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Edited on Tue Nov-18-03 03:27 AM by jbutsz
I see a lot of questions, presumptions, and even some bigotry about the Southerners who tend to vote for Republicans the likes of Bush. The deep South is, understandably, a frustrating enigma to Northerners and Liberals but the reverse is also true. We fear what, and who, we do not understand. One can argue that's our animal instinct in living color, however unpleasant it's manifestations. The voters are not your enemy, the powers that manipulate their perceptions are.
I was born and raised and currently still live in the deep South, Louisiana. I was raised in a racist home, in a racist community, in a racist state with a long racist history. When turning 18, Republican was the default answer when registering to vote at the DMV, because it was a rite of passage in social understanding as a white working-class male that "Democrats tax us to bribe poor Blacks with welfare for their vote." There is no doubt that racism remains a part of Southern life. That certainty breaks down when we begin questioning why it remains to this day, in the 21st Century, when we have more access to information about each other than ever before. Indeed, one would think there's no excuse not to understand each other in this day and age.
What I write below may not be "PC" but it is based on my observations and experience with the perceptions of the lower-middle and working lower-class of the South which typically votes Republican. As a confession, I used to be one before life experiences forced me into a deep and chaotic introspection; from there, I am learning how to think for myself and notice the subtle manipulations throughout our social fabric. I have since found feelings that could be described as "Progressive."
I leave out addressing the upper-middle and Upper classes below because they are much of the reason the following perceptions remain rampant in the South. I suspect this is true as it is the white upper-middle and Wealth classes who, in the South, build the feverishly-religious cash-cow churches that overwhelming support Republican candidates like Bush, as well as being the ones who have the money to disproportionately influence the local political scenes. The Church is like a business in the rural South; one Church of God a few miles away collects food and cash donations for the hungry and otherwise needy, tax-exempt, but if one needs to receive such charity they must have a "sponsor" who pays $10 to the church for that "charity." They are receiving tax-exempt donations but charging fourth-parties (sponsors) for distributing those donations to the needy.
Please keep in mind while reading further, I speak from the PERCEPTIONS I am observing in my Southern community. I write about the following perceptions so that you may perhaps better understand the mentality holding the perceptions and the influences contributing to them, as well as (hopefully) foster productive discussions on how to counter these perceptions, thereby offering these working-class southern voters a reason to leave the Republican party.
I can't promise I'll be coherent at all times, but here are the reasons the average working voter in the South votes with the likes of Bush for high offices:
They've been lied to by politicians like Bush and his Republican predecessors, convinced erroneously that the Republican party represents any interests other than their own, and the corporate pimps who employ them. Voters are encouraged to participate during election periods, and then forgotten afterwards. Wake up and vote, go back to sleep - until we start our first war that is. And, just in case they get curious at other times, there's Fox News to the rescue.
They've been told and demonstrated to that anyone with a "D" behind their name in high office will push for gun control. This is a Liberal issue that lends to the Southern perception that government is attempting to disarm the general population, an historically common tactic boasted by totalitarian rulers. Southerners enjoy hunting and deer meat greatly, but most of all they do not feel that the government, nor police, is capable of defending their home and family from intrusion and harm while it is happening, which makes the ownership of guns a right not taken for granted, especially in high unemployment and high crime areas. There is evidence in the media that the "siege mentality" is encouraged, this perception that there is always some evil coming over the hill. In addition, one can argue the premise that banning guns does anything to address the underlying force of violence in human nature. Southern Republican voters' relationship with the NRA can be explained in saying that, obviously, the NRA is fighting against the "abridgment" in any way of the Second Amendment protection of the right to bear arms that is feared to lead into eventual prohibition. Fear. My perception is that Liberals fear the exercising of this right by a population and culture they understandably do not understand (fear) and are at odds with politically, and that Conservatives do not understand (fear) why Liberals, who they are at odds with politically, want to abolish private ownership of arms. They do not buy into the premise that prohibition addresses or discourages violence any more than we buy into the premise that drug prohibition addresses or discourages use and abuse. Southern Republican voters instinctively do not trust government and professional politicians, especially a government attempting to disarm them, and therefore vote Republican based on the perception that Conservatives are anti-big-government and appreciate the need for a "last-defense" held in the private ownership of arms against a tyrannical government. Notice that Republican powers always claim and portray themselves to be "one of them," not just for them. The tragedy of this is that they are unaware that our government establishment elites now have such experience in controlling perceptions through corporate and media collusion, that totalitarian rule by force is no longer necessary. This perception of Conservatives being anti-big-intrusive-government is one that the Republican powers seed and encourage, despite the fact that Bush, and Reagan during his time, is presiding over the largest federal deficit spending increase in the history of the United States, as well as the biggest threat to and erosion of civil liberties via John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act powers.
They watched Clinton (read: "a Democrat") sign NAFTA, now apparently having the effect of selling American jobs down the river to Mexico, while opening the borders for foreigners to come and steal the jobs we do have left here - thereby driving down wages and benefits. Despite over 3 Million Americans losing their employment since Republican Bush was sworn in, they are told it was a Democrat signing NAFTA that has caused the exodus of jobs. I'm not sure that the WTO and it's implications are known generally, but I doubt it. There is no reporting here on foreign and economic policies and implications, of course.
They are told that Clinton (read: "a Democrat") weakened our military and intelligence agencies via budget cuts, that all Democrats want to trash the military and give it's entire budget to the welfare (read: "vote bribery") system. They are told this is what allows Arabs to blow up the World Trade Centers and terrorize the rest of the world. They are told Clinton had a chance to get bin Laden in the 90's but didn't commit to it, and that Gore in the 80's was against fighting terrorism (how, is never elaborated). And of course, they are told Reagan was the God of All Presidents past and future.
The Republican party has successfully laid the perception of blame for their voter's economic, social, and educational suffering on the Democratic Party establishment, by way of demonstrating that their "otherwise unnecessary taxes" are unfairly stolen by Democrats for welfare programs and, encouragingly, given to "unproductive blacks having babies left and right" - in return for their voting Democrat. They are told that if they were not taxed for this injustice, things would be great, they could finally get ahead if only they were not supporting unproductive Black women and their dozen or so expectedly unproductive kids. This perception is tremendously! seeded and encouraged by the Republicans here, more than any other perception, and observed evidence is paraded through private gossip at every opportunity as vindication of the reasons working class whites are suffering and can't get ahead. There is no class teaching this, but the effect is such that you'd assume there has to be! It's "understood" by early teens. This perception, while certainly enflamed, is not without some truth. Indeed, there are still welfare "abuses" here, or at least in my area, but it is unknown how widespread it really is in the South. For clarity, "abuses" seem to be defined as having babies merely for the sake of receiving more welfare income. My mother is a Labor and Delivery nurse, and was just recently told by a co-worker from another shift that a black woman patient was boasting to her friend that she's "had her fourth baby, ain't gotta work no more." Assertions such as these are never doubted for a second. In her 15 years as a nurse she's seen lots of what she perceives as system abuse in this respect. One observation of abuse spreads via gossip like a California wildfire, and with it, extreme anger and reinforcement of racism. It is suspected, now anyway, there are just as many poor whites "abusing" the system in this regard; they are undoubtedly the targets of Jerry Springer-type ridicule. ... There is very high unemployment in my parish, with poorly performing schools and a joke of a community college (across the river in MS). There is no investment here, and any industry that comes looking for employees are chased away as by the local Wealth class ("Heritage Club") protecting their tourism dollars made by showing off their Antebellum homes, which employs very few people outside of souvenir shops. There is also a Casino here, which does not pay out anything, ever, and so is a vacuum for community money - and they want to bring in yet another Casino. Super Walmart has closed many small businesses, and is almost the only large retailer left. ... On education: Working and middle-class whites are also told relentlessly that they are being taxed for "undeserving blacks" who have not made the grades, to go to college via affirmative action or minority quotas and public funding, while continuously changing majors to avoid accountability, while whites cannot get the same funding if their parents make over poverty income (but still cannot afford tuition), forcing poor whites into heavy debt via loans before they've even started. This is why working southern Republican voters are militantly opposed to policies like affirmative action. On this issue, my oldest sister claims she sometimes observes such pell grant abuse as a Professor of Nursing at Alcorn in MS. While abuses do take place, I'm afraid these isolated observations, shared with others, only lend to the perception that ALL poor blacks "work the system" in exchange for voting Democrat, or vote Democrat because they are given a system to "work." It is as "common knowledge" for whites here as the fact that earth is round. It is an issue for working and middle-class whites in the south and a perception that will not go away until credibly addressed; the Republican powers are certainly not going to, they are benefiting the most from it politically. In my opinion this issue is perhaps the most defining reason, next to gun control, that working class whites hate Democrats by default, and vote Republican; these are the perceptions I hear most in complaint of Democrat policies. Any Democrat who wishes to persuade working class whites away from the Republican party will have to get close to them on this issue, really listen to their concerns, and formulate a way to counter this perception both with reason and action. This issue is also why Southerners are knee-jerk against Universal Health Care suggestions; they feel it will mean more of their taxes are dumped into another welfare system for unproductive people to mooch off of.
