- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
No state has been as responsible for the hideous state of our politics and the position of the U.S. now in the world than Georgia. You speak of race in historical terms but the fact is that those of us raised in redneck precincts of this nation ARE STILL to this day raised with race resentment so deeply engrained that stubborn willful ignorance permeates most of the South and lower Midwest on every issue. They masquerade as good Christians but are the most eager consumers of every nasty rumour that saturates our politics and drives aways good candidates today. You are talking about a retrograde population that will vote against its own interests just to stick it to liberals.
This is transparent to the rest of the world which has written off America because of it, yet isn't really discussed in polite company in the U.S. out of deference to the ignorant. I am frequently scolded for using the entirely descriptive term "redneck" even though I escaped from them and educated myself out of that morass. America doesn't seem to even want to know what hit them. Walter Cronkite pronounced the death of our democracy with his observation that we had lost the crucial ability for critical thinking. No better place than Columbus, Georgia can be pinpointed as ground zero for the dumbing down of America to a shrub.
