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[font color=white]..............................................[/font][font size=1](Precinct Map of the 2008 election)[/font]
...but Hatin on the South is Bigotry that is still applauded at DU.
Along with Ann Richards,
Molly Ivans
Bill Moyers,
Jim Hightower,
and THIS guy:
moved to FL because my husband's father retired, & moved back to his home state. My husband was born in Tampa. What a trade off, huh?
I actually met Molly Ivins, but it was here in Florida close to the time she passed away. As army brats, we lived at Ft. Hood for an extended period of time. Graduated from school in Killeen, TX and actually settled down there until I was 28! Ivins stomping grounds were Austin, about the only place I can deal with anymore. One of my sister's still lives in Cedar Park outside of Austin. BUT, she drank the Kool-Aid and is a fundamentalist Christian who thinks Obama is the Anti-Christ.
We get along extremely well, but she knows how I feel. She knows I talk trash about her, and she admits she does the same about me. Politically we couldn't be further apart. I took that test that was on here yesterday and I'm a Bleeding Heart Liberal! Of the 6 girls in our family, we were the closest in age and actually went to the same high school together. I go back for all my class re-unions and see her friends and mine. She graduated the year I was a freshman, but we do have memories in common which keep us close.
It works, but probably not if I was still living there. My parents were strong Democrats & most of my other sisters, but I've always been the political activist and sort of the black sheep! And PROUD OF IT!
I usually post a bad ass video, but this thread calls for a funny 
A Texan, a Russian and a New Yorker go into a restaurant in London.
"Excuse me, but if you were going to order the steak, I'm afraid there's a shortage due to the mad cow disease," says the waiter.
The Texan says, "What's a shortage?"
The Russian says, "What's a steak?"
The New Yorker says, "What's 'excuse me'?"
You ever check out the demographics of the Dallas metroplex?
and what do you mean about the metroplex demographics. I lived there for a few years
The region, not the island.
... here in the fourth largest city in the USA - Houston - we have as our mayor Annise Parker (one of the first openly gay mayors in The USA).
In my opinion Texas is more Purple these days than it is red.
And no, you're not alone. A lot of crappy legislators come from Wyoming, or the Central Valley in California.
...No, every single Southerner is not responsible for the craptastic Red State shennanigans that go down;
and unlike some people on this board who seemingly live for it, I'm not a big fan of collective guilt for groups of people based upon what a majority (much less a small minority) of them do.
That said, let's get honest; let's get real. The states that make up the old Confederacy are a BIG part of the reason the country is going through the shit it is, now.
That's not "bashing", that's simple numbers.
This map is a more realistic representation.
My wifes family is from VA and I lived there, as well as in N.O.L.A. and MS. I am a Seattle native and must admit it was quite a culture shock. There were things I liked and other things not so much. But for the most part I disliked the whole place. And by place I mean the people I met everywhere I went. They fly the stars and bars with pride and BELIEVE the south will rise again. The only place I did not encounter any racism was living in the housing projects in Roanoke. It's just the way it is down there. I understand why the rich vote the way they do. But the PWT will always baffle me. They could live in the same neighborhood, send kids to the same schools, work the same jobs. But at the end of the day, go home and complain about the Ns this and the Ns that! They just don't want to see that they are playing right into the hands of the real enemy. That if they could put aside their BS and voted their pocketbooks everyone would benefit. But, no. Might benefit the Ns! I love my family, and have many good friends there. There are just too many assholes and life is too short. Fuck the south. I will never again live where they fly the stars and bars right next to Old Glory. 
Whew!!! Damn! Guess I really needed to vent.
State capital building.
Enough said?
I hope so.
I don't need to go there, do I?
I would bet that most of the 100 "protesters" at the White House last week end are from north of the Mason Dixon Line.
I've seen more Rebel Flags in the White Flight northern suburbs of the Twin Cities (Michele Bachmann's stronghold)
than I have seen in our new neighborhood in rural Arkansas.
Most of the people still fighting the Civil War and trying to Keep the Old Divisions & hatreds alive on DU are people who live elsewhere.
The South is beautiful,
and belongs to us ALL.
In 2006, my Wife & I moved from a Big Blue Northern City
to a very RED area of the Rural South.
We love it here, and won't be leaving.
You CAN go wherever you think you need to go,
but please don't come to The South.
We don't need or want your kind of "help".
There are people who work for "change",
and people who choose to live in the past and keep comfortable hatreds alive.
--bvar22 & Starkraven
turning The South Blue,
one vote at a time.
Thanks for taking the time to write it up and post
and about recognizable regional identity AND influence in American culture and politics?
I'm really not sure that there is a region more prominent than the south.
I'll admit to finding that stressful, but there it is. My home town was a center of precision manufacturing and famous for watch and aeronautical instrument making...until it was raided by a Carolina town offering free land, no taxes and cheap labor---and that was back in the early '60s.
Sure there are greater individual states than Alabama in terms of economy, political influence and culture. Certainly there are cities (New York, Hollywood) that aren't southern but are giants in culture. What cities push American politics more than San Francisco?
But, consider it as I posed it..."The South" is as "big" as any region in terms of identity, cultural influence and influence on politics and American business practices. I wouldn't say that the Southern/Right to work/WalMart model (part-time, anti-union, no benefits, etc.) is good for America, but it's damned successful and it has spread into all corners of the national economy.
When one considers the country...what region beats "The South" in terms of Identity and influence in culture and politics?
New England? no
The Mid-Atlantic States? no
Eastern North Central (midwestern 'old foundry states"
no
Western North Central (aka that grassland "desert" in James Fennimore Cooper's The Prairie)? no
The Mountain States? no
The Southwest? no
The West Coast? Well, especially with respect to California, it probably IS the most equal competitor to the south.
My state's unofficial motto is "Thank God For Mississippi", so bashing it really isn't hard. 
What I loathe are the calls to kick the South out of the Union.
Southern African Americans have absolutely no desire to participate in an exodus. If they did, they'd have already done it. Nor do the Native American tribes that have been here since before Moses was a thing. We already tried being dispossessed and moved around, and we're not in any hurry to do it again, thanks. It didn't sound like much fun the first time. Not really in a hurry to give it another shot.
Of course we would give it another shot, as would the Southern African Americans. We'd sell our houses and land for whatever pittance we could get, or just abandon them outright, and GTFO of here because once all the alleged progressives bailed out to move to Bluetopia, the only thing keeping us from being rounded up and wiped out would be federal laws, so we'd have to leave before that was up.
The people screaming to kick the states with heavy minority populations out of the US don't ever take any of that into account, thus demonstrating that acting like minorities totally don't matter isn't a regional thing after all. It never seems to occur to them they're advocating a policy that would, in the not even very long run, lead to genocide. Or if it does occur to them it doesn't bother them very much. (It also doesn't seem to occur to them they'd be creating a Christian Dominionist run territory right next door that would be a nuclear power. A bunch of dipshits that want nothing more than the endtimes having unrestricted access to nukes. Won't that be fun.)
And after ensuring multi-generational poverty among African Americans and Native Americans (Ok. Further poverty), you'd still have Michelle Bachmann in the Bluetopian Congress.
the South is crazy, I might suggest a visit to the Idaho Panhandle. 
That's just CRAZY TALK:
ERA ratification map of the United States:
Indeed its getting old. And, it doesn't fit what the Democratic Party needs to be talking about.
There's an Eliteness in the Dem Party which is growing that looks down on those who aren't CHOSEN... It's something that's going to hit us in the future.
BUBBA's are ALL OVER THE USA! And Mullets didn't just belong to the South when they were in fashion....they were in pockets (see "bvar22's Map" and read a little of Joe Bageant's books because what he describes exists all over America as the Poor Grow in Numbers and the Education only goes to the TOP 1% for Private Schools and being recognized because you went to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT...or the other Top Universities.
For the rest of us "Down Tier University Graduates"....Our jobs went with NAFTA OVERSEAS during REAGAN AND DOWN.
ALL WAS OUTSOURCED...and the TPP and Other TRADE DEALS by Obama and the ELITES will grind us down so that we will learn how to be "Bubba's" at some point in the FUTURE if we don't stand up NOW and Force our DEMOCRATIC PARTY TO LISTEN TO ALL OF US! Not...MAKE FUN of the LESSER OF US!