They are also told that Social Security will be bankrupted by these "welfare programs."
As far as Women's abortion decision rights are concerned here, it seems to me that's an upper-middle and Wealth class (read: church builders) fight, using their monetary and status influence to legislate morality while building popular support for it by demonizing it through their congregations. Same thing for the War on Drugs.
(As a side, I've also observed a strong push for de-emphasizing symptoms of class struggle in recent years, e.g. school uniforms. Uniforms in public school seem a benign policy, one to "help the poor not feel bad from ridicule," but I'm unable to dismiss the lingering suspicion that it fails in creating equality but serves another ulterior purpose, or otherwise has a side-effect: desensitizing kids early on from noticing class/wealth disparity and struggles. It is my opinion that we do not help children adapt to the world by protecting them from the truth of our human condition, but rather, raise people ill-informed to address and confront our social struggles and injustices. This is the major problem I have with evangelical religious-morality, for example; it tends to discourage acknowledging and confronting the dark aspects of our human hearts, but rather, ignoring and condemning it as sin. I don't have a problem with religion itself, but I begin to when it seeks to punish those who do not agree. This sort of oppression makes it extremely difficult for one to truly "know thyself," let alone understand others. Entirely too simplified, I know, but it's beyond the scope of this writing to continue here.)
Finally, The Democrat Leadership has not countered these perceptions in any effective way in the South. For one, it's hard to credibly counter a perception you do not experience and understand for yourself; this problem is non-partisan. Ignorance and misconception will thrive as long as we fail to share ideas and facts about each other, with one another, to learn what really works and what does not, what is truth and what is not. The Republican powers have thrived because ignorance and misconceptions have not been opposed effectively and credibly. Considering this, it makes me SICK to hear people suggest deserting the South as a lost cause; who the hell else is going to counter ignorance?? That tactic would be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Eventually someone/party will, there is a market for truth after all; if the Democratic party won't unite to confront and oppose ignorance, misconceptions, and propaganda, then it should step aside for others who propose to, and aspire to represent the ENTIRE United States. Really, why else even call it a United States anymore at the point you consider half the nation a lost cause? If you wonder why people say "The South Will rise Again!" your answer lies in parochial establishment politics more worried about power than doing what's right (doing right wins in the long run, even if we don't get to see it).
I say as a human being, it is my obligation to help counter ignorance as well as I'm capable, no matter how futile it may seem. I see a big problem that is plaguing party politics and steel-rigid party platform loyalty: preaching only to their own choirs about problems and ideas. Liberals advocate liberal solutions to liberals, Conservatives advocate Conservative solutions to Conservatives. There is no real mediation between us all because in this era it's all about the money and power and who will get more of it - while not getting anything meaningful done, and certainly not making progress in improving the human condition. We are not behaving like a nation, but two countries disputing borders. We are becoming more polarized by the day, and that suits 'the powers that be' just fine; as long as we are warring with each other, we don't have time to notice that, in reality, we're all being screwed the same. That is The Great Deception.
Politics is the Art of Seizing Power; Diplomacy and Democracy is the Art of Negotiation for facilitating social cohesion, cooperation, and progress. It's my perception that the "Establishment" of BOTH camps, Republican and Democrat, are guilty of playing the Art of Seizing Power at our expense for so long now that we people living in the real world are suffering the horrible consequences of an ultimately unrepresentative and unaccountable government, thrilled just getting peanuts' worth of attention from those we elect, while the real threat of fascism grows as way of government for the future - fascism being perhaps the only way capitalism can survive or at least prolong it's cannibalistic and viral nature. No matter which establishment seizes power in this era, we move further away from true, sustainable progress for humanity. Our election-by-election priorities are myopic and corrupt. I feel this is true because with each election we collectively seem more "normalized" with the status quo and a government out of the people's control no matter who is elected; both camps intent on electing candidates that perpetuate this broken and ultimately unresponsive system by becoming more and more beholden to interests of power and money. We here are actively interested in our Government and feel that everything will be great again if our party will just win the next election, but when I step away from this online world I see that most out there feel helpless and hopeless or apathetic about their relevance to it all - even the ones who wake up to vote. If you need evidence to back this assertion, check the statistics on what percentage of eligible voters do not participate in their "Democracy." Last I heard that percentage was on a trend upwards in the long view.
