> The gun thing in 'red states' is about -lifestyle-. As
> I said, I lived in Nebraska, and gun-owners I
> encountered out there didn't value their guns out of
> fear, racist or otherwise.
And I spent the first eighteen years of my life in west-central Pennsylvania, which is at least as white as Nebraska, and probably moreso (since Nebraska has lots of meatpacking towns with Latino immigrants). And it's at least as gun-happy; western PA is second to Texas in NRA memberships, which is why the NRA is having its convention here in Pittsburgh in a couple of weeks. There was no REASONABLE fear of black crime on the part of these people. Nevertheless, the gun culture among white people in the US itself has its roots in armed white settlement directed first against the indigenous inhabitants of the country, and then concentrated in the white militias that served as slave patrols. There's really no other explanation for the bizarre, quasi-religious ideas people have about guns in this country -- the only people who even come close are probably white Australians and Afrikaners, which of course proves my point.
Now, I'm willing to give people their guns if it will cause them to vote their real interests. They can have rocket-propelled grenade launchers for all I care, so long as they don't vote for Bush. But we all know it's deeper than that -- and both simpler and more disturbing than the analysis that Tom Frank has laid out, perceptive as his stuff often is. It really is all about race and white supremacy in this country. Anytime a politician in central Pennsylvania goes on a rhetorical rampage against "Philadelphia," everyone knows exactly what he's talking about even if they don't say it out loud. White liberal elites are reviled insofar as they coddle blacks. Whatever state you live in, I guarantee that you can think of a parallel to this Pennsylvania example.
White supremacy is knit into the fabric of US capitalism, and it is impossible to attack one without disentangling the other as well.
- - - - - John Lacny http://www.johnlacny.com
People of the US, unite and defeat the Bush regime and all its running dogs!