> but the rural working class, or whatever
>delicate phrase you want to describe the group of
>people about whom we must circumloquate here -- they
>call themselves "rednecks," last I heard; at least
>they did in Virginia when I growing up, and they do
>here in Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio -- is not going
>to feel one whit better about pointy headed left wing
>intellectuals for your supposed defense of their
>wounded sensibilities against other but supposedly
>insensitive PHLWI.
I am rural working class and where I come from no-one call themselves a "redneck". Though some "middle class" city wankers do use it, as a term of abuse for people whose political opinions they don't agree with. The trouble is, this term tends to assume that the entire rural working class has reactionary opinions, which is grossly sweeping and inaccurate.
Now it may be true that the rural working class in America all call themselves "rednecks" and aren't in the least offended, I wouldn't know. But even if its true, there are other people's sensitivities to consider, I personally find it quite offensive.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas