She was born poor on the mountain; her mother died when she was 3 mos.

old. She has worked all her life. She says when she was a girl, her kind was called "poor white trash from the wrong side of the tracks." Yankees, students, African Americans living there were treated with much more respect in her tiny Appalachian town.

Last week, a new employee told her that Clinton was responsible for 911. Now, I thought I was a militant Dem, but I have a lot to learn.

She snapped back at that man and I thought his head would break off from the force of her reply:

"No, hell no, he did not! That Son of a bitch in the White House that YOU elected CAUSED 911 to cover up the way HE stole two elections!!!!"

She cried when Gore was fucked by the Supreme Court.

She cried harder when Kerry lost.

She hates Republicans and their greed more than the most well-heeled, well-educated progressive snob I know.

So kiss my redneck ass.

From down here in Texas.

I'm getting the feeling I missed a flamewar today.

Someone lumped all rednecks into a group and some rednecks got offended. Another day on DU! :toast: :woohoo:

Could we have an all-out abortion debate tomorrow then?

been happy to make room for their voices. I just don't remember too many willing to go up against the radical right-wing rednecks.

destroyed.

that's effectively destroyed in amurka, so you got your wish.

every society needs intellectuals, but it is true that many elites in all spheres look down on non-elites. As in every sphere there are intellectuals who support the status quo and others who challenge it.

who look down on the "little people" not educated people, right? Because a lot of educated people are very humble. And for that matter a lot of dumbasses are rich or from the "elitist" class. And they are in all parts of the country.

more than a few educated people are also arrogant.

...is intellectual ellitism.

You can be an intellectual and not be an elitist!

i'll tell that to my pal Joe who got hit in the head with a bat by a group of "Dullards" from N. Kentucky who ridiculed him as a "college boy". his brained swelled, he had to be Trepanned, and re-learn everything he'd completed in Engineering school.

"Redneck" is merely shorthand for willfully ignorant, hostile, xenophobic rubes, & used by ignorant, FRUSTRATED middle class bourgousie. There is a grain of truth in the term & its use. I've lived in Black Ghettos & Appalachian Ghettos. Guess which was scarier?

Whats your point?

ON EDIT: there is a term I could use in quotation to describe a group of people, but of course it would be deleted immediately. It's a two way street at least it is for some of us.

If the traditional rednecks and the type of guys that I am assuming mugged you knew how much they have in common, they would probably be quite shocked--I have dealt with them both extensively (much to my displeasure) and there isn't much difference in basic code of conduct.

I saw a redneck in an old worn-down van today.

Painted in bold white letters on the rear windows:

PRAY FOR OUR CHILDREN - IMPEACH BUSH


All you educated little shits too afraid to get a ding on your Lexus' could learn a lot about fighting for what you believe in from a REDNECK.

"All you educated little shits too afraid to get a ding on your Lexus'"

hostility towards achievement in education. equating education with wealth. equating education with avoidance of labor.

The word elitist has a generally agreed-upon definition, which is the one people are using here. There's no need for you to create your very own special personal definition of it just so that you can put words in people's mouths.

"Elitist" is FOX/GOP code for intellectuals. Its a term who's implied meaning is as clear as Liberal = Communist.

Bush is an ACTUAL Elitist, but he gets the votes of many "Rednecks" who'd like to bash in the heads of "College Boys".

This entire debate reeks of self-pity.

While rightist propagandists use the word as you say they do, there's no reason to think that people here are doing it, unless, of course, you're just looking to stir up shit, as seems to be the case.

My bad.

these false divisions have always existed in american society.

urban vs. rural
elitist vs. hick
black vs. white
etc ad nauseum

the word "redneck" is a term only recently adopted as a badge of "outlaw" honor, much like "nigga" has been. i prefer "mouth breather" or "dullard", and i never use "hillbilly" because that is actually an ethnic slur against appalachians. "redneck" is NOT WORTH GETTING BENT OUT OF SHAPE OVER.

"elitism" is a red herring. the word is currently linked in the american imagination to intellectuals, not misbegotten wealth or power. when its redefinition is a part of the relentless propaganda of the right, it is foolish to ignore that. dems need elitist votes, too.

Mine is very much based on the work of the intellectual Michael Parenti but we both know that there are more Robert Dahls than there are Parenti's. And I agree with you that Bush is an elitist but so is the leadership of most 'democratic' parties globally - all of whom have bought on to the view that global corporation should have more say than citizens in any given country. It isn't merely elitism - it is plutocracy that has taken over.

Sadly whether there are 'Red-necks',Afro-Saxons, or 'bluebloods' like Bush et al, more than a few who have passed through the perceived hallowed halls of elite universities have bought the deal lock, stock and barrel and brainwash those with less intelligence into believing the bullshit.

It is complex because there are hardworking educated people who are never heard in public, while 'educated' yes men and women spew half truths and lies at the population. It is easy to condemn the poor and simple for their own ignorance and for buying into the bullshit, but those who aren't brainwashed are too busy eking out a living to even understand what's going on. Further, in their simplicity they trust their schools, church leaders, media, etc and there they find a higher level of brainwashing.

Despite the brainwashing, there have always been 'red-necks' who have never bought into the bullshit and I think that is essence of the lead post.

I don't pity anyone, but I sure do understand the plight of those who are unable to decipher all the lies around them. Afterall “...in many societies the ruled share with the rulers a belief in cultural values which override economic and social inequalities. Consequently opportunities for change are often lost frequently because for the ruled to seize them would mean a rejection of those powerful shared cultural beliefs”.

Culture only changes when conditions force change and the polls suggest that large numbers of Americans are rethinking their views. Of course it's painful to those of us who expected this change since 2004, but sicne we all know that vested interests control all the institutions, why blame those who do not even understand basics such as Exit Polls in Ohio, when the powerful and 'educated' people remain silent on mathematical impossibilities.

Lotsa folks think that being from deep East Texas means automatic redneck, and lots of times it does. East of I-45, it also almost always means Democratic redneck.

We don't have the votes to lose to this huge concept of bigotry, and that is exactly what it is. I'll take every "redneck" Democratic vote I can get.

Because someone drives a shitty van they are a redneck?

I don't think so--they could have been a laid off rocket scientist who's job has been outsourced to India.

It was a rusted out Ford Ranger that was over 15 years old. He said his neighbors always thought he was getting robbed when they saw it parked in front of his million dollar home.

But that could be a song

That's where the real Democratic soul is, out in workaday land wherever it may be, not in the offices occupied by yuppies on both coasts.

When the party figures that out, they'll start winning again.

Strong Democrats

You all hate Easterners, Westerners, educated people and people that work in offices vs. a farm. I am 2 out of 3 and also hate the Republicans. I also know that the story in the first post is one of many examples of why we shouldn't generalize about people. So what does that make me? I am just curious. :shrug:

that the OP hates Easterners, Westerners and educated people? The post doesn't imply that at all.

before I replied. That's why I said "these comments." I am just trying to understand.

the word they used to use for "elite" was "egghead"

Thanks for the post.

Born in the county just to your south.

Raised on a goat farm in the Catskills Mountains of upstate New York! I listen to Country music, I love the rodeo, I hunt, I fish, I watched the WWF and the NFL and I am proud of the hick I am. I am a hick with a New York accent, but a hick non-the-less.

The populists started with us back in the Gilded Age. The Progressives were the city rats. The populists were the Country Mice. We are the one who change the world!

G-d bless people like you and I.

I love hearing stories like that. Never give up!

It's a paying attention thing. :woohoo:

and you told it so well

don't doubt it, but according to the usage of the term I am familiar with in the UK, she is the exact opposite to a redneck.

Rednecks are what we sometimes call "council-house Tories". It is not that they live in a council house, it is the perversity, the wrong-headedness, the muddle-headedness of people who lick the boots that kick them.... they are the ones we understand by the term. The worst of them are outright finks, traitors, people who swallow all the right-wing propaganda whole, and prove an enemy not only of their own best interests, but of those of their workmates and neighbours. Like the idiot in that very insightful article we sometimes see on here, who prides himself on pulling himself up by his bootstraps; while he had progressives, good Democrats, to thank even for the clean air he breathed, at the same time as the Republicans have always fought tooth and nail to prevent every measure of significant progress made.

It's not about what we are pleased to call "intelligence", or about education or a lack of it; it's about having a black heart that makes people putty in the hands of the right wing, to their own detriment. My brother left school at fifteen without any qualifications, and there is nothing of value that I have ever learnt, the principle of which I didn't learn from him.

It's also been a while since I've seen the word "fink" in a sentence. :D

term. It no longer means what it once did. And, I'm not even descended from rednecks, I am from them, and they are nasty, and mean, and bigoted. That's what rednecks are. People here are lumping "rednecks" and country people together. It's not the same thing...

It was interesting. I love to hear about the culture in other countries. Human nature seems to be the same everywhere, but it seems to me that at least the Brits are more aware of their own follies, and those of their countrymen. Or am I wrong?

but politically, our nation has sleepwalked into this corporatism, and is still asleep. But there in the US, you have a whole swathe of people from all walks of life coming together to fight the Beast. And to say it's impressive to witness is a considerable understatement.

Right-wing thinking goes naturally with the worldly-wise, though many rise above it and care for their fellows. Unfortunately, in the UK, the only people who seem to understand what's going on while also being visibly active in combating it, are the politically-oriented and ambitious types who, once they get their foot off the bottom rung of the ladder, say, "I'm alright, Jack. Pull the ladder away!" That's the trouble, the only people who are motivated to act politically are essentially right-wingers themselves.