Taking that long view, the last fifty years have especially seen one setback after another in Democratic government and confidence in it, our freedom, and the progress of humanity as a whole - each administration seizing and exercising more power for itself than the last, and each congress emancipating itself more from accountability to and representation of the People than the last. That entrenchment of power does not recede with a change of parties every two, four, or eight years, it gets passed along as if an inside tradition. Considering this, maintaining the status quo of power makes the erosion of individual power and freedom inevitable. Party power-politics are no less mob-rule than PACs and the army of corporate lobbyists in D.C.; in such an arrangement, half the people are always going to gain at the expense of the other half; in such an arrangement, it's only a matter of who's bending over and getting it this time around; in such an arrangement, equality, liberty and justice for all is a fantasy. That's the way it is, sure, but to me it looks insane. (On Edit: spelling)
This coming Presidential election is probably more crucial than any in decades as it will decide just how less we expect, from now on, to control a government now vulnerable to factional extremists. Getting Bush's administration out of power, no one here can argue, is priority number one; "Anyone But Bush" is the new mantra, that's just how bad it really is. I wish we could accomplish that AND, setting candidate preferences aside, vote for whomever stands for helping us get real, meaningful control over our government again - something we lost with the 20th century rise of "Corporate Personhood." That's what I hope for, meaningful change, working for real improvement of the human condition. If an extremist administration like Bush's can seize power, without immediate fundamental overhauls after his removal our government is weak and vulnerable enough for it to happen again at any time, and to even more extreme ideologues.
I'm not going to tell you which candidate would be best to support; naturally that's for you to decide, and I'm not so sure yet. However, I would like to ask you to consider these critical things I've mentioned which I feel tend to get drowned in party-power politics, in considering which candidate to support.
I'm not voting for wrestling power between two parties; I am disillusioned with it's effectiveness in real human progress. The stakes are high in this election, so I will vote against Bush in '04 no matter who gets nominated to face him, but in perpetuating party-power politics as it is, I fear we are all ultimately losing the biggest thing at stake: a government of and for the People. Make no mistake, We the People no longer control our government; the sooner that delusion is dispelled, the sooner we can take back our government. Whether we win or they win, the illusion of control by the People is maintained as long as we play within their parameters, by the established powers' rules. A choice between an "R" and a "D" or "G," or any other alphabet, is no real choice if they are all corrupt and only concerned with their own power and maintaining the establishment status quo; it's in our best interests to draft into candidacy at every opportunity, those who actively speak out against maintaining this farce of a choice between corruptions merely of different flavors. We must demand candidates of integrity and dedication to TRUE Democracy, to truth itself, and not settle for anything less. I'm not sure yet if there is a candidate running that can fit this tall order in '04. This problem of real choice being an illusion in our era can be illustrated by one example: it doesn't matter which American news company you tune into today, you're not going to get information that's in your best interests, because their best interests lies in not providing enough of it for you to truly make an informed decision on what yours is. Power is power - whether it's in media, politics, or money; to concede what you need and want is to let you retain your individual power, and that is certainly not in their best interests. In our era, it's a professional politician's job to use your power, money's job to buy it, and the media's job to con you into believing you really have it. Ignore this at your peril. We are far too trusting of our party leadership, even in this cynical age.
There's going to be a revolution within this country. A critical mass is inevitable with so many contradictions and opposing forces in our social, political, and economic society that are all increasing exponentially. The only questions are when, how, and by whom it is lead; the People, or 'the powers that be' in a definitive smackdown against them.
Once upon a time some people were forced into a revolution, rebelling violently against an unrepresentative power because that power gave them no alternative. Voting is not enough. If the Democratic PEOPLE do not stand up to the challenge of reclaiming control of and reconstituting the truly representative government that is critically necessary now more than ever, thereby accomplishing a relatively peaceful revolution, then I'm afraid a violent and chaotic one will be inevitable.
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