire Commonwealth as part of the lazy 47 percent of Americans who feel they're entitled to such luxuries as food, health care and shelter.

Thomas Edsall examines the phenomenon in a post on the New York Times' website:

When I met Kevin Balzer, a Romney supporter who is a Mack Truck supervisor, I asked him why his state looks likely to back Obama. "People are stupid," he said.

Geez, with supporters like this guy, who needs opponents? Sure, that's pretty much what Romney appears to believe about 47 percent of Americans --- we're stupid --- but you're not supposed to say it out loud.

. . .

Balzer continues:

City and state officials, he went on, eliminated civics from our curriculum. The students don't know about civics, they don't know about our history, our government, our constitution. Politicians say they are going to give people things for free to get elected. That is what's happening in Pennsylvania, especially in Lehigh Valley.

Yes, civics and history and social studies have either been eliminated or drastically cut back in a lot of public school curriculums, along with music and art education. Those subjects have been cut back over the past 10 years because conservatives have insisted that schools focus on math and reading --- where student performance can be easily measured on standardized tests --- so that teachers can be held accountable.

When districts (mostly poor and urban, such as McKeesport and Clairton) fail to make "adequate yearly progress," conservatives demand that money be taken away from those districts so that charter schools can be funded. So the poor, urban districts get a little bit poorer, and they eliminate some more frills (such as "civics" classes) to focus on subjects such as math and reading. Lather, rinse, repeat.

And now, we have a conservative bemoaning the lack of civics education in public schools. Mr. Balzer, let me introduce you to a little something we call "the law of unintended consequences."
Balzer added that "the white guys got pushed out" of Allentown and neighboring communities, in part by a wave of Hispanic immigration.

"The white guys got pushed out." Don't dare call that racism!

Also, too --- Balzer is a German name. One hundred years ago, the Scots-Irish in Pennsylvania were complaining about the likes of the Balzers coming to the United States, speaking German and having too many kids and taking away good paying jobs.

Irony. How does it work?
Balzer, who joined the exodus to areas outside of Allentown, said he and others want to "get away from the whole erosion of the country."


. . .

As sometimes happens in these cases, I'm moved to song:

And we're living here in Allentown
And the people all around us are brown
And they habla that there Español
Votin' Obama, they're out of control

We cut the funds for public schools
Played the teachers' unions all for fools
Now our students don't learn to debate
American history --- they just calculate
And I'm complaining here in Allentown

When everything around was Christian and right
Lehigh County was mostly Anglo and white
Immigration has polluted this space
And now caucasian isn't the only race ...
Oh, and I'm feeling threatened here in Allentown

. . .

In the same article, two Democratic political consultants in Pennsylvania say that Romney "just does not sell" with working class whites. (I'd argue he doesn't sell with working class people of color, or Asians, or Hindis, or pretty much anyone. Class transcends skin color and ethnic heritage.)

They say that cities and towns throughout the state "have all been hit by these corporate raider types" who buy and sell businesses in a manner similar to Romney's former firm, Bain Capital. "He just doesn't hunt here."


Off the top of my head, I can name two large employers in McKeesport that were victimized by corporate raiders, and no longer exist --- G.C. Murphy Co. and Enamel Products.

Indeed, G.C. Murphy Co. was at least in part a victim of Goldman Sachs --- the investment bank that has now been implicated in so much of the ongoing financial crisis --- while Enamel Products was purchased by a company controlled by The Carlyle Group, a venture capital firm with close ties to both Bush White Houses.

If I dug deeper, I could probably find other Mon Valley companies that have "benefitted" from Bain Capital and similar firms. Mitt Romney looks an awful lot like all of the other guys who smiled in our faces while they were negotiating to sell our jobs to companies in China.

Those guys took home nice fat bonuses; we wound up collecting checks until we got jobs driving trucks or mopping floors.

