Hope, and a brass ring
Nov. 17th, 2004 08:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumThe question has been asked, "What's wrong with Kanas?". By which the author What's the matter with Kansas? means, why does the middle of America, once a bastion of progressivism, consitently vote against interest these days.
I've asked this question before, and the answer has always been, somehow they have been sold a bill of good. Orcinus gives a good answer today. The short of it is that, contrary to those who have been buying into the astroturf of the hateful left, the answer is talk radio.
Forget (no don't, but put aside for the moment) all the people ranting that the densely populated parts of the country don't count as much as the more sparsely settled mid-lands (and yes, I have seen that argument, as if, for some reason not having a lot of space means those numbers ought not to matter), and think about the side effects.
Here in San Luis Obispo I have access to more diversions than I can possibly keep up with. When I lived in Los Angeles (or in Seattle, or even in my sojourn in D.C, where I knew no one, and had nothing but my wits and sense of adventure with which to find amusements beyond the library and the television) SLO looked like a barren wilderness.
Transplant yourself to the open spaces of Kansas, or Wyoming, or... and put yourself on a farm, or in a small shop in a small town. How do you fill the empty hours? What do you listen to in the combine, or on the harrow, or waiting for the customer at the store?
Radio.
And what's on that radio?
Limbaugh, and Hannity, and Savage, or the local versions of the same.
And what do they preach? That effete liberals in the cities hate them. When the agribiz gets laws passed that ruin small farms, who got the blame? Liberals. When a scapegoat is needed, Liberals are trotted out.
I don't know what to do. In part we need to find a way to reach them. Remember, despite there being only a few radio stations, and that talk radio is right-wing, a lot of those "red staters" voted against Bush, so it isn't that the hoodwinking is unbeatable, but we have to find a way to preach the message, get the facts of the matter out there, where they can be fairly decided (and I can see the critique now, that I am implying only liberals can be fair. No. When only one side is getting to present the issues, they get to frame the debate, a la Limbaugh's habit of hanging up and then finishing the caller's argument, so he can burn the straw man that isn't a fair airing of the questions).
We can't condescend, but we don't need to pander. We don't need to try and give up what we are in the hope we can make them like us. That won't work, they will see us as fakes, and fauxnies. Which will be worse than being rejected honestly, and more deserved.
And sometimes we need to be less civil. When people say liberals need to be head stomped, or clubbed like baby seals it's not the time to be polite. But telling the south to fuck off, while perhaps an understandable release, isn't really an answer. And becoming the hate-filled people of which we are accused, even less so.
We are half the country, now we need to show the other half why they ought to join us.
I've asked this question before, and the answer has always been, somehow they have been sold a bill of good. Orcinus gives a good answer today. The short of it is that, contrary to those who have been buying into the astroturf of the hateful left, the answer is talk radio.
Forget (no don't, but put aside for the moment) all the people ranting that the densely populated parts of the country don't count as much as the more sparsely settled mid-lands (and yes, I have seen that argument, as if, for some reason not having a lot of space means those numbers ought not to matter), and think about the side effects.
Here in San Luis Obispo I have access to more diversions than I can possibly keep up with. When I lived in Los Angeles (or in Seattle, or even in my sojourn in D.C, where I knew no one, and had nothing but my wits and sense of adventure with which to find amusements beyond the library and the television) SLO looked like a barren wilderness.
Transplant yourself to the open spaces of Kansas, or Wyoming, or... and put yourself on a farm, or in a small shop in a small town. How do you fill the empty hours? What do you listen to in the combine, or on the harrow, or waiting for the customer at the store?
Radio.
And what's on that radio?
Limbaugh, and Hannity, and Savage, or the local versions of the same.
And what do they preach? That effete liberals in the cities hate them. When the agribiz gets laws passed that ruin small farms, who got the blame? Liberals. When a scapegoat is needed, Liberals are trotted out.
I don't know what to do. In part we need to find a way to reach them. Remember, despite there being only a few radio stations, and that talk radio is right-wing, a lot of those "red staters" voted against Bush, so it isn't that the hoodwinking is unbeatable, but we have to find a way to preach the message, get the facts of the matter out there, where they can be fairly decided (and I can see the critique now, that I am implying only liberals can be fair. No. When only one side is getting to present the issues, they get to frame the debate, a la Limbaugh's habit of hanging up and then finishing the caller's argument, so he can burn the straw man that isn't a fair airing of the questions).
We can't condescend, but we don't need to pander. We don't need to try and give up what we are in the hope we can make them like us. That won't work, they will see us as fakes, and fauxnies. Which will be worse than being rejected honestly, and more deserved.
And sometimes we need to be less civil. When people say liberals need to be head stomped, or clubbed like baby seals it's not the time to be polite. But telling the south to fuck off, while perhaps an understandable release, isn't really an answer. And becoming the hate-filled people of which we are accused, even less so.
We are half the country, now we need to show the other half why they ought to join us.
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Re: I would
Date: 2004-11-18 08:32 am (UTC)If you listen to the things the candidates said, the Obamas and the Kerrys what you got was, Fair pay, fair taxes, health care, actual humility; and deliberation in foriegn policy. Putting our budget in order, looking after the ill and the the weak.
Equality in justice, a real effort to look at the security issues the present threats have made more known(they were always there, just ignored; by pretty much everyone but the military and the special details of the FBI, but no one listens to us).
But that isn't what the campaign was about. No, it was about the events of a war that ended thirty years ago. It was about accusations of shifting positions, and it was about fear, fear of what might happen the next time around.
Fear of another dramatic attack, a fear the White House used, by saying Kerry was the favored choice of terrorists. Fear that Kerry would raise the little guys taxes (which he said he wouldn't) Fear that somehow the idea of fairness for homosexuals was somehow immoral, or that having a respect for the law in the public sphere, and allowing people to make choices in the private (rendering unto Caesar the things which are Caesars) was somehow akin to heresy.
Those were the issues I saw being laid at the feet of the left. Not true, or things which were distorted, IMO. But now I hear that, because of how the Left was protrayed, they; we, are full of hate.
And yes, for all the reason you say you dislike the way you percieve the left, I dislike being told I don't count, and that unless I can make nice (which quality seems sadly lacking from a Party which accuses John McCain of being daft, and of having an illigitimate, black, love child, and tells a triple amputee he lacks patriotism (and those were campaign tactics) I can expect to have my opinions discounted. Well they are being discounted now.
And some of it is decidedly personal. My family has suffered physical attack, bordering on attempted murder, because of not having the right political bumper stickers, so being told that it's a fringe thing, well that fringe seems larger than I'd like to think.
TK
Re: I would
Date: 2004-11-18 04:35 pm (UTC)I think I got the traditional equality message from Obama, but he wasn't running. Kerry's messgae included a lot of what I heard from my friends, and he didn't score any points for trying to paint Bush a lair or failure by lying himself. If some un-educated blond fan girl like myself can catch him at it, I suspect my fellow, uneducated red-state pig farmers noticed it too. *wink*
I'm a bit worried about how you condemn the right for their frohing maniacs, but you don't seem to see any justice in any right wing voter doing the same with the left.
If this election taught me anything, it was that bigotry, intolerance, and hatred isn't confined to the right. I'm begining to suspect it never was. And if it's not, then both of those party's ought to be equally condemed for it, and my vote decided on other issues, which is what I did. ; )
Now, I hear a TON of conservatives rallying to wrest away what power remain to the religious right. But the left seems to have not discovered that giving the majority of power & press to their own frothing lunatics is one big reason why they lost.