Letters to the Editor
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Anonymous 1:4
You're not helping either by blaming open forums like Salon for "driving us to Dubya." Anyone who voted for the current Idiot-in-Chief did it out of ignorance, and ignorance comes from the inside, not from exposure to the marketplace of ideas. You're just one side of the coin with Schaller's face on the other. One thing this country doesn't need is more polarizing BS from either side of the aisle.
If you voted for Dubya it's because you didn't think it through first. It sure wasn't because you'd been reading here at Salon. You'd already made up your mind. A real man, Southern or otherwise, thinks for himself and owns up to his actions.
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In a world of limited campaign funds
Spending on losing battles is the fastest way to lose. You will not win the pickup truck crowd. They drive giant trucks to compensate for their fears, and the republican mantra of outward violence helps assuage those fears. Democrats just can't compete on that scared about my dick level, and they shouldn't. They would lose.
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Jason Wolfe from Newhal
Committing psychology without a license.
Totally baloney from first to last, but if it makes you feel better about yourself, go for it.
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@Anonymous 8:32 PM
"Oh, and the reason Edwards doesn't stand a ghost of a chance in the South is because we're very good at identifying stuffed suits and phonies..."
Yeah. That sure would explain the South's overwhelming support for Bush, huh?
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Yuck
I'd rather the Democrats represent a style of rhetoric and thinking than a certain class or race. Identity politics brings nothing but defeat and turmoil to every party that indulges in it.
Ideas, not demographics plz. The quickest way to turn me into a Republican is to embrace La Raza-style identity and racial power brokering.
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A Gun That Can Kill Him or Me
I know these guys. I come from Detroit--old Detroit--the city where they used to make cars. A few of you may remember it. The professor is writing about them like fish in a tank, but that's not the story. They are Americas true iconoclasts. They ride choppers, they're called "working class," they have a gestalt all their own.
Will they vote Democratic, will they vote for a women, will they fuck with the "powers that be," and do them one better by being totally unexpected, and actually champion the babes who ride behind them?
Isn't that what this remarkably prescient piece is asking?
I think it's possible, even if they're only five of them left. That's really the problem. Most of these guys, for better or worse, are out to lunch, but the ones who aren't--the shop stewart, the macho-dude with the fox of all foxes, may just say fuck it--why not vote for the broad--at least she isn't one of them, the man, the guy who invented the ball and chain.
No, it ain't logical, but what is? The country club dudes need to learn a lesson. They got my big brother killed in Nam and now they're their going after my nephew. They're doin' the same-old, same-old. They don't give a shit who I am, and that means it's time for something different, something entirely different--somebody that maybe even wears a skirt instead of pants, and lets her man get away with bein' an outlaw--dickin' the wrong babe in the Oval Office.
It may not be about the "issues" and it may not put a gun in every guys back pocket, but hey, that's a gun that could kill me, as well as him.
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A fundamentally stupid article
And I do hope the Democratic leadership ignores Schaller. This is th sort of logic that gets people into Iraq -- and is refutable in a similar way.
1. White males are the single largest 'group' of voters in the US electorate- at least 30% of the voters and possible 37-38% in a large turnout.
2. Lose enough of that electorate and you are "screwed" because every other group, with the exception of white women, gets you less than 10% of the electorate.
3. As a group white women do not absolutely match the voting characteristics of their male partners -- but they do track pretty closely -- so anything that loses you a large chunk of white men will lose you only a slightly smaller chunk of white women.
4. Thus collectively white males and white females, if they voted as a block would hand the electorate to the other side.
5. Schaller wants to piss them off as a block -- whatever odd locutions he comes up to avoid saying so.
6. The idea is suicidal and stupid, and effort to appear intellectually deep by being -- well dumb. I suppose this is what I mean by hidden shallows. . .
How desperate are the Salon editors for content?
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if someone writes a book about how the democrats don't need the south
(whistling past dixie, thos f schaller) and an article in salon last year, www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/11/14/no_south/print.html saying the same thing, is it surprising that he figures, why not? they bought it twice, why not three times?
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Just going to give this a shot.
Why is it that in Salon - a place that I've been lead to believe is somewhat progressive, therefore home to at least a bit of equality - that I check my RSS feed and see "So Long, White Boy"? I suppose I should understand that part of being politically progressive is apparently going along with stuff like this, which is why Broadsheet writers can be openly sexist, and apparently an article title that pretty clearly refers to all men of a particular race as 'boy' is totally acceptable . . . provided that the race isn't an American minority. Nevertheless, I just thought I'd point it out. One of these days someone might actually acknowledge some hypocrisy.
I'm not holding my breath, mind you.
And incidentally, I'm well aware of the fact that someone's going to respond to this with the fact that this very terminology has been used BY white racists for years - yes, but not with salon.com's approval . . . am I wrong?
I also know that someone's going to point out (or at least might) that the article itself isn't about EVERY white man, and that the particular sub-group that it does refer to is ripe for mockery. While I might actually agree with the second part of that statement, the use of the term nevertheless reeks of the same sort of 'this racism is OK' that has stupid people implying that the 'n-word' (what awkward phraseology!) ACTUALLY comes from the word 'niggardly' and therefore just refers to a selfish person regardless of race, so for them, it's an OK term to use in certain circumstances.
Again, not holding my breath. Seems from what I've seen that if you imply that a Salon writer is belittling either men or white people (or, in this case, the crossover group in a Venn diagram of both - even more egregious!) the immediate knee-jerk reaction is to act as though anyone born that way had it coming. Alternatively, perhaps the explanation is that while racism must be roundly denounced the moment it rears its ugly head . . . that only applies in certain circumstances, and when it's something like the title of this article, anyone offended should just let it go. After all, the explanation would go, it's just a little article, it's not like it's using this terminology in a small, but pervasive way to establish that denigrating a portion of the world's population because of sex, race or both is perfectly fine . . .
Yeah.
But . . . still going to hold out SOME hope, though.