Cheer up, Kevin. If it makes you feel any better, Mexican immigrants share more in common with you than you suspect. For one thing, Mitt Romney wouldn't give the time of day to either one of you.

(More Hardscrabble Mon Valley Watch)

. . .

The preceding was a commentary. Commentaries and editorials represent opinions of individual authors and do not represent those of Tube City Community Media Inc. Tube City Community Media welcomes opposing viewpoints. Write to tubecitytiger at gmail dot com, or Tube City Online, P.O. Box 94, McKeesport 15134. A real name is required, but that name can be withheld from publication upon request. Comments may be edited for length or clarity.

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I don’t agree with his statement, at all, but I’m glad that something “real” happened in this election cycle, and that we finally have an idea of what this clown thinks of everyone else.

Something like this happened the last time around, and I wanted to get up and cheer when I read it, because it spoke to EXACTLY what everyone was thinking, but no one had the guts to say.

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

If I have anything to say about it, I want that to go down in history as one of the greatest political quotes of all time. I hope that schoolkids are studying the motivations of that quote in 50 years. I honestly do.
John - September 24, 2012



I respect your comments above but have to call you on one thing you said…

“It seems that Pennsylvania isn’t a “battleground state” this year —- the Romney campaign appears to have written off our entire Commonwealth as part of the lazy 47 percent of Americans who feel they’re entitled to such luxuries as food, health care and shelter.”

NO ONE is “ENTITLED” to food, health care or shelter.

If one works hard and acts prudently, one can expect that one could get those things.

But entitled? That thinking is what got us to where we are in our city. More people willing to live on someone else’s dime than work hard for their own.
shadango - September 26, 2012



The guy who would reverse the rise of the oceans ? have the most transparent government ever ? eliminate our dependence on foreign oil ? regain the love and respect for America around the world ? If you vote for THAT guy, you just are stupid ! (That’s STOOPID for those with a government education )
jay ross - September 26, 2012



Well, Jay, that isn’t what Barack Obama actually said. So I guess if all you know how to do is repeat crap you read in an email or heard on a talk show, then you’re just … nah, I’m not going to say it.

Of course, the flip side is that Gov. Romney and his party deny that climate change exists, even though we can measure it. Since billions of dollars in real estate is at danger of being destroyed, that seems … well, kind of stupid.

Meanwhile, Gov. Romney’s proposal for ending our dependence on foreign oil by 2020 consists of more domestic oil drilling.

OK. The U.S. uses 7,154,000,000 barrels of oil every year. The Alaska wildlife refuge holds about 10,000,000,000 barrels of oil, so that’s … what, a year and a half of oil? Maybe two?

But you can’t pump it all out at one time, and in the U.S., even in the glory days of the late 1960s, we were never, ever able to produce more than 3,504,000,000 barrels of oil in a single year.

So we’re using about twice the amount of oil we can produce, even under the best case scenario, even with drilling in Alaska and everywhere else.

Oh, but right, this was about making fun of STOOPID Obama and the STOOPID Democrats! Those guys are so STOOPID! Ha ha ha! You sure educated me, Jay.
Webmaster - September 27, 2012



“NO ONE is ‘ENTITLED’ to food, health care or shelter.”

You’re entitled to your opinion, but you’re also wrong.

The ‘luxury’ of not starving to death, the ‘luxury’ of not dying in agonizing pain due to cancer, and the ‘luxury’ or not having to sleep underneath a tree in the middle of winter are a BASIC HUMAN RIGHT.

The fact that you are unwilling to recognize this suggests that you have never had to go without one of these things. I have, and it’s scary, demoralizing, and makes you feel like a piece of garbage. It is NOT a condition of “being lazy” or “being uneducated” or whatever other excuse white people give to avoid saying that they’re actually a racist.

For a nation that professes to be “under God” and “the most powerful in the world” we sure are a bunch of hypocritical jackasses when it comes to helping our own.
John - September 28, 2012



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- May 22, 2014



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