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First, thank you, one and all. I haven't deserted this thread. There is some GREAT food for thought here, and I'll be answering individual replies in detail (and probably bothering all the Southerners with more questions!). I figured I'd get back to replying tonight, after doing a little more outside reading based on your cues. Heck, I figured I might even get inspired to re-vamp the stickers I've got on the site now -- but it was total Writer's Block City. And I think I'm more nonplused than ever. And frustrated. I'm frustrated because I've been knocking myself out (for years) trying to get a bead on how to talk to people whose "values" bear almost no resemblance to my own, without negating my own. Ultimately (and this always happens) I'm hearing two distinct "truths" -- which completely contradict each other: 1. The South (the South that I don't understand) doesn't vote on issues. They vote on charisma, personality; i.e., for the folksy campaigner who best makes them think he's a "regular guy" they could have a beer with, or go kill a deer with. 2. The South does vote on issues (although I'm at a bit of a loss to give concrete examples). Where to focus? Where to focus? My head is about to explode. So I'll start fresh tomorrow. In the meantime, I'll leave you with some of what I've been reading this evening. Maybe it will all make sense to someone else; I'm starting to think the original bumper-sticker idea would be a great one, if it were executed by a Southerner. Maybe I should stick to concentrating on Nevada... Arizona... New Mexico. :) See you all tomorrow! Have a good time with the links -- they're fascinating: From A Southern Voter(Lots of long comments, well worth the click) The secret is this...Southerners want to be accepted.
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If we had a higher collective self-worth, you wouldnt see us try and legislate our own morality on everybody else. I don't blame Southerners for wanting to keep their guns and for wanting to incorporate their religion into their daily lives, state facilities, and public schools. Religion is the way the truth and the life down here. Its all we know because RELIGION SPEAKS THE LOUDEST. That's why the "persecuted Christian" mentality is so widespread. We as a people don't know who we are, and we as a collective are extremely stubborn (OR you could say insecure ) and hence slow to want change. We are not policy wonks. We are not big business conservatives well versed in judicial history and economic theory. We are just good people who can be scared!
Southerners, for the most part, don't care about being placated on the nuances of social security policy. We want representation who we feel like we can talk to. We all remember the NASCAR guy on the 2004 campaign trail saying "I just want a President I could have a beer with." We want someone who will talk to us and who we feel like we could talk with. More: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/19/183616/99Southern Comforting Howard Dean was obviously born north of the Mason-Dixon Line. He proved it with the well-meaning but badly-stated desire to "want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks." Howard, if you were a southerner, you would never call your future constituents rednecks! You would win them over by descriptions of your grandma's fried apple turnovers, or recalling a moment in which you begged Jesus Christ to help you, or by confessing your love for a Johnny Cash song. See, that's how I haven't gotten run out of my southern town yet for my liberal views. I bury that horse pill of Democratic leanings in a sweet potato soufflé of my genuine southern life. I refuse to believe that the South really belongs to the Republicans. I just tend to think that the conservatives mix the stuff that concerns the citizenry with a heaping spoonful of Dixie Crystal sugar. They sweeten that iced tea while a candidate from Vermont sticks a glass of Lipton Instant in our faces with two cubes of ice and a packet of Sweet and Low and tells us to drink it. It's just not the same, Howard.
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Candidate Dean, you said what you did about those rebel flag pickups because you said that those people "ought to be voting with us because their kids don't have health insurance either, and their kids need better schools too." Now, no one's arguing that we need health insurance and good schools. While Bush is sending our grandchildren's future tax dollars to Vietnam, uh, I mean Iraq, teachers are teaching for free some days in order to keep schools running. None of my friends have health insurance except for those who work for corporations or the government, and the benefits of most have been cut during the Bush administration.
Howard, I suggest that you hush up about rebel flags this week and tell us some stories. When I have a waitress friend who begs her doctor for amoxicillin instead of the stronger zithromax because it costs one tenth the price even though she needs to get well fast, my trucking buddies are going to understand that as quickly as my great aunt. When I see a decades-old factory close, leaving hundreds of workers unemployed, because they can move the thing to China and employ slave labor so that Wal-Mart's profits are assured, the common man and woman can understand that something is wrong. When the richest of the rich prosper through tax cuts in a period of recession while the poorest parents skip meals, people will question the direction our country is heading. Tell anecdotes; don't preach about constituencies, Howard. The truth is, politics in itself is pretty boring, a bean counter's concern. Breathe a little life into it with some storytelling. Go Faulkner on us... More: http://www.alternet.org/story/17125/Southern StrategiesHow to win them back? Rally white, working voters around economic populist themes against the "corporate elite," said Professor Susan Howell of New Orleans -- although she counseled against talking about race. Bring the debate back to "jobs, jobs, jobs" -- but don't talk about taxing the wealthy or get caught up in "cultural" issues, argued Pope "Mac" McCorkle, a strategist for North Carolina's recently re-elected Democratic Gov. Mike Easley. Embrace those to the right -- including, in Mudcat's opinion, the Sons of Confederate Veterans ("which has two black members, by the way" he added). And definitely find religion.
