Letters to the Editor
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Intimidator?
Can somebody tell me what the hell the "Intimidator" from the last page is?
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Isn't this . . .
the whole Retro v. Metro conflict, again?
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In my less generous moments, I think - "fuck 'em, if they don't like it, let's divy this place up." I am absolutely certain they'll be knocking on our doors a few years out.
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reality will intrude
these are all the same people who elected Herbert Hoover over Al Smith in 1928; somehow things didn't work out quite the way they expected and they won't now either. In fact I think they know it won't on some level. That is why they are so hysterical.
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Armed Takeovers
While calling it the takeover of a campus would be stretching it to say the least, and while the arms were introduced only after the takeover took place, I think that the Williard Straight Hall occupation at Cornell University in April, 1969 makes it difficult to sustain the claim that "There were no armed campus uprisings in the United States in the '60s, period. Not anywhere, not ever."
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WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS
if the so called opposition party refuses to step up to the plate and challenge the fascists in the White House?
or is the big lobbyist money distorting Democrat priorities?
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Despair & Hope
Well, that was hideously depressing. Shall I read that book now, or just blow my brains out?
Actually, I find some hope in one thing which was mentioned in the article: that for the right wing movement, particularly the religious faction, the job is "half finished". All the shit that this country has gone through apparently hasn't woken up Sleeping America, but I guarantee you this: once the right-wingers start taking away condoms and birth control pills, there's going to be a rude awakening.
Real success, for the right wing, can only lead to disaster. And the only way for the players behind the scenes to avoid that disaster is to spin the issue out as long as possible, as they've done with abortion.
People like George Bush and Dick Cheney - well, Cheney, anyway - know that a flat-out ban on contraception would get a lot of formerly apathetic people to start voting. So they'll "try hard", issue a lot of bills, and keep losing. That way they can keep the issue as a means to galvanize the slack-jawed yokels who support them, and who apparently will never realize that they're being utterly manipulated.
But I don't think that the Christian Right will accept that status quo forever. Witness their recent pushes on abortion. These people want red meat, though, and one way or another they're going to get it.
We can only hope that the body politic gets its head out of its ass before environmental collapse renders the whole issue moot.
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I've seen both sides
Well, as someone who grew up in rural Connecticut and has lived in New York city for 10 years, I've been immersed in both camps of the 'cultural divide' depicted here.
The book reviewed seems as if it's a little sloppy in areas, but overall seems to make some good points. The reviewer seems to be much more tuned into the subject. I specifically remember describing the 'young urban youths' I started seeing wearing Nascar jackets on the subway a few years ago to my Dad, who didn't really know what to make of it. "The Imtimidator" BTW refers to Dale Earnhardt - Sr. not Jr. - who was a Nascar racer killed in a crash a few years ago. Interestingly enough, his car was always number 3, for those who may wish to ascribe any additional religious significance.
A further note for you 'metros' out there: if you find yourself driving around in any of these towns, perhaps looking for antiques, and see a simple "3" sticker on at least every other pickup truck that you see, don't count on finding a Starbucks anywhere close.
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the democrats won't step up until the Republicans start losing
yeah well, it's a chicken and egg problem I guess. In the short term the Dems are going to have to do what Clinton did (to get elected I mean). Hopefully it isn't only right wing voters who grasp the concept of hanging together politically in purusit of long(ish) term goals.
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it's not that hard
[Homelanders] view our constitution as a form of Talmudic writ whose interpretation requires reading the minds of those bickering 18th century farmers
Really, now, it's not that hard. There really is nothing Talmudic about interpreting our Constitution. Simply read what's there. (We also have copies of the discussions surrounding the different parts of the document so we know what the issues were, which helps further divine their intent.) Don't rely on the "penumbra" and "emanations" of the Constitution to invent rights out of thin air, as Harry Blackmun did in somehow finding a right to kill babies in the womb for any reason or no reason.
It's this sort of simplistic and disingenuous thinking that ensures that "metros" will consistenly underestimate their political opposites--and continue to lose.
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Urban identity
So, how do we create an alternative urban culture that embodies what we stand for culturally, politically and socially?
Also, I always think this is a fun, if not reactionary, article:
http://fuckthesouth.com/
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The salt of the earth, you know, idiots.
Red staters are people who can't tell the difference between a war hero and an old-money New England blue blood who has a pretend Texas accent. If Bush and company don't take advantage of them someone else will. As the red states and these down home people are the ones hurt the most by Bush's policies, one has to wonder if the current administration has any respect for the people who vote for them.
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they may be right....
Good summation. They are, in a way. But we know life is more difficult and complex than 'they' believe. Sorry to say. Suffice it to say.
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6 vs half a dozen...
Allen believes that traditional American small-town life is "beautiful and blessed and besieged," and that we'd all be better off if we reconnected to it. "He thinks there's a better, more decent America out there, a country that somehow got tangled up in niggling multiculturalism, derailed by political correctness, and deformed by tax-and-spend social engineering. He dreams of a future that's a little more honest, a little freer, and a little more prosperous than the one we've actually inherited."
ok, how is that different from O'Hehir's description of
Thomas Frank's book as detailing
a class war inverted and subverted by powerful economic elites who control the Republican Party and convince the exurban lumpenproletariat to vote against its own interests?
I hear the same thing, especially since to me the concept of "tax-and-spend social engineering" is a conceit invented by the GOP, and not in fact a real phenomenon at all, especially when viewed in the light of Bill Clinton's successful management of the federal budget and the GOP's subsequent budget busting ways. Undoubtedly rural dwellers, mostly white, do feel besieged. But Mann and Frank seem to be describing the same phenomena, one sympathetically, the other less so.
Both parties are controlled by monied elites, but the republicans have been singularly successful in suggesting that this is the case with the democrats, whereas democrats are generally timorous and fearful of suggesting this about the GOP, lest they be accused of "waging class war." The democrats might be surprised at the inroads they might make if they talked about ways in which the GOP has neglected rural dwellers, rather than writing them off altogether. Reducing GOP margins in some rural counties from 70/30 to 60/40 might be all it takes to make some battle ground states blue in presidential elections.
And yes, the hunting photo-ops are ridiculous.