Too many Christians, taking their lead from the institutional church - not so much some of the non-conformist ones, which took the lead in suppressing slavery - seem to think all they need to do is pray, but not try to change the structures. Yet few, if any, have as penetrating an understanding of politics - of how ordinary people all over the world are oppressed by crypto-totalitarian and overtly totalitarian governments, who protect and ceaselessly consolidate the shockingly unjust economic structure of societies than our Church leaders, many of whom at the highest levels, bishops and popes, make genuine efforts to combat the wicked effects of the Beasts of the Earth. Unfortunately, I think they need to furiously castigate them publically, as the Psalmist seems to suggest they should. Maybe they will before long. It was great to read that John Paul II spoke to Solzhenitsin ruefully about the totalitarianism of the dollar. And the equally rueful understanding of Solzhenitsin of what he meant, seeing, as he could then do, the hideous and manifold evils of the West.

Where do I get this overwhelming need to believe that the Europeans and the Brits are better than us? I suppose it's because I want to believe that they'll save us from ourselves. Now you've burst my bubble. :-( Looks like we're all screwed.

America is where it is at though, isn't it? And you, with your experience of your own country, its strengths and its weaknesses, and the strength of character that the special kind of adversity that the robber barons of your military-industrial complex have elicited from you, are in the box seat; uniquely apt and equipped for the battle facing you.

Maybe some of the Continental Europeans have enough fire in their bellies to fight their own corner, but I'm afraid in the UK, we have neither your strengths nor those of our European neighbors. We have the worst of both worlds.

I was just reminded yesterday that Thatcher had closed down 100 hospitals; like school playing fields, trainees nurses quarters have been sold off, and we now have to recruit nurses from countries in the third world, who can ill-afford to lose such people. Even then, it seems that the hospitals must use part-time agency nurses at appropriately high rates of pay for casual employment, on top of agency commission. As for the nurses, themselves, they are run off their feet with the schedule they have to keep to. More than one person's workload. I won't even broach the subject of the privatization of the cleaning and the burgeoning of the MRSA infection.

If you had a welfare state, and saw right-wing politicos destroying and pillaging it, I suspect you'd be a little more vocal in your opposition to it. Here, it's as if everyone is under the influence of some kind of soporific.

As a person from the UK you just pegged it better than I could and I live here and deal with the REAL rednecks!

White trash? Hardly. Bless her heart.

Are you a sharecropper, if not, then you are not and will never be a redneck. Where do you think the term originated from anyways? Also, just to let you know, the current use of redneck, at least on this board, has very little to do with where people came from or under what circumstances. No, Bush is a fucking redneck by the current term, yet one born with a silver spoon in his mouth and no conscience. It doesn't matter if you were born in a tin roofed shack, if you aren't ignorant or bigotted, then you are NOT a redneck!

fishhead.

:evilgrin:

When we can't even escape the cliques and name-calling among our own party? It reminds me of the scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian when the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea bump into each other when they're both on separate missions to kidnap Pilate's wife. And they all start fighting with each other over whose idea it was in the first place. Brian yells, "Brothers! We should all be struggling together against the common enemy!" and someone yells, "The Popular People's Front?" And Brian says, "No, the Romans!"

That's us - calling each other names, claiming the term "Democrat" or "Progressive" for a certain group and claiming other groups aren't "real" progressives, insulting people within our own party with names like "redneck" or "elitist".

And all the while, the Bush War Machine grinds on like the Roman Empire while we squabble like a bunch of kids in the mud.

Fucking ridiculous.

and definitely enjoyed that short story

lightly used on threads here. At best it seems patronising, and at worst disparaging. On the other hand, "mountain man" has a certain romantic ring to it; aristocatic even, in terms of machismo/rugged individualism. They are perforce a hardy breed, everywhere.

John the Baptist was "from the hill country of Judea", a mountain man. And as Jesus remarked of him, "Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist." (Matthew 11:11); and so also are the Ghurkas, Nepalese soldiers among the best close-combat fighters in the world. That Sergeant York was some man too, wasn't he?

The lady you describe is NOT a redneck...a redneck is basically an ignorant, selfish person with no taste, or class who revels in the fact that they are an ignorant asshole.

A person can be born with a silver spoon in their mouth and still be a redneck (Bush and Kid Rock come to mind...one asshole's father was Pres of the US and the other asshole's father owns several Chevy dealerships in the Detroit area/trailer persona my ass)

Redneck is also not restricted to race..

If you are posting here don't call you or your friend redneck because that IMO is not the case.

and bigoted right-winger. I've never meant it in reference to socio-economic circumstances, ethnicity, etc..
Maybe the term "ditto-head" is preferable?
I've never heard "red neck" used to refer to poor people. That doesn't even make sense to me. :shrug:
I've only heard it used as a derogatory term describing bigots.