>
>I actually rather like the "lifestyle left". In general, they are usually
>nice people, and the fact that they don't always understand political
>economy as well as they might is hardly a reason to despise them in this
>world of ignorance and venality. It's awfully easy to make fun of "dolphin
>friendly tuna" and the like, and it's also fun, so we should keep on doing
>that.
They are nice people, but often wacko. We had lots of them in Ann Arbor. Our introduction to AA political life back in the very early 1980s when we were organizing the nuclear freeze in Mich wasa super lacto-veg potluck where we all held hands and had to saysomething thankful before dinner, someonme offered the prayer, "Thank God there is no meat at this table." I whispered to my then-girlfriend ("What are we, chopped tofu?") I smoke, so I was regarded with supicion in those circles. He look, I said, it's pure vegetable matter! A lot of them believe in astrology and crystals too. In AA I had my aura variosuly admired and criticized. As far as I can tell, they don't have this sort of people in any significant numbers in Columbus, Oh, or in Chicago, where I now live and work.
B The
>lifestyle left do, in general, care about people poorer and less powerful
>than themselves, which puts them a couple of points higher up the list than
>people who don't.
Absolutely. And some of them actually can be counted on to do womething, which puts them a lot of points above others who don't.
>
>On the subject of hicks & inbreds, I have a certain degree of experience,
>having grown up among the men who farm (and occasionally, fuck) sheep
The poem quoted is great. There's hicks and hicks. I grew up in Virginia among people who burned crosses, and if I never cross the Mason Dixon line again it will be too soon. (Well, I do go to visit my Mom.) Sorry Kells, I'm happy you have the South defended for us, but it's not for everyone. And yes I know there are hicks everywhere. I lived almost a decade in Ohio, knew people who grew up with people who fucked horses, and Lord knows we got a lot lotta no-nucks in Illinois, and not just Southern Illinois. You want backweards, try Rockford or Galena. At the same time I used to go around to Ohio and Michigan churches and talk up socialism to farmers and factory workers in rural counties, and found receptive and interested audiences.
jks
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