Thursday, October 23, 2003
Rural Help Need Not Apply
Liberal Strategy Needed. Don't count on any help from the so called "liberals" below.
Commentors responding to an earlier post featuring that celebrated bastion of right wing peasant ethic, The Nation.
"To a man" - Wow. Got that all you rural farmer liberals out there...these are your so called allies on the "left" talking. Big help ain't they. Are you going to tell me next that all Jews are good with money or all Italians are in the mafia or.....
Heres another winner:
>>> Reagan: Yeah, well the proposition 13 crowd and the defense contractor community and big real estate business interests in Southern California aren't exactly rural enclaves. Unless your idea of a rural enclave is Long Beach. And thats a pretty big part of the crowd that elected people like Reagan.
The Central Valley of California is crawling with agribiz corporate farms and isn't representative of most small farms or farmers across this country. The big Central Valley farmers are the same farmers people like Woody Guthrie and Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworkers of America fought against and the same so called "farm" interest being fought against today from dozens of progressive farm activist goups across the country.
As for "proving" to you that all rural people and farmers are NOT right wing slack-jawed yokels....well, thats kind of what the Nation article is about. If you're to narrow minded to pay attention thats your problem...but you're wasting important allies in the rural parts of the country who are not right wingers and are ignored because people like you are too goddamned pig headed to listen up or help those of us out here trying to explain to people why the Republicans pandering to the big city business interests and big subsidized agribiz interests and corporations and big banks (located in big cities) are not in the best interests of average working rural peoples and communities.
And thats too bad because many rural counties went red only by narrow margins. If you're really interested in furthering the liberal cause with respect to farm policy and political affiliations you might try supporting other liberals who are living in conservative rural areas. Or at least recognizing that a whole lot of them aren't rednecks. Instead of painting all "farmers" and rural people as right wing nuts.
Heres another beauty from comments:
This is one of those weird "these people" comments.
I'm not sure what this guy is jabbering about but he talks like hes a 19th century missionary living among the aboriginies or something. - "their practices"! - and "preferences"! As if "these people" were naked savages preparing to launch a bloody raid on the good folks at the fort. You want to find some rednecks Frank....take a drive through some of the wealthier suburbs of Columbus. You want to look at some liberals, take a ride through some of the hills and hollers of rural Athens county.
I'm not sure who tried to "paper over" what, (or even what that means) or why this guy thinks that some rural beast has launched some greater evil peasant revolt conspiracy to subdue the gentle city dweller or whatever boing-eyed homebrew he's stewed up about but he obviously lives in a loo-loo land of his own potent concoctions. Maybe Frank has some spooky secret documentation or photos of this impending "peasant ethic" takeover that he will share with us someday?
I'm not making the case that rural districts are not also composed of nutty right wing conservatives. They are. I'm trying to point out (and so is the Nation article) that not everyone who lives in rural America is a nutty right wing conservative. Including farmers.
Likewise - I'm not sure what is so profoundly imcompatible (as Frank says) about rural rednecks and city dwellers especially when you consider the Heritage Foundation (I don't suppose anyone thinks that people like Richard Mellon Scaife and Sam Walton and Bill Kristol live in cornfields?) and the American Enterprise Institute and Focus on the Family and the Free Congress Foundation and the National Review and the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times and Instapundit and the likes of high tech knuckledraggers from Little Green Screwballs and Liberty University and Coral Ridge Ministries and Steve Case and the Weekly Standard and the NY Post and Fox News and the Chalcedon Institute and that closet nazi from Free Republic.com.....on and on....seem to be perfectly compatable with most any redneck anywhere and they don't exactly own homes in Greast Bend PA. Do you think that the people who work for the institutions mentioned above and who drive the right wing message machine and who play the right wing Wurlitzer 24/7 live in the rural ruts of America? Do you think the editors of the National Review are farm boys? Who thinks Tom Delay or Trent Lott or Ken Starr or Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter or Karl Rove or Grover Norquist are country bumpkins? Those are the people driving the right wing message home to rural America. And they're city dwellers.
Well, for what its worth I think you'll find right wingers and racists pretty much anywhere you look these days. Try the fare on your local big city right wing talk radio call in show menu some time. And teat sucking corporate welfare mongers. No problem. That seems to be the Chicago School ideology chow being served up to all those economics students at backwater rural corndog gobbling schools like Harvard. Celebrated institution of provincial country livin that it is. But if you think that the average "farmer" milking 100 cows gets bales of subsidy boodle and corporate welfare checks then you don't have any idea what your talking about. Do you think the Chevron Corporation or Cargil is a "family farm"? All those city and suburban folks who work in suburban corporate parks and office buildings and so forth --- you know, the companies that threaten to lay everyone off and leave the city or state or country unless they receive big subsidized tax breaks and perks....you know those "high tech" companies - where the "liberal" city and suburban dwellers work. Well, if you work for one of those "farms" you've got a lot in common with the slack-jawed corporate welfare teat sucking motherfuckers in the Central Valley, in more ways than one.
Commentors responding to an earlier post featuring that celebrated bastion of right wing peasant ethic, The Nation.
Sorry, but I grew up amongst farmers, and they were to a man slack-jawed, right-wing, fundy christian gun nuts who hate the guvmint but cash the CRP checks.- Aaaargh
"To a man" - Wow. Got that all you rural farmer liberals out there...these are your so called allies on the "left" talking. Big help ain't they. Are you going to tell me next that all Jews are good with money or all Italians are in the mafia or.....
Heres another winner:
"I third Aargh's sentiments. I grew up in the Central Valley. A bigger group of racist motherfuckers sucking at Uncle Sam's teat,all the while bitching about welfare queens driving Cadillacs you couldn't hope to see. These were the pricks that put Reagan into office four fucking times during my life. Maybe there are some who aren't brain-dead slack-jawed yokels, but it's up to them to prove it to me - not the other way around." - dave
>>> Reagan: Yeah, well the proposition 13 crowd and the defense contractor community and big real estate business interests in Southern California aren't exactly rural enclaves. Unless your idea of a rural enclave is Long Beach. And thats a pretty big part of the crowd that elected people like Reagan.
The Central Valley of California is crawling with agribiz corporate farms and isn't representative of most small farms or farmers across this country. The big Central Valley farmers are the same farmers people like Woody Guthrie and Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworkers of America fought against and the same so called "farm" interest being fought against today from dozens of progressive farm activist goups across the country.
As for "proving" to you that all rural people and farmers are NOT right wing slack-jawed yokels....well, thats kind of what the Nation article is about. If you're to narrow minded to pay attention thats your problem...but you're wasting important allies in the rural parts of the country who are not right wingers and are ignored because people like you are too goddamned pig headed to listen up or help those of us out here trying to explain to people why the Republicans pandering to the big city business interests and big subsidized agribiz interests and corporations and big banks (located in big cities) are not in the best interests of average working rural peoples and communities.
And thats too bad because many rural counties went red only by narrow margins. If you're really interested in furthering the liberal cause with respect to farm policy and political affiliations you might try supporting other liberals who are living in conservative rural areas. Or at least recognizing that a whole lot of them aren't rednecks. Instead of painting all "farmers" and rural people as right wing nuts.
Heres another beauty from comments:
Aaarggh (?sp) has it right. I live among these people, and, while I understand the origins of their practices and preferences, they are profoundly incompatible with those (equally inevitable) of city dwellers. This basic and irreconcilable conflict has destroyed many nations in the past, mostly through efforts to paper it over. The present effort in the United States to impose a peasant ethic on an urban civilization is already disastrous and has nowhere to go but down. - Frank Wilhoit
This is one of those weird "these people" comments.
I'm not sure what this guy is jabbering about but he talks like hes a 19th century missionary living among the aboriginies or something. - "their practices"! - and "preferences"! As if "these people" were naked savages preparing to launch a bloody raid on the good folks at the fort. You want to find some rednecks Frank....take a drive through some of the wealthier suburbs of Columbus. You want to look at some liberals, take a ride through some of the hills and hollers of rural Athens county.
I'm not sure who tried to "paper over" what, (or even what that means) or why this guy thinks that some rural beast has launched some greater evil peasant revolt conspiracy to subdue the gentle city dweller or whatever boing-eyed homebrew he's stewed up about but he obviously lives in a loo-loo land of his own potent concoctions. Maybe Frank has some spooky secret documentation or photos of this impending "peasant ethic" takeover that he will share with us someday?
I'm not making the case that rural districts are not also composed of nutty right wing conservatives. They are. I'm trying to point out (and so is the Nation article) that not everyone who lives in rural America is a nutty right wing conservative. Including farmers.
Likewise - I'm not sure what is so profoundly imcompatible (as Frank says) about rural rednecks and city dwellers especially when you consider the Heritage Foundation (I don't suppose anyone thinks that people like Richard Mellon Scaife and Sam Walton and Bill Kristol live in cornfields?) and the American Enterprise Institute and Focus on the Family and the Free Congress Foundation and the National Review and the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times and Instapundit and the likes of high tech knuckledraggers from Little Green Screwballs and Liberty University and Coral Ridge Ministries and Steve Case and the Weekly Standard and the NY Post and Fox News and the Chalcedon Institute and that closet nazi from Free Republic.com.....on and on....seem to be perfectly compatable with most any redneck anywhere and they don't exactly own homes in Greast Bend PA. Do you think that the people who work for the institutions mentioned above and who drive the right wing message machine and who play the right wing Wurlitzer 24/7 live in the rural ruts of America? Do you think the editors of the National Review are farm boys? Who thinks Tom Delay or Trent Lott or Ken Starr or Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter or Karl Rove or Grover Norquist are country bumpkins? Those are the people driving the right wing message home to rural America. And they're city dwellers.
Well, for what its worth I think you'll find right wingers and racists pretty much anywhere you look these days. Try the fare on your local big city right wing talk radio call in show menu some time. And teat sucking corporate welfare mongers. No problem. That seems to be the Chicago School ideology chow being served up to all those economics students at backwater rural corndog gobbling schools like Harvard. Celebrated institution of provincial country livin that it is. But if you think that the average "farmer" milking 100 cows gets bales of subsidy boodle and corporate welfare checks then you don't have any idea what your talking about. Do you think the Chevron Corporation or Cargil is a "family farm"? All those city and suburban folks who work in suburban corporate parks and office buildings and so forth --- you know, the companies that threaten to lay everyone off and leave the city or state or country unless they receive big subsidized tax breaks and perks....you know those "high tech" companies - where the "liberal" city and suburban dwellers work. Well, if you work for one of those "farms" you've got a lot in common with the slack-jawed corporate welfare teat sucking motherfuckers in the Central Valley, in more ways than one.
