Can we lay some stereotypes to rest?

[RedLetterRev]

I owe this post to AngryCarpenter, YardWork, a whole bunch of Texas posters, and the ghost of my granddad. I've have seen a lot of stereotypes being thrown around on DU, and I'm not faulting anyone. What's been thrown around is a lot of what's been fed over time, just like what's been fed to the RW'ers over hate radio about what supposed "libruls" are and why "librul" are such boogeymen.

When you hear that spew, it gets your dander up, doesn't it! Well, it's intended to incite not only the morans who swallow it whole, but those of us who have more than two brain cells in the same orbit and know it's a complete sack of shyte.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a post about how utility rates in Texas have skyrocketed. There was a big pile-on of a lot of folks who weren't Texans, who never lived in Texas, didn't understand the Texas political system who were right there to chastise DU posters about how they should have cleaned up the Texas political system and how ignorant Texans were to keep voting Republican.

Things aren't always on the inside as they seem from the outside.

I've been privileged to live in Texas three separate times. What folks on the outside don't know -- and a dirty secret that the RW doesn't let get across state borders -- is that the Railroad Commission supposedly controls the oil industry in Texas. In actual fact, it's the other way around. Over time, the oil industry has bought and paid for the entire state government having gotten a first foothold in the regulating Railroad Commission. Texans are pretty much at their mercy and have been largely disenfranchised by gerrymandering, vote-rigging, payola, propaganda... all the usual GOP (Greed, Oil, Piracy) tactics. But you don't hear that outside the borders, nor do you hear of the political wars going on inside the state to take it back. But look at the parade of names that have trod through the Railroad Commission and you'll have an idea what the Oil Mafia looks like: Williams, Clements, McClellan, and Bush. Huh.

My last residence before returning home to NC after 25 years of seeing this great nation was Florida. Now, since leaving the Appalachian mountains of my childhood, I've lived in 10 of the Lower Forty-Eight, visited 38 of them, have lived in Dallas, Austin, Chicago, L. A., Baton Rouge, Fort Lauderdale, Charlotte, and just outside NY. I've been to and lived a while in Europe. I've visited Australia twice. That's extremely lucky for any American. Unthinkably lucky for a poor Appalachian hillbilly child.

It isn't as if I haven't been a lot of places and met with a great many people. I've been more places than Hank Snow. But once again, I digress. Let me get back to Florida.

Folks have piled on Floridians for being too stupid to figure out a butterfly ballot. Much was made in M$M of "hanging chads" and undervotes. That wasn't even the surface of the story. That was the story that M$M wanted you to hear, only as much as was necessary to color opinions in a certain (and negative direction). The story from inside the state, once again, was quite different.

At 7:30 the morning after the 2000 vote, my partner and I were walking our dogs. At the end of the street, we could see our precinct where, to our cold shock, there were trucks destroying the uncounted ballots from our precinct. A small provision in the state law mandated that all uncounted ballots should be destroyed. Now, this occurrance was going on in front of many, many heavily-Democratic precincts all over south Florida and it was shown all over the local news. It was also before the first call for a recount.

How f'ing convenient. Katherine Harris could make damnsure that the trucks were at the precincts to destroy uncounted ballots at daybreak but she couldn't get them there the night before to transport them to the tallying centers.

You put two and two together.

But you didn't see that on M$M news, did you? You only saw what the Republican minions wanted you to see and that's all you had from which to form an opinion.

Let the pile-ons begin.

I'm not faulting and DU'ers. I'm just saying that in both cases there is a lot more to it than you've been led to believe. Be careful.

Why would I be sensitive to this? Aside from the fact that I have traveled damnear everywhere, I am probably about the last person anyone would think would be a "liberal". Now, credit where credit is due, I'm going to thank AngryCarpenter again for getting this ball rolling. I am a southerner, at least 11 generations deep. I have ancestors who followed Peter Stuyvescent to New Amsterdam (I have cousins in NY state, still) who migrated to the NC coast in the late 1600's. The last ancestor who came across, whom I can track, arrived in 1751. Nearly all my greats-granddads fought in the Revolutionary War. More g's-granddads, g's-uncles, cousins-x-removed fought on both sides of the Civil War. I am inextricably tied to this land.

The land and the Constitution were handed down to me as precious heirlooms, to be guarded, polished, held in stewardship, and to be handed down to following generations in better shape than they were handed down to me. This is called respect. This is called patriotism. This is called loving one's neighbor, because it's a community of neighbors pulling together that makes a nation.

Here's my background and why you wouldn't think I'm a liberal, and why I'm constantly thought of as a southern redneck.

I was raised in the hills of western NC, in what wasn't much more than a shack that grew out of a log cabin. It got electricity only 5 years before I was born. I grew up hearing how lucky I was not to have to bring water up from the springhouse in back or have to use the privy up the hill. Yes, I did consider myself lucky, all things in perspective. Still do.

I own a rifle and a shotgun. I still live way-out in the country. Though my place is a sanctuary, if something attacks my dogs or appears rabid, it's up to me to dispatch it as quickly and humanely as possible. The eldest dog is my partner's assistant, one in whom we've invested a great deal of love, devotion, training and attention. She is his freedom to move about in the world. Worse than losing a "child", he would lose his mobility assistant. I can't let that happen. Those who would remove all guns, please consider this. Just askin' to see if from this side.

I work hard, always have. My granddaddy, a strong Democrat if there ever was one, was the sickest man I ever knew who got up and went to work every day, with only one lung. Hard work and paying attention in school were the only way out of the holler. Granddaddy was right. I've seen most of America, a bit of Europe and Australia. Being the breadwinner of the family, I work a fulltime job, plus bringing up our farm, plus doing weddings to keep things moving. Thanks to neocon outsourcing, there'll be no retirement, so I'm having to hustle double-hard now because the clock's tickin'.

I'm white. Mostly. Being Appalachian, I have some mysterious Native and Melungeon roots. Some called us "black Irish", some called us "part Indian", some called us far less charitable names, and historically we were considered the lowest of the lowest of the low. I don't care what anyone calls me, except late for supper :)

My home is a modular, double-wide format. I was lucky enough to find a foreclosure on a big piece of land out in the country that I could actually afford to keep. I was doubly blessed in that I had the VA behind me to secure a 100% loan. I figured I'd earned that, having extended active duty once, then going back into active reserves voluntarily and extending again. From the shack of my childhood, to the rental crap I've put up with along the way, from the brief stint of homelessness, no castle could be finer to me than what I've got. I've seen the barrel from the bottom up and it's not pretty.

I've been the poor, lived among the poor, and have floated among some of the very richest of society. Give me the poor any day. They know everything they've got and however little it is, they're grateful for it. The rich generally don't give a damn unless they're helping themselves to more of it -- or someone else's.

But I believe Americans have so much to offer and we sure could do better by one another. This crap about "self-reliance" that the RW love to spew comes from a bunch of spoiled brats who never had to struggle for a thing. There's no such thing as a self-made man. We're each a product of what we've given and absorbed along the way. It's compassion and empathy, a willingness to prevent problems before they happen, to have felt that pain and wish up to Whatever It Is that nobody else ever has to feel it -- that makes us either lefties or liberals.

Or as granddaddy would've said, just plain "decent".

One more thing: bad shit does happen to good people. Been there, done that. No matter who you are, it's almost impossible to get help. A leg-up is not at all the same thing as a hand-out, I don't care how the RW try to paint and spin it. Nobody in a bad situation wants a hand-out (unless they're bone-sorry to start with); only a chance to do for themselves. Even people in desperate situations still have dignity and pride. I know. Been there. There's an old saying that if you give a man a fish, you'll feed him for a day. If you teach him how to fish, you'll feed him for life.

A decent human being (a liberal) will start with the first, then do the second. Then show the feller how to pay that favor forward. There's the difference. The RW'er always has his hand out for something back. The liberal says, "Go carry this on. I can't be everywhere at once." A certain carpenter a-way-back-when did the same thing.

See how it works? Spread the good stuff. Don't have to beat anyone. Just show 'em how it works and move on.

The RW often seeks to dehumanize first, stripping dignity and pride, rather than looking at a situation first to see how to fix the problem now and immediately thereafter to prevent the problem from happening again. There are no quick-fixes to anything when the messes are as big as they've made them.

I know something about being made to feel something less than human. I'm often accepted easily because I'm often taken for your average country guy, slow talking, easygoing, with an often funny, smartass lip. But when people find out, oops! I'm also gay, then you can watch the light leave their eyes and suddenly I'm not so fun or funny any more. Just somehow "funny" and not in the happy-to-be-around sort of way. Prejudice hurts.

It hurts more when people lead with it. So I'm asking my fellow DU'ers, when things blow up in a neighboring state and the residents are trying to explain what the situation is, please don't just pile on about how dumbass they are to let the repugs win. Things aren't always just how they look from the outside. There's always a lot more to the story.

As for me, I refuse the wear the shame that belongs to the neocons. Let them wear their own damn shame home. They made their own shame and they're not going to put it on me, or you, or anyone else here.

Hold your heads up, my new friends. We might not can change the world, but we can paint our corners of it any color we want to. Mine's bright blue, and I suspect yours might be, too.

:pals:

[supernova]

1. Great big hugs from Durham!

:hug: :grouphug: :hug: :grouphug:

I love you. :D That was beautiful. :cry:

[RedLetterRev]

3. Hey, Neighbor

We're not that far apart, actually; about an hour's drive. Thanks for the welcomes! It's good to find a home at DU and good to be back home in NC. :hug:

[monmouth]

2. Hugs from West Palm Beach, wonderful post and a rec...n/t

[RedLetterRev]

4. Hey, former Neighbor

I used to work in Boca, just down the road.

Do you remember the newsclips of the trucks picking up the uncounted ballots? Channel 7 Miami played them over and over, but nobody outside the state ever saw them. At least not to my knowledge.

Yes, I'm still fighting that battle, and damned if I'll forgive or forget. Jeb and Katherine absolutely had a hand in stealing that election through benign neglect (not picking up the ballots), abuse of election law (destroying uncounted ballots before the first recount, thereby destroying evidence), foot-shuffling, manipulation of the media and a thousand other sins enumerated endlessly.

I'm not giving up and neither should you, my Progressive friends still in Florida. I remember and I'm still on your side.

[Midlodemocrat]

5. What a fantastic post. Thank you.

:hug:

[IDemo]

6. Great post, and looking forward to many more

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[flashl]

7. Thanks for great post and comments on the known unknowns regarding shredding of Florida ballots. nt

[Beam Me Up]

8. Stereotyping should be left to the Freepers and should have no place

in the Progressive perspective. I see it ALL TOO OFTEN here on DU -- which is one of the reasons I lurk more than I post.

I grew up in rural southern Indiana (born 1948). My parents were Democrats in a primarily Republican social environment. My dad was a farmer and a hard worker who grew extra food in various garden plots to freely give to the 'old folk' he'd grown up with. We were poor but, even so, better off than many far poorer folk around us. Early on I figured out that I was "gay" but didn't have a word other than "queer" or "faggot" with which to identify my own feelings. I was naturally smarter than most of the kids around me -- probably the only reason I've survived as long as I have. By the Sixties I'd come to reject what passes for "education" in our society and set out to educate myself -- which I have. At least I had a high school diploma -- which is more than either of my parents had -- but it took me years, as an adult, to learn to construct a coherent sentence. I still can't spell worth a damn (thank heavens for spell-check software!). Over the years I've had to confront my own prejudices over and over again -- confront my own internalized homophobia, my own racism, my own intellectual and emotional limits. Along the way I had to leave behind the community of my origins, my family and the simplicity of right/left politics.

I'll tell you the one prejudice/stereotype that drives me nuts: The whole "tin foil hat" "conspiracy theorist" bull shit. Of course every stereotype has a grain of truth and every prejudice can rely upon that to justify itself but the fact of the matter is being lied to by our government through the corporate owned media isn't the exception, it is the rule. It is HOW they rule. Years ago I stopped watching TV altogether because it became clear to me that it wasn't helping me keep informed but, to the contrary, helping to keep me enslaved to the consumerist mind-set. I stopped buying it. I finally figured out that whoever controls my perception of social reality controls ME.

Conspiracies are REAL, folks. Not all of them, of course, but some of them are and we have to first of all accept this fact and secondly learn to differentiate between what is actual and what isn't. There IS a "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_politics">deep political" so-called "national security state" and it is treacherous. "http://www.constitutionally.blogspot.com/">Continuity of Government" (COG) WAS instituted on 9/11/01 and has not been rescinded since. This could go a long way to helping us understand how Congress has allowed the Bush administration to get away with much of its lawlessness -- for all practical purposes we are no longer a Constitutional Republic. Whether or not 9/11 was an "inside job" is debatable and SHOULD be debated, publicly. We need to ask very serious questions about an event so powerful in our history that it has been used to justify everything from the "Patriot Act" and its various successors to the "War on Terror" which continues to be embraced as a policy by Republicans and Democrats alike. We need to question why it is that not ONE person in a key position of authority was held to account for the events of that day -- even if it was precisely as we've been led to believe. But, more importantly, we need to ask why it is that the volumes of factual information (not theory) that has been accumulated by "conspiracy nuts" is being suppressed. Suppressed not only by government and the media, but suppressed by attitudes of prejudice and stereotype -- kept out of the social discourse of "polite" political society.

Anyone who hasn't read http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174959/chalmers_johnson_warning_mercenaries_at_work">the recent article by Charlmers Johnson needs to do so and anyone who isn't familiar with http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5829118121827327998">the work of Peter Dale Scott, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6573660441809242121">Michael Parenti and others need to INFORM themselves and get beyond this "tin foil hat conspiracy theory" prejudice. These are legitimate, intelligent, articulate people telling us something most of us do not want to hear: Politics as usual is NOT going to get us out of this predicament http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2978244787099383010">Things are FAR worse than most, even here at DU, are willing to admit to themselves. But we can NOT see our way through to a solution in regards to these fundamental issues if we do not have a more accurate map of the situation we're in. This is NOT a right/left problem -- it is a right/wrong problem, a law/lawless problem -- and the sooner we grasp this, the better it will be for all of us.

[janet118]

9. The 50-state strategy sends out a lifeline to folks . . .

trying to fight for liberal or progressive issues in states where the prevailing culture considers the word "liberal" itself a pejorative. The OP states, better than any politician or pundit I've run across, why poor and middleclass Americans who understand the true philosophy the right wing will reject it because it rejects them.

I wonder if RedLetterRev would consider the VP slot.

[RedLetterRev]

10. Not on a bet, luv :)

Big cities tend to eat simple country boys alive. I'm swum with the sharks long enough and am entirely happy to grow blackberries and raspberries on my little farm, and grow old with my beloved and my dogs.

But I won't mind tearing off a rant from time to time ;)

[easttexaslefty]

11. Great post

I'm in a rural area of East Texas, my husband is a hunter and a fisherman, who works in constuction. we live in a mobile home. We have never voted for a republican in our long lives and are as liberal as they come. Can't judge a book by its cover.........

[checks-n-balances]

12. This fellow Tarheel thanks you for all the food for thought

contained in this wonderful thread. It's not right for us to criticize the RW for things unless we're willing to be better ourselves. And to harbor prejudices about large groups of people - especially whole states of people or even regions such as the South, where many well-educated, humble, faithful and broad-minded people live, is no better than the red state/blue state frame constructed by pundits who profit from it.

This post is a keeper for me & I'll be forwarding it to some of my friends. Thanks for taking the time out to present some excellent lessons you've learned through your travels, and sharing some of the wisdom ought up with. There's more dignity displayed in that than in many "privileged" areas where people live.

There's a lot we can all learn if we keep our ears & eyes open. Thanks for keeping us humble on this discussion board.

[donco6]

13. Nice post. You're right. eom

[libodem]

14. Awesome post

I like original stuff written from the heart. Ya done good, kid. Thanks for something to think on.

[ceile]

15. Great post. n/t

[Maestro]

16. Great post from a true Texan!

My family's roots go back to 1815 when my three great grandfather came here from Kentucky. That was my maternal family. My paternal family does not quite go back that far in Texas, turn of the 20th century, but still southern, Mississippi, then everyone goes back to South Carolina, early 1700s.

Great post.

[jmondine]

17. Amen, Bubba

I myself have roots in Texas (my father and 3 out of 4 grandfathers are natives).
People often forget that the southern states can produce folks such as Jim Hightower, Molly Ivins and Bill Moyers.

[DailyGrind51]

18. Thank you very much for an excellent post!

I'm a native Chicagoan who has done some traveling in Texas and Louisiana and the only time I ever encountered overt ignorance and bigoted attitudes was in south suburban Chicagoland, and Illinois is home to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Dick Durbin, and Jan Shakowsky! No section of the country has a monopoly on either intelligence or ignorance!

Blue it is! :dem:

[RedLetterRev]

19. As I read the kind replies

I realize I've got as much to work on as anyone else. But if I'm going to change anything, I may as well start with sweeping my own front porch. I wonder what my granddad would think. He taught me an awful lot about being a man, a gentleman, and a Democrat. I'd want to honor his memory, not have him meet me at The Rainbow Bridge a-shakin' his head, saying, "Boy..." and looking down in disappointment.

We've been so angered and hurt for so long, the bitter taste of resentment has almost become sweet.

I just don't want to be like that and I'm pretty sure the good folks who've taken me in at DU don't want to be that way either. We've all been fed a load of horse manure over the last thirty years since the Raygunistas grabbed the reins. I just woke up and realized, y'know what? That tastes like shit and I don't want any more of it. Don't want to take crap from the RW, don't want to hand out any, either. I'm not in the manure business.

We're way too busy rescuing a country, a Constitution and a way of life before it's gone forever.

Then what will our grandkids look back and thank us for?

I promise to try to be more thoughtful before I post and not let the anger or the stereotypes get ahead or ahold of me.

:grouphug:

[PurgedVoter]

20. K & R NT

[Breeze54]

21. A big thank you, hug and welcome from this northeast ' librul ' !!

:hug:

Awesome post!! :applause: :hug: :applause:

:kick: & Recommended!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

22. It frosts me to hear DUers talking about "trailer trash" and "hillbillies"

These are the people who are hostile or indifferent to the Democrats because the Democrats have done nothing for them in their lifetimes. They SHOULD be the party's biggest fans, and they were during the FDR era, but not since the Dems became more afraid of angering corporate contributors than of failing the common people.

[Alcibiades]

38. Yet plenty of folks who live in trailers

are Democrats. There are millions of white southern folks who are Democrats. Actually, the Democrats have done a lot for these people--my people--in their lifetimes, and many do realize it.

It just so happens that there are more Republicans in this demographic. (And, BTW, though I'm sure you know this, the Democratic Party in the south in the Depression was probably just as popular for keeping the negroes down as it was for the New Deal.)

For what it's worth, I don't consider "hillbilly" offensive. "Trailer trash" is, because people are not trash. And there's a big difference between a Jeff Foxworthy telling a redneck joke and when it's done by someone who has never stepped foot inside a Wal-Mart or handled a snake in church.

[slackmaster]

23. A big K&R for this one

:kick:

[Zookeeper]

24. Beautiful post! Thank you, Rev.

My ancestors arrived here in the 1600 and 1700's, and eventually settled in Eastern TN. I'm a first generation Northerner and was very conscious from a young age of the smug and blatant prejudice towards Southerners. However, I heard more racist comments "up north" than I ever heard on visits to my Great-Grandmother in the South. And I also observed the white flight from cities in the North, which should be reason enough to wipe the smug expression off of any Northerner's face.

No one group, regardless of race, gender or ethnic group, has a monopoly on good or bad behavior or attitudes.

I will be sending a copy of your post to my mom, also a "hillbilly" kid who has done some amazing things with her life.

Thank you!

:pals:

[angrycarpenter]

25. Just got home

you made my day yesterday with your insightful comments on my post. I was frankly blown away with the response it got.

I like yours as well. It shows the gentle humanity that still exists in our country. Caring people have been made to feel almost ashamed to stand up and defend the defenseless.

My hat is off to you. Your wisdom is a credit to DU and indeed all of America.

[cate94]

26. Nice to read ya, Rev!

You are spot on, as usual.

Keep on kicking ass. :)

[azul]

36. Welcome cate, and nice work Rev. DU fortunate to have you aboard.

And cate, as in not quite fade away?

Greetings! All aboard.

[readmoreoften]

27. Thanks from a far-left Texan. Far left by birth. Texan by choice.

[Edweird]

28. Thank You from South Florida. K&R

[elizfeelinggreat]

29. wonderful

Thank you for this post, it is always so nice to hear someone express how much we have in common instead of how different we are.

Compassion is key, isn't it?


I don't recall seeing this one before: GOP (Greed, Oil, Piracy) So true!

[lumberjack_jeff]

30. Preach it, brother.

I'm about as far from you as I can get geographically, but about as close as possible philosophically. :hi:

[trthnd4jstc]

31. You Rock Sir. I read your exposition, and Thank You. n.t.

[madrchsod]

32. we are all in this together...

our diversity is what makes this country the best in the world. we should cherish this fact.

[yardwork]

33. Wow! Thank you for this - there is so much here that is true and good.

I grew up in a small town in a very red county in Ohio, where I got picked on for being "one of the smart kids" and for having a smart mouth (more like) that didn't know when to be quiet like a good young lady.

I've lived in North Carolina more than half my life now, and let me tell you, people here are no more "backward" or "racist" than they are up north. It surprises some people to learn that North Carolina usually has a Democratic legislature and Democratic governor. People tend to judge the state by Jesse Helms, who was shameful. It's important to know how Helms got reelected so many times, because the National Republican Party and Karl Rove learned all their tricks from Helms and his campaign managers. Which leads us to 2000, 9/11, 2002 in Georgia and elsewhere, and 2004.

My mother back in Ohio stood in line for about twelve hours on election day 2004, because the RW county government overseen by Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell (may he rot in prison someday) saw fit to send one working touch-screen voting machine to her heavily Democratic village of 1,000 people. My sister, living in a heavily Republican precinct in the county seat walked into a polling place with over ten voting machines for 200 registered voters, and while she was in there witnessed a black man being turned away from the polls, told he wasn't registered.

I agree with the post upthread that warns us all to beware of dismissing conspiracies. Sometimes they're real. The one that took over this country in 2000 and bit down hard on 9/11 is real. Even Gore Vidal thinks so, and he's a northerner!

lol!

[TygrBright]

34. YES!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!! Right on the money!

I wish we could pin this one to the top of every "big" forum. You got it, you said it, you put it clearly, way better than I could.

I have sometimes stumblingly tried to make the point that (as my gran would have said,) "Folks is folks, and some ways we're all the same, and some ways we're all different, and they ain't necessarily the ways you'd think." But you put it much better.

I'm not nearly as well-travelled as you but I've lived several places now and visited a good few, and you're spot on.

And about the leg up-vs-hand out thing.

Back when I was a minor warrior in the War on Poverty, I did a little studying of the history of our nation's attempts to create a society that treats its most vulnerable members decently. An interesting nugget from that studying: I wonder how many people are aware of the effort of planning and investment in resources it required to get the Social Security system successfully launched?

Right from the beginning, they knew they faced an enormous problem: People not WANTING to accept the Social Security that would provide for them in their old age, reduce their risk of poverty, homelessness, misery, etc. Because they would see it as a "handout" and they were too proud to accept it.

The Social Security planners spent a lot of time and enlisted some of the best creative minds on Madison Avenue to help explain the program in a way that would get those early enrollments to come in: "You've EARNED it. You're ENTITLED to it." That it would make the recipients INDEPENDENT-- of church and other charities, of family 'support,' etc.-- rather than DEPENDENT on the government. That being independent, having their own money to spend and make decisions about, etc., would make their contribution as citizens greater, their contributions as family members more positive, etc.

Social Security, the program that has stuck in the GOP craw since the day it was first proposed, is the single most successful anti-poverty program EVER implemented, and one of the most successful economic engines ever devised. It is responsible for more economic progress and stability than any government welfare bailout of wealthy industrialists.

And over the last forty years we've LET the mean ones, the greedy ones, the bigoted ones slowly tar every attempt to fight poverty and ensure decent treatment for our most vulnerable neighbors with mud, until finally they've succeeded so well they might actually manage to convince a new generation that Social Security is an "inefficient, costly, 'welfare'" program.

It's just too easy for us to believe the negatives and the slurs, isn't it?

sadly,
Bright

[stevedeshazer]

35. Nicely done. I enjoyed reading that.

I'm a country kid, too. We have a lot in common, even though I live in a city now.

[GeorgeGist]

37. Everything you said endorses the ...

annihilation of an entire culture and most of it's peoples, so that judeo-christians could paint the world with ignorance.

I'm looking forward to the end of that stereotype.

[ejbrush]

39. Kick

[Taverner]

40. Wow. Just wow. Hugs from California

[Alcibiades]

41. Howdy

Good post. You write as though some might think it's odd for a southerner to be well-traveled. As you know, it's not. Lots of southern folks have gotten to see Europe, East Asia, and even the exotic Middle East, at government expense! Visit www.goarmy.com to find out more (though with a VA loan I doubt you need to).

There are a lot of people here who don't get southern Democrats. In the Carolinas, there are a lot of people who are what I call "Andy Griffith Democrats": decent, hard-working people who were never seduced by the siren song of the party of Sherman. I see people make fun of (white) southern Democrats for supposed racism every now and again, but they're wrong. The real reason for the success of the Republicans in the south is our party's support of the civil rights movement, coupled with a strange and quixotic desire to refight the Civil War. As a result, if you're southern, and you're a racist, you're probably a Republican. The other folks either changed when the party and the nation changed, or were never racist to begin with. They include people like my grandparents, New Deal Democrats now aged 85 and 83, for whom the Republicans have always been the "rich man's party," and me, because I learned what Big Daddy and Big Momma taught me. The story of the Democratic Party in the south today is how a coalition of these folks and Black Democrats (and people moving here from the northeast) are working together to take back the south and our country. There's a book in that somewhere for whoever wants to write that history after it's done happening.

[RedLetterRev]

45. There's an enormous amount of history

you've brought up that I wish more people were aware of. As for my folks, the Appalachian people, we really didn't have a dog in that fight to start with and were very reluctant to participate in the Civil War. Western NC threatened to secede from the rest of the state the way WV seceded from VA until Governor Vance marched troops west and threatened to impress every ablebodied male. Many downstaters felt the same way until the north began advancing troops and as one fellow was quoted, "I began to feel right Southern at that point". The war was far, far less about slavery than it was about economics and the heisting of money, goods and arms.