Many found the blueprint shortsighted, to say the least. "Jesus and NASCAR," said an organizer for a policy group in North Carolina, "that may be a strategy for electing a Democrat in the next two years, but a long-term progressive vision?" The Rev. James Evans, a white minister at Auburn First Baptist Church in Alabama, noted that "not talking about race won't make it go away. When we talk about taxes, we're talking about race. When we talk about education, we're talking about race. When we're talking about jobs, we're talking about race. We have to deal with it."
Or as State Rep. Elliot from Arkansas put it, "Are you aware of the tension that's developing when, in your attempt to reach out to NASCAR people, you move away from progressive issues, like we saw in the last election?" More: http://www.alternet.org/story/21396/Southern Ms.Southern white women are the most conservative in the country... Southern women suffer immensely from conservative policies. According to a 2002 report by the Institute for Women's Policy Research, seven of the nine worst states for women are in the South – in terms of earnings, access to health and reproductive services, and political participation.
Like most things Southern, it is impossible to discuss feminism in the South (or the absence of it) without turning to God. ... As University of Alabama student Shelley Crumpton said, "People wonder why the South votes against its interests, but they don't understand how much religion shapes everything here. It's a worldview." Jacks agreed, noting that religious ideology often obscures social or economic reality. "Republicans would never win Mississippi if it wasn't for their promises to 'save the babies' and keep the gays from marrying."
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"The left has abandoned us," one lamented, reminding me of something my mother once said when I asked her why she – 18 years old in 1970 – never participated in the women's movement. "I just thought that's how things were in the South. I didn't know there were problems everywhere." More: http://www.alternet.org/election04/20591/Democrat Not Spoken HereIn (Carlton Sparks of Blairsville, Georgia) lies the great conundrum of modern Southern politics: The average white male, for whom the system has always worked, is having an increasingly difficult time making ends meet -- as if consumer debt recently topping $2 trillion for the first time wasn't enough of a clue. His wages have dropped when adjusted for inflation. His health insurance premiums have skyrocketed (if he has health insurance). He and his wife both have to work, and they pay astronomical childcare bills. His younger kids' schools are crappy and under-funded. His older kids' college tuition jumped (14 percent in the last year, on average). And heaven help his children if they don't go to college, because they're bound for a near-feudal system of working for wealthy people in low-paying service sector jobs. Moreover, if the average Joe is like Sparks, 30 percent of what he stashed away for retirement evaporated in a stock market fiasco fueled by corporate greed that a bit more government oversight could have prevented.
So where's the anger? Why isn't he pissed that he's not getting more bang for his taxpayer buck? And why in the world is he going to vote for a president based on a side issue like gay marriage?
I spent a week on the road trying to figure out why traditionally Democratic rural whites have so solidly embraced a Republican Party whose economic program runs directly counter to their own interests.
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Not surprisingly, the roots of such self-flagellation can be traced to the historical bogeymen of Southern backwardness. Forever, it seems, Southern demagogues have managed to blame the "other" -- mainly blacks or Yankees -- for the sorry state of poor and average whites, while they quietly curried favor for corporations and wealthy families. Now, Zell Miller and George Bush blame "liberals," but they're doing the same thing.
. . . More: http://www.alternet.org/election04/17998/George Bush and the 2004 Elections: A Perspective from the SouthHow about labor issues and the Southern working class? In his book "What's the Matter with Kansas" author Thomas Frank refers to working class and immigrant abuse in the meat packing industry and the growing income gap. He's witnessed a deterioration of consciousness among Kansans. There was in the state a legendary populist movement earlier in the 1900's that rallied against capitalist excesses and exploitation. This has changed to Kansans who now vote against their own economic interests. It's "values" says Frank. The GOP is espousing "values" (gays, guns, ten commandments, school prayer) that resonate with working class Kansans. When I first read his impressive book I thought "the South this is like the South." While the Kansas GOP elite has recently used "values" to control the working masses, in the South the elite have used "race" coupled with "values" with similar results. More: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1111-31.htmDemocrats' real Southern problem...(D)uring the 1950s and 1960s ... white Southerners instinctively looked for more responsive national partners. They gradually allied with the Republican Party in a strategic relationship which, like the earlier Democratic version, was based on racial tensions in the Old Confederacy.
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As a Southern politician and academician during the past few decades, I've always been amazed that the Democratic Party never seemed to grasp Southern strategic history and the power of cultural considerations in the Southern mentality.
Did they ever question why both whites and blacks in this region voted Democratic for so long during the latter half of the past century? Did they realize that this pattern inevitably would end? Did the Democratic national leadership just assume that everybody down here would forever vote outdated partisan loyalties?
And why didn't somebody notice long ago that Democratic officials were disappearing from the Southern political landscape? More: http://www.futureofamericandemocracy.org/051505_problem.htmUnderstanding Southerners and their religions...(Georgia author Flannery O'Conner) observed that Southerners think of their surroundings not so much “Christ-centered,” but “Christ-haunted.”
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In the South, the most powerful image is that of Christ in his many forms: The compassionate Christ, the suffering Christ, the harsh and judgmental Christ, and the black Jesus – the liberator who takes side of poor and oppressed.
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For many people in and outside the South, Elvis is the living embodiment of sacrifice, suffering and redemption. “Aug. 15, the day on which Elvis supposedly died, his most devoted followers return to Memphis and Graceland to form a living memorial – and it’s no mistake his home is called ‘Graceland,’” (Rodger Payne, director of the religious studies program at Louisiana State University) said.
Payne said it is also no mistake that Elvis impersonators choose the garb of the bloated, Las Vegas Elvis rather than the trim, rockabilly Elvis. “It is the later Elvis who speaks to them as the suffering messiah who can provide a path of redemption for his followers,” he said. “What the image conveys is, ‘I’m hurt; I'm suffering for you; everything I do is for you.’” More: http://www.facsnet.org/issues/faith/payne.phpSinnin' and Fornicatin'Rosemary Daniell, author of the Southern classic "Fatal Flowers: On Sin, Sex and Suicide in the Deep South," says the region thrives on guilt.
"You are going to see this manifest," says Daniell. "That's why the South is so rich in literature like Tennessee Williams' plays. It's about liberating yourself through actions."
And in this land of the Rebel yell, people will sin, repent and sin again. This shame and rebellion produces a tension and silent code: Southern women never tell about their men, their sex lives or the anger they feel.
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It's no coincidence that the Christian Coalition and Pat Robertson are based in the guilt-ridden South. ... More: http://www.alternet.org/story/278/Some (Long) Thoughts on Religion, Progressive Politics, and Not Fighting Another Civil War...I at least do think there's another form of progressive politics possible, one that can challenge, as the old liberal coalitions no longer can, the current Republican dominance of the Heartlandia core. The problem is that it requires an ethos which many liberals hoped to have ejected from the modern egalitarian American state when they--the universal choosers, the liberal liberators--rejected the restrictive, populist particularisms of the South (and the Midwest, and most of the West too): moral authority. Or, in other words, a genuine respect for, and a willingness to employ, a judgmental religious voice.
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Descending from philosophy to politics: what would this embrace of judgment entail exactly, and is it remotely possible? Ought the Democratic party try to compete with the Republicans in being a "moral voice"? For many, to invite any sort of immersion in the ethics and habits of the red states is to poison the progressive cause entirely; it is to shake hands with the Ku Klux Klan, apologize to the Confederacy, wink at anti-gay bigotry, hand power over the inbreeds from Deliverance, and generally ruin everything civilization stands for. It is demographic talk like this that leads so many secular progressives to find great comfort in Ruy Teixeira's thesis (which I've never liked, and which doesn't seem to be panning out, so far anyway) that, eventually, all those blue-collar, rural (racist, moronic) Jesus freaks will die out, leaving the future to the secular, urban, multicultural, self-employed, high-tech (enlightened) creative class. (Either that, or it leads them to engage in fantasies about how much nicer America would be if only General Sherman had been more thorough in his march through the South.)
I couldn’t disagree more, though I recognize that the odds of such disagreement being heard when we have only two major parties to choose from, with no Christian socialist or culturally conservative social democrat option in sight, will be a long and difficult haul. And admittedly, the burden is primarily upon religious progressives like myself; one cannot reasonably expect secular liberals and desperate Democrats to take seriously as a ground for argument and actions the particularist beliefs and perspectives of a region of the country, and a class of the population, which has just thoroughly rejected them. ... More: http://inmedias.blogspot.com/2004/11/some-long-thoughts-on-religion.htmlAlso worth reading:God and the Blue Stateshttp://www.alternet.org/election04/19550/Old and New South, Red and Bluehttp://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/2005/03/old-and-new-south-red-and-blue_31.aspNorth vs. Southhttp://www.alternet.org/rights/18773/And if you want to torture yourself / know thine enemy, there's: An interview with James Snyder Jr., Author of The Conservative Mind(The Conservative Voice): http://www.theconservativevoice.com/articles/article.html?id=7537 |
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