Slavery was a terrible, terrible thing; a shame on the south, but let's not forget that slaves weren't treated much better in the north. A cursory examination of case law reveals a lot of shame on both sides. But the Republican party has always been better at whipping up wedge issues to cover great heists of resources. The south has never quite recovered and I fear that Iraq will never, either. The circumstance, once examined coldly, are eerily the same. "Liberation" of a people who have been left to fend for themselves; the theft of resources (cotton, lumber, viable ports on one hand; oil, strategic footholds/ports on the other); wedge or bombshell issues (slavery vs "national security", WMD on the other) -- and in both cases, Republican players and the same crime families or their descendants.

Genealogy and history tell the tale. And it's a scary one. History will repeat itself for those who don't study it closely enough.

As for traveling, to tell the truth, I'm still the most-widely traveled in my family and among my class cohorts. I will admit, though, that my high school class graduated right at the time when mills were closing and beginning to go overseas (1975) and there was a great diaspora. I haven't seen most of them in the intervening 35 years and that does sadden me. The hills are just. Not. The. Same.

I remember green forests and pristine creeks from which water was entirely safe to drink. There were green meadows with cows grazing, sometimes small fields of corn for silage along the way. I remember the air being so clear, you could see millions (and I mean millions) of stars on a clear summer night.

Where the fresh hell did all that go? Rich Republicans have come in and covered the mountains with mcmansions, cutting tree after tree that impeded their view. The air has become so polluted from coal-burning electricity plants that nearly every day in the Triad is a Code Orange Ozone day. Forget about seeing stars. Folks that have been on the same patch of ground for 3, 4, 5 or more generations are being made "offers they can't refuse" to move off so WallyWorlds can go up in their place.

Nobody can tell me that's right.

I've lived in enough places to watch the blight take over. When the overly-monied repubs move in, the disparity between the haves and have-littles becomes the have-it-alls and the have-nones, then crime, blight, and dispair always follow like the Three Sisters. This cycle of locust-like feeding on the land and American people has just got to stop. This is carpetbagging, plain and simple and it has gone on as a pattern of operation since Reconstruction.

Again, you've brought up an awful lot of history of which most of America is entirely unaware. I could write a book, but there are many, many on the subject. My own family history reads like a thick tome, one which has taught me a huge amount of American history I would otherwise never, ever would have known -- and certainly never got in school. And I must say, that which I got in school was a far different tale than the letters, wills and documents left behind by the people who actually lived it.

And you are ab-so-lutely right, my new friend. That is why there are many, many strong Democrats in the south. We just haven't had the limelight or the megaphone for a very, very long time.

But we'll keep hollering until somebody notices we're here :D

[jules1962]

48. Wonderful writing!

As a southerner and as someone with Melungeon roots also, you make me proud. My grandfather's best friend Dr. Jerry Fleenor wrote several excellent books on the Melungeons. Great reads. Supposedly we are part white, Native American, Mediterranean (supposedly Greek or Turkish)and African. Who knows? I am a mutt. Most Melungeons are from southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee originally.Bet your roots go back there.

Jules:grouphug:

[RedLetterRev]

52. There are a few really good books out now

that I have GOT to read. At this point, I've got my English, Dutch, Norwegian, Scottish, and Scottish lines well documented. Here are the Melungeon clues: stonewall ancestors in the right geographic locations, likely surnames (Sorrells, Farrell/Farriss, and a few others that won't shake out right), the head-bump, the big teeth, the ability to trill R's, the olive skin that tans easily to a deep rosewood, odd hazel eyes... the list goes on). We've done a matrilineal DNA which for "melungeonicity" (snicker, is there such a word? There is now!) would be inconclusive, I expect; Haplogroup U5a (North African/Eastern European/Scandahoovian). That's one of the earliest groups to leave Mother Africa. Without a lot more testing (a lot more dollars, of course), it would really be hard to say.

I plan to fiddle with that project a whole lot more soon. I'm eligible to join the SAR with Revolutionary War lineage many times over on both sides of the family. Mom's been in the DAR for years and has pored over thousands of court documents, wills, letters, gravestones, you name it. While our family history is interesting enough the true fascination for us has been the wealth of American history that has been relearned with it.

It is quite a bit different to what we got in school, believe me, and I have been shocked many times over to find out what was in the grade school textbooks "ain't necessarily so". I would have to say that a great deal of that is even more so for texts surrounding the Civil War, hence a lot of the attitudes that folks have about southerners today (we're backward, dumb, hard-headed, savage, etc... such things were portrayed in northern papers as late as mid last century -- I have clippings.)

I have a task for you. Find and obtain the movie The Prince of Dark Corners. The difference in the accounts of one man's adventures and life between northern and southern papers is striking. Google it, if nothing else. Lewis Redmond lived in the late 1800's where Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina and North Carolina meet. This region was historically known as Dark Corners. Redmond made and sold liquor (illegally) during reconstruction. With his proceeds, he paid people's taxes in order that they wouldn't lose their homes.

Understand, that the North levied overbearing taxes on people who never had had slaves, wanted no participation in the Civil War, were destitute to begin with, could never afford the levies, and stood to lose what very, very little they had. To them, Lewis Redmond was a hero and godsend. To his northern pursuers, he was a slinking, cowardly, hunched-over, filthy, animalistic, demon. The truth, as always, was somewhere about the middle.

History being written by the victors, we see today whose coloring of perceptions won out when we see various posts concerning southerners in general. DU isn't solely guilty and I refuse to point a finger. Southerners are just about as guilty when speaking of damnyankee carpetbaggers, which is equally false and offensive to me.

But please do check out that movie. It was commissioned, I believe, by UNC-TV and you might be able to order it directly from them. It's short, only about an hour, but there are several bonus features that are MUST-see's.

[tblue]

42. Beautiful! You are brilliant. Thanks for opening my eyes.

I have sometimes made the mistake of stereotyping Texans and other red-state residents. I never meant it to include all of them, just the true Kool-Ade drinkers, who could actually be from anywhere. But I wish I could clone you. I wonder sometimes if being gay or black, as in my case, doesn't give us unique sensibilities and therefore special responsibilities to make such insights known. We constantly test the hearts and minds of people around us. I see that as a gift, actually.

[RedLetterRev]

49. That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger

and we can either best it or be bested by it. As I said before, I also know that feeling when someone tries to make you out as being something less than human. It doesn't matter if they try to do it on the basis of pigmentation or gender identification or sexual orientation. They're going to try to pick something to tear you down if they haven't the wherewithal to build themselves up. That in itself can be a source of strength. No matter what, never give up your dignity. Nobody can take your dignity from you -- it's the last inch of what we are and is only lost when we let go of it. But in that one inch, we are exactly who we are born and free to be.

I talked about my granddaddy in the OP. He was the wisest, most well-read man I ever met. He also only had a third-grade education, but never did I see the man without a book or a newspaper in his hand. Though he spoke mountain English ("ov'air", "up yonder", and described a long way as a "fur piece"), he had an incredibly wide and accurate vocabulary and thoroughgoing knowledge of, well, simply everything. He never set foot in church during my lifetime, but everything I know about treating people according to the Golden Rule, I learned by trying to walk in his large footsteps. I'll tell you this story.

I came home from 4th grade one day and asked what a n-----r was. That was a word we didn't use in our house, so I had no idea how explosive a term it was. He simply looked down at me and said, "Son, that's a name that people use to keep other people down. This is the problem with calling names. If you call someone a name, that just opens a door for them to call you a name. An' shit jus' goes downhill from 'air."

Simple, pure truth from a simple truthful man. I took his words, every epistle, every parable to heart. Or at least I try. If there is anything in this world I can pass on to make the world a better place, it's the wisdom of that one, unknown mountain man. And as I said upthread, I need to sweep my own front porch every once in a while, too.

Granddaddy left some mighty big shoes to fill, but I'm stickin' 'em on again and see how they walk.

[Neshanic]

43. One of the best posts of the year.

[Number23]

44. As a fellow Southerner

(born and raised in Georgia and every member of my family going back at least four generations have been Southerners as well) I completely, 100% agree with you. Thanks for saying this. :applause:

The stereotyping and disparaging comments about Southerners are just one of the things I've found to be absolutely fascinating about DU.

[DUlover2909]

46. Right on brother. Cheers!

:toast:

[ccharles000]

47. Lovely.

By the way I am from Greensboro NC.

[RedLetterRev]

50. How-do, Neighbor!

I work an 8-to-5 in Greensboro to keep the lights on, but live about an hour away in Caswell County. Perhaps we pass in commute :)

I'll :hi: as I go by!

[valerief]

51. With all the stolen elections, you'd think people would think twice

before calling the voters in a state stupid.

Great post.

[bertman]

53. From one Tarheel to another, GREAT